Olerud363

Are you f***ing kidding me?? What a fiasco. Wilner is like the only guy ever to stand up to Cito. My take on Wilner is he's just the working stiff. Stood up to Cito, no one had his back, so now it's just another day another dollar. Taking care of his family. If true then f*** Jerry Howarth. You are saying he won't work with Wilner because of Cito?? f*** all of them. Blast the entire thing apart, everyone fired inlcuding the suits, Jerry Howarth and down to the home hardware 5th inning sweeper guys. Wilner and Gibby can stay. If any one else is deserving to stay Wilner and Gibby can make up a list.

Miami and Pittsburgh are now safe. But without a new stadium I bet there attendance would of crashed to Montreal levels.

I thought I heard that TSN was so desparate for programming that they were atleast running the numbers on Montreal Baseball. All it is right now is some suit, lower level suit hires a consultant to examine programming, consulting firm pockets the money and gets some interns to run some numbers. Numbers on what?? Doesn't matter, just come up with something... the intern left to his/her own devices runs numbers on Montreal baseball.... All complete ********... like any prediction, but the pie chart is nice. Consultant throws pie chart into a presentation. Fonts are great, colors are flashy. Catches the eye of some other suit... Lets look into this Montreal baseball again. Those numbers are very colorful.

And when he woke up that was actually a bad thing. Luis Alya doing a good job in the 8th... Expos tied for the wild card. Frank wakes up "OK Boys, it's Biddle time!"

It is interesting to compare the numbers to Tampa Bay. When they were in it 92/9394/96 attendance was hovering around 1.6. 10-th-12th/14 teams. Bear in mind they never actually made a playoff appearance and the most promising season was cut short because of the strike. Tampa Bay is making regular playoff appearances and getting about 1.5 the last couple of years. They aren't the greatest market... but comparable to the other low end markets. I don't think any of the small markets (Tampa, Oakland, Florida, even Pittsburgh) could survive the kind of fiasco Montreal went through. Strike/Bad Stadium/good teams torn apart leading to horrible team/owner with incentive to move.

Yes. And this all led to Rocky Biddle closing critical games in late 2003. They really needed another reilever last week of August... and couldn't get it. Robinson probably could of done something creative. Luis Alya for multiple innings?? Scott Downs?? He didn't. Happy to let Biddle blow the games.

And if you guys thought Cito was bad you would of loved Frank Robinson as a manager. Appointed by Selig. Asleep in the dug out. Only woke up when they got to close to a playoff spot. Weird stuff. They made some amazing moves to try and get in it (traded for Colon and Cliff Floyd in 2002). But it always seemed as soon as they got close Selig would push a button and something would go wrong. Rocky Biddle?? In 2002 they acquired Colon and Floyd (but then traded Floyd 1 month later) but in 2003 they couldn't get a better closer then Rocky Biddle? Oh yeah... I remember that as the Expos got close everyone had dancing gifs of Loria, Samson, Selig... It was like major league.. without the happy ending.

Very cool. My routes as a baseball message board member go back to the fanhome expos board. Crazy times from 2002-2004. Best board ever. Far, far better then this one (and this one is very good according to 2014 standards). Loria, Selig, Contraction, Bartolo Colon, Peurto Rico games, it all led to the crazy moment in 2003, early September. Expos/Marlins tied for the wild card. Rock Biddle in to save the critical first game of the series... Was it rigged?? If Biddle had saved that game I'm convinced there would still be baseball in Montreal. One bad strike call here changes the outcome. If Expos followed Marlins 2003 path it would of been difficult to move them to Washington. The main thing was that times were so crazy, the stakes were so high, that the fans never flamed each other. It was before smart phones, so you didn't have the "short message corporate bro" culture. Great stuff. We all knew who the common enemy was (Loria + Selig) and banded together for the common good. But alas it didn't have a happy ending. And don't worry coorporate bros... just rambling a bit in honor of old times, the forgotten age of early 2000s.

I agree on that point. That is where Boston and Toronto diverged last year. I think Boston upper management endorsed a strategy of acquiring using money only (not prospects). They went for older players (Napoli, Victorino, Drew) with injury risk. But the risk was mainly concentrated short term.

Quoting directly from "Great Expectations" "On Saturday Nov 10th Anthopoulos was in the office along with Beeston for a conference call with Mohamed... (Mohammed) offerred his approval provided they felt the deal might make sense from a baseball perspective. A caveat Anthopoulos added was that the deal might not happen if the Marlins price was too high. Internal discussion about which prospects the Blue Jays would be willing to surrender started almost immediately. Once the Blue Jays had their house in order Anothopoulos engaged Beinfest in an intense series of offers and counteroffers." You could be right. Maybe the trade was all AAs. But it is clear that AA asked Beeston for approval before deciding on the prospects going the other way. I still can't help but think there are things we don't know. For example if Beinfest asked for Marisnick instead of Gose at the last minute would AA of backed out. Or would Beeston say "That's crazy to stop the trade while haggling over prospects."

Not quite. AA did preliminary talks with the Marlins. He told Beeston he had "a chance to get Johnson, Buerhle and Reyes". Beeston almost shits himself. "No way are you getting all three!!!!". Beeston very excited about players he knows. After telling Beeston and Nadir AA adds a caveat (this is according to Great Expectations, "the deal might not happen if the Marlins price is to high". Then (all this after Beeston is pissing himself with excitement) AA and Benifest go through a series of offers and counter offers. All this time Beeston is putting pressure on AA to make the deal ("he'll kill you if it falls through). The problem is that AA couldn't get into details about the trade until getting payroll permission. But once he got this it was hard to turn back because upper management was so excited they wouldn't want it to fall through over Mathis, or some other "minor" detail.

"Full Count" is very interesting. Blair will come off as an idiot compared to some of the posters here... but the book is worth it for some inside tidbits. For example when B.J. Ryan signed AA did everything he could to stop it... he gave JPR a book length report on the dangers of that signing... to no avail. I think the Florida trade was the same kind of thing. AA was interested in Johnson and maybe Reyes and maybe even Boni and maybe making a trade if they could get these guys cheap.... but then it spiralled out of control when Beeston got involved (Track Team! Reyes! Bonificio! Wins!). AA comes off as smart enough... heck even Gord Ash comes off as OK. But there's been 20 years of coorporate ********, not just one guy, but the whole Rogers crew. Godfrey getting involved when he shouldn't. Phil Lind popping his nose in once every couple years at the wrong time with the wrong ideas. And to top it all off Ted Rogers (R.I.P. and with all due respect) is potrayed as knowing nothing about baseball... like not even knowing what a walk is (he says "why isn't that guy hustling after some guy walks"). They literally had to give him a script whenever he spoke publically. But the entire thing, above the GM level, seems like a circus.

There is some OK talent at the lower levels. The problem is that the lower you go, the more unpredictable it is. I remember May 2008 or so everyone was raving about the Jays talent in Lansing (Justin Jackson, Ahrens etc.). They didn't go anywhere and they were allready a level above this crop. And even if they are great they are out of sync with the mlb talent. They will arrive just as everyone else is getting real old and/or leaving.

It's a long term culture problem with the organization. Men in suits are allowed to interfere. Godfrey was apparently just as bad. Gord Ash didn't want to resign Alex Gonzales but Godfrey did. Rumour has always been Godfrey signed Wells.

So what exactly do these super-scouts do all day?? In October 2009 AA started with the Roy Halladay trade chip and a great crop of international free agents upcoming during his tenure. In 2013 the organization doesn't even have Adeiny, and basically Halladay and the money has turned into a couple of late 30s slop ballers and a 30 year old injury prone short stop.

I agree here 100%. It is funny that so many like to throw blame from the bottom up. More people blame Gibbons then AA, and more blame AA then upper management. As Jeff Blair describes it Rogers has been operating on "3 year plans" since they bought the team. I think that might be why they have the limit on contract length. They reserve the right to change course completely if needed. At this point changing course to a younger team would probably be worth while. The problem is the cycle will just start again. Once the books look good and the farm looks good they'll gear up before you know it. 1. Cut salary/youth movement. 2. Profit. 3. Lose patience and too soon go all in with expensive but not quite good enough talent (Ryan, Overbay, Glaus, Burnette, Reyes, Buerhle, Dickey, Johnson, etc. etc. etc.) 4. Repeat

We are talking Tanaka but the discussion seems to have devolved into the age old "what is the problem with this franchise?" discussion. I have no idea what good firing AA will do. People know how I feel about this. I've annoyed people enough so I won't mention the "two bit accountant"'s name but if you read "Full Count" by Jeff Blair it's very interesting. Blair reminds us that Peter Hardy was president in the 80s and won baseball executive of the 80s. Peter Hardy was a visionary who built the team along with Gillick. Peter Hardy built from the ground up. Peter Hardy. The "two bit accountant" only gained control in very late 1989. When it was allready built. He saw a few trades (Joe Carter!!! Wow RBIs!! Jack Morris!!! Brilliant!! Wins!!) but his "two bit accountant" mind never processed that the true strength was the incredible base of young players. Since there is a multi-year lag between cause and effect the "two bit accountant" really can't take credit for any Blue Jay team... oh until about 1994. Since 1994 the "two bit accountant" is responsible for every season. Blair's book mentions that even while in the commisioners office the "two bit accoutant" was buddie's with Phil Lind, and had huge say in the direction and even sale of the team.

That is simply the all time worst. You think she is just shy but then find out everybody and your uncle has had a turn except you.

I was thinking the same... but then I tried to think what it would be like the other way around. You are going to work in Japan for a number of years but only for half of each year. There are 5 cities to choose from. Tokyo and 4 you don't know much of. Offers range from 125000 to 175000 k (or choose some amount that is meaningful to you). You don't know the culture anyway and it is hard for you to appreciate the differences between cities. Do you visit each one?? Maybe. Or do you just take the best offer because in the end you will return home 1/2 the year, and then return home for good when the contracts up.

What is your definition of over-rated?? He had a nice 3 year run between 88 and 90. If someone offerred to me that Brett Lawrie could have a similiar 3 year peak I'd take it at this point. Historically I don't see him as being over-rated. No one thinks he is a god anymore... do they?? At the time he was over-rated. Achieved god-like status among the casuals.

I would say the argument is that even things like coin flips and choosing cards are very slightly biased. For all intents and purposes those things are 50/50. But there is some slight variation in turbulence effects on heads vs. tails side of the coin, or how the neurons in your friends brain fire, and your brain fire and how you choose the card that would make these things slightly different then 50/50 odds. To quantify the odds exactly you would need to measure the exact state of the system down to all the molecuels in the air surrounding the coin, or into all the neurons in the card players brains. But by measuring this you would change the system. So (from what I have been told) it is impossible to know what the odds are with exact precision. It is a little silly. You might have to choose cards or flip coins for 1 million years to see the bias appear. But I was curious though if there are things that physicist or chemists think are truly 50/50. Something to do with particle charges or chemical isomers?? Maybe nothing can be known to be truly 50/50.

Yes exactly. So the question for any chemistry/physicist types is whether or not there exists anything that would be 50/50.

I think the the question is slightly different. Whether it is ever possible to have 50/50 odds. So if there is something you can measure, that has a discrete number of states and over time the states will occur in a known ratio.

There is that aspect but he addressed that and also said " In fact, it's impossible for anything to truly have 50/50 odds." Which I actually agree with.

The only reason 50/50 would be impossible is that it is impossible to completely accurately measure the odds for anything. Which may be true. I actually don't know. I imagine it ends up being a quantum/particle physics issue. Would there not be some physical processes for which we know the probability of one state or the other occurring?