Olerud363

What worries me about Lawrie is genetics and... the x-factor I guess. He's out of control. Every play you have to hold your breath and hope he doesn't crash into something. Nutrition?? Looks in good shape. But who knows. Eating crap, red-bulls, and whatever else he puts in his body... that may not be good.

What about Paul Molitor... His younger years were way before my time... As I've heard the story he went from inconsistent injury prone coke-head to the durable and quiet leader we saw in the 90s. It was a remarkable transformation. I can't see Lawrie ever being as quiet and calm as Molitor seemed. But I hope in his own way he grows up.

Not for everybody. Miguel Cabrerra, Prince Fielder, Cal Ripken, Roberto Alomar, no... not so much. Kelly Gruber, Eric Chavez, Grady Sizemore, they piled up. Luck or something else??

You bring up another really interesting point. Often times we evaluate prospects by their latest and greatest season. Get excited when a guy plays well for what is a 5 month run at the most (since minor league seasons or shorter) and sometimes only 4 months if the guy has a couple of injuries. Guys like Rios and Wells actually performed exactly as their minor league stats predicted they would... Both bad and good. Their best years were as their best minor league year predicted. Their worst years as other minor league years predicted. At this point I would take BJ Upton for Lawrie in a heart beat... with his defense at third he would contend for an MVP in the very best year, and be a valueable player in other years.

I haven't read anything technical about injury history in a few years. The last time I looked at it in detail was in a baseball prospectus article several years ago. I can't remember who it was by... I want to say Will Carroll who was their injury expert for a while. His view (as I understand it) was that injuries are correlated. That once a player starts getting injured sometimes it never stops, even if they are different injuries. So these early injury histories are a huge red flag. So from what I've read and from my intuition... just following the game for 20 years my "gut" assessment of Brett Lawries future has gone way down since March. 2 more injuries. Each time he's been very slow to heal. In addition to 2 major injuries in 2011, 1 in 2012, all of a sudden it's seems to have reached a level in my mind where I've labeled him injury prone and have huge concerns.

Gruber was insanely popular even before his rbi explosion in 1990. I remember in grade 8 some kids were asked if they could name a blue jay... the kids who were "casuals" could name only Kelly Gruber... they didn't even know who George Bell was even though he had won an MVP a couple years before, and was in the middle of contending for another one. I was going to say Gruber was by far the best player in the 1988 to 1990 iteration of the Jays... but that's not true. Fred McGriff was by far the best player... numbers don't look amazing but this was pre-juice era. So after 87 the Moseby/Barfield/Bell outfield collapsed, but out of nowhere came Gruber and McGriff. These guys weren't even drafted by the Jays. Gruber was a rule 5 pick. All the Jays did in those years was collect as many young players as possible. 8 man bullpens, "veteran presence", would be laughed at. Collect young players. Give them a chance. Repeat. Cecil Fielder was thrown away to the tigers (via Japan) and nobody cared that we lost a 50 homer slugger, the Jays were developing so many young players there just wasn't room for them all.

That's a good comparison. It would be great if Lawrie could have a run like Gruber did from 88 to 90. One thing I've said a few times in my old man the sky is falling way is that Lawrie has reached the point Gruber did in 1992... without even having the good years.

No question about that. If healthy, I look at it this way. If he played 150 games hit .250 15 homers, .300 on base percentage, .400 slugging I'd be incredibley excited about his future. Because I'd have confidence he'd improve a lot by 27. The injuries just freak me out though. He is missing development time and now I'm having concerns wether he'll ever be healthy. So looking for talented guys that overcame early injury problems.

No question he will improve if healthy. I'm more concerned about his injury issues now then anything else. His missing significant development time, and who know if he will really be healthy when he's back. The guy is an insanely slow healer.

Adrian Beltre had some bad years, and took a long time to have the superstar season everyone expected (until 25). Then didn't put it together for a multi year run until age 30. However he was so dang healthy that there is no possible way to compare him to Lawrie. In his bad seasons he still played 155 games. After 10 years and 1500 games he had a lot time to practice. Will Lawrie even be able to reach 700 games by age 30?

Jeff Kent mid 90s was about where Lawrie was in 2012. But he was sort of always at that level and didn't crater. He just improved significantly in late 20s and 30s, but was never bad or that frustrating. Maybe I'm making the mistake of writing off Lawrie for 2013. Just mentally doing the equation in my head of translating Jays injury reports to reality. So the fact that we haven't heard anything about a rehab stint puts his return in the late August time frame. Given that he won't have any timing final 2013 line is 52 games played, .195 7 homers OPS=bad.... Complete crater and destruction of the Brett Lawrie legend. And I'm trying to figure out if he can recover from this. But maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I hope he's back in 10 days and puts together a decent 110 game season. That would be great.

Any comparable players you can think of? A young guy, who lost is way, but rebounded?? I can think of a lot of young guys who never quite found their way until mid 20s (Delgado being the prime example)... but that's a little different then Lawrie.

You are correct. It was 92 that Shefield had the big year and started his run.

Whether it is a good comparison does not depend on the grammer. I did fix the mistake. Borderline dyslexic, I am working on it though it is probably to late for me. Interesting points. One major issue I have had is with the apparent Farrel/Murphy mixed messages. A player like Lawrie needs to hear the same message from everybody. Patient at the plate, wait for his pitch, take a walk, crush the mistakes, hit with power to all fields. The mixed messages would be awful for Lawrie. A red bulled maniac in over drive, rip and grip would fit his attitude.... He's the kind of guy that needs all authority figures giving him the same message. He hears mixed messages he'll take the easy, aggressive path (see Arencibia J.P.).

This is what is so frustrating about this team. I know the majority of the board recognized that JPs k/bb was a HUGE flag. JP wasn't hitting well (even though his numbers looked OK). So what do the Jays do?? They hit him clean up and overwork him, feed his attitude and make the problem worse. Look at what happened to Lind. He had to be degraded, demoted, laughed at, and disrespected to the nth degree before he was able to turn his approach around. I am guessing now JP{ will turn around as long as it's handled right. Give Thole more time. Shake JPs head a lot. Hit him 9th. Play him part time. Point out that he doesn't need to be Ted Williams. He does have to get the on base percentage close to or preferably above .300. A .233 on base percentage from a regular is something nobodies ever heard of. That's because any other team would solve the problem one way or the other before it happened.

And before someone goes off their rocker by "best is Gary Shefield" I mean... 1. Shefield in 92 is basically what Lawrie is now. (edit Shefield in 91 was about where Lawrie is now. Attitude issues, injury issues, hitting issues all at once. In 92 he broke out.) 2. Of this type of player he is the "best" outcome one can imagine. Not that I think Lawrie and Shefield are comparable so it means Lawrie will follow Shefield from this point on (but it would be nice if he did).

So... Trying to convince myself that Lawrie hasn't all ready busted I looked for talented very young players but injury prone to see if they eventually did grow up, stay healthy and put it together. One that came to mind is Gary Shefield. Shefield 91 is very close to Lawrie 2012... Shefield 92 was a complete mess and he got sent to Sandiego... then he almost won the freakin triple crown 1993... the start of basically 15 years of excellence. (edit. I confused the years. Shefield in 90 was about where Lawrie was in 2012. Shefield in 91 was a mess. Shefield broke out in 92) Who else is a good comparable?? Young talented, uhhh let's say excitable players that couldn't keep healthy. Give me the good and bad.... guys who busted... guys who put it together. Trying to get a feel for what we can expect of this type of player** ** (keeping in mind that individual results may vary)

Your post was a bit rambling and hard to follow the individual points. Could of called it "my plan to get to .500 and beyond", then mentioned 6 games below .500 is a milestone in your mind, and followed (in point form) with suggestions for further improvement (like Gose and Thole). I would say reading it took about 10 seconds longer then it would if it was organized a bit better... but I got your main point, and did not think it was such an inconvenience that I felt the need to compare your post to sensitive human anatomy.

I have to disagree with you... Almost everyone underestimates the unpredictability of baseball... This happens all the time guys come from nowhere at about this age and are HUGE successes. As soon as the need for Ramon Ortiz arose I pointed out that the best way to find another starter is to sort through the younger junk we have and find a diamond. I suggested Loup or Cecil... but it turned out (so far) Rogers is the guy. My philosaphy is that you don't overthink anything or try to predict the future. Just take the recent past and see what comes. Small sample sizes will work themselves out quickly. Two weeks from now if Rogers gets bombed a couple of times his numbers will look different. Deal with it then. Never a good thing to try to predict failure. Better to ride success and try to keep it going.

You're correct. It's not a life threatening climb. Most mountains that size are very dangerous. This is just a long walk up. The most dangerous part is the altitude. But that isn't a problem assuming you take your time. (You need to just climb a shorter amount each day, and take a rest day half way up to adjust).

It's not a dangerous hike. At least not something where a lot of people die.

Casual number one is Paul Beeston.... "Now who is this guy?? Ju... Ju.. How do you say his name?? Does Cito know about this?? I don't think he'd approve.... and what do we do with all the Jose bobbleheads... and his twitter account?? No. No. This idea doesn't seem to make sense to me."

Doubt he'll be able to stay in the lineup long enough to get demoted. When's he coming back anyway?? September??. 40 man rosters by then.

This is why I keep bringing up John Henry and Suart Sternberg and even the Stienbrenners. These successful teams are run by guys who are good at trading. They understand transactions, buying low, selling high, even if they don't completely understand the underlying product. They are good at learning what they need to know about the trade, whether it's currency, a stock (pepsi, apple, catepillar), horses or whatever. They know people. They ask around about the issues but know to take all inforation with a grain of salt. And here is what is key. They take nothing for granted. They know that 80% of what they hear will be ********. So you get an old drunk scout yappin away to Stuart Sternberg and he's going to chuckle a little because he just came from hearing a young drunk marketer yapping away about smart phone stocks. He's not going to be impressed with scouts the way Beeston will... The guys who buy a sub prime mortgage bond in 2005... the guys who buy RA Dickey after 2012. They are the same. They are required for the smart guys to have fun and be successful. Henry and Sternberg and the Strienbrenners love Beeston.

You understand why I hate this term? It's absolutely non-descriptive. For the most part people use "hole in the swing" when describing players who are inexperienced, aren't suceeding, and/or haven't established themselves. If you have an interest in the player, as a GM, a fan, a fantasy baseball player, whatever... then "hole in the swing" doesn't tell you much. What you want to know is.... 1. What is the problem exactly? 2. Why did the problem happen? 3. Is it fixable? Hole in the swing could be 1 million things. Some of which are fixable, some of which probably aren't.