A terrible week for the Blue Jays

It's been a horrible week for the Toronto Blue Jays.

On Monday, team owner Ted Rogers, the founder of Rogers Communications Inc., died at age 75. The very next day, the team cut 24 front-office positions because of the recession that and is hitting media companies especially hard.

"Globally, the decline in advertising spending is deeper and steeper than most media companies anticipated," president and CEO Tony Viner said in a mass e-mail to employees, reported by the Toronto Star. "Although we have implemented various prudent cost controls over the past several months, today we are announcing that we have had to make the very difficult decision to eliminate a number of positions."

The team was careful to say that no positions involved in baseball operations were affected. But having a smaller front office is certain to have a big effect. If there's less marketing, there will be fewer tickets and sponsorships sold. And that will certainly affect how the Blue Jays will approach player salaries. And while there's no for-sale sign on the franchise, that doesn't mean they might not be trying to find a buyer.

And it doesn't help that the Blue Jays play in the ultracompetitive, big-market AL East with the Red Sox, Yankees and up-and-coming Rays.

Toronto is not the only team making cuts - the Arizona Diamondbacks eliminated 31 positions in November.