Olerud363

Sorry for being so bothersome, but we don't get access to guys like Jake all the time. Now my question. I know they announce the number on the FAN but is there a secret alternative number to call to get into Jays Talk with Mike Wilner faster?? I call all the time but Mike never takes my call. It seems like guys like Jake get on nightly. So what number are they calling??

Jake does not seem so bad. Navaro had more rbis then Martin last year... and now that the umps have caught on to the pitch framing I am not sure if Martin has that advantage. I have a question for Jake. We all know that Travis cannot hit leadoff because the pitchers throw him junk outside when he hits leadoff. We all know that when Reyes returns the pitchers will no longer have that option because of the combined effect of Reyes on base and the big bats behind. So when (hopefully) soon Reyes comes back Travis will once again be given fastballs right down the middle and hit .400 again. So my question for Jake.. will Travis really deserve ROY under these circumstances?? How can you give a guy ROY when most his success is due to the combined protection of Reyes and Donaldson. Is there an advanced stat to adjust performance to account for protection?? Or maybe this is allready built in to WAR??

I have read on this message board that Travis can't hit lead off. The pitchers experiment with the Junk Balls when he hits lead off. However when Reyes comes back and Travis moves to second in the order the pitchers will give him fastballs again because of their combined fear of Reyes and the big 3/4/5 That is what I read on this message board.

Weren't you already called out once today for Homophobic slurs?? This is hilarious. You really are bordering on hate speech.

Wow! That's pretty strong stuff. Your saying I can't even return to my Native country because you don't like me. You are kicking a citizen out of his own country. That is pretty hateful. If anything borders on hate speech, it is telling me I cannot return to my home and native land because of your hate for me.

Yeah.. Gruber92. WTF is up with that?? I know they won the World Series that year... but Gruber88, Gruber89 and Gruber90 all would make sense. Maybe Gruber92 was born in 92?? Why would he even know much about Gruber?? I'd guess you'd have to be atleast 10 in '88 to like Gruber. After 1990 Gruber was actually the only guy Casuals new... but by 92 Gruber was injured, awful and apparently water skiing while on the disabled list.

This is kind of funny. Gruber doesn't understand that freedom of speech means that you can say whatever the hell you want. You are right, U.S. I believe has even greater freedom of speech. But in Canada you mostly can't diss a religion or race... I think. But you can diss individuals all you want. Gruber is an idiot. An idiot. He loves Goins. Goins sucks. Goins is awful. Gruber is stupid for his belief in Goins. I mean that is totally legit in Canada right?? I am a Canadian Citizen living in the states... if in Canada you can not say Gruber is an idiot for his belief in Goins... then I am glad I am here.

Travis hitting lead off -- Pitcher - I assume that this Travis is hitting lead off and some runty 2 hitter is behind him. I have discovered Travis' weakness. It is the curveball outside and a bit low. This is a good pitch to give Travis because he does not recognize it and may strike out. Travis will only hit .200 against me if I use this intelligent pitching strategy. a couple of weeks later... healthy Reyes of the DL Reyes (healthy) - Hard double to the corner Travis comes up Pitcher - Oh dear, Reyes on second allready. And the mighty 3rd and 4th hitters are on deck, strong lads I presume. It is unfortunate but I can longer throw Travis the curve. I must give him the fastball down the middle. This will make him a .400 hitter but I must do it... It is the only choice.

This is the dumbest thing ever... this is just ridiculous you are not the first to make this type of argument, but it IS the dumbest argument of all time. In comparison "Goins is going to have 4 WAR" would be an amazing argument. There exists a pitching strategy that makes Travis a .400 hitter. There exists another pitching strategy that makes Travis a .200 hitter. If those statements are both true pitchers will always use the strategy that makes Travis a .200 hitter. It does not make a godamn difference where you hit. Pitchers will always use the strategy that is most effective against Travis. Pitcher -- oh dear Bautista is on deck. I will give Fastballs to Travis. This will make him a .400 hitter. But that is OK. I just do not want Travis to become a baserunner for Bautista... Guess what, if Travis hits .400 he is going to become a baserunner for Bautista anyway. By far, bar none the stupidest argument that ever appears on this board.

There was an old guy kind of like your dad... can't remember his name... he died 10 or more years ago, but in 92 he wrote a book about the Jays. Sounded a good guy but he went on and on about how awful Olerud was and how amazing Joe Carter was... and Sprague... then Olerud hit .360... then he didn't because Cito hated him... OK -- I looked it up and it was Larry Grossman -- Sadly he wasn't that old and died fairly young in 97 -- but I remember he went on and on about the Jays like your Dad.

The people said without Stroman the Toronto Blue Jays are a .500 team because the rotation is full of wild kids and old s***-ballers. The stats the same. The results so far say the same. Hutch will not have a 7.7 era, Travis will not hit 50 homers (though it will be awesome if he keeps the average above .300). Stats say - exactly what has happened so far. Stats are good. Stats did not say - Dickey will go 28-0 and the Jays will win 117 games. So why are stats wrong when they have told what will happen?? Not exactly but stats never say exactly what will happen just generally.

Managers are paid to assess the past for future outcomes. There was nothing in EEs past to indicate he shouldn't be hitting clean up. The only cavaet is an injury situation... EE had bad back in spring training... if he IS not healthy enough to hit clean up then he should be on the disabled list and Justin Smoak should be at first. I'm not sure who to blame if EE is not healthy. Probably equal between AA, Training Staff and Gibby.

AA is a soft fat man with good grammar and good hair... he is willing to say yes sir / no sir to suits. He talks mumbo jumbo that is meaningless but sounds good to suits. He knows that suits feed his family so he worships them. They are his gods. Or do you have a better explanation as to why AA has this job??

I am sure AA and Beeston both have perfect grammar. Important - Handshakes, haircuts, grammar Not important - outcomes

Only the jays could have David Cone, Paul Molitor, John Olerud, Devon White, Roberto Alomar, Pat Hentgen, Carlos Delgado, Juan Guzman, Shawn Green, Alex Gonzales, Al Leiter and play .350 ball. All these guys were in the middle of nice runs... For example Molitor would get 200 hits as a Twin in 96... Alomar led the Orioles to good seasons in 96/97, Cone was about to lead Yankees on their run. Olerud set the Mets batting title record in 1998... Hentgen won a Cy Young in 96, Guzman an ERA title in 96... Delgado was ready just not used right, same with Green. Leiter and White won the world series with the Marlins. But in 95 this crew... in the middle of success, glory, championships, and MVP considerations. This crew went 55-90 or something like that. Because it is the Toronto Blue Jays post 93 and whatever can go wrong will. Fire gibby -- it ain't fair but the people need a sacrifice.

Felipe Alou - co-manager Cito Gaston - co-manager Frank Robinson - co-manager Jack McKeon - co-manager They are old so need to rotate. They each take a series then hand off to the next.

Ultimately yes... that is what should happen. Beeston should be allowed to leave doing it his way. Why not. The boys will start pulling the ball more and win some games 12-2 and lose some 2-1 or 8-3. Cito is the man we need. I honestly don't think he could do much damage to this team. He will choose his favourites and give them all a nice role. We will win 82 games using Cito-ball. I don't know. Maybe it is not a good idea. It might be more difficult to give Beeston a graceful retirement if Cito comes back. The optics of Cito re-retiring and disapearing at the same time as Beeston would make it less respectful to them. So in the end I don't think we can have Cito...

This is well said and reasonable. That is why they gave you the position of Captain. I am guessing you are captain in an airline and that you passed all the psychological tests with flying colors. Gibby will be fired because everyone is desperate. The team will turn around because it is not as bad as they are playing. It may not be enough and AA will join Gibby in the unemployment line in early October. Beeston of course will be given a "retirement".

I don't think this is creepy but he is insulting you for sure. Creepy would be - 'You guys have such amazing insights about baseball... we should go swimming sometime at the YMCA. Let's meet up in the locker room at the Etobicoke ymca' Insulting is - 'You guys are losers. You will never have a girlfriend, or have sex, or have kids. You are complete losers and don't have the social skills to have relationships with females'

I don't agree with firing Gibbons... but if it will be done at some time this season it might as well be now. Give the new manager 140 games to work with. It wouldn't be fair to a new manager to start 10 games back. OK -- negotiations -- fire Gibbons -- in return 1. Move Pompey back to center --- Pillar is great but we shouldn't flip the long term centerfielder to left based on a fairly small sample size. 2. Make Osuna (edit!) and (edit!) Castro long relievers -- 2 3 innings a time, semi piggy pack with Sanchez/Norris or as situation dictates. They can still be put in pressure situations. 3. Smoak at first base -- 4. DL Bautista until he is healthy 5. Pillar/Saunders platoon -- this makes sure 3. happens. Pillar as platoon mate late inning replacement is fine. 6. Kawasaki at short until Reyes is healthy -- I don't see any evidence that Goins/Diaz is better then Kawasaki -- Kawasaki has always looked OK at short... got on base a bit. His role is injury replacement ss, and he is OK that role and should be used at that role. Kawasaki = .240 .310 .300 or something -- Goins/Diaz are .210 .250 .260 -- Use Kawasaki please. There is probably more... but those would be my demands. Edit! sorry about typos and misnamings... I am in complete despair. I often make mistakes like that but they are getting worse after 20+ years of complete despair, and so much recent despair from Beeston and friends.

This is terrible. The people positing this anti-gibbons s*** should be ashamed. In our society we're trained to blame the worker bee or middle management while upper management gets off scott-free. The guys dissing Gibbons ironically are probably ordinary joes like Gibbons... I'm sure they are trained at their job to fight with the other joe's to impress their boss... we eat our young, so to say. These petty moves don't make a huge difference over the season. People say "Gibbons made the wrong move here" that's a game, he made the wrong move here "that's another game"... then they mentally ding Gibbons a game for each mistake... and think Gibbons can make a difference of 20 games over a season. It's ********. It doesn't work like that. In the long run the little things even out. The big moves made by upper management decide the season. Gibbons - I'm going to put Aaron Loup in to face Teixairo - it might work, it might not, these things even out. AA - I'm going to make a huge trade and get Reyes - it might work, it might not, but has much more of an effect than the small decisions made by Gibbons. Beeston - I'm going to pressure AA to make a series of moves to get veteran presence... we are raising payroll so we can get vets... we are all in with expensive veteran presence. -- this has a huge effect. Beeston, then AA, then Gibbons are responsible for whatever happens... in that order.

Sorry I missed the joke... Sometimes it is hard to tell. I just check the board quickly these days. A year ago when I was more into posting there was a huge long running argument about Ryan Goins and wether he would get 1 WAR... or maybe it was 2.

What I am trying to say is this. There are two camps the on base percentage camp and the ******** camp. The on base percentage camp believes in on base percentage (for and/or against) no matter how they say it. They might talk pitch framing, well OK the point out of that is keep the other guys off base... they might talk defense (keep the other guys off base)... or contact (hit for high average get on base)... or walks (get on base)... then there's the ******** camp who says that on base percentage differential doesn't matter if you have clutch hitting and Ryan Goins and play the game the right way and get rbis and have veteran presence then you will win. There are still a lot of those guys.

I've been amazed at how many times this flawed argument comes up. For the most part the good A's teams have had really good on base percentages... well just like most good teams. The entire point of getting guys with good platoon splits is to get the team on base percentage up. The entire point of hitting for a good average is getting the team on base percentage up. The entire point of getting good defensive players is to get the other guys team on base percentage down. You have to get on base more than the other guys.... that's the game. Yes there are different ways to achieve that goal... but everything Billy Beane does is about on base percentage and/or the opponents on base percentage.

?? Why would Billy Beane be displeased. The Royals are first in on base percentage. On base percentage is life. Not walks. The best way to get a good on base percentage is with a good team average. Hitting .240 with a tonne of walks and power works. Hitting .300 (as a team) with speed also works. It's hitting .250 without walks that doesn't work, even if you have speed. Not sure if a .300 team average is maintable... maybe .280.