I could be completely wrong (and will listen to someone who isn’t in the media but actually coached high level football to tell me so), but I don’t think that the wildcat has played that large of a role in their turn-around – having a competent QB, 2 good RB’s and a solid defence is also there. Certainly it helped them beat the Patriots the first time they used it, but success of the wildcat/play declined markedly as last season progressed. I guess they still are identified with it though by people who know more about football than I do.

I would support a rebuilding if it’s done all the way and the ownership commits to the GM. I’m surprised that more teams aren’t lobbying for more playoff spots. That would probably help things too.

As for tactical changes in baseball, what about the pitching rotation? Why is a 5 man rotation the best way? Why not pitching your ‘ace’ every 2nd day for 3 innings? Would you be able to use him more effectively? I have no evidence, but I think that tactical innovation is there, people just haven’t looked hard enough / or been afraid to try. LaRussa has tried simple stuff like batting the pitcher 8th, but very few others try even that. Oh, and I guess he did the whole popularizing platoon splits / LOOGY, didn’t he?

In my mind, the biggest reason the Jays need to go into a full rebuilding mode is the nature of baseball itself. For one thing, the length of the regular season and the limited amount of playoff spots make it exceptionally difficult to even crack the postseason without an excellent team. Second, the economics of baseball mean you’re competing against teams with significantly more resources, and even boosting your payroll to match theirs (which could doom you financially) isn’t a guarantee of success, as most of the top teams have quality in-house talent and prospects as well as expensive free agents. It’s difficult to impossible to acquire enough free agents to turn a team around in one off-season; you need the solid core first, and that can only come from rebuilding.

Third, tactics don’t play anywhere near as big of a role in the grand scheme of baseball as they do in other sports, and it’s difficult to be unconventional at the tactical level. For example, the Miami Dolphins’ recent worst-to-first turnaround was largely led by the implementation of the Wildcat offence, which was something that fit their skill set and other teams just weren’t prepared for. The West Coast offence, the Tampa-2 defence and the zone blitz all played key roles in the improvement and turnaround of NFL teams, while lesser NHL teams have done well with systems like the neutral-zone trap, and NBA teams have found success with unconventional ideas like Seven Seconds Or Less. Those ideas allowed team to make dramatic turnarounds quickly without changing too many players, but you can’t really bring in those kind of wrinkles in baseball. You might be able to hit-and-run here or make a defensive substitution there, but there aren’t really many bold tactical or schematic changes you can make to turn your team around quickly without huge personnel changes.

Baseball is about the long run, so rebuilding is certainly needed at some point, especially for teams like the Jays that don’t have the finances to go for it every year. At this point, I’m convinced that some form of rebuilding is inevitable. My idea’s basically just for a more dramatic form that might require less time. I’d rather see a horrible, developing team for a few years than a mediocre team for another decade.