Ben Nicholoson Smith: Jays in mix for Stephen Drew

[Angrioter]

I feel like something has been lost in translation here.

 

Which would be correct phrase?

 

"Buscandote para comerte vivo"

[KingKat]

Which would be correct phrase?

 

"Buscandote para comerte vivo"

 

My Spanish is garbage, sorry.

[theblujay]

Which would be correct phrase?

 

"Buscandote para comerte vivo"

 

Looking to eat you alive

 

Or Looking to eat your ass alive

[Dylan]

So is it between us and the Red Sox?

What other teams make sense?

[havok24]

So is it between us and the Red Sox?

What other teams make sense?

 

Yankees for obvious reasons.

[xposbrad]

You need to take a closer look at how this team is built. Most of the talent in the farm system hasn't played full season ball yet. Which would suggest they are a minimum 3 years away. Most of the vets on the team are under control for 2-3 more years. It's actually built to contend now and wont take a lot of work to keep it contending in the future.

 

Imo AA has done a great job. It's the players that have been the downfall.

 

Well, that goes a bit hand in hand. Did he get players that were declining? Did he get players that were overpaid? Did he get players that were over 30? There have been, and will be, better players he could have targeted. Players in their prime or entering it. To say he's done a 'great' job is a bit much? He's done a great job at making a splash but money talks, BS walks. Right now, we have a whole lot of BS with this team. Most people here are prepared for another mediocre season and are ready for the blow up including a new GM.

[theblujay]

I agree with this to a point, they threw huge value away, if AA doesn't spend to upwards of 160 million plus, it was pretty dumb in all facets of building a contender. Time will tell.

 

This is the key. They spent some good assets to get players who are still paid quite a bit. On top of that some of the acquisitions came with serious risk and haven't really paid off so far

[Smokey]

You need to take a closer look at how this team is built. Most of the talent in the farm system hasn't played full season ball yet. Which would suggest they are a minimum 3 years away. Most of the vets on the team are under control for 2-3 more years. It's actually built to contend now and wont take a lot of work to keep it contending in the future.

 

Imo AA has done a great job. It's the players that have been the downfall.

 

He put a team together that many had pegged as favorites to win the WS. That's his job. The rest is up to the players.

 

You have got to be f***ing kidding me... This team gave over 50 starts to guys like Ricky Romero, Chien-Ming Wang, Aaron Laffey, Ramon Ortiz, Esmil Rogers, Todd Redmond and Chad Jenkins and also gave away over 1300 AB's (which is almost 25% of the team's total AB's) to guys with a negative WAR. Do you have any idea what that means??? It means that AA completely neglected the importance of depth in a 162 game season and did nothing to rectify things as the season went on.

 

We are now fortunate enough to have the benefit of hindsight to clearly see that he made some glaring mistakes in the way he assembled this roster and only an idiot would argue otherwise.

[GeorgiaPeach]

He put a team together that many had pegged as favorites to win the WS. That's his job. The rest is up to the players.

 

I'd rather we have a team built for the long haul and making the playoffs. I'm not for moves built for the extreme short term to whet the fans appetites. Because as quick as that window was open & closed and the fans jumped on board, they're jumping off just as quick when times are lean.

[Olerud363]

He put a team together that many had pegged as favorites to win the WS. That's his job. The rest is up to the players.

 

Most projection systems had them at 85 wins. He made a team projected to win 85. That's not even playoffs. Lot's of GMs have created "real" 85 win teams including Gord Ash, and J.P. Ricciardi.

 

AA creates a projected 85 win team, and it turns out the projections were wrong, and it was a 74 win team.

 

So let me get this straight. He makes a team that a computer would project for 85, and the team underperforms the computer projection by 10 games and that is considered "doing his job".

 

His job is to put together a team that "really" wins 90 or more.

[theblujay]

You just figured this out?

 

No?

[theblujay]

I'd rather we have a team built for the long haul and making the playoffs. I'm not for moves built for the extreme short term to whet the fans appetites. Because as quick as that window was open & closed and the fans jumped on board, they're jumping off just as quick when times are lean.

 

This is why I want to sell high on guys like Jose, Rasmus, Janssen, Cecil and maybe EE

[eastcoastjaysfan]

I keep checking back every fwe hours to see if anything happens

 

Just do something already FFS

 

AA probably too busy stressing about the gyro's for the SOTF tonight.

[KingKat]

I feel like people get caught up in the projections and lose sight of this sometimes

 

Except that you can't win any games in the offseason. All you can do is build a team that projects to win and last year AA didn't add nearly enough projected wins for what was for all practical purposes an all win season. He kind of half-assed it.

[Abomination]

Blah Blah Blah. You talk like it's AA's fault half the roster was on the fckn DL and Gibbons had to use replacement level players to fill in. You talk like it's AA's fault Johnson,Boni,Izzy,Cabrera,Lawrie,Arencibia,Thole,Romero all played like s*** not coming anywhere near there career norms.

 

Fact is he put what almost everyone considered a championship calibre team on the field and the players s*** the bed. That's not his fault. He might not have done it in the most efficient fashion but that's the price you pay when you're the GM of a team that's probably the least desirable place to play in the league for most players.

 

He's at fault for not getting more depth to slot in behind when injuries happen, but with the volume we had last year it really wouldn't have mattered anyway.

[KingKat]

He's at fault for not getting more depth to slot in behind when injuries happen, but with the volume we had last year it really wouldn't have mattered anyway.

 

Exactly some of it is his fault and some of it is not. No one plans for the extend of the injuries that Jays sustained last year but you can't plan for perfect health either especially with guys like Lawrie, Reyes and Bautista in the lineup and Morrow and Happ in the rotation. No one expected the specific injuries all those players got but you had to expect pretty much all of them to at least miss some time.

[Olerud363]

So his job is to be lucky?

 

No. That's not what I was getting at.

 

The guy I was replying to made the claim that since "on paper" the Jays should of won the world series AA did his job.

 

My point was that "on paper" the Jays were actually only an 85 win team, and one build for the short term. If you did a 3 year projection on the 2013 Jays it probably was 85, 84, 82 then into the 70s.

 

So the team he built would realy need some luck to make the playoffs.

 

What it would be nice to see is a team projected for 90 for 4 or 5 years, then each year the luck will hit one way or the other, but you get some playoffs out of it.

 

And I think the point others are making on this thread is that here we are in year 2, and the team is projected for 83 or 84 wins, so AA needs to go all out to add 5 more wins, then hope for a little luck. But what else can he do other than rebuild??

[Angrioter]

I keep checking back every fwe hours to see if anything happens

 

Just do something already FFS

 

AA probably too busy stressing about the gyro's for the SOTF tonight.

 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B3Irobbzslo/UsLHMP7SvGI/AAAAAAAAPpQ/bhfhDq6WX7Q/s1600/drilling-F5.gif

[G-Snarls]

I keep checking back every fwe hours to see if anything happens

 

Just do something already FFS

 

AA probably too busy stressing about the gyro's for the SOTF tonight.

 

LOL.

 

"Should I get French fries or roasted potatoes with my gyros?? If I get French fries people will think I'm a fat bastard, if I go potatoes they'll think I'm too Greek. Dammit! Maybe I should have pushed harder for Annibal Sanchez. f*** it!! I want French fries!"

[Smokey]

Blah Blah Blah. You talk like it's AA's fault half the roster was on the fckn DL and Gibbons had to use replacement level players to fill in. You talk like it's AA's fault Johnson,Boni,Izzy,Cabrera,Lawrie,Arencibia,Thole,Romero all played like s*** not coming anywhere near there career norms.

 

Fact is he put what almost everyone considered a championship calibre team on the field and the players s*** the bed. That's not his fault. He might not have done it in the most efficient fashion but that's the price you pay when you're the GM of a team that's probably the least desirable place to play in the league for most players.

 

You're absolutely right, I don't know what I was thinking blaming AA for the terrible performance of the players that he himself scouted, acquired or handed starting jobs to. It's can't possibly be his fault that the often injured Johnson and Morrow shockingly couldn't stay healthy with no backup plan in sight. It's can't possibly be his fault that the catcher he believed in played like absolute garbage despite many on here wanting him gone long time ago. None of that is his fault... In fact, he deserves to be handed the key to the city for assembling a championship "calibre" team.

[GeorgiaPeach]

I keep checking back every fwe hours to see if anything happens

 

Just do something already FFS

 

AA probably too busy stressing about the gyro's for the SOTF tonight.

 

 

Or if Alex gets asked about the change in direction last year failing to meet expectations and he takes his dress shirt off and is sporting an "I'm with stupid --------->" shirt.

[Abomination]

Or if Alex gets asked about the change in direction last year failing to meet expectations and he takes his dress shirt off and is sporting an "I'm with stupid --------->" shirt.

 

No one could possibly EVER say anything bad about him again if he did something epic like that!

[Jimcanuck]

The variables: Health, mental factors, over and under performance are there, looking your ass to eat you alive.

 

Standard deviation is a measure of statistical variability

[The Nemesis]

This is why I want to sell high on guys like Jose, Rasmus, Janssen, Cecil and maybe EE

 

And then what? Baseball is not hockey or basketball or anything like that where hoarding prospects guarantees success. You blow up the talent on the roster and pray that maybe a few years down the line it turns into a better team, but there's no guarantee that it will or even that it won't fail spectacularly. The bust rate on baseball prospects is so monumentally high that the risk of a complete tear-down and prospect-laden rebuild isn't worth it IMO. You should always keep some talent in the system and hope that they can pan out in order to sustain the org moving forward, but the tank-and-start-fresh mentality of the NHL or NBA now just doesn't really work for MLB.

 

Most projection systems had them at 85 wins. He made a team projected to win 85. That's not even playoffs. Lot's of GMs have created "real" 85 win teams including Gord Ash, and J.P. Ricciardi.

 

AA creates a projected 85 win team, and it turns out the projections were wrong, and it was a 74 win team.

 

So let me get this straight. He makes a team that a computer would project for 85, and the team underperforms the computer projection by 10 games and that is considered "doing his job".

 

His job is to put together a team that "really" wins 90 or more.

 

The underperformance was due in no small part to an insane rash of injuries that nobody saw coming to the extent that it did. Anyone who says they saw 400 innings out of Dickey and Buehrle combined and less than 100 from each and every other projected potential starter at the start of the season is lying. There's also no way that practically all of the starting lineup missing a couple dozen games apiece was foreseeable too. Or the fact that JP sucked beyond the history of any other amount of suckage in the last century of baseball.

 

People were overzealous handing the WS crown to the Jays from day 1, but let's not pretend that it was commonly held that the team would implode and suck. At the very least they were supposed to be competitive.

[Boxcar]

Blah Blah Blah. You talk like it's AA's fault half the roster was on the fckn DL and Gibbons had to use replacement level players to fill in. You talk like it's AA's fault Johnson,Boni,Izzy,Cabrera,Lawrie,Arencibia,Thole,Romero all played like s*** not coming anywhere near there career norms.

 

Fact is he put what almost everyone considered a championship calibre team on the field and the players s*** the bed. That's not his fault. He might not have done it in the most efficient fashion but that's the price you pay when you're the GM of a team that's probably the least desirable place to play in the league for most players.

 

A couple of questions...

1. Do you understand how Vegas odds work?

2. Most of those guys you listed were serious, serious question marks and that should have been accounted for.

3. your dumn

[Boxcar]

4.Blow me.

 

So, you realize that you added this to a list I made, right? I appreciate the gesture, but you don't need to blow me. I've forgiven you for being a dumbass.

[Dick_Pole]

Blah Blah Blah. You talk like it's AA's fault half the roster was on the fckn DL and Gibbons had to use replacement level players to fill in. You talk like it's AA's fault Johnson,Boni,Izzy,Cabrera,Lawrie,Arencibia,Thole,Romero all played like s*** not coming anywhere near there career norms.

 

Fact is he put what almost everyone considered a championship calibre team on the field and the players s*** the bed. That's not his fault. He might not have done it in the most efficient fashion but that's the price you pay when you're the GM of a team that's probably the least desirable place to play in the league for most players.

 

In what universe can we expect the core 5 guys on offense on this team (Reyes, Lawrie, Bautista, Encarnacion and Rasmus) to average 150 games this year or any year? It hasn't happened yet. Encarnacion's the only one I'd put money on getting to 150 games. Maybe Rasmus too if he doesn't faceplant himself into a concrete wall or something stupid. But the other three we'll be lucky to see average 130 games, and that means 64 games or more with TWO of Goins/Kawasaki/Izturis in the lineup instead of just one.

 

When you have consistent injury prone players, you HAVE to build your team for positional depth. Not like 15 BP arms on a 40-man roster. You can't just pray for a Paul Molitor-like turnaround who miraculously turned into Cal Ripken at age 34. Those "special little pills" or injections that allows for those types of miracles aren't allowed anymore. And yes that's some added colour commentary on what I think current HOF members have done while BBWAA is on their moral high horse with Bonds and Clemens.

[Dick_Pole]

In the universe where Reyes played 160 games the year before? Rasmus 151. Encarnacion 151. Bautista had 8 months to rehab his wrist and any other nagging injuries. Lawrie........I got nothing,he's to stupid to keep himself healthy, but should have at least started the season that way.

 

It's funny because even in this scenario Lawrie and Bautista have to average 144 games for the 5 of those guys to average 150. Mission Impossible!

 

I would love it if Reyes put up 160 again...but let's face it...he's done that once in the last 5 years. Him playing 100-130 games next year can't be classified as bad luck.

[GD]

Sorry you're interpretation/reading comprehension skills aren't up to snuff. Hopefully it'll improve as you grow up. Maybe pay a little more attention when you repeat grade 9 ingrish.

 

Literally the best thing I have ever read.

[Dick_Pole]

I really hope the people arguing about this aren't the same ones that are clamoring for AA to sign Drew, and or trade for Brett Anderson, or Kinsler, or chooch, or Infante, or McCann, etc......................

 

Well....100 games of Drew and 62 games of Goins is better than 162 games of Goins. It could be the difference between 91-71 and 89-73...it could be the difference between making the 5th seed and being also-rans for yet another year. So yeah Drew is a good idea given the current state of the team and what's available on the FA market.

 

I didn't say I hate injured players. I said if you want to build your team around injured players you have to build for depth and contingencies. AA has to build this team around the assumption that Lawrie and Reyes will miss 60 games this year. Teams that are projected to start Goins/Kawasaki/Izturis quality of players on the middle infield 220+ games in a year generally aren't playoff-caliber teams. It's not impossible (80's/90's Jays teams put out the duo of Liriano/Manny Lee and still won) but it's an uphill battle and you'd have to expect monster seasons from your other guys to carry them.

 

So yes, I definitely argue the Jays should get Drew, and they should build for solid depth behind him and Reyes.