Dick_Pole

AA>JPR. And that's not in defense of AA. JPR was just good enough at putting an on-field product that could win a few more games than it should have given the payroll, because he was good at getting players who were better than scrubs for scrub-like contracts. AA is horrible at that and horrible at roster management which is the only thing that people can look upon with fondness with JPR...at least he got the basics right. But in all those years with JPR and his s***** drafting/player development team, the Jays were never, ever going to make the playoffs. JPR could GM this team for 20 years and the Jays would have 20 75-85 win teams and forever be in the abyss because it was completely bereft of any young talent worth a damn. The only way they were going to win was to spend the team's way up and that wasn't an option at the time. JP's legacy is Adam Lind, Aaron Hill, Shaun Marcum and Ricky Romero....not exactly the base you can build a championship on. JPA too though those benefits weren't reaped until after he was gone so AA can take some of the heat for letting that player go to hell everywhere except in his own mind. Going into 2015 I haven't been this optimistic about the starting pitching depth on this squad since the late 90's when the Jays had Cy Young award winners at the top of the rotation and the prospect of Halladay/Escobar/Carpenter coming up to take the bottom half. JPR's guys had some promise too except in any given year two of them would be out for the season with TJS. AA has some incredible weaknesses and holes to fill, but the irony with that is that those holes should be relatively easy to fix. JPR ran a team out there featuring Halladay and 24 ok baseball players. And he got ok results. But to build a champion he was going to need to rebuild the entire roster. AA's top end of the roster is filled with players you can build a championship team around. The problem is the bottom half of the roster is filled with horseshit. If he can get off his lazy fat ass and replace the horseshit with decent players, the Jays actually have a pretty decent chance to win. The problem is he is either too lazy, or in denial of what needs to be done.

If Jimenez catches Dickey, good chance his numbers will improve and maybe he will see the light.

But Kratz was worth $75M excess value over 5 years. So why isn't the guy who has a similar skill set (good glove, no bat) but 10 years younger not capable of the same potential? That is a serious question, not meant to come off as mocking the $75M figure. The options you provide sound good, except that involves AA doing hard work to make happen and/or having expanded payroll. Neither of which I think are likely options. Jimenez is the type of easy solution AA could look towards to improve the defensive game behind the plate. Assuming he is even looking to improve such a thing.

The internet says so, though most of the argument is that he's a good defender and that equates to him being a good framer. I haven't seen nearly enough Jays MiLB games to make a good personal judgement.

Well...you've seen him recently...doesn't exactly look like a man who has come from a relaxing vacation.

Could be a pair of kidney stones or tumours at his rate :/

I'm afraid you may be right, with my big worry being my statement of "AA growing a pair" not being something that's feasible.

He's supposedly a great defender and pitch framer. I don't support the ridiculously high theoretical value for pitch framing thrown around here, but if he can provide high excess value for his defensive skill for league min then he needs to be given a serious look. Just hope he can stay healthy. He's one of those easy and cheap options to add wins that people are always talking about. All it would take is for AA to grow a pair and to give him a fair look over Navarro and Thole next season. I could care less if his OPS is .600 next year if he can show a strong defensive presence and good game calling behind the plate.

So it was just a coincidence. Never mind then.

I interpreted that as a remark about GeorgiaPeach and his ISIS statement preceding that post. It could have just been a coincidence though.

I think he very much realizes that. But he tries to overcome his weaknesses (adding veteran impact FA) by giving up part of his strengths (pretty good drafting/development track record, at least compared to the previous dolt). He's not stupid when he made those deals, he was half-assing his job trying to build a winner and paid for it with two mediocre seasons.

Don't get me started with the negative Jewish stereotypes when I'm already talking stock market talk....

This is the sentiment that is shared by so many that makes Rogers' life difficult. Consumers think it's expensive, but Rogers is still not making money. Rogers couldn't possibly re-rate their base to compete with cheaper providers. The loss in revenue would be destructive and no way could they make that up with increased # of customers. I know people will say "yeah but they make billions a year already". That's not the point. In the stock market world you could make a trillion dollars. But unless you're making a trillion dollars plus three percent for every year until infinity, no one will want to invest in your stock, until the vultures like Cerberus come and buy up your "distressed" business for pennies on the dollar. The only reason Rogers hasn't tanked even more than it has is its good dividend yield. But if the company's EPS keeps tanking, that dividend won't be sustainable.

Pythagorean shows that the Jays should have been 91-71 in 1992 and 1993. So in 1992 they overperformed and beat Milwaukee and in 1993 they won because they were in a weak division. ...or we could just say that the 1992 and 1993 Jays teams played well and deserved to be in the playoffs and win those World Series, and the 2012 O's played well and deserved to be in the playoffs too. The Jeter knob-sucking was the added icing on the cake to this post.

Yes. One thing I hope people don't do is look at the Media division in isolation. Rogers is struggling with revenue growth. People are being fired across the board. Costs are being cut across all divisions in desperation. Whether the Media division is dropping in profitability or up 100% from last year is not going to change the company outlook as a whole. What's most dire about all this is the incredible amount of heat Rogers gets from people who think they are being ripped off on their cell phone plan or cable service already. The only way Rogers is going to get out of this mess is if they find a way to rip people off even more because their customer base is flat so revenue growth can only come on a per customer basis. A friend of mine recently had his internet bill increased by $3/month and he screamed bloody murder to another friend of ours who works at Rogers. Meanwhile that guy is use to seeing people he knows get pink slips every 6 months for the past two years. He's one of the few competent enough to actually not get canned at Rogers yet and he's trying to jet to my company now. Believe me, Rogers is in an absolute mess. Baseball player salaries and the image of the Jays are the last thing they care about right now. Teddy croaked at the right time so his image as a skilled and respected businessman will remain intact while the nameless suits who are following him will take the heat for leading Rogers down the toilet.

Look at their earnings right on the first page of this pdf: http://www.rogers.com/cms/investors/pdf/quarterly-results/2014-Q2_Results-Release.pdf No revenue growth Net income, EPS, free cash flow are all tanking Analysts are s***ing all over their stock, and in my opinion aren't s***ing on them enough Stock price is near a 52-week low when everything nearly else on the stock market is within 10% of the 52-week high. With new management and these s***** results, they have no money to spend on baseball players. People can yap about $600M for NHL until they turn blue, but that type of stuff is accounted for differently, expensed over many years and presumably is tied to a revenue number which will result in positive income on the deal. Saying stuff like "the Jays should deal Buehrle or Happ or Reyes or whoever and use the money elsewhere" is dumb too. I am very sure if they dump a guy like Buehrle, the $19M is not going to be spent elsewhere and Rogers is just going to bank it and they Jays will just be out a quality starter next year. EDIT: Just to clarify my position. If AA can trade a SP and fill another more pressing hole in the lineup, by all means do it. But Buehrle being salary dumped probably means Rogers ordered a payroll decrease and that money won't be spent. So do not hope for Buehrle to be dumped.

I am fine with the rotation as is. The only thing I'm fine with on this team as is really. The priorities on this team should be: 1. Getting a quality MIF 2. Shoring up Melky/setting the OF (I'm ok with Gose in CF and Pillar/Mayberry backup) 3. Upgrade to catcher 4. Another good MIF backup/lower end starter who can cover for the inevitable injuries 5. Bullpen But based on what I have heard from this thread it looks like the order in AA's eyes is something like: 1. Bullpen 2. Maybe a MIF 3. QO Melky and hope he accepts 4. SP 5. I dunno.

The division combined to be 12 games over .500 this season. Hardly qualifies as weak imo. Whether the 96 win team is Baltimore and the 71 win team is Boston or the other way around it doesn't really matter to the context of the Jays making it.

And that Pedro did the same a couple years after him. Kevin Brown did too.

And he has a great choice in pitching coach influences! A lot of pitchers nowadays could use this advice: Greg Maddux credits Pole as a major influence, and a significant contributor to his success. In a 2005 interview, he said, "I remember when Dick Pole told me one day, ‘Why don’t you stop trying to strike guys out? Just try to get them out, and you’ll probably strike out just as many guys, if not more. He was right. I’ve always tried with two strikes just to make a pitch and get the guy out. You get a lot of strikeouts just on accident.

And keeping the vet in there who is pitching well at a reasonable pitch count is not exactly tossing the game away. Anyways, he didn't pull a David Wells or anything out there when being pulled so I don't think he cared so much so I guess I shouldn't either.

I love a good old fashioned pitch framing battle. I won't ever go to war for my country but I'll battle to the death over this ludicrous idea that a bunch of non-MLB talent catchers are worth MVP-talent level money because of pitch framing. 1. These bums aren't ever going to get enough playing time to capitalize on this theoretical value. 2. Teams can coach their catchers who can actually do well in other aspects of baseball to work on pitch framing as well. 3. If there are 50 MiLB catchers who can provide $75M in excess value, then teams will pick any number of them for league minimum failing #2. It may be a skill which means a lot to winning, but it isn't a rare skill which will be bid up like elite hitting. 4. The value of pitch framing has an expiry date should MLB decide to take strike subjectivity out of the umps hands.

If they can make space suits that are good enough for people to do complex mechanical tasks while in orbit, they can make baseball jerseys that can find ways around your issues.

Last game he's pitching all season, and even so a very reasonable pitch count. The game means absolutely nothing to the Jays even if somehow he blew it. And they couldn't let the guy finish the 9th to go for the shutout. f***, I miss old-school baseball.

Tell that to the front office. ...and to the people who think top priority is starting pitching. Ideally yes, it would have been nice to get an Ervin Santana type, but in the end that wouldn't have made a huge difference. The infield is where the top focus needs to be, along with resigning Melky or acquiring an equivalent. I look forward to the front office bumbling this again as it puts a World Series contender together with the first half of the roster and a pile of s*** the rest of the way.