Olerud363

What?? Why would he put down Joe Madden?? Joe Madden?? The manager of the best organization in baseball?? An organization that does everything fans on here want to see. Faith in on base percentage, faith in young players, creativity, did I mention great farm system and faith in young players? Buy low, sell high. Take our players low (Escobar, Johnson) and win with them when they bounce back a bit. Positional flexibility (to give Gibby credit he does that too). If Wilner really insulted Joe Madden it's a firable offense. Not only him, but his boss, and his bosses boss. In this world there is evil and there is good. If Wilner is inulting Joe Madden he's crossed the line and become a truly evil, despicable human being.

Yes. The emotional center of the moneyball movie was the scenes with Billy Beane being told by scouts how great he would be... then it turns out Billy sucks. Billy learns not to take scouts too seriously. Not that scouts are worse then any expert on anything... it's just that in any field all you can do is devise strategies to collect groups of assetts... you can't predict with much accuracy or precision the behaviour of individual assetts.

Had to laugh at this. If it wasn't for the Dickey trade he could have a future as an elite Tires salesman. But as it stands... "Are these really safe??" AA "Yes we have a great team of material evaluators who have found the best rubber in North America." "Wow... wait a minute... aren't you the guy who traded for Dickey??"

Yeah.. I think he did fire some scouts just recently. Not sure what the details were on that. I didn't see anything other then a press release. 10 scouts?? Not sure why.

The really interesting part of the moneyball movie (can't remember if this was emphasized in the book) was the scenes with a young Billie Beane and the scouts. Scouts - "Billy don't go to College, you are 1 in a million, can't miss, 5 tools, great in jeans, you'll make millions." Billy - "OK" a few years later... Billy - "Damn... I can't hit and I have no education.. stupid scouts" I am sure Billy takes the opinions of scouts with a grain of salt... while AA trusts them to much.

I am by no means saying he is a genius. Just speculating that he COULD be a genius... or atleast have a very high IQ. Some research shows that people with a high but not super-high IQ are more successful. People with a super high IQ can cause destruction if they don't realize that even a super high IQ can't predict things very well... but they might be under the illusion they can predict. These guys, who were supposedly huge financial geniuses, formed a hedge fund called Long Term Capitol management. They were the smartest econ guys in the world supposedly. And they crashed badly because of "unforeseen" events (collapse of Russian currency I beleive). Guys who were less smart would not of made the same moves. On the other hand maybe AA has an IQ of 95, but has just a sort of Rain-man ability to schmooze with Beeston and other suits. "And Paul, I see if we go back to the scouting philosaphy, great tie by the way, how's the family? and hire various scouts, especially some of your old friends, and really go back to the days when you did it, when you built it, you and Cito, I think, given what's happened, and the current trends, that various strategies could be employed, and really we just need to have a large team of scouts, and advisors, who have been there, either played the game like Cito, or people like yourself who know business, and know people and are well connected, then we get the scouts to really get a look at these players, not the stats, but who they are, are they athletic?? are they good people?? the important things, and that philosphaphy I believe..." Alex thinking to himself "holy s*** I blew that... damn it why are my thoughts so disjointed??" Paul "that makes a lot of sense... great haircut by the way".

It's a mystery. Presumably you've never played the game professionally... though maybe you did in College or something I don't know. You are able to do a... what... 30 minute research project on knuckleballers using publically available information... I suspect you used the internet and bbref, or a similiar sight. Maybe it took you only 5 minutes... or maybe 2 hours. I don't know for sure... closer to 5 minutes I guess. Now imagine you are a major league GM. Presumably you have, or atleast could ask for some interns and/or underlings who could do a 2 week project and research this and get you incredible information. Presumably you also have access to propreitary info/health reports/inside info. So why does AA make the wrong decision?? 1. He isn't using anything advanced and his opinion is greatly influenced by a small inner circle, a couple of who played the game and remember how frustrating a knuckleball was to hit. 2. He does have an incredible amount of data but it amounts to fitting noise. The knuckle ball research can be done in 20 minutes. Anything more is fitting noise. 3. AA is a genius afterall but has been taken down by incredible bad luck... but if even a genius can be brought down by bad luck what good is genius?? I suspect it's a combination of 1 and 2 and 3. Take the Noah Syndegard component of the trade... they probably had a boatload of information and "predicted" a ceiling on him... (ofcourse Noah still might not be anything).... but their prediction on Noah was wrong because nobody can predict the future of baseball players that well... nobody could ever predict if Noah or Aaron Sanchez would be better... but AA thinks he can. Geniuses can be brought down by bad luck because they are overconfident in their prediction skills. Guys like Friedman just collect young players. They don't know exactly which ones will be good... just collect enough so the luck evens out.

Again. I think people are pretty nieve on how the world works. Paul Beeston, love him or hate him, is an arrogant guy. He's been in the business for decades. Well connected. Thinks a lot of himself and his friends. Gives himself (and his friends) big time credit for the 83 to 93 run. Is he going to hire a 30 year old to control baseball operations and say "well, I've been around 30 years, but I'm going to be hands off, you do whatever you think is right, I'm going golfing. Call me when you need some money." -- maybe he did that... I don't know for sure. More than likely Beeston said "This is what I believe in. Veteran savy, Cito-ball, super-scouts, Veteran Savy. Can you implement the vision??". The initial concnetration on young players was just to get enough assets to acquire the vets without giving 10 year contracts.

Exactly. C'mon. Calling all 25 year olds on this board. Go get an internship with the Jays. Take some scouting classes. Get good at schmoozing. In only 5 to 7 years you could be GM too. No matter how intelligent one is, Beeston is not going to hire a 30 year old to tell him what to do, he is going to hire a 30 year old that will do what he wants.

I was unfairly down on him a month ago. As a first round draft pick he isn't exactly where you'd like to see him. Trout, Snider, Gose, Lawrie were all 2 levels higher at his stage (second year in system, year they turned 19). So ideally you would of liked to see him in Lansing this year. But they thought he wasn't ready for that. So many prospects fail. Really good guys just push their way through the system. So I would say we'll have to wait to next year to really know. If he starts tearing it up at Lansing then it's time to get excited.

This has been one of the major topics of debate on the board for years. Travis Snider. Why doesn't he hit?? Did Cito mess him up?? Why did AA give up on him?? My point of view has always been that Snider was a huge talent and given a chance he would mash. And you know what... it's looking like I was wrong. That's why I started this thread. I don't want to just start threads, and update things just to prove I was right. If I'm wrong about something I'm man enough to go back and admit it. So now we have someone else bumping the thread pointing out how bad Snider is. Sort of a.. "hey you knuckle heads... Snider is s***... AA made the right call on this one... maybe he's not a total idiot...", nothing wrong with that. I'd think some of you would appreciate it when people make pro-AA points.

?? I don't understand your point. Bad baserunning/sliding, not being situationally aware, sliding too late, that is part of what is leading to the injury history... same with Lawrie. These things are kind of like plate discipline. Not easily fixable. Will Carroll used to have a rating system to predict injuries... It was a green, yellow, red system based on acturial data. Insurance companies have pretty good acturial tables. You get into a car accident they raise your insurance. Why?? It was probably just a fluke right?? We don't understand exactly why people get into car accidents. But acturial tables show that if you get into one... good chance of another. Have two, really, really good chance of another?? Why?? Perhaps habits. Speeding, Perhaps factors that are very difficult to measure. Taking chances. Some innate lack of awareness. We don't understand why things happen. Hard to model. But the past is often a good predictor of future even if we don't understand why.

To parse this a little more look at just the American League stats http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/2013-pitches-batting.shtml Now they are still 5th but out of 14. They are also very close to average. They much closer to average then to the leaders (Boston). They are closer to last then to Boston. Also they are near the bottom in 3-0 and 2-0 counts seen. So... 1. It is more accurate to say the Jays are average in pitches seen, then good in this area. 2. They are below average in 3-0 and 2-0 counts seen. 3. so the boost in pitches seen is seemingly due to more strikes seen. However the original point was that the Jays don't "work the count", I guess they do work the count, at least as much as average. They work a lot more 0-2 counts then 2-0... but taking pitches isn't necessarilly the problem... more recognizing pitches, which is an inherent talent (like speed) more than a learned skill.

And this is where you need a team of interns to pour over the data and get it to people who have AA/Mottola/Gibbon's ear. Not to say the Jays aren't doing this. We assume their not because the last hitting coach, who mentored JP through his formative years, didn't appear remotely able to digest such info... but who knows.

I recall people like Will Carroll have shown that injuries are correlated... even if they are seemingly different injuries. Some guys ligaments and bones are just stronger, some guys are more graceful, some guys take less chances. Reyes allready had a similar ankle injury earlier in his career. His ankle ligaments just might not be that strong compared to the force his fast, fast, twitch muscles put on them. Lawrie has allready had ribs on both sides injured in seemingly "fluke" plays. Travis D'arnaud has something different happen every 2 weeks seemingly. So my understanding is injury distribution isn't random. So there is always a threat a guy like Reyes will go down with something...

I would never of guessed this. Interesting.

Interesting point. I didn't know that. Where can you find that data?? I can't find it for the life of me... though I can find almost anything else you'd want to know on Fangraphs and such.

Toronto is a big rich city. You don't appreciate that until you've spent time in other places. There is no reason this team shouldn't be having success every single year. The fact that Cleveland is successful and Toronto is not should embarass Beeston and AA. Apparently it doesn't. Great job boys... let Cleveland have their pennant race, we'll get em next year, or the year after that, or the year after that.

Not in this case. This was the game where Rajai Davis air mailed one to home on a play where a guy was trying to score on a single from third. He had no chance of getting the runner, and allowed another guy to score. They really went on about that. They also were stunned that Toronto was swinging at their rookies early offerrings. They were quite proud of their team for taking a lot of pitches

It seems they have a bone to grind based on someone elses assessment of the organization. At first I speculated perhaps Bastian had some inside info... but it seems obvious looking at the DJF report from May that Farrell talked to them. They really don't like Toronto... listening to the broadcast it wasn't your typical critique. Most times broadcasters will feel sorry when a team is underperforming... like Buck and Pat will always say it would be great to see Kansas City return to glory... the franchise is a real good one and the people deserve a winner. These guys talk about Toronto failing with glee... that Toronto (atleast Toronto managment) deserves this. They have inside info, probably coming from Farrell.

But what??

maybe... it depends what other activities you enjoy rather then baseball. Cleveland is enjoying an exciting summer of pennant race baseball. Something no Blue Jay fan under 25 has ever experienced. As an avid baseball fan is life in Cleveland following a pennant race better then life in Toronto following... this mess?? I agree for the average person life is much better in Toronto... but for people who aren't well rounded and are just insane and obsessive about baseball.. life is probably better in Cleveland.

Below is a link to the djf summary of the other attacks by Cleveland broadcasters on Toronto... I can verify that the Cleveland broadcasters do not like the toronto organization at all. After re-reading the djf report it would seem Farrell is likely the source, not Bastian. It seems to me John Farrell feels he was mistreated. I suspect there is much more to the Farrell story then "Dream Job", Farrell is still budy, budy with Cleveland broadcasters, and it is obvious they feel he was mistreated in Toronto. http://blogs.thescore.com/djf/2013/05/02/farrells-treatment-a-travesty-and-smug-blue-jays-cant-lose-enough-says-cleveland-radio-broadcaster/

This happened in April. I can't remember the exact date but some Cleveland people ripped on the Blue Jays early... semi-calling the disaster of the season that would follow. I was listening to the Cleveland broadcast thursday and in the middle of the game one of the broadcasters launched into a critique of the blue jays.... 1. The blue jays players don't play the game the right way. 2. They do not grind out at bats... (this was also mentioned by Boston broadcasters)... Franco and Farrell LOVE to face this team. 3. There was never a reason to think this team would win... toronto management acquired older players whos value was destined to crash. 4. Management never considered injury history when constructing the team (Jose Reyes was brought up: injury not a fluke) I know Cleveland media ripped the blue jays early in the season. Calling the front office arrogant. Very interesting. Cleveland media does not like or respect the blue jays organization (neither does Boston media). There is a Toronto/Cleveland connection in that Jordan Bastian used to work for Toronto and now is mlbs media guy for Cleveland. I wonder if he's given the other Cleveland guys an inside scoop on the organization?? Just speculation.

Depressing stuff. Since early April the sum value of the Blue Jays assets has crashed... no tradable assets is incredibly disturbing... it's not just that they can't make trades... it's that there will be no new young players coming for years. no tradable assets means that there are few players of value... it doesn't mean that these players will all bounce back in 2 months... if people thought that these guys would bounce back then by definition they'd be tradable assets. No tradable assets has incredibly disturbing implications. It means the state of the franchise is terribly unhealthy.