General 2020 Blue Jays Discussion Thread

[Krylian]

I hate nicknaming him “the Airport”

 

'The Airport' is pretty s*****.

 

I'd rather they go with 'Rush', than 'The Airport.'

[Brownie19]

I hate nicknaming him “the Airport”

 

Meh - It's probably as clever as it gets if you want to assign that type of nickname to him.

 

My issue is I generally hate all nicknames like that. The Answer, The Matrix, The Process. I much prefer nicknames associated with your actual name. Big Nate is just fine with me.

[The Iceman]

Lester B

[Ehjays]

Hows this for ya! from MLB traderumours.

 

 

Jose Bautista Eyeing Return As Two-Way Player

By Steve Adams | March 2, 2020 at 9:27am CDT

It’s been more than three months since Jose Bautista made it known that he had no plans to officially retire. There’s been virtually nothing mentioned about him since that time, but ESPN’s Jeff Passan now reports that the 39-year-old Bautista has been working out as a pitcher this winter in hopes of a return as a two-way player. Bautista plans to play for the Dominican Republic in this month’s Olympic qualifier tournament, though he might not pitch in that setting.

Bautista’s accomplishments at the plate are well known, of course. He emerged from journeyman prospect status to Blue Jays stalwart and feared All-Star slugger with a 2010 season that saw him rip a league-leading 54 homers. That kicked off a run of six straight All-Star appearances and helped to bring about the “Joey Bats” moniker that followed him throughout his career. From 2010-16, Bautista raked at a .264/.387/.542 clip, averaging 36 homers per season. His 2016 ALDS bat flip after a go-ahead, three-run homer against the Rangers stands out as one of the more iconic moments in Blue Jays franchise history.

All that said, Bautista’s production dipped sharply as he entered his late 30s. A 2017 return to the Blue Jays on a one-year, free-agent deal didn’t prove fruitful, and a followup effort split between the Braves, Mets and Phillies was better but not particularly encouraging. In a combined 1085 plate appearances between those two seasons, Bautista batted .203/.323/.371. He did not sign with a club last winter and sat out the 2019 season.

So what’s next for Bautista? He’s slated to play primarily first base in the aforementioned Olympic qualifier tournament. As for the slugger’s mound work, Passan tweets that he’s been able to run his fastball up to 94 mph. Bautista is also throwing a slider, it seems. Former Jays teammate Marcus Stroman tweeted in January that he’d been working out with Bautista and legitimately believed he could pitch in a Major League bullpen. It wasn’t clear at the time, though, that Bautista was actually working toward a spot as a potential two-way player.

Obviously, Bautista would face long odds in working his way back into the Majors — particularly as a viable pitcher. The addition of a 26th roster spot and the official two-way player designation may slightly bolster his chances of emerging as a first baseman/outfielder/reliever, but we’ve seen very few players capable of actually succeeding in a two-way role to this point. He’ll need to throw for big league scouts and would almost certainly need to be willing to take a minor league deal, but the possibility of Joey Bats becoming “Joey Sliders” should be a fun one to follow.

[Beans]

Hows this for ya! from MLB traderumours.

 

 

Jose Bautista Eyeing Return As Two-Way Player

By Steve Adams | March 2, 2020 at 9:27am CDT

It’s been more than three months since Jose Bautista made it known that he had no plans to officially retire. There’s been virtually nothing mentioned about him since that time, but ESPN’s Jeff Passan now reports that the 39-year-old Bautista has been working out as a pitcher this winter in hopes of a return as a two-way player.

 

His 2016 ALDS bat flip after a go-ahead, three-run homer against the Rangers stands out as one of the more iconic moments in Blue Jays franchise history.

2015, not 2016

[Ehjays]

2015, not 2016

 

Good catch

[Dick_Pole]

I'd like to see that honestly. Just...maybe not on the Jays if they are in contention. Hell, if Vince Carter can continue to find a job in the NBA, why shouldn't Bautista give it a go?

[Laika]

Touching 94 as a RHRP is not going to cut it unless he has a wipeout secondary.

 

It would be fun though. Like a s***** Michael Lorenzen, or an older version who is much worse at pitching but much better at pinch hitting.

[Orgfiller]

Meh - It's probably as clever as it gets if you want to assign that type of nickname to him.

 

My issue is I generally hate all nicknames like that. The Answer, The Matrix, The Process. I much prefer nicknames associated with your actual name. Big Nate is just fine with me.

 

Honestly, I disagree. While the Airport is kind of a dumb nickname for Pearson, all of the nicknames related to someone's name are usually forced or repeated from player to player. Calling someone Big N is basically a board meme at this point. Nicknames like Doc Halladay (or Gooden if you're old school), the Big Unit, the Big Hurt are cool and memorable, and they fit the players which they were tied to well.

[Brownie19]

Honestly, I disagree. While the Airport is kind of a dumb nickname for Pearson, all of the nicknames related to someone's name are usually forced or repeated from player to player. Calling someone Big N is basically a board meme at this point. Nicknames like Doc Halladay (or Gooden if you're old school), the Big Unit, the Big Hurt are cool and memorable, and they fit the players which they were tied to well.

 

I just looked it up and apparently Dwight Gooden baseball nickname was Dr. K (which isn't very memorable as I've never heard it before), which got shortened into 'Doc'. Roy's nickname of 'Doc' is a play on his name, coined by Tom Cheek as a reference to Wild West gunslinger Doc Holliday.

 

I'd agree with you about The Big Unit and The Big Hurt (and The Crime Dog and The Iron Horse). Sometimes you 'hit' and the nickname really sticks. It just seems to me there are a lot more misses with those forced nicknames (The Process has to be the worst ever) like:

 

Vlad the Impaler

The Professor

The Hebrew Hammer

The Splendid Splinter

The Yankee Clipper (prefer Joltin Joe)

The Wizard of Oz

 

 

I'd rather see the likes of:

 

Big Mac

Miggy

Ryno

Yaz

 

IMO, nicknames are something people typically refer to you as. Nobody goes around and says "hey The Process do you want to grab a bite to eat tonight after the game?"

 

Nobody would ever call Pearson "The Airport" in the dressing room - because that would be stupid.

[Laika]

Honestly, I disagree. While the Airport is kind of a dumb nickname for Pearson, all of the nicknames related to someone's name are usually forced or repeated from player to player. Calling someone Big N is basically a board meme at this point. Nicknames like Doc Halladay (or Gooden if you're old school), the Big Unit, the Big Hurt are cool and memorable, and they fit the players which they were tied to well.

 

This is right. While The Airport is lame, most of the good nicknames are based on some characteristic of the player or event in their life, and not on their name itself.

 

There are already other Big Nates in baseball...

 

If we are going to force a nickname on Pearson we can do better than The Airport or YYZ. I mean he throws 100, just call him Nuke Pearson.

[THANOS]

Meh - It's probably as clever as it gets if you want to assign that type of nickname to him.

 

My issue is I generally hate all nicknames like that. The Answer, The Matrix, The Process. I much prefer nicknames associated with your actual name. Big Nate is just fine with me.

 

How about "Air Pearson"? We've had Air Canada before for VC, why not use something similar. It would nail multiple marketing metrics imo. It also sounds much cooler than The Airport and rolls off much better than YYZ.

[Deadpool]

'The Airport' is pretty s*****.

 

I'd rather they go with 'Rush', than 'The Airport.'

 

I could definitely get behind "Rush", but I think you'd have to explain that to far too many people for it to stick.

[EMK19]

Touching 94 as a RHRP is not going to cut it unless he has a wipeout secondary.

 

It would be fun though. Like a s***** Michael Lorenzen, or an older version who is much worse at pitching but much better at pinch hitting.

 

Yeah, I'd think he'd regularly be around 90-92 which is obviously not enough as a two pitch pitcher, and that's only assuming his breaking ball is serviceable which we have no clue about. Would be awesome for versatility though, being able to play corners in both IF/OF and as a RP to boot. Really doubt he would be someone Shatkins would be interested at this point though. Maybe he'd find a taker over in Asia (not sure how much he has been demanding over the past yr but I'm kind of surprised he hasn't ended up there yet).

[glory]

“The Airport” is ridiculous. Please don’t do that to Nate.

[Jimcanuck]

Bautista has no need to go the Canseco route to ending his career

[Todd]

There is no way in hell That Anthony Alford makes this team.

And if he does then the jays management sucks. The guy has done

s*** to have that right.

[Krylian]

15 years from now Anthony Alford will be working at Home Depot.

 

Todd will still be posting about him.

[Dick_Pole]

That is super lame. Some Canadian politician from a hundred years ago or whatever happens to have the same last name, a reasonably common one, and now this guy has to be called this dumb thing? That's not even a compliment. Airports are these big stupid facilities that just sit there and suck and everyone in an airport wants to be away from an airport as fast as possible. Might as well send the guy back 25 years to 1995 WWE and have him tag team with Duke The Dumpster Droese.

 

Or here's an original idea. How about not having a nickname and calling him by his normal first and last name?

[Maahfaace]

That is super lame. Some Canadian politician from a hundred years ago or whatever happens to have the same last name, a reasonably common one, and now this guy has to be called this dumb thing? That's not even a compliment. Airports are these big stupid facilities that just sit there and suck and everyone in an airport wants to be away from an airport as fast as possible. Might as well send the guy back 25 years to 1995 WWE and have him tag team with Duke The Dumpster Droese.

 

Or here's an original idea. How about not having a nickname and calling him by his normal first and last name?

 

Maybe he can disparage Trump in a tweet and grab his attention, that should land him a solid nickname courtesy of 45.

[The Cats Ass]

15 years from now Anthony Alford will be working at Home Depot.

 

Todd will still be posting about him.

 

2035 Yelp review for some Home Depot:

 

"There is no way in hell that Anthony Alford should be working in the paint section.

And if he does then the management at this store sucks. The guy has done

s*** to have the right to run the paint mixer.

 

-todd"

[Laika]

2035

 

Anthony Alford, assistant manager at Home Depot, is once again in line for a promotion to manager.

This is his fourth chance - on three previous occasions, head office ended up going with someone else, despite Alford's contagious smile and obvious raw-management ability. On one of those occasions Alford had all but been offered the job when he ruptured his achilles in a forklift accident, requiring surgery that kept him from working for three months.

He knows this time is a make-or-break scenario. If he doesn't get the promotion, he'll have to put in for a transfer so he can start over with a fresh slate.

He stands outside the automatic doors before his shift and thumbs his name tag. Anthony. The name of his father. The name his mother chose for him.

He thinks about how his name has brought pride and shame to his family. Being a high MLB draft pick, playing college football, being ranked as Toronto's #1 baseball prospect... the publicity from his 2012 weapons charge, his mother's 2012 charges, his family home burning down in 2017, him washing out of baseball in humiliating fashion that spring in 2020, the fried rice incident in Korea...

 

He closes his eyes and says quietly to himself, "I'm proud of who I am and where I've been. I'm Anthony Alford."

Eyes still closed, he takes four large and confident steps into the store, forgetting the tall display of dimmer switches he set up near the front door yesterday. He walks forcefully into the display, the metal rack loudly crashes to the floor and merchandise scatters everywhere. He looks up to see his retiring manager shaking his head, sadly.

[max silver]

2035

 

Anthony Alford, assistant manager at Home Depot, is once again in line for a promotion to manager.

This is his fourth chance - on three previous occasions, head office ended up going with someone else, despite Alford's contagious smile and obvious raw-management ability. On one of those occasions Alford had all but been offered the job when he ruptured his achilles in a forklift accident, requiring surgery that kept him from working for three months.

He knows this time is a make-or-break scenario. If he doesn't get the promotion, he'll have to put in for a transfer so he can start over with a fresh slate.

He stands outside the automatic doors before his shift and thumbs his name tag. Anthony. The name of his father. The name his mother chose for him.

He thinks about how his name has brought pride and shame to his family. Being a high MLB draft pick, playing college football, being ranked as Toronto's #1 baseball prospect... the publicity from his 2012 weapons charge, his mother's 2012 charges, his family home burning down in 2017, him washing out of baseball in humiliating fashion that spring in 2020, the fried rice incident in Korea...

 

He closes his eyes and says quietly to himself, "I'm proud of who I am and where I've been. I'm Anthony Alford."

Eyes still closed, he takes four large and confident steps into the store, forgetting the tall display of dimmer switches he set up near the front door yesterday. He walks forcefully into the display, the metal rack loudly crashes to the floor and merchandise scatters everywhere. He looks up to see his retiring manager shaking his head, sadly.

 

You could almost substitute Dalton Pompey into your story. At the end he would end up with a concussion after the stack of dimmer switches falls onto his head.

[BlueRocky]

2035 Yelp review for some Home Depot:

 

"There is no way in hell that Anthony Alford should be working in the paint section.

And if he does then the management at this store sucks. The guy has done

s*** to have the right to run the paint mixer.

 

-todd"

 

He’d be the 101 ranked employee at Home Depot, the speed tool alone simply won’t play at the paint mixer department.

[Grant77]

Ken Giles is planning to return his 2017 World Series ring. He says he wasn't aware of the cheating and that is certainly plausible. Either way, I applaud his integrity.

[King]

Ken Giles is planning to return his 2017 World Series ring. He says he wasn't aware of the cheating and that is certainly plausible. Either way, I applaud his integrity.

lol

[Beans]

Ken Giles is planning to return his 2017 World Series ring. He says he wasn't aware of the cheating and that is certainly plausible. Either way, I applaud his integrity.

 

Let's see him donate all the money he made in arbitration (because of his inflated save stats, because his team had a lead so often, because his team was stealing signs).

 

Oh, that's right, he had no idea cheating was happening... give me a f***ing break!

Edited March 4, 2020 by Beans

[Ray]

A really excellent piece by John Lott in the Athletic that provides insight in the new coaching structure within the Jays system (majors and minors). Obviously results have to follow to consider it a success, but the amount of infrastructure and resources this regime has put into player development and coaching has to be commended. Really makes you wonder how antiquated our player development system was before they got here.

 

The last time Gil Kim spent a season in uniform, it was 2008 and he was a switch-hitting infielder for a minor-league team in Venezuela. He lived in the clubhouse, sleeping on a mattress he pulled into the bathroom every night.

 

Kim apprenticed for a career in player development in a most unorthodox way, playing for five obscure teams on four continents in three years. But it worked.

 

This spring, he’s back in uniform, challenging orthodoxy once again.

 

After four years’ overseeing the Blue Jays’ minor-league system as player development director, Kim is their newest major-league coach. And in an unusual twist of tradition, he’s also keeping his old job.

 

Similarly, bullpen coach Matt Buschmann fills a newly created position, director of pitching development for the entire system, while retaining his bullpen job in Toronto.

 

The Blue Jays are doing things a little differently this season. The changes extend throughout their player development staff, whose mandate is to guide prospects through the minors to the majors.

 

Based on a survey of media guides, no team in baseball will have more minor-league coaches this season than the Jays. Meanwhile, Kim’s new role reinforces a 21st-century imperative: teaching doesn’t stop when a player reaches the big leagues.

 

General manager Ross Atkins said the front office encourages staff at all levels of the system to embrace innovation, and Kim has led the charge.

 

“Gil has done that exceptionally well,” Atkins said. “His knowledge, who he’s been learning from, who he’s been learning with, his curiosity, how he thinks about baseball is such an asset that we wanted it around our major-league environment more.”

 

Since club president Mark Shapiro and Atkins took charge in the 2015-16 offseason, the Jays have made big changes in the way they groom prospects. They had to. Everyone else is doing it too. But given the improvement in their farm system – a jump in the ranks from 24th to sixth in that period, according to Baseball America – they seem to be doing something right. The Athletic’s Keith Law ranks the Jays’ system seventh in his latest rankings and has glowing things to say about their recent drafts and international signings.

 

In fireballer Nate Pearson, they have the top right-handed pitching prospect. Their prospect list abounds with middle infielders. A couple of pitchers on that list might make an impact in Toronto before the end of the season.

 

This season’s coaching changes are the biggest yet. Not only have the Jays added staff, including a batch with new job descriptions, they have continued a recent trend by hiring coaches whose youth, training and experience defy the traditional job description.

 

Each Toronto affiliate has a bigger staff than ever before. Some coaches come from traditional backgrounds; they have jobs because they’ve changed with the times. Some new hires have never coached in pro ball. Several with time-honoured coaching titles bring master’s degrees to the job. (A master’s degree does not necessarily make a good coach, of course, but it’s a symbol of how coaching credentials have evolved.)

 

This evolution reflects a franchise philosophy that assistant general manager Joe Sheehan condenses to four words: “Ideas come from anywhere.”

 

 

Gil Kim (16) looks on during spring training at Spectrum Field. (Douglas DeFelice-USA TODAY Sports)

Kim, 38, was a history major and a 5-foot-7 reserve infielder at Vanderbilt. He was not a prospect, but he was driven to stay in the game. His odyssey took him from one obscure team to another in the Netherlands, China, Australia, Spain, and Venezuela.

 

“I wanted to continue playing,” he told me in a 2016 interview, “and I realized that it was maybe not going to be a path to the major leagues. Along the way, I was training myself in other ways to make a career in baseball.”

 

Some of his new coaches chose other ways as well.

 

Embracing the revolution

 

Baseball’s current revolution in player development arose from the proliferation of data and technology, which answered old questions in new and astonishingly precise ways. Many of today’s prospects have grown up with data and they want more of it. That has changed the way coaches get jobs.

 

Stocking a minor-league coaching staff used to be a simple exercise. You had a manager, a pitching coach, and a hitting coach. Guys got coaching jobs because they used to play. Playing paid their dues. No other credentials were required.

 

Even as deep data began to modernize the major-league game, the staffing template for the minors remained the same. The Blue Jays, for example, still stocked each of their affiliates with a manager and two coaches in 2016. So did most other clubs.

 

Then came regime change in Toronto. About the same time, a sea change in player development began, not only for the Blue Jays but for every big-league club.

 

One upshot for the Jays: The coming season will see coaches’ quarters cramped as never before in their minor-league clubhouses.

 

The Triple-A Buffalo Bisons have a six-man coaching staff, largest in the minors. It includes two development coaches, whose job reflects the burgeoning role of data and technology in player development. More on that later.

Double-A New Hampshire and Advanced-A Dunedin each has a five-man staff, including a development coach.

Low-A Lansing and short-season Vancouver have four-man staffs.

Each affiliate has a mental performance coach and dietician as well as the traditional trainer and strength/conditioning coach.

Over the past four years, the Blue Jays have made a massive investment in player development staff. They’ve also added a raft of high-tech equipment, mainly Rapsodo and Edgertronic machines, and more data analysts to help distill what those devices produce.

 

“We’ve got people sharing desks now,” Sheehan said. “The support structure around the player has expanded massively.”

 

In 2015, Toronto’s analytics department consisted of Sheehan and Jason Pare. Sheehan is now the Jays’ assistant general manager. Pare holds the same post in Atlanta.

 

Today, Sheehan helms an analytics team of about 10 people. It’s impossible to nail down a firm figure because so many front office staff are digging deep into data. Not all write code, but they’re using data in a variety of ways to inform decisions.

 

Every team is running this race, bidding to close the gap with the Houston Astros, who started the trend around 2012. No doubt their undisputed leadership in the player-development revolution will be remembered less than another of their innovations – the one that created a cheating scandal.

 

New passports to pro ball

 

Meet three of the Blue Jays’ new hires:

 

Vancouver manager Brent Lavallee, 33. He’s coming home. Lavallee grew up in North Delta, B.C., went to Louisiana to play college ball and stayed to coach at his alma mater. He has a master’s degree in kinesiology. And when it comes to Blast Motion hitting technology, he can recite chapter and verse.

Lansing pitching coach Phil Cundari, 56. Cundari played college ball with Craig Biggio at Seton Hall and pitched in the minors. He earned a master’s degree in psychiatric social work, then spent a decade in private practice as a sports psychotherapist. That led to a 19-year stint as a college coach. Cundari sent 28 of his pupils to the pros.

Dunedin hitting coach Matt Hague, 34. Hague earned a sociology degree and enjoyed a 10-year career as a steady minor-league hitter. After three cups of coffee in the big leagues, he thought he’d retired to spend time with his family when the Blue Jays came calling. They liked the way he connected with hitters and embraced swing data. Now Hague is the only coach in their system with the title “swing consultant.”

“We’re constantly attempting to diversify the skillset of our staff,” Kim said. “The more diverse a staff we have, we feel the more we can connect with players of different backgrounds, talents, skillsets and different forms of learning.

 

 

As a college coach, Phil Cundari sent 28 pitchers to the pros. (Seton Hall Athletics)

“We have branched out to hire coaches who have never coached before, who have never played professional baseball, which is a departure probably from what we had done in the past,” added Kim. “Our mindset has shifted, recognizing that there’s talented and skilled teachers anywhere and everywhere.”

 

Take the Lansing staff, for example. Manager Luis Hurtado, 31, is a former minor-league catcher from Venezuela who has managed for three seasons in the low minors. Hitting coach Ryan Wright, 27, brings four years of college coaching and a master’s degree to his first pro job. Cundari, 56, spent almost two decades as a college pitching coach at Seton Hall and Rutgers, along with 30 years’ coaching athletes in mental-performance techniques.

 

Based on his interview process and his short time in camp this spring, Cundari has been impressed with the way the Blue Jays encourage collegiality throughout the system. Coaches don’t operate in silos, instead serving as resources for each other.

 

“Every coach I’ve met so far has been reiterating exactly those things, for everyone to utilize each other’s strengths, and collaborate, and learn from each other, and get better,” he said.

 

Chasing college coaches

 

The competition is keen for good college coaches. Sometimes they’re courted by other colleges and major-league clubs at the same time.

 

“It’s definitely challenging because these days there are a lot of organizations fishing in the same pool,” Kim said.

 

Lavallee, the new Vancouver manager, had his pick of big-league offers during the offseason after nine seasons as a coach at LSU Shreveport.

 

“I was kind of lucky,” he said. “I was in a bit of a driver’s-seat position, in choosing whether I wanted to leave, and if I did, which organization I was going to join. And Toronto just by far – the professionalism, the sense of family, the culture they have built and will continue to build – they just made it feel so easy to be at home with them.”

 

He described his interview process as intense but energizing. Within four days after Kim reached out, Lavallee had either communicated by phone, text, email or online chat with 15 Jays’ officials. He loved the vibe. When he met those people and others in Dunedin and saw the new development complex under construction, he was hooked.

 

For years, Cundari turned down offers to coach in the pro ranks. He didn’t want to move until his son and daughter finished high school. When the time came, the Jays won him over quickly too, he said.

 

Hague came to his job in a different way – closer to the traditional way, in fact. As a late-season call-up from Buffalo in 2015, he shared in the excitement of the Jays’ playoff run. He retired three years later with a career minor-league slash line of .298/.374/.427. Then he went home to Covington, La., looking forward to spending time with his wife and infant daughter.

 

But then came a call from Ryan Mittleman, the Jays’ director of pro scouting, whom he’d come to know during his playing days. Mittleman offered a part-time job visiting affiliates to work with hitters. Give it a try and see how you like it, Mittleman said.

 

“The most important thing about Matty was how well he connected with people,” Kim said. “Matt’s somebody who’s experienced pro ball as a player, who’s experienced the big leagues, who’s experienced playing in a different country (Japan) and who’s extremely curious about the swing and hitting development.

 

“When he would go through the affiliates, his humility and his ability to have conversations with just about anybody really stood out. He was able to help some hitters last year, and we felt like it was a really cool opportunity for him to have a role where somebody was diving into the technical parts of the swing.”

 

So now, besides landing his first full-time coaching job, he’s the Jays’ first designated “swing consultant.”

 

As a player, Hague’s interest in the data/tech revolution came slowly. His own swing probably had something to do with that. He had an upright stance, held his hands high, bobbed his bat over his head and didn’t use much of his lower body in his swing.

 

 

 

 

 

“Honestly, I wasn’t very athletic,” he said. “I had some weird stuff going on. And I had to do weird stuff with my swing to make it work.”

 

At the same time, he said, “I had to be very cognizant of what was going on with my swing,” which late in his career helped him realize how analytics might help even the weirdest of swings.

 

His natural curiosity led him to dig deeper.

 

“The more you dug into it, the more you realize how much more you need to learn, so that sparks a curiosity to try to figure out what makes guys good,” he said.

 

His tour last summer – he mentions working with Lansing prospects Griffin Conine and Gabriel Moreno, who may join him in Dunedin this year – showed the Jays that he has a knack for translating technical information to players in a relatable way.

 

“Sometimes when a player hears some of that stuff, it sparks a change within themselves,” Hague said. “At the end of the day, after you give a player information, they want to change. They want to better themselves. And sometimes that change doesn’t happen until it has to.”

 

Asked to identify the key attributes he looks for in a coach, Kim replied: “Open-mindedness and high standards.”

 

“I think when staff members have a curiosity and the thirst to explore new things and learn about different methods, and continue to grow and improve their skills, that paves the way for them to get better as coaches,” he said.

 

The development coach

 

The Astros invented the position of development coach in the spring of 2015. Four years later, Jake McGuiggan showed the Blue Jays how that role could work for them.

 

Put simply, the development coach’s job is to compile individualized data and help each player use it to get better. It’s a hybrid role. The development coach wears a uniform, pitches batting practice and assists the staff with other duties when he’s not crushing and translating data.

 

A Harvard grad and former indy-ball infielder, McGuiggan interned with the Jays as a video assistant in 2018. Last year they hired him as an analyst coach in the minors. He was so good at it that he helped create a template for the first group of development coaches the Jays have hired for the coming season.

 

McGuiggan, 28, is one of two development coaches assigned to Triple-A Buffalo. The other is David Howell, who was an assistant coach under Lavallee at LSU Shreveport. Last year they published a study on the impact of Blast Motion hitting technology in their program.

 

McGuiggan was a pioneer of sorts for the Jays last season.

 

“Jake was someone who didn’t have coaching experience before, but he had a passion for leveraging the data and the tech,” Kim said. “He had a knowledge base that was strong and most importantly, he showed the interpersonal skills to be able to connect well with different staff and different players. That’s a role that we identified as high-impact, so we’ve implemented that at each full-season level.”

 

Sheehan, the Jays’ assistant GM, says the development coach’s role is evolving. As in McGuiggan’s trial run last year, experience will show what’s possible.

 

“It’s helping to add another layer of support to convey information to players and coaches, interpreting TrackMan and Rapsodo data, interpreting video, interpreting swing-censor data or whatever we happen to be looking at on a particular player,” Sheehan said. “It’s another baseball coach in our eyes. They just come from different places sometimes.”

 

Besides the Blue Jays, only the Cubs, Royals and Astros have development coaches assigned to their farm clubs. Houston has just one, at its Triple-A affiliate.

 

‘Ideas come from everywhere’

 

Entering the 2016 season, the first under Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins, the Blue Jays’ farm system sat 24th in Baseball America’s annual rankings. That had a lot to do with the prospects traded away in a flurry to bolster the team for the 2015 playoff run.

 

Entering 2020, the Jays rank sixth, even after graduating Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and Cavan Biggio to the majors last year. The front-office types say they’re never satisfied, but in general, they’re pleased with the state of the system.

 

At the same time, they continue to expand and experiment. One example: Instead of having a single pitching co-ordinator, as in years past, they’re spreading those duties among five different positions this season, with Buschmann doing both operational and research duties.

 

 

Gil Kim. (John Lott / The Athletic)

In his new role, one of Kim’s main tasks will be managing “transitions” – making sure players clearly understand the club’s reasoning and expectations when they’re called up or sent down, and when they move to new positions.

 

“Player transitions, player improvement and team performance are three general areas that I’ll be assisting the current staff with right now,” he said. “But it very much will be a role that will evolve through spring training and through time. I’m really excited to work with our big-league staff. There’s a lot of curious minds and intelligent baseball people here.”

 

The Jays may eventually appoint someone else to oversee player development. Meanwhile, Kim will cede some of the micro-management duties to assistant director Joe Sclafani and others.

 

Ask Kim to talk about his work and he always talks about everybody else’s, mainly in the collective sense. Everyone feels confident sharing ideas that help keep the Blue Jays in the vanguard of change, with the goal of winning a World Series, he said.

 

“With each year that goes by, I always wonder, ‘What else am I missing?’ because the advances and developments have come so quickly,” Kim said. “It’s been challenging, and it’s been really fun and exciting for myself and our group to continue to stay ahead of the game.”

 

At the same time, the exponential growth of data can make it tempting to lean too far in that direction when setting priorities for making prospects better. Sheehan warns against going down that path.

 

“It’s important not to lose sight of the mosaic that is needed for players to be successful and going too far to one extreme,” he said. “There’s so much more info and technology and data and the apparatus that feeds that, but good ideas don’t only come from new hires from the outside. A lot of the good ideas we’ve had come from people internally, people that are here and seeing this and growing with it. We have to make sure we’re not re-inventing the wheel every three years.”

[Grant77]

Let's see him donate all the money he made in arbitration (because of his inflated save stats, because his team had a lead so often, because his team was stealing signs).

 

Oh, that's right, he had no idea cheating was happening... give me a f***ing break!

 

All I said is that is was plausible for a player in the bullpen to not hear the bangs. Even Fiers was unaware of the cheating for a long time. It wasn't openly shared with all of the players.

 

No other players are willing to take the step of relinquishing their ring, so I commend him for that.

[King]

All I said is that is was plausible for a player in the bullpen to not hear the bangs. Even Fiers was unaware of the cheating for a long time. It wasn't openly shared with all of the players.

 

No other players are willing to take the step of relinquishing their ring, so I commend him for that.

 

You know who is sitting in the dugout between the innings late in games, right?

 

There's not a single f***ing chance any player on that team didn't know what was going on.

 

Get a clue!