Alex Anthopoulos on FAN 590 at 8:20 EST this morning

[Angrioter]

We still have Barreto, thank God. It was Bucerra. There's a real chance Syndergaard will be better than Dickey as soon as next year.

 

Wilmer Becerra

[CHRIS]

Dickey and Thole for Syndergaard, D'Arnaud, Buck, and Barreto(?) was not awful? Come on, I know you are better than that

 

Well, I certainly liked the Dickey deal less than the Miami deal, but in the context of the organizational shift, I didn't have a huge problem with it, albeit under the assumption that Dickey would perform similarly to last season. I don't have a problem with trading prospects, even great prospects, for a reasonable chance to win.

 

I can see the other side as well; not making those deals and continue slow and steady. That said, when was the last time this organization developed one solid homegrown player, let alone a core of a championship caliber team?

[G-Snarls]

Maybe Ricciardi should have stayed as the advisor, with AA as the PR guy...

[fatcowxlive]

Like, how can you just flat out reject the idea of moving Johnson, Janssen, Oliver, maybe Davis to re-stock the farm?

 

Why should he? He traded Dickey for Synd + d'Arno

 

I am surprised that you're surprised by this

[Ehh]

I hated the Mets deal..but.

 

Got Rasmus(Top 5 CF this year) for relievers

Morrow for League, amazing deal.

Delabar for Thames

 

 

I'd say hes about league average as far as GM goes. Not the savior we all wanted, but not quite as bad as many armchair GMs in this thread are making him sound

[Olerud363]

Why don't we wait until August 1st before we hack AA's trade deadline job.

 

Though I do admit, if we don't sell some pieces my first foot will be firmly off the AA bandwagon and it won't take much more to jump off completely.

 

I actually think beeston is at fault for this mess. AA seems like a prospect whore to me and I'm sure he was given orders to go all in.

 

Exactly. C'mon. Calling all 25 year olds on this board. Go get an internship with the Jays. Take some scouting classes. Get good at schmoozing. In only 5 to 7 years you could be GM too.

 

No matter how intelligent one is, Beeston is not going to hire a 30 year old to tell him what to do, he is going to hire a 30 year old that will do what he wants.

[Arkadium]

exactly. C'mon. Calling all 25 year olds on this board. Go get an internship with the jays. Take some scouting classes. Get good at schmoozing. In only 5 to 7 years you could be gm too.

 

No matter how intelligent one is, beeston is not going to hire a 30 year old to tell him what to do, he is going to hire a 30 year old that will do what he wants.

 

rofl

[Olerud363]

Its not that I'm calling him stupid, I just don't think he's intelligent/qualified enough to run a business worth hundreds of millions of dollars. A brilliant mind would surround himself with other brilliant minds, not sit around the table with a bunch of scouts and throw number grades on every player in MLB. Andrew Friedman is a very smart guy. He surrounds himself with other very smart guys, and they do great work together. That doesn't happen in Toronto.

 

Again. I think people are pretty nieve on how the world works. Paul Beeston, love him or hate him, is an arrogant guy. He's been in the business for decades. Well connected. Thinks a lot of himself and his friends. Gives himself (and his friends) big time credit for the 83 to 93 run.

 

Is he going to hire a 30 year old to control baseball operations and say "well, I've been around 30 years, but I'm going to be hands off, you do whatever you think is right, I'm going golfing. Call me when you need some money." -- maybe he did that... I don't know for sure.

 

More than likely Beeston said "This is what I believe in. Veteran savy, Cito-ball, super-scouts, Veteran Savy. Can you implement the vision??". The initial concnetration on young players was just to get enough assets to acquire the vets without giving 10 year contracts.

[GNick]

I hated the Mets deal..but.

 

Got Rasmus(Top 5 CF this year) for relievers

Morrow for League, amazing deal.

Delabar for Thames

 

 

I'd say hes about league average as far as GM goes. Not the savior we all wanted, but not quite as bad as many armchair GMs in this thread are making him sound

 

Anthopoulos has lost more trades than he won. Really didn't get much for Halladay. Who at the time was best pitcher in game, then gave Phillies 6 million to boot. Was fleeced on the Dickey trade, Miami trade isn't looking the best.

[GNick]

Dickey trade was bad at the time, its even worse today. Just f***ing brutal

 

It may go back to AA never playing the game, but knuckleball pitchers are different breed. Their career are as unpredictable as movement of their knuckleball. You don't gamble 2 stud prospects on players like this. Tim Wakefield one of the most recent knuckleballers, had 1 big year with the Red Sox. Next 15 years of his career he was .500 pitcher with ERA of 4.75. Charlie Hough, who was one of most famous knuckleballers, was career .500 pitcher.

[havok24]

This organization badly needs a change in regime. Beeston and AA need to go.

[Olerud363]

It may go back to AA never playing the game, but knuckleball pitchers are different breed. Their career are as unpredictable as movement of their knuckleball. You don't gamble 2 stud prospects on players like this. Tim Wakefield one of the most recent knuckleballers, had 1 big year with the Red Sox. Next 15 years of his career he was .500 pitcher with ERA of 4.75. Charlie Hough, who was one of most famous knuckleballers, was career .500 pitcher.

 

It's a mystery. Presumably you've never played the game professionally... though maybe you did in College or something I don't know.

 

You are able to do a... what... 30 minute research project on knuckleballers using publically available information... I suspect you used the internet and bbref, or a similiar sight. Maybe it took you only 5 minutes... or maybe 2 hours. I don't know for sure... closer to 5 minutes I guess.

 

Now imagine you are a major league GM. Presumably you have, or atleast could ask for some interns and/or underlings who could do a 2 week project and research this and get you incredible information. Presumably you also have access to propreitary info/health reports/inside info.

 

So why does AA make the wrong decision??

 

1. He isn't using anything advanced and his opinion is greatly influenced by a small inner circle, a couple of who played the game and remember how frustrating a knuckleball was to hit.

 

2. He does have an incredible amount of data but it amounts to fitting noise. The knuckle ball research can be done in 20 minutes. Anything more is fitting noise.

 

3. AA is a genius afterall but has been taken down by incredible bad luck... but if even a genius can be brought down by bad luck what good is genius??

 

I suspect it's a combination of 1 and 2 and 3.

 

Take the Noah Syndegard component of the trade... they probably had a boatload of information and "predicted" a ceiling on him... (ofcourse Noah still might not be anything).... but their prediction on Noah was wrong because nobody can predict the future of baseball players that well... nobody could ever predict if Noah or Aaron Sanchez would be better... but AA thinks he can. Geniuses can be brought down by bad luck because they are overconfident in their prediction skills.

 

Guys like Friedman just collect young players. They don't know exactly which ones will be good... just collect enough so the luck evens out.

[o2cui2i]

That's basically where I stand. It doesn't even really bother me that they made those awful offseason trades, because at the end of the day the morons running this team would f*** things up colossally regardless. All that can save this organization right now is a regime change from Beeston down.

 

hard to run a team when you cant develop talent and dont know what talent looks like once someone else develops it. cant get their draft picks to the majors and they think Bonifacio is a player???? lol oh lordy.

[o2cui2i]

AA's problem is that he doesn't think at a very high level, which makes him utterly unqualified to do his job.

 

it would be fine if he had smart people telling him what to do, but he doesn't even have that going for him.

 

the blind leading the retarded over a cliff

[Olerud363]

You lost me at AA being a genius.

 

I am by no means saying he is a genius. Just speculating that he COULD be a genius... or atleast have a very high IQ.

 

Some research shows that people with a high but not super-high IQ are more successful.

 

People with a super high IQ can cause destruction if they don't realize that even a super high IQ can't predict things very well... but they might be under the illusion they can predict.

 

These guys, who were supposedly huge financial geniuses, formed a hedge fund called Long Term Capitol management. They were the smartest econ guys in the world supposedly. And they crashed badly because of "unforeseen" events (collapse of Russian currency I beleive).

 

Guys who were less smart would not of made the same moves.

 

On the other hand maybe AA has an IQ of 95, but has just a sort of Rain-man ability to schmooze with Beeston and other suits.

 

"And Paul, I see if we go back to the scouting philosaphy, great tie by the way, how's the family? and hire various scouts, especially some of your old friends, and really go back to the days when you did it, when you built it, you and Cito, I think, given what's happened, and the current trends, that various strategies could be employed, and really we just need to have a large team of scouts, and advisors, who have been there, either played the game like Cito, or people like yourself who know business, and know people and are well connected, then we get the scouts to really get a look at these players, not the stats, but who they are, are they athletic?? are they good people?? the important things, and that philosphaphy I believe..."

 

Alex thinking to himself "holy s*** I blew that... damn it why are my thoughts so disjointed??"

 

Paul "that makes a lot of sense... great haircut by the way".

[G-Snarls]

I am by no means saying he is a genius. Just speculating that he COULD be a genius... or atleast have a very high IQ.

 

Some research shows that people with a high but not super-high IQ are more successful.

 

People with a super high IQ can cause destruction if they don't realize that even a super high IQ can't predict things very well... but they might be under the illusion they can predict.

 

These guys, who were supposedly huge financial geniuses, formed a hedge fund called Long Term Capitol management. They were the smartest econ guys in the world supposedly. And they crashed badly because of "unforeseen" events (collapse of Russian currency I beleive).

 

Guys who were less smart would not of made the same moves.

 

On the other hand maybe AA has an IQ of 95, but has just a sort of Rain-man ability to schmooze with Beeston and other suits.

 

"And Paul, I see if we go back to the scouting philosaphy, great tie by the way, how's the family? and hire various scouts, especially some of your old friends, and really go back to the days when you did it, when you built it, you and Cito, I think, given what's happened, and the current trends, that various strategies could be employed, and really we just need to have a large team of scouts, and advisors, who have been there, either played the game like Cito, or people like yourself who know business, and know people and are well connected, then we get the scouts to really get a look at these players, not the stats, but who they are, are they athletic?? are they good people?? the important things, and that philosphaphy I believe..."

 

Alex thinking to himself "holy s*** I blew that... damn it why are my thoughts so disjointed??"

 

Paul "that makes a lot of sense... great haircut by the way".

 

You are quite something...

[Olerud363]

I feel like AA's Achilles' heel is that he doesn't truly understand the game of baseball - and a lot of that has to do with the fact that he never played it. This doesn't go for all GM's but AA in particular.

 

The really interesting part of the moneyball movie (can't remember if this was emphasized in the book) was the scenes with a young Billie Beane and the scouts.

 

Scouts - "Billy don't go to College, you are 1 in a million, can't miss, 5 tools, great in jeans, you'll make millions."

 

Billy - "OK"

 

a few years later...

 

Billy - "Damn... I can't hit and I have no education.. stupid scouts"

 

I am sure Billy takes the opinions of scouts with a grain of salt... while AA trusts them to much.

[Arkadium]

You lost me at AA being a genius.

 

Was thinking the same. More like a really really good sales person (for example I can see him being one of the elite Firestone Tires salesman in Canada). He can really talk the talk.

[Arkadium]

The really interesting part of the moneyball movie (can't remember if this was emphasized in the book) was the scenes with a young Billie Beane and the scouts.

 

Scouts - "Billy don't go to College, you are 1 in a million, can't miss, 5 tools, great in jeans, you'll make millions."

 

Billy - "OK"

 

a few years later...

 

Billy - "Damn... I can't hit and I have no education.. stupid scouts"

 

I am sure Billy takes the opinions of scouts with a grain of salt... while AA trusts them to much.

 

Yeah but didn't AA fire many of his so-called scouts? And I also heard him say that he was going to stop making key decisions that he doesn't believe in (he said this last prior to the big trades/moves), supposedly because some of them back-fired... he did not say which of course. So you could say this year is a result of AA bypassing the scouts and making his own calls.

[o2cui2i]

The really interesting part of the moneyball movie (can't remember if this was emphasized in the book) was the scenes with a young Billie Beane and the scouts.

 

Scouts - "Billy don't go to College, you are 1 in a million, can't miss, 5 tools, great in jeans, you'll make millions."

 

Billy - "OK"

 

a few years later...

 

Billy - "Damn... I can't hit and I have no education.. stupid scouts"

 

I am sure Billy takes the opinions of scouts with a grain of salt... while AA trusts them to much.

 

Beane has a clue, AA couldn't buy one with a "drafting an idea for Dummies" in his hand. AA has no idea about what makes or breaks a player and the Jays have stupid scouts and a horrible development record. so even if AA drafts well the chance of the player not ending up retarded is pretty unlikely.

 

just callin it the way I see it. AA has gone down hill, since unloading Wells, not much has gone into the plus column.

[o2cui2i]

Was thinking the same. More like a really really good sales person (for example I can see him being one of the elite Firestone Tires salesman in Canada). He can really talk the talk.

 

how do you calculate "smooze" into WAR?

[Olerud363]

Yeah but didn't AA fire many of his so-called scouts? And I also heard him say that he was going to stop making key decisions that he doesn't believe in (he said this last prior to the big trades/moves), supposedly because some of them back-fired... he did not say which of course. So you could say this year is a result of AA bypassing the scouts and making his own calls.

 

Yeah.. I think he did fire some scouts just recently. Not sure what the details were on that. I didn't see anything other then a press release. 10 scouts?? Not sure why.

[Anemic0ffense]

I don't know how everyone else feels, but I'm kinda hoping for an 10-15 game losing streak to open the 2nd half... Maybe something drastic needs to happen for them to finally cut the cord on these clowns

[G-Snarls]

I never scroll by one of his posts without reading. I don't always agree but I'm always entertained.

 

http://t.qkme.me/3q8ifc.jpg

[Arkadium]

Beane has a clue, AA couldn't buy one with a "drafting an idea for Dummies" in his hand. AA has no idea about what makes or breaks a player and the Jays have stupid scouts and a horrible development record. so even if AA drafts well the chance of the player not ending up retarded is pretty unlikely.

 

just callin it the way I see it. AA has gone down hill, since unloading Wells, not much has gone into the plus column.

 

Look at what he's done with the SP - a merry-go-round of starters coming up and down. Honestly what kind of organization determines a pitchers continuity (worth) based on 1-2 starts in the big leagues (under nervous conditions). So many colossal f***-ups this year because he's panicking with his finger on the trigger(s).

[Arkadium]

I don't know how everyone else feels, but I'm kinda hoping for an 10-15 game losing streak to open the 2nd half... Maybe something drastic needs to happen for them to finally cut the cord on these clowns

 

Anything but .500 baseball plz.

[TheHurl]

I feel like AA's Achilles' heel is that he doesn't truly understand the game of baseball - and a lot of that has to do with the fact that he never played it. This doesn't go for all GM's but AA in particular.

 

I don't agree with that at all. I think his biggest weakness is that he's listening to too many guys that have played the game.

[Olerud363]

Was thinking the same. More like a really really good sales person (for example I can see him being one of the elite Firestone Tires salesman in Canada). He can really talk the talk.

 

Had to laugh at this. If it wasn't for the Dickey trade he could have a future as an elite Tires salesman. But as it stands...

 

"Are these really safe??"

 

AA "Yes we have a great team of material evaluators who have found the best rubber in North America."

 

"Wow... wait a minute... aren't you the guy who traded for Dickey??"

[Olerud363]

I don't agree with that at all. I think his biggest weakness is that he's listening to too many guys that have played the game.

 

Yes. The emotional center of the moneyball movie was the scenes with Billy Beane being told by scouts how great he would be... then it turns out Billy sucks. Billy learns not to take scouts too seriously.

 

Not that scouts are worse then any expert on anything... it's just that in any field all you can do is devise strategies to collect groups of assetts... you can't predict with much accuracy or precision the behaviour of individual assetts.

[TheHurl]

You lost me at AA being a genius.

 

He made people think he was a very saber friendly guy for 2.5 years. He made people think that he was doing things that other GM's weren't doing, all by saying nothing. This doesn't make him a genius...but it's pretty damn smart