KingKat

To SpeedyGose: Yu Darvish + Brett Lawrie + 4th MiLB Pick(Cat's) To TheCat'sAss: Gio Gonzalez + Anthony Rendon + 2nd MiLB Pick(Speedy's) To Boxy: Addison Russell

I can't imagine how you could perceive the above as anything but incredibly condescending. Nox is often a jerk on this board. At times, I could almost believe you're his troll account but there are some things you say that I can't see Nox saying even in jest and I really don't think he would go to the effort of investing so much more into his "troll" account than his "real" one. Of the people you mentioned, whose posts I find the most mean-spirited. I guess Nox's three saving graces are. a. He has a better handle on statistics that most on this board. He's a great person to put an honest question to and get an informed response. If you say to Nox, I don't understand a can you explain it to me? He will do so without condescension. I value that greatly. b. He generally picks targets that don't attract a lot of sympathy to begin with. Sometimes I think he's being unduly harsch but it will later become obvious that the person was just putting us on anyways. He seems to have a nose for disingenuous posters. Certainly more than I do. I almost always take people at face value initially and sometimes waste a lot of time that way. Nox will also pick on the merely naive which is less defensible. He does it to make a point but he can make his points in pretty insulting ways. b. As mentioned before, he's a lot less ubiquitous on the board than you are so that alone makes him a less obvious target for criticism. He's also less long winded and verbose and more direct in his insults. There's a way you have of putting people down that is just incredibly pretentious (see above quote). When Gibbers (or Boxy to use anoother example), insults someone, it's usually in a quite crude fashion and for whatever reason that bothers me less than what you post. In any case, I wasn't looking to take up Gibber's argument. I just used that as a pretext to talk about you. If Gibbers wants to continue arguing with you, he can do so without my help. I know he's not looking to be defended by me or by anyone else.

I think you may have inadvertedly hit the nail on the head. In theory Blair isn't giving an opinion, he's stating fact but I think the reality is that he's projecting the conclusion he's come to on his own as the front office's positon. It is not a fact, it is an opinion. Blair is positioning it as a fact because he knows that even if the Blue Jays front office hasn't come to that conclusion yet, the idea is likely to gain traction and become the front office position anyways unless the players find a way to significantly boost their value between now and the end of the season.

Good question. I guess because his posts are not entirely devoid of value and I don't like to wholesale reject someone when that's the case. Instead I engage with him fairly regularly even though I often end up giving him the kind of reaction he seems to be seeking. I guess I'm like Charlie Brown kicking the football. I always feel like if you're intelectually honest and give credit when you feel credit is due and are honest in your criticism, you'll find some kind of sensible common ground. I was the same way with Lee_Marvin. I think I only ever put one poster on ignore on the old board. I don't remember the poster's name but everything he wrote was deeply offensive and there wasn't even the ghost of a starting point for a discussion so I thought it was best to spare myself reading stuff that only had the potential to upset me (and was probably contributed for that sole purpose).

Things that killed the Expos: 1. Montreal's decline. It was once Canada's first city and economic centre. That's now Toronto and some would even argue that Vancouver not Montreal is effectively Canada's second city. 2. Not only did Toronto become Canada's first city but it also became Canada's baseball city. The Expos were no longer a national team with the the creation of the Blue Jays. If it wasn't for the Blue Jays, the Expos would probably be still be around feeding content to Sportsnet or TSN or somebody and this board would be an Expos board. Back when both franchises existed, NOT EVERY Canadian baseball fan outside of Quebec was a Blue Jays fan first but certainly MOST of them were. 3. The big O. I already went over this but basically it's a white Elephant and it created a perfectly sensible reluctance to building another taxpayer financed stadium. 4. The Charles Bronfman sale. He was just the kind of commited owner that Expos fans dream of when they hope someone will come along and bring back the franchise. He loved the Expos and piloted them for thirty years from 1968 to 1989. When he threw in the towel, it was basically over. They never found a commited owner again and they still probably couldn't. 5. Salary inflation in the nineties combined with a weak Canadian dollar made the cost of doing business much higher. This caused a revenue crunch even before attendance started to dwindle. 6. Losing the franchise's best season. What kind of marketing boon could the 1994 season have provided from a marketing perspective? Maybe it's naive to think it would have saved the franchise but of course we'll never know. It might have bought the franchise some more time. Conversely, the lost season and subsequent fire sale probably accelerated the decline.

In an alternative world scenario, baseball probably could have worked in Montreal but the failure of the Expos is very much tied to the failure of Olympic Stadium and that failure is pretty much irreversible. It's an unnatractive stadium in an accessible but not otherwise atractive location. It's basically just a more accessible Tropicana Field in a larger but overwhelmingly hockey centric market. More importantly, Olympic Stadium provided such an underwhelming return on (massive) investment that no taxpayer wants to fit the bill for another stadium, even if that stadium might allow the Expos to not only survive but thrive in Montreal. So if you're say the Rays, you'd basically escape Tropicana Field to willingly resign yourself to Olympic Stadium to innefectively exploit a large but not particularly supportive market.

It cannot be said enough that you are not the arbitrater of who is and isn't a true fan or even what the appropirate level of discourse for a true fan. Most of what you write is highly defensible, well reasoned baseball argument and the rest is dribble like the above statement where you make sure to set yourself up as some sort of great intelect slumming it with inferior human beings. That you mix eggregious statements like the above with otherwise well-argued points is what makes you comes off like an idiot and a jerk even when you say some otherwise smart things. This is why nobody likes you even when they might otherwise agree with you. Of course, you also seem smart enough to be self aware so you probably know full well that arguing pretty effectively while also being annoying is a pretty effective strategy to get under people skins, certainly more so than merely insulting people or merely being a contrarian. Angles you can use to argue against the consensus, opportunities for a bit of armchair sociology, these seems to be the honey that attracts you. Most people sense that you're essentially a troll but you're a slippery one. You avoid bannable offenses, you argue very well, often much better than those that take up your arguments. You're very good at what is essentially a vain pursuit. This must please you greatly and vindicate the posture of superiority that you like to take anyways which in a sense creates a kind of vicious circle where feeling superior makes it even easier to effectively act superior which makes you feel superior, etc. I doubt I'm telling you anything you don't know and I certainly don't expect you to stop doing something what you seem to enjoy but your rhetorical strategies kind of beg to be analyzed.

Anyone want Rajai Davis? He's one of those quietly productive veterans who can plus a hole in your roster. I'd prefer take a less productive OF in the return. If the OF has enough sleeper potential, a straight swap should do it. Otherwise, no more than a modest pick upgrade should satisfy me.

Bautista, EE and...

Well maybe they just determined after the first uptick that AA and Beeston couldn't be trusted with money? Would that be wrong?

I guess that means his passport issues are sorted.

You know the story about the dog not knowing what to do if it actually caught the care it's chasing? That's pretty much what happens when this guy arrives at the mound. All he does is kind of hop around and posture and wait to get his ass kicked. He got arrested but he's really lucky no one landed a blow on him beforehand.

I think you know that I know this but I'll do a sarcasm detector check anyways.

In that case, AA did a. overestimated the quality of his team and the depths of its holes (and no, I'm not saying he should have expected the team to fail a spectaculary as it did but he shouldn't have expected it to not suffer from serious depth issues.).

Hey, it's not your money, right?

And who do you blame for being in this position? The team or the GM? The fact is the GM asked for money from ownership and got it and the proceeded to waste it (and a lot of prospect capital) on the players obtained after the 2012 season. And yes you could argue that it was a half-pregnant approach but if AA didn't have the means at his disposal to go all in and still decided to ask for a payroll increase so he could go half-way because he a. overestimated the quality of his team and the depths of its holes or b. recoginzed the flaws in his team but decided to gamble anyways, who do you blame for that?

The AFL is pretty much perfect for him. AA would probably depend on how he performs between now and then.

Turns out this was all wrong. Saw three games, only saw Brian Jonhnson. The Futures Game must have messed everything up. Copeland was absolutey terrible on Friday. He was really lucky to not get hammered worst than he was. At one point, he managed to have as scoreless inning despite three straight walks. In addition to his walk issues, he served up absolute meatballs that were litterally hit out of the park. He topped off at 90 although who knows how reliable the stadium gun. I would love to have witnessed Pompey's offensive breakout but he went 0-4. He didn't look overmatched and did hit a warning track shot in his second PA. He looks great in the field but he seeemed hobbled after making a great catch late in the game. He didn't plays in the subsequent double header. Chung has a great throwing arm behind the plate. Made some very accurate throws on plays where you'd probably advise the average catcher to just eat the ball. That arm is Major League Tool. Overall, New Hampshire didn't show much at all. Yusuph Carter (Joe Carter's nephew) is a an absolute best of a man. I you were just scouting on physique, you'd think he was the best player on either team. The highlight of the game was the travelling Zooperstars inflatable mascott show. I would highly recommend catching it any MiLB park. There are videos online but I wouldn't recommend spoiling it for yourself and I doubt it comes off nearly as funny online as it does in person. Johnson was just dominant for Portland in what was only a 7 inning game to start the double header on Saturday (I didn't know they shortened games in the MiLB like this but I presume it was done because of the double header). Radhames Liz hit 95 MPH regularly for the Fisher Cats but his control wasn't there. It was Bark in the Park that day but all the dogs were confined to a seperate area so that turned out to a lot less entertaining than I thought it might be. Swihart was taken out of the lineup for the 2nd game on Saturday. Without him or Pompey and with a crap pitching matchup and with the stadium emptying out, there just wasn't much reason to stay. Up until then, the atmosphere at the park had been great. Great fan experience overall even if I didn't see as many good players as I would have liked.

Because he's a singles hitter with no defensive or base running value?

I knew what that would be and I was pleased.

f*** off.

The Jays are going to suck regardless in two years and it will be worse knowing that they didn't go for it when they were actually somewhat close. The Jays have some young pitching, they have a few prospects at key defensive positions who along with Lawrie could help with run prevention but they have nothing ressembling a future offensive core. There is no one in the system with the upside of a middle order bat so you can't even wish cast a new lineup like you can with the pitching. What the Jays will have in two years is some payroll flexibilty to work around Reyes and his albatross contract and a laundry list of needs. In the short term the Jays are competitive but in the long term they will have to compete with a Boston team that has a much better minor league system and more payroll to work with to boot. I know you'd like to see a sustained winner and I don't disagree with you but any hopes of doing that were burned the day AA made the Marlins trade. AA made his bed that day and he has to lie in it. He put his money on the short term and for that to work out he has to double down on it. The Jays pitching won't always be this stable, the opposition won't always be this weak. This team is hardly ideal but it may nonetheless represent the best shot AA's ever going to get.

Why is everyone so keen to give Moogy the moral high ground here? I don't get it. You enjoy vindicating his smug sense of superiority?

I didn't find anything like that but going on their last starts and assuming a 5 man rotation, Johnson and Norris should go in the double-header and Henry Owens on Friday. Those are the games that work best for my schedule anyways.

Half a point of FIP? I'm hardly an expert but that seems like a pretty significant difference.