Alex Anthopoulos press conference

[Laika]

Bro, this is your quote. Who initiated assumed knowledge regarding off the field chemistry?

 

You.

 

You literally just provided a list of "moves" that AA made which could have improved chemistry, after I said/implied that his major acquisitions (Martin and Donaldson) were huge talent additions and to attribute the team's success in a large degree to chemistry is stupid.

[Boxcar]

On other teams guys like him are lauded for "keeping guys loose". From my perspective, Reyes issues were his poor D play and offensive production relative to his salary. Not poor chemistry. As a team mate he seemed to be well liked and he was as fired up as anyone competitively.

 

You're wrong. The Jays won, and the reason couldn't have been an influx of baseball talent or natural regression. It was because Tulo offered handys to all the regulars.

[Orgfiller]

He was obviously a good friend but wasn't very professional. The dude would be laughing hysterically in the dugout during games, no matter what the situation was. How the f*** can a team consistently keep their game faces on when one of the most talented / highest paid players is a clown?

 

You're right, it's probably why everyone hates Miguel Cabrera.

[AdamGreenwood]

"If we're talking about team chemistry, Colabello, Smoak, and Estrada are probably the three regulars who influenced it the least. Pretty quiet and boring guys."

 

Bro, this is your quote. Who initiated assumed knowledge regarding off the field chemistry?

 

I'm not sure whose quote that is, but Colabello was great for team chemistry. Guy speaks perfect Spanish, providing a nice bridge on the team between the Dominicans and the others, eroding the clique that had started. And he's even learning some Japanese just in case Kawasaki stick around.

 

Full article is here. Big part of the reason why Gibbons likes him so much.

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/chris-colabello-the-toronto-blue-jays-team-linguist-1445553191

[Slugger]

Trading Valencia and Reyes helped clubhouse chemistry? lol, ok.

 

"Giving Goins the rope he deserved"... did AA take a bat to Travis' shoulder during nap time?

 

If we're talking about team chemistry, Colabello, Smoak, and Estrada are probably the three regulars who influenced it the least. Pretty quiet and boring guys.

 

NOT REALLY SURE WHAT YOUR POINT WAS BRO

 

Did you see him during the celebrations? He turned into an 18 year old right quick.

[BTS]

How many people have worked in an environment where team chemistry (not managerial competence) was so bad it negatively affected the group's ability to do its job? I'm almost 30 and have never experienced this. I'm assuming most people haven't. Sitting around calling players team cancers seems kind of silly.

[thatoneguy]

If we're talking about team chemistry, Colabello, Smoak, and Estrada are probably the three regulars who influenced it the least. Pretty quiet and boring guys.

 

Seeing Colabello square dance with Pillar after either of them hit a home run was great.

[o2cui2i]

How many people have worked in an environment where team chemistry (not managerial competence) was so bad it negatively affected the group's ability to do its job? I'm almost 30 and have never experienced this. I'm assuming most people haven't. Sitting around calling players team cancers seems kind of silly.

 

worked with a guy who ruined the mood and effectiveness of an entire division in the factory. This idiot couldn't just set up the NC machines to run parts without changing the programs. He thought he was smarter than everyone and if things didn't work it was someone else's fault, so he'd manually change a fully functioning program to make up for his inadequacies. If the program worked before then it should work now. If you are setting it up and it isn't producing parts they way it should then ITS YOUR f***ING FAULT: you change YOUR mistakes and leave the program alone.

 

 

trust me.... one cancer can kill it for a whole group of professionals.

[burlingtonbandit]

How many people have worked in an environment where team chemistry (not managerial competence) was so bad it negatively affected the group's ability to do its job? I'm almost 30 and have never experienced this. I'm assuming most people haven't. Sitting around calling players team cancers seems kind of silly.

 

Absolutely. I remember back in highschool/college being in groups and if there was a person who was a dbag it would make doing the project much more difficult

[Laika]

trust me.... one cancer can kill it for a whole group of professionals.

 

Kind of like when there is a group of reasonable moderators, but then there's this one guy who....

[gruber92]

How many people have worked in an environment where team chemistry (not managerial competence) was so bad it negatively affected the group's ability to do its job? I'm almost 30 and have never experienced this. I'm assuming most people haven't. Sitting around calling players team cancers seems kind of silly.

 

It may seem silly, but it exists. The argument is how much does chemistry actually effect success on the field. I'm not saying a team filled with a bunch of Mark DeRosa's is a 90 win team, but it's those combo talent / work ethic types with above average personalities that can help bond a team are the type of players AA will now be targeting. Just staring at spreadsheets searching for "value" only will not be implemented from here on in, and i applaud it.

[King]

looool

[gruber92]

Absolutely. I remember back in highschool/college being in groups and if there was a person who was a dbag it would make doing the project much more difficult

 

You misread his post.

[gruber92]

looool

 

LOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

 

lol

[gruber92]

looool

 

These are AA's words,not mine. I guess you would know better then with all your worldly experience.

 

What a joke..

[intentional wok]

worked with a guy who ruined the mood and effectiveness of an entire division in the factory. This idiot couldn't just set up the NC machines to run parts without changing the programs. He thought he was smarter than everyone and if things didn't work it was someone else's fault, so he'd manually change a fully functioning program to make up for his inadequacies. If the program worked before then it should work now. If you are setting it up and it isn't producing parts they way it should then ITS YOUR f***ING FAULT: you change YOUR mistakes and leave the program alone.

 

 

trust me.... one cancer can kill it for a whole group of professionals.

 

This sounds more like a guy who is just inadvertently sabotaging s***.

 

How many people have worked in an environment where team chemistry (not managerial competence) was so bad it negatively affected the group's ability to do its job? I'm almost 30 and have never experienced this. I'm assuming most people haven't. Sitting around calling players team cancers seems kind of silly.

 

Chemistry is pretty important in a creative collaboration environment though. Baseball is not that, but anything that involves writing (and other similar things) can live or die on soft s*** like feelings and relationships.

[BTS]

It may seem silly, but it exists. The argument is how much does chemistry actually effect success on the field. I'm not saying a team filled with a bunch of Mark DeRosa's is a 90 win team, but it's those combo talent / work ethic types with above average personalities that can help bond a team are the type of players AA will now be targeting. Just staring at spreadsheets searching for "value" only will not be implemented from here on in, and i applaud it.

 

I dunno, I find it pretty dubious. Liking your co-workers obviously has an effect on how much you like going in to work, but I've always found that a group's output is completely dependent on the team's level of ability and quality of management.

 

And I don't think you can target players that will enhance chemistry. Throw Josh Donaldson, or Omar Vizquel, into one room and 22 guys might love them. Throw them into another and they might rub the majority of the room the wrong way. That's not to say that the team should force it's employees to deal with John Rocker or Milton Bradley, but that outside of a few guys who are batshit insane, it's probably not possible to know beforehand how well they'll get along with the people already in the room.

[Orgfiller]

These are AA's words,not mine. I guess you would know better then with all your worldly experience.

 

What a joke..

 

He's responding to NJH's backhanded stab at o2, not your post since he has you on the ignore list. You don't need to pick a fight about everything, and not everything is about you.

[BTS]

This sounds more like a guy who is just inadvertently sabotaging s***.

 

 

 

Chemistry is pretty important in a creative collaboration environment though. Baseball is not that, but anything that involves writing (and other similar things) can live or die on soft s*** like feelings and relationships.

 

And that comes down to having competent management. If you have someone so incompetent that the rest of the team literally can't do their jobs, you get rid of that person.

 

RIP JPA

[Boxcar]

These are AA's words,not mine. I guess you would know better then with all your worldly experience.

 

What a joke..

 

Yeah the guy who brought in Mark DeRosa, saving him from early retirement, right after the failure that was Omar Vizquel when most of us knew it was a bad idea.

 

Take everything that guy says about team chemistry at face value, little sheep.

[intentional wok]

And that comes down to having competent management. If you have someone so incompetent that the rest of the team literally can't do their jobs, you get rid of that person.

 

RIP JPA

 

But if no one can collaborate and it's not due to any one particularly bad seed then it's the team chemistry that's holding everyone back. Silly and stupid, but it happens. Jobs that require that much communication and idea sharing thrive on chemistry.

 

Note that I don't think this about baseball. There's nothing creative about baseball. Just do your job and go home. It's like performing trade work.

[o2cui2i]

This sounds more like a guy who is just inadvertently sabotaging s***.

 

nope... he truly thought he was smarter than everyone. He wasn't smart enough to do it intentionally. I do believe he is packaging screws now, He set up and ran a full day of the most expensive parts we ran and all of it had to be thrown away. I had run the same program 2 days earlier, did 40% more parts for my day and they were all correctly made.....

 

 

union was the only thing that saved his job. CEO and production chief wanted him fired. His coworkers just wanted him gone whatever it took.

[Boxcar]

nope... he truly thought he was smarter than everyone. He wasn't smart enough to do it intentionally. I do believe he is packaging screws now, He set up and ran a full day of the most expensive parts we ran and all of it had to be thrown away. I had run the same program 2 days earlier, did 40% more parts for my day and they were all correctly made.....

 

 

union was the only thing that saved his job. CEO and production chief wanted him fired. His coworkers just wanted him gone whatever it took.

 

Inadvertently is pretty much antonymous with intentionally...

[gruber92]

Yeah the guy who brought in Mark DeRosa, saving him from early retirement, right after the failure that was Omar Vizquel when most of us knew it was a bad idea.

 

Take everything that guy says about team chemistry at face value, little sheep.

 

C'mon bro, DeRosa and Visquel were not brought in to be major factors on the field, you know that. Players like Donaldson, Martin, Estrada were brought in to perform on the field, but also carry a reputation of being good clubhouse guys. I don't know how much you can actually credit AA in these terms, or maybe it was just a coincidence / luck that the players he acquired all meshed. We'll never know how much influence chemistry had on these acquisitions.

[intentional wok]

inadvertent wok

[gruber92]

I dunno, I find it pretty dubious. Liking your co-workers obviously has an effect on how much you like going in to work, but I've always found that a group's output is completely dependent on the team's level of ability and quality of management.

 

And I don't think you can target players that will enhance chemistry. Throw Josh Donaldson, or Omar Vizquel, into one room and 22 guys might love them. Throw them into another and they might rub the majority of the room the wrong way. That's not to say that the team should force it's employees to deal with John Rocker or Milton Bradley, but that outside of a few guys who are batshit insane, it's probably not possible to know beforehand how well they'll get along with the people already in the room.

 

That's fair. All a GM like AA can do is try to acquire players that carry the reputation and then hope for the best.

[BTS]

C'mon bro, DeRosa and Visquel were not brought in to be major factors on the field, you know that. Players like Donaldson, Martin, Estrada were brought in to perform on the field, but also carry a reputation of being good clubhouse guys. I don't know how much you can actually credit AA in these terms, or maybe it was just a coincidence / luck that the players he acquired all meshed. We'll never know how much influence chemistry had on these acquisitions.

 

Where are you getting Donaldson's reputation as a good clubhouse guy? He had a reputation as kind of a dick from I've read, and you get glimpses of it when you watch him (FYSMC, for example). If this team falls on its face next year, Donaldson is probably the first guy I'd put money on being reported as a clubhouse problem.

[burlingtonbandit]

Where are you getting Donaldson's reputation as a good clubhouse guy? He had a reputation as kind of a dick from I've read, and you get glimpses of it when you watch him (FYSMC, for example). If this team falls on its face next year, Donaldson is probably the first guy I'd put money on being reported as a clubhouse problem.

 

highly doubt it

[gruber92]

Where are you getting Donaldson's reputation as a good clubhouse guy? He had a reputation as kind of a dick from I've read, and you get glimpses of it when you watch him (FYSMC, for example). If this team falls on its face next year, Donaldson is probably the first guy I'd put money on being reported as a clubhouse problem.

 

I don't know about that. JD seems to me like he's the type of guy you would love to have in your platoon, warrior type leader.

[Spanky99]

"This isn't the try League, it's the get it done League" - JD