Olerud363

he would see more strikes, get less walks, and get more rbis. This wouldn't change the amount of runs the Jays score at all... beyond what was added by Edwin's "protector"

Whatever. It's a decent poll. Kindof funny. On this board he would get shat on no matter what. It would be hard to please the peanut gallery that like to s*** on everything etc. I think only 2 things would please them. 1. A simple poll they could read on their phone while multitasking How will the Jays do next year?? Good Bro! Bad Bro! (they like the word bro) 2. Or a poll written by Spanky Will the birds will fly high next year?? 1. Clap-Clap Blue Jays! 2. Yer dumb!

Nice thread. I voted for "every single thing goes right and we still finish 1 game out of the wild card". That's the closest to what I think will happen. The rules are that there can be no excitement, no joy, no hope, but the cycle never ends either. If it ever gets to bad, there will be new management, a high draft pick, which could end the cycle. So the Jays start slow -- Probably the bullpen implodes, Jansenn blows some saves, Cecil/Santos arms fall off. So they start 10-18.. but everyones doing well... except the bullpen. 7 real tough losses in there. So they could of been 17-11. But Boston starts 22-8. NYY 22-8 (after spending 1/2 billion). From there things stabalize Jays slowly recover. Finish 88-74. But never in it for a day. They are 3 games back April 10th. Hover at 10 games back most of the year. Reach a low of 14 Games back by the All star break. Still 10 games Back of wild card Sep 1st. Then get hot. 5 games back with a week to go. Pull to within 3 the last day. Sorry this is long. But that is the scenario that will happen. Pretty much identical to 1998.

Wasn't that why we didn't draft him in the first place??? Bill James wrote this story about a kid he knew who drove like a maniac and drank like a fish, and everyone thought for sure he'd die in a car wreck before 25. Didn't happen. He made it to almost 35 before dying in a car wreck. The point being just because something you thought would happen by now, hasn't happened by now, it doesn't mean it won't still happen. If the Jays had injury concerns about Sale, and they are still confident in their scouting/analysis process... then maybe Sale isn't a good bet... and if Chicago is willing to trade him maybe they know something.

And just to add the obvious... Guys like this can be found cheaply... so yeah... if the price is a top prospect then it's not worth it. Gruber I think was a rule 5 -- for whatever reason that has fallen out of favour. Better things to do with a 40 man roster spot/25 man spot then buy a lottery ticket?? I guess 8 man bullpens ended the rule 5.

Beckham is 27 next year... I wouldn't hate this move. Obviously it depends on what they give up. His strikeout rate is ok. Not sure about the other data, line drive rate and such. Is there any reason to believe he's got more potential then he's shown so far?? If I squint I see Kelly Gruber or Aaron Hill. Maybe he just hasn't had a good year yet?? We all know these guys go up and down like crazy. I guess I just like the fact he'll be 27, 28, 29. If you are going to bet on a player like this, now is the time to do it, rather then betting on some guy's 32, 33, 34 seasons. And before the peanut gallery starts s***ing on me "Kelly Gruber bro??" I didn't say he'll be Gruber 1990, or Hill 2009. I just said that if your going to bet on some guy to break out... age 27 is a good time to do it.

Let's at least repeat the entire quote... only change is the cleanup of the horrible punctuation. I don't think Farrell is a 20 war manager... I have always been a fan of John Gibbons, and am happy to have him as manager. But based on quotes when Farrell hired his hitting coach Colbrunn, based on quotes from Lind, from AA, from Murph, and from Cito way back it seems obvious that there were huge differences in philosaphy between Farrell and the Jays organization... "What happened was John Farrell is a good baseball person, smart guy, player development guy, on base percentage guy. He did not agree on anything with Paul Beeston, so he left to be with like minded people. He was part of a great management team, that did everything right, had a deep belief in on base percentage, acquired veteran pieces without giving up youngsters.... just great smart people."

He does the big things right. Gets the players in the right mind set. Hired some good coaches. Believes in a high on base percentage offense. He's not worth anything to the Jays, because the front office didn't see eye to eye with him, He's a good fit for Boston. But impossible to say what he's worth, if anything. They'd find another guy to run the team the right way if it wasn't Farrelk:

Yes. If you apply probability theory to it.. that's about what you get. Explanation above.

The chances the cards will win are about 20%. Given roughly even chance of winning each game it would be 25%. So give Boston a bit of an advantage for homefield. The chances a world series will be tied 2-2 are about 37% (6/16). half the time the home team will win game 5... or a bit more if there is home field advantage. So 19% or so of the time we have this situation. Of that 18%, if 20% win the series, it's 4% of all World series would have such a scenario. You'd expect 2/50 years. So the fact that it hasn't occurred in 50 years isn't all that strange.

Exactly my point when I said "not as exciting as one would think." And again not to say it wasn't exciting. Just that these things were expected by then. I don't think you would of watched a movie in 92... even if the girlfriend was there that night. And do the kids on here even know who Mitch Williams was?? Do they know about the 15-14 game?? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E - - - - - - - - - - - - Blue Jays 3 0 4 0 0 2 0 6 0 15 18 0 Phillies 4 2 0 1 5 1 1 0 0 14 14 0 That's right 6 in the 8th... losing pitcher Mitch Williams. The guy had bad control... and was awful late fall of 93, and had allready blown game 4 badly. As soon as my friends and I saw Mitch pitch to the first couple of batters we knew that game 6 was over. To put that in persepective think of Alomar hitting the homer off of Eckersley... Eckersley was historical in 92. The MVP.

Calm down. All I was trying to do was put it in perspective. Of course it was exciting. All I meant was that the Carter homerun occurred as the final great moment, in a long series of great moments. A lot of people were more excited about the Alomar homerun, and the Sprague homerun in 92. A lot of people were more excited when Maldanado caught the flyball to get them to the 92 world series. Some people were more excited when George Bell caught the flyball to beat the Yanks in 85. Or for game 6 in Atlanta in 92. For me I was probably most excited when Moseby hit it off the wall to beat Baltimore in the last series of 89 (first pennant race as a fan). They actually won the division the next day, but that Friday game was incredible.

He wins because he is PART of a management team and culture that does the big things right (player development, on base percentage). Maybe it's just luck. Maybe he's just along for the ride. I don't know at this point and won't bother arguing it further. . But all the small things you guys complain about don't matter all that much. What matters in the end is that he chose the right place to work. An idiot he may be... but atleast he chose the right place to work, that's more than many can say.

Interesting comparison. Just looked at Niekro's stats... at age 38 he had a year something like Dickey just did. Then rebounded at 39 with a real good year,,, won 21 at 40... through lost 20. Sonofabitch pitched 350 innings a year. ... had a good year at 45... was still pitching 200 ok innings at 47. Wheels fell off at 48.

To quote Abomination "any time is too soon for something like that." I actually ran that day, finished before it happened though. Still stressful. I knew a lot of people in the race who could have finished around that time, I had a lot of friends spectating. Spent the rest of the day texting trying to find out if everyone was OK. We're talking a situation here, where 3 people died, a kid died just watching his dad, 20 people or so lost their legs, and probably would of died other than the fact that there were scores of first responders there.

Outside Toronto the view is he was mistreated in Toronto. He didn't see eye to eye with the organization on player development and hitting approach issues. He didn't have as much decision making power as he wanted, thus he was uncomfortable. Kind of a "christ... my hitting coach doesn't believe in on base percentage... we are f***ed... why did I come here??" kind of things. He is more comfortable in Boston because Boston Management is alligned with his views. He is able to hire the coaches he wants, and implement the philosaphy he wants.

It was exciting... but not as exciting as you would think. As the inning developed it became obvious that Mitch Williams didn't have it... if it wasn't Joe hitting the homer, it would of been Alfredo Griffin hitting a triple (he had pinch run for Olerud earlier) or Mitch walking the winning run in... it seemed obvious they were going to win when Molitor got on. It was the end of an era. Bitter sweet. I was 18... so it was also the end of highschool for me... things were never the same after that moment. It was the end of a long series of improbable wins, from the 10-0 "comeback" against Boston, to a grand slam by Winfield in Seattle one late night, to Alomar tying the game against Eckersly, to Sprague... by the time Carter hit that grandslam we'd allready seen so many improbable victories. I've said this before, so I'm repeating myself... standing on young street that night we didn't think this was "once in a lifetime", we thought it would last forever, Olerud was 24, Alomar was 25, Hentgen and Guzman were about 25, looked great.... Delgado, Green, Gonzales were baseball America super-prospects. There was no reason to think it would ever end, or atleast that it would end that night. Great times... but that night seems bittersweet... the end of an era.

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/2012/11/29/red-sox-pick-greg-colbrunn-hitting-coach/66vdZhNTWz9GmsvA66areM/story.html Farrell said Colbrunn shares his philosophy of getting the Red Sox back to a more patient approach, something their hitters let slide last season under hitting coach Dave Magadan, who was hired by Texas in October. “I think the most important [factor] when you consider an assistant hitting coach is they’ve got to be aligned in their overall thoughts as far as hitting goes,” Farrell said. “We can’t have conflicting messages to the individuals. And once that rapport is built with those two staff members, now it gives the ability to have that trust.” http://sports.nationalpost.com/2013/02/16/blue-jays-adam-lind-colby-rasmus-hope-to-benefit-from-the-approach-of-their-new-hitting-coach/ “You have a manager telling you one thing, who was a pitcher,” Lind said Saturday. “It makes it tough because he was from Boston where they were very selective and things like that. Coming up through this organization, it wasn’t something that we preached or was taught at the lower levels. That’s what [Farrell] wanted to see, and then to have a hitting coach like Murph, who’s an aggressive-type hitting coach, sometimes you get a little confused on who you want to please.

A winning team is harder to move because attendance goes up. If Tampa Bay didn't win they would draw about 500,000 fans a year and we would hear talk of relocation. Winning they draw 1.5 million so live on... If Montreal had a winning team in the late 90s they would of drawn 1.5-2 million or so... the 96 team drew 1.6 or 1.7 million, and if they had won the wild card and been able to have sustained success they probably would of drawn 2-million a year and never of left. By 2003 it was probably to late no matter what. But if they had won like the Marlins did... it would of been a pain for Selig. In bad years they drew 700,000. I know your opinion is that if you can't draw during bad years then you don't deserve to have a team. That's fine. But don't say "On field product has nothing to do with a team re-locating" because it does...

I was talking about this to someone the other day... I remember early September 2003 the Expos tied for the wild card... it would of created HUGE problems for Selig if they actually won something... as he was in the process of moving them to Washington. So under the "guidance" of Robinson, who had been appointed by Selig, they tanked in September... What a fiasco. In the end Jeffrey Loria and the Marlins won the entire damn thing. Just so convenient. Loria leaves, takes the entire coaching staff, and I think even the office supplies and crap, and then all of a sudden gets a world series championship to jumpstart his Miami experience. The expos tied for the wild card on a Thursday early September, then went to Miami, were leading the first game and Rocky Biddle (I think?) blows the game. There was a great board back then... fanhome or something?? Wonder if it ever got archived. Be amazing to read the game thread that night in Miami.

I won't disagree with you, other than "it's like you think of yourself as some type of baseball revolutionary". That couldn't be farther from the truth. There have been a few revolutionaries the last 25 years and I just wish the Jays would learn from them. Half the s*** I say is copied word for word from Bill James 1984, and 1985 abstracts, and Bill James 90-92 Baseball book.

Couldn't of said it better myself. And actually I allready have many times.... I posted this June 30th. "I do not literally think that John Farrell himself, put randomly into any organization, would improve the teams on base percentage, that is he would not have any effect on it without buy-in from upper management. What I think that both Red Sox upper management and Farrell are on the same page and work well together. They like the same kind of players, and the same kind of coaches. I don't think that was the case in Toronto. I think we only heard the tip of the ice burg about why Farrell left."

I'm honestly not sure what I said that was so objectional today. Farrell is a good baseball guy?? Farrell didn't get along with Beeston?? I didn't say Farrell was worth 20 WAR... I didn't say fire John Gibbons. I've never said blue jays would win 90 with Farrell. But people are acting like I said those things.

This logic could extend to any discussion on the board. We can never know anything for sure... so leave it at that. We can still speculate....

It comes down to this... you guys have all your WAR, analysis, and other stuff. Great stuff. But what's the use of it all if the Jays keep Dwayne Murphy but get rid of Brian Butterfield?? Farrell said "Butterfield a smart guy, I want him... Murphy I will not take" -- can you put a WAR on that?? I mean if Butterfield is say +2 WAR, and Murphy is -2 WAR, well by making that decision. Getting one very good coach, getting rid of a bad Coach... is it crazy that something like that is worth 4 wins?? I don't know if it is worth 4 wins.... and even if it is.... well that doesn't mean Farrell is worth 4 wins... any bloody organization would do the same thing... except for the blue jays.