Olerud363

My frustration is with this organization that seems to care only about their preconcieved notions of what a "baseball" player should be and do not care about winning. We have a president who is weirdly obsessed with a track team. The team is set to go with Ryan Goins at second, admittedly good on D, but the total package is not good. Absolutely no creative solutions for this. Then we have the example of the Cardinals. A team with horrible D, but who are great anyway because of creative positional flexibility, good offense, good pitching. More than one way to skin a cat.

If that is accurate it just goes to show you how stupid the Jays front office is and how smart the Cardinals are. Cards were almost last in homeruns, apparently close to last in defense yet scored 783 runs and only gave up 596. If you are a perfect team (which no one ever has been) you win 120. Otherwise it is a task of accepting the lesser imperfection. The cardinals just try to solve the puzzle. It is a puzzle that cannot be solved perfectly but the goal is to maximize runs scored - runs against. Take Matt Carpenter. Never played a game at second in the minors. But the cards configure their talent to optimize wins. Carpenter goes to 2nd. Mediocre (though not horrible) on D. Cards stick with him. He produces 5 or 6 WAR based on O alone and standing his own on D. Jays talk "track team". Decide to move Lawrie to second, then move him off second after a sample size of 10 or less plays, and now are apparently going with Ryan Goins because the drunk scouts (that didn't like Chapman after 1 bullpen session) think Goins looks like a second basemen. Cards - complicated multi parameter formulation designed to solve the ultimate equation - runs scored vs. runs against. Jays - Track Team!!!!

I'll give you one quote "Bonifacio and Rajai Davis on the same team!!!!!" This was said not in a "so in retrospect that's why it went wrong" way but in a "on paper this was a greatest team ever!!!!!!!" context. Also they apparently soured on Chapman after 1 bullpen session. Some other guys are making jokes referencing "trouble with the curve" where an old, senile, drunk scout (Clint Eastwood in full "talking to the empty chair" RNC mode) makes an assessment based on the sound of the ball coming off the bat. I think that sums it up. Decisions are made based on Beeston's view of a good team (Jackrabbits) and the whims of old drunk scouts.

You mean you're going to get him, too? This guy might steal 50 bases for us.' We've got Bonifacio and Rajai Davis on the same team? We've got jackrabbits everywhere.' This is a seriously bad person. A dysfunctional f***er. He obviously thinks that having Bonifacio and Rajai Davis is way better then say... Daniel Nava and Stephen Drew. I mean we heard these same quotes a while back. He's obsessed with this track team idea. You get some speedsters, you get an RBI guy like Joe Carter... then you show Gillick... you show Cito was right about all those arguments back in the 90s. You show them all. f*** Moneyball. f*** Logic. f*** thinking. f*** Humanity. I am the Beast and the world is not what it is, it is what I say it is. And I say track team!

You apparently don't understand the meaning of trolling. Trolling is fishing for a reaction independent of what one really thinks. Trolls change their opinion just to get another person going. I on the ohter hand truly and sincerely disagree with many of your posts. Hard to believe isn't it?? Someone disagrees with a genius such as yourself. Either Ackley helps the team win or he doesn't. And no problem if he doesn't and is better used as trade bait. But if he doesn't help the team, it's not because "he doesn't have the necessary skills to perform well in the outfield" he doesn't help the team because the total picture is below average, he doesn't hit enough for an outfielder and doesn't have ace defensive skills to make up for the bat. If (and it's a big if) Ackley can hit enough for an leftfielder his defense will come around, or atleast to what passes as a leftfielder. Or are you saying Manny Ramirez has some special skill, some genetic advantage that Ackley does not have??

If you have an accident your insurance often goes up. It takes a while to go back down. Say you hit a lamp post and wreck the front end of your car. The insurance company doesn't assume you'll hit a lamp post again. But they assume something might happen. Maybe you'll wreck the side. s*** is correlated. Same driver, same attention to the road, next time maybe you wreck the side getting hit while doing a u-turn. If you run the bases out of control and blow hammies you may run the bases out of control and tear up your ankle text time. If your wrist wears out because you have a violent swing.. well your hip just might do the same... If you are willing to dive into a camera bay and almost kill yourself... you might just be willing to take a crazy dive (for country) for a ground ball and bust up your other ribs. If you pitched pitched 40 innings because of a bad arm, you might pitch 65 innings next time. If you are a bit spacey and get hit in the head with a ball thrown by a team mate... you are likely to crash into something running the bases. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe a class in acturials isn't required for an accounting degree. What the hell did AA take?? Some kind of business degree. This is simple stuff. You do a little projection for what s*** might happen and factor it into your business model. You're business wrecked because of .dot com crash then the sub prime crisis?? Maybe those 2 won't ever happen again, but some s***** economic thing will.

The problem is none of these guys hit as expected. I would have no problem with any of them in left if they hit enough. It just seems silly to complain about a left fielders defense when they are all OPSing in the .600s. Now if the Mariners are thinking that these guys are defensive aces and don't need to hit... well that's obviously a huge problem. But I think they are projecting these guys to hit... and they don't. I guess I really don't like putting limitations on players either way. Captain obvious... but the "super scout" mentality occassionally creeps back into this board. Silly little scouting observations without putting the entire skill set into context. The "this guy has no speed, instincts, and arm"... seems like the kind of thing AA would say. It's the overall picture that's important. If the guy opses 1000 who cares about his D. If the guy is an obvious ace capable of saving 25 runs in center field... then he doesn't need to hit as much.

If he can handle second he should be able to handle left. It's incredibly stupid to put this kind of limitation on a player. IF he can hit enough for left then a smart organization would work with him. A stupid organization, an arrogant organization would say "he has below average speed instincts and arm" and put limitations on him. The big issue is his bat. But if the bat plays (which I'm not convinced it will) then a smart organization does the opposite of what you suggest.

No. That's not what I was getting at. The guy I was replying to made the claim that since "on paper" the Jays should of won the world series AA did his job. My point was that "on paper" the Jays were actually only an 85 win team, and one build for the short term. If you did a 3 year projection on the 2013 Jays it probably was 85, 84, 82 then into the 70s. So the team he built would realy need some luck to make the playoffs. What it would be nice to see is a team projected for 90 for 4 or 5 years, then each year the luck will hit one way or the other, but you get some playoffs out of it. And I think the point others are making on this thread is that here we are in year 2, and the team is projected for 83 or 84 wins, so AA needs to go all out to add 5 more wins, then hope for a little luck. But what else can he do other than rebuild??

Most projection systems had them at 85 wins. He made a team projected to win 85. That's not even playoffs. Lot's of GMs have created "real" 85 win teams including Gord Ash, and J.P. Ricciardi. AA creates a projected 85 win team, and it turns out the projections were wrong, and it was a 74 win team. So let me get this straight. He makes a team that a computer would project for 85, and the team underperforms the computer projection by 10 games and that is considered "doing his job". His job is to put together a team that "really" wins 90 or more.

I believe he had 25 million on the table and opted out to get 80 million. They always make quotes like that. That being said he'll want to win at this point... so if he doesn't believe the Blue Jays can win that will be a big factor. But he's been here before and I think enjoyed himself OK. Might be a bit of an advantage.... if he'd never been here could be thinking Toronto is the arctic.

In early April 94 #4 Gonzales and #5 Delgado made the team. Olerud was 25, Alomar was 26. It looked unbelievable. Haven't sniffed playoffs since. Within 3 years Olerud and Alomar were gone (destined to be part of good teams), Delgado, Green and Gonzales were still struggling to establish themselves. Joe Carter (by this time hitting like Arencibia) was still hitting third, couldn't play the outfield anymore, but Olerud had to be traded and Delgado's develepmont delayed so Carter could play first and hit like Arencibia.

How many have made it as far as Stroman?? Where do these guys ussually drop off?? For every 100 guys who make it to this point how many are 5'9" or shorter?? I would guess only a couple. This data is from 2008. There is nothing remarkable in the data at all. 6'4" pitchers are the worst. 5'10" pitchers are about the same as 6'2". There is just way less. So if this data is representative (obviously small sample size, multi year data would be interesting, this is just the first thing google finds) small pitchers don't suck, there just aren't many of them. 5-10 78 503.0 4.51 5-11 162 998.0 4.47 6-0 444 2653.2 4.16 6-1 673 4276.0 4.23 6-2 888 5677.2 4.41 6-3 784 5069.1 4.32 6-4 578 3620.1 4.83 6-5 454 2724.0 4.69 6-6 176 1265.0 3.99 6-7 169 1085.2 3.93 6-8 16 134.1 4.49 6-9 51 319.2 5.41 6-10 43 251.1 4.23

Again the point is whenever you are generating a list of comparables you use the person of interest as the center. It's not hard. Screen names similiar to Grant77?? Grant75, Grant76, Grant78, Grant79. By comparing Stroman, a short man to only those shorter, you are reducing the sample population to almost nothing and you are comparing him to midgets. Eddie Gadel would be a comparable (if he pitched I guess) while a guy a tad taller then Stroman is not.

This is classic Grant. He is simply the greatest data cherry picker of all time. He seems to have taken a break from posting for a while, took him a while to show his face on the new board, but he is here in all his glory. So his analysis is that "no pitcher as short or shorter then Stroman" has had much success. That's complete bull s***. Many ways to do it, but his approach excludes Pedro and Lincecum (both 5'11"). So he conveniently throws away two of the best examples of short successful pitchers. If you just looked at pitchers < 6 feet it would be a fairer way of doing it. By it doing it Grant's way Stroman is the tallest of his group. So yeah we compare stroman to 5'7 guys and other midgets but exclude Pedro and Lincecum.

There numbers really look close. Stanton K'd a tremendous amount in the minors. That would be the issue with Sano. Sky high k-rate as a minor leaguer is a big negative. Stanton worked out. Snider not so much. But Stanton and Sano hit way more homers then Snider as a minor leaguer.

2 years ago I would of agreed with you. In the last couple of years the Hurl and others have posted that high strikeout prospects are a big risk. Wood, Travis Snider, come to mind. I think there are some studies about this. But to be honest I am just parroting what others on the board are saying. However I am assuming that those who are evaluating Sano are taking the strikeout issue into account and are aware of the data on this.

It would be nice if you gave us your own scouting reports. Especially interested in where you have Stroman and Sano and why.

I have no idea if he thinks the Stroman ranking is to high or to low... I mean what does he think?? That Stroman is being underrated by the scouts?? One could make that argument. Stroman's numbers are very similar to Syndegards. His stuff is good. He has a little more time at double a then Syndegard, and is only about 1 year older. So one could argue that the scouts are putting to much into Stroman's height. If Stroman was 6'4" he'd by a top 15 no question. And Grant77 as a learned man understands this better then the scouts. On the other hand maybe Grant77's keen mind fully understands the challenges facing the short pitcher. Unlike the scout Grant77 knows that the short pitcher is a long shot, and Stroman deserves to be 75... maybe... I just no idea what the dude thinks. His keen mind is better then the scouts. Understood. But in which direction?? Edit: This is why I hate these... lol... This list sucks. I know something the scouts don't. OK == Please enlighten us. What do you know that they don't??

I wouldn't be surprised if Loria or someone has burned some bridges. But the good organizations I think are only concerned with winning transactions... not really concerned with who's involved.

As crazy as I am sometimes with the Beeston stuff... well the thing is other people are bringing up the actual issues. According to this thread the Jays don't use numbers, or atleast the right numbers, and there is a Beeston/Boras feud, and there is a Howarth/Wilner feud. Every thread is like this... there is this problem, and that problem, and some other problem.

Sweet talk Drew into playing second (or Reyes into playing second), Baker platoon at DH. That could be 4 wins right there. So the organization is throwing away 4 wins... 1. Because they don't understand how to use advanced statistics to identify weaknesses?? (ie they think Goins 'D' will compensate for his bat but have no way to actually measure if that is true, they think an 8th reliever is more important then a Lind platoon, but again don't know how to measure if this is true). 2. They aren't politically savy enough to be on good terms with every agent thus have options eliminated?? The two are related. If an organization has a logical evaluation and thought process then they should realize these fueds don't accomplish anything other then to limit options. It's this kind of stuff that inspires my crazier rants. What exactly is the point of a Beeston/Boras fued?? Or the Howarth/Wilner feud mentioned on this thread?? These things don't happen in a good organization.

Various old road apples told me to buy a house in late 2006. Same old road apples told me to get into stocks in mid 2007 (after the first few little bumps "great time to buy").

They've been essentially grooming him for it for a few years now. To be realistic these guys all want to go home given the chance. Ashby, Morris, whoever. So if you go outside for someone your always at risk to lose them when a job is available in their home town. Wilner seems to be getting better. Why not at this point.