John_Havok

This is why I am actively rooting against Arizona, just to hopefully avoid the constant avalanche of uninformed ignorant whining about Moreno

Gravity is a bitch

Vlads value on plays where he had to come on, go to his right, go to his left, and go back. 2021- 0,0,-1,-2 2022- -1,-3,+1,0 2023- -2,-9,-2,0 He s*** the bed on balls hit to his non-glove side. Everything else was right around his norm of previous seasons.

I'd rather see him eating at any of those places over grandma's table.

Vlad would have inside outed that to Rf for a single, and Buck would have praised his oppo approach.

That’s encouraging

Who knows for sure? Could just be orchestrated chatter from his camp designed to create a sense of more competition than there really is. That said, there are 0 teams in MLB that wouldn’t benefit from an Ohtani signing. Except the Angels.

Gotta love opinion pieces.

AA wasn’t coming back no matter who they hired imo, unless the guy they hired was Friedman, who wasn’t available.

Wtf lol

7-0 DBacks now, Kershaws replacement just gave up an absolute nuke to Carroll in the top of the 2nd. 421 feet

What a different bottom of the 1st for The Dodgers vs the DBacks. DBacks all the hard hit balls fell in, Dodgers 3 bullets off bats, only 1 hit.

Both the letter grade and the + is very generous.

Well, if you recall the year prior to 2015, there were all kinds of rumours that seemed to have validity that Rogers was courting replacements for Beeston (specifically Dan Duquette, then GM of the Orioles and Kenny Williams, then GM of the White Sox) for when his contract ran out at the end of 2014 and that did not go over well with either Beeston or AA. The scuttlebutt at the time was that the 1 year extension that Beeston signed was done almost begrudgingly and AA decided right then he wasn’t going to extend past 2015 when his deal expired. Before 2015 even started though it was announced that Beeston would be retiring at the end of 2015. Shapiro offered AA an extension, AA turned it down. AAs quotes on why he left: “For myself, my next expedition in baseball, my number one priority will be who can I learn from. Where could I go and just be exposed to some things that I haven’t and just improve and come out a lot better whether it’s two years or three years from now.” “Two, key people you want to work with that you respect that you get along with certainly would be important.” “The third part, role and things like that, I wouldn’t really concern myself with that. Dollars, role; that would really be last on the list.” “It would just be where can I get better, where can I learn, where can I have some fun … and the rest will just take care of itself.” I suppose depending on the lens, those quotes could be used to support either explanation, but it was clear AA no longer wanted to be in Toronto once Beeston was gone.

Moreno just obliterated Kersahw for a 3 run HR for a 5-0 lead in the top of the first, Kershaw hasn’t even got an out yet. Everything being hit hard.

I don’t see it that way, and one must keep n mind Atkins said plenty of other things relating to this topic that are only being reported partially. He did mention the org philosophy a couple of times. But the clickbait headlines that work best are “Atkins blames Schneider” because that gets clicks and will fit with people’s pre-determined dislike of Atkins. Atkins said it was Schneider’s decision, Schneider said it was his own decision. I see no reason to think either of them are lying based on what they said and short of sifting through hundreds of pages of detailed meeting reports (if those are even kept) between Schneider and his staff and Schneider and Atkins, taking it at face value is the only logical course of action. I’ve been studying up recently on body language and the language of lying, and it’s quite interesting when you ask someone questions and they give direct answers vs someone who deflects and declines to answer questions directly. Both Schneider and Atkins answered questions with direct answers and clear wording, nothing that would indicate either of them is not telling the truth. People in general though, I’ll always read not what they hear based on their own pre-determined opinions of the person. A quick and simple example of clear answers vs deflecting answers that may seem pretty close to the same. Question is put to someone about whether they cheated on their spouse. 1 says “No, I never cheated.” The other says “I absolutely deny those allegations.” Person #2 is far more likely to be lying. Person #1 issued a direct denial while person 2 did not. It seems like they are saying no they didn’t cheat, that’s not what they said, they are denying allegations, not the act of cheating. It’s not a perfect science of course and there’s always exceptions, and anyone who has an agent or publicist will be coached on these kinds of things before they put out a statement, but when you’re on a press conference and it’s just you answering questions on the spot, your brain doesn’t work fast enough to know the difference.

Side question though, when you gave direction to the Mexico guy, did you tell him point by point and task be task exactly what he had to do? Or just give him a directive and it was up to him to make decisions locally that fit the directive and then report why he made the decisions he made? and then he just f***ed up the decisions, didn’t get the results and blamed someone else?

Yeah for sure, but in this scenario, not everything can be true that people are bitching about. It can’t be a dictatorship where Atkins calls all the shots , but it also it can’t be completely hands off either. Chances are it’s exactly what I said in previous comments, Schneider is 100% responsible for his decisions in game, is provided all info from the nerd they think is relevant, and that general framework exists that is meant to help or guide Schneider, even though the ultimate decision on what to do in game is his.

What if they actually do play a passive role. Simply provide info and let Schneider make the decisions. What if the do the above, while at the same time providing a general framework? What’s more likely, the complete hands off approach, the middle approach stated above, or the complete dictatorship approach many seem to think exists?

What do you mean again?

It’s not, he also made other comments about organizational strategy that had been communicated to the players. Scenario 1 - Atkins comes out and says “yes I did it. I made the call, I made him do it” does that change anything even if not true? Not really. Then people would just be bitching about him and just hiring puppets and stuff. Scenario 2 - Atkins says exactly what he said, it was Schneiders call all the way, he doesn’t interfere beyond laying out a framework philosophy. In game decisions are Schneiders. Then people bitch that Atkins must be lying to try to save face. People just like bitching. Chances are Atkins told 100% truth. The only thing I would say to Atkins about his comments is that while he needs to make clear that Schneider makes the in game decisions, the club has a philosophy that Atkins put forth and that philosophy could definitely be a factor in Schneiders decision making process in that game, even though all decisions are still up to Schneider. After that, Schneider will have meeting with Atkins, Atkins will ask him why he made the call and his reasoning, and if the reasoning makes sense within the framework Atkins laid out, and Schneiders owns the decision (which he should) the only decision is whether you fire Schneider. Clearly that’s not the decision here as he’s already confirmed to be returning. Now, Atkins will have to have the same type of meeting with Shapiro and defend his org philosophy which resulted in what we saw play out, and what he will do to address the problems. And there’s really only two ways to go with that, either Atkins doubles down and says he fully believes in what he’s doing and here’s why he thinks the results will be different, or he adjusts and says yeah, it’s not working, that’s on me, here’s my new plan. Shapiro then ultimately decides whether or not to keep him and let him work on the new plan, or fire him and bring in someone else. None of this is really a newsflash to anyone remotely familiar with how large corporations are run so it’s weird that everyone sees this as Atkins “blaming” Schneider or throwing him under the bus.

That’s not really what he did, it’s a weird interpretation of what Atkins said. The entire quote from Atkins seems to be getting lost in all the fans’ whining

This is definitely one of those times where the actual words being said are technically true, but a s*** load of context and other factors are not being expressed. Example of course saying he was "surprised" by the Berrios pull and found out at the same time as fans. That's probably technically true as I'm sure Atkins himself didn't call up Schneider and tell him he had to do X. But he definitely created and implemented a system whereby Schneider felt that pulling him is what the system in place would call for in a do or die game.

Pearson is maybe half a point higher than a lottery ticket

To relay it to the bench, and have the bench relay to the catcher then to the pitcher through pitch comm in well under 20 seconds is pretty cool