By Conor Hogan… General Manager of the Toronto Blue Jays JP Ricciardi faces probably the toughest decision any GM has to face in his career.  He has the task of cropping Toronto’s great group of starting pitchers down to five.

Sure that may seem pretty easy for this season even when everyone returns from injury.  Just think though of when September or at least next season rolls around!

If we look solely at this year, we see that in the coming weeks Ricciardi will see an influx of starting pitchers nice healthy and ready to win some ball games.

Good, right?

Not so much.

Why is it not so good?

1.The Jays have five very capable pitchers (Halladay, Cecil, Richmond, Ray, and Tallet) playing very solidly for the Jays and consistently putting up good starts.

2.Three of these current starters are rookies and the fourth is converted from the long reliever in the bullpen.

3.Three very capable pitchers are soon coming off the DL in the next few weeks namely, Litsch, Janssen, and Romero.

The logical ones to release are Cecil and Ray right off the bat.  They are after all rookies and are very young, and although they have proven that they can handle the big league bats they can still see some fine tuning and confidence building in the minors before coming to the big stage to stay.

That leaves one more player to move.

Now usually it would be easy just send Tallet back to the bullpen.  However, Ricciardi and the Blue Jays brass have grown to appreciate Tallet’s ability as a starter and would like to see more of it.

Well that’s great, just lovely!

Now we are faced with these guys returning.

Romero is a lefty something the Jays need in their starting rotation right now, and considering how well he pitched before going on the DL he’s not one you want to be wasting in the minors.

Then there’s Litsch.  A bonafide starter in the majors, Litsch went 13-9 last year in his second year in the bigs and is guaranteed a spot even if he struggles for five straight games.  He’s a proven starter in the majors.

Then there’s Janssen.  Oh Janssen!  What a wonderful pitcher you are you can be a starter and a reliever.  Ironically enough the Jays would really like to see him succeed as a starter.

So what happens is that it basically comes down to who will end up in the bullpen Tallet or Janssen?

My bet is on Janssen.  Why?

For one Tallet is already used to the long innings and is already in mid-season form.  Janssen on the other hand will be playing catch-up to all the batters he faces.

In the end it would be easier for him to pitch coming from the pen and regain form quicker there than starting.

So now that that’s out of the way, let’s turn to our almost forgotten yet longed for heroes.  I give you the M&M one two punch, McGowan and Marccum!

Do you remember these guys.  These were the guys we Jay fans were praising to high heaven, and rightly so, for last years exploits as starters.

The problem arrives when they return nice and healthy and ready to contribute.  Who leaves when they return?

Halladay and Litsch are guarantee stays.  That leaves Romero, Richmond, and Tallet to go.

Perhaps Ricciardi will be nice and move Tallet back to the pen, but that still leaves one of either Romero or Richmond to leave.

Neither of them have to this date shown or given any reason to management to discard them to triple A.  So who will get short-changed?

It’s a decision that must be made and is a tough one, but really JP Ricciardi is the envy of baseball for his pitching staff.

When you have the problem of having too many good pitchers and not enough spots available for them, that’s a problem most people want to have.

Good luck JP in solving this problem, this is certainly one case in which I don’t envy you!