Dick_Pole

Let's hope he was rushing to Dunedin for an extended spring training...

Funny, because if that was an argument for Sanchez turning into a top tier starter, there'd be 14 pages worth of posts saying the opposite. I admire Olerud's steadfastness in defending his side of the argument.

It's incredible the amount of debate Sanchez produces even when he hasn't pitched in weeks, in a thread dedicated to someone else no less. I guess the whole debate is around how Sanchez can be given so much rope while Boyd was immediately kicked to the curb. Like it or not, intangibles that go beyond just pure stats are part of the game. Boyd necessitated a move to bring up pitching depth because of his 0 IP performance. So he had to go to bring someone else in. Had Sanchez walked the first 10 guys in a start and created a 9 inning workload for the bullpen, I'm sure he'd have been shipped out too in order to make room for a guy who can give the BP a rest while it recovers. People can say what they want about Sanchez, whether its luck or performance, in all starts except his first one he has pitched into the 6th inning or longer. His shortcomings haven't been so glaring that he nor the team haven't overcome them thus far. He should get some credit for keeping himself composed enough that he can generally out of the jams he puts himself into.

You're assuming it would take the Jays a whole 7 games to win. You'll only need two of those tickets since they'll sweep in 4. I suppose you could frame the other two if you get actual tickets and not a bar code to your email address.

I don't understand that comment. If they are cheap and not MLB players the A's get nothing out of it. The best case scenario for the A's is if Lawrie puts up a big season then they trade him. Because if he's good, they likely can't afford him. If he sucks or is constantly injured, they can afford him but won't want him. The team could have waited 2 years before coming to the decision point of having to trade Donaldson. Or gotten more out of the deal. If they saw something out of Graveman and if he turns out to be a good starter for them, more power to them. But using Graveman to justify the Donaldson trade is like AA's comments a while back about Bonafacio being the clincher for the Marlins trade, IIRC. Any number of trade scenarios could have occurred where Graveman could have been in an A's uniform without Donaldson going the other way.

I would consider Lawrie to be "older" in that he has less years of control and more wear and tear on his body. Donaldson at some point may decline. But we are talking about one MLB salary and roster spot versus three MLB salaries and roster spots with a fourth one coming if the A's are lucky.

We should disallow Deadpool and o2cui2i from making too much uninterrupted back and forth chatter so people don't get aneurysms scrolling down on these boards. At least until one of them changes their display pic.

All this whining and bitching about players playing one extra game in 3+ days and maybe some televised batting practice like they'll be joining Warsaw concentration camps in 1940 during this time. Does anyone actually have stats showing that players show signs of fatigue or declination of production two weeks immediately following the game? Oh no, they have to travel on a luxury chartered jet to the location of the game...this is going to be a hell of tasking experience for these guys. People may laugh at the ASG, but it has always been for the casual fans and kids...and believe it or not, they are paying fans just like anyone here who aspires to be the next Billy Beane. I won't be watching it but i'm fine with those who do enjoy it. The only real point of discontent is with it deciding home field advantage in the World Series...another f***ing Selig legacy for you...Manfred has been showing signs of not being a complete incompetent at his job. Maybe he'll remove this stipulation in time for next year's game.

This is making up for 3 years of inept roster management for spots 20-25 by AA mixed in with bad luck. Now it's inept roster management for spots 20-25 by AA mixed in with good luck to offset the misery of 73-89. Let's not kill the good luck karma with comments like this. Colabello is a one tool player with luck on his side right now. I hope to be wrong and he bring something to this team for the rest of 2015 and maybe beyond, but right now I'd put my money on Smoak lasting longer on this MLB squad than him. Juan Francisco is a pretty good comp as someone mentioned already.

So would every fan...the important thing is if Rogers feels the same.

What? If AA ever traded Stroman for a rental player he should be immediately tarred and feathered, blindfolded and tied to the back of a train headed for Ellesmere Island. The only conceivable way that Stroman gets traded without AA being sent away is for an equivalent young talent with 3+ years of control coming back the other way imo. I just don't understand your line of thinking. You're dead set on Sanchez improving with marginal evidence, which is fair you're entitled to your opinion. But if you think Sanchez should improve from a guy with an unsustainable K:BB ratio to, say, a decent #3 starter, then you should also be in favour of Stroman improving from a #2 pitcher that he has exhibited so far to the next Pedro Martinez and claim he is absolutely untouchable. Because it is just as likely Stroman will improve from his current performance level as it is Sanchez will improve from his.

I didn't particularly like the trade, but I liked what it represented - Rogers finally opening the purse strings so the team could compete. Of course my opinion was heavily influenced by two things: 1. 7 years of Ricciardi bickering: "WAAH WAHH WAHH we can't compete with the Yankees and Red Sox because of their big payrolls WAHH WAH". 2. I liked the trade because I assumed that this was the first step in Rogers going towards the $200M payroll area. The goal was an expensive, inefficient playoff team, but a playoff team nonetheless. The problem then became that the Jays appear to have some imaginary hard stop at an amount much lower than that which in retrospect makes the trade look really stupid. If we were told in December 2012 that the payroll was going to be $120M US and not a penny more, that 3% who didn't like it would likely have ballooned to 97%, myself included.

Well if it's an NL pitcher for Edwin, a hitter who really doesn't belong on the field. Both teams lose equally!!! But really, that's what all these "advanced" stats are for....swinging strike rates, velocity, GB%...a good GM should be able to find the guy whose skills transfer well from NL to AL.

Even if Lawrie becomes outstandingly good next year, his pay day is coming soon....sooner than Donaldson's Really the only way the A's could ever win this trade is if Lawrie pulls off something like 8 WAR next year then they trade him. Even if Barreto really progresses well and becomes a stud prospect, well there's nothing stopping the Jays from trading Donaldson for a stud prospect and two back-end starter types and sign Lawrie 2-3 years from now.

Next year's FA crop is a good one for pitchers which helps the Jays in two ways - first, the team can sign someone to shore up the depth spot, second, it'll help keep prices reasonable for back end guys like Estrada. There's no reason to jump the gun on extending him now unless we're talking about a really good deal. Chances are if he has a good year here and the team is competitive, the Jays will have the inside track in re-signing him in the off-season if they want to anyways. On the flip side, aggressively "selling high" on Estrada is not a great idea either - as if you'd get a stud prospect back anyways. The team needs quality SP innings and he's giving them that right now. Might as well ride that wave as long as possible before he pitches like a #5 guy again.

Long post, but it doesn't really say anything. I have a feeling you're just overly sensitive right now from a hangover over the debacle from last night. EDIT: oh, and the falafel joke probably had more to do with ignorance on which food comes from where, than willful commentary on AA's love for food of different cultures. Though I didn't see it myself so it's just a guess.

Then make a hot dog joke for a change...or pizza or even poutine based on where he was born. There's absolutely nothing to suggest that he likes Greek food any more than any other food outside of his heritage. f***, I like Greek food as well and I'm not Greek. I prefer Greek food than the food of my various backgrounds, actually.

KingKat and Gorlak have it spot on. If anyone has been following my post history, I'd be the last guy who would be offended at some racially insensitive and/or politically incorrect joke. But this joke has been driven into the ground and is just getting lame. If AA was a black guy, or Chinese, or Latino and traditionally stereotypical foods of those cultures came up ad nauseam, someone would be called out as a racist eventually.

Ha well, when it gets to the point where something is enough for me, I start putting my thinking cap on. Every AA thread has at least one and usually multiple posts about his supposed eating habits and heritage. If it helps to get people to think about what they are saying and phase out the casual acceptance of these dumb troll posts then that's my positive contribution to this board I guess. There's no other way to describe these posts than as racist. Maybe people don't see it that way because he's a white guy...even though historically Greeks, along with Italians, Portuguese and Irish have been seen as "lesser" white people and have had their fair share of racial stereotypes too. If someone has that much of a need to make fun of the man's weight which is completely off-topic to anything baseball-related, at least make reference to him chowing down on some ballpark footlongs...you know...something new and different for a change! Or if someone is going to continue to be a tool with the Greek food comments at least go full throttle on the racial stereotypes...Cito's been getting kind of hefty in his advancing years...lots of opportunities to point out his aforementioned love of fried chicken and watermelon!

Man, I wish AA was a black guy so we could have 4 years of socially acceptable stereotypical posts about his love for fried chicken and watermelon that never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever get old and tired.

Drew Hutchison 6-1...that's all-star game start worthy winning percentage, dude.

Alomar was the cheapest player with the most control of the four. Basically the 1990 version of Josh Donaldson. Even if Encarnacion had to go the other way in that deal, I think the consensus would be that was the right move. Also, Alomar had already averaged close to 4 WAR in three seasons with SD by the age of 22. Chances are things would have worked out. He would have had to unexpectedly regress coming up to an age where his contemporaries are just making their MLB debuts.

But they've also climbed over 5 teams in the wild card in the process. So at least there's that. f***, the entire AL is kicking the s*** out of the NL in interleague games the last few weeks. Every division in the AL combines to be over .500 with the "weak" AL East leading the way at +12 now.

Whoa...WTF did I miss here...this is what I get for trying to enjoy a beautiful summer evening outdoors I guess. Did he actually get banned or did he asked to get removed? The smart thing to do would have been the latter, given that he's exposed enough personal information on this board to get identified for real so if I was in his spot I would quit while I was down and just leave. I'm guessing with the detective dipshit comment that Twisted Logic did some more digging which was since deleted. Now as far as not being liked, don't worry dude you're alright in my books. The enemies of your enemies are your friends. You just whine way too much...give way too much time to these two slobs as if they deserve to be treated like normal human beings. Just treat them as the sub-humans that they are and don't give them so much of your time. One guy is gone and Boxcar's just a dumber version of him. I mean that guy's whole purpose in life is to send money transfers over to BTS, nox, spittin, etc every October as he loses yet another fantasy pool. Who really cares what he thinks.

Well now we all can't be like Coppy, who gives away anything about his life except his zip code, bank PIN number and list of phobias so readily online to try to look like a big shot. But the day is still young. If you also want to use this site as a diary for all of us to read so we can be a little more informed go ahead!