The Team President represents the team. I fully expect that everything he said was widely accepted and supported within that organization. His downfall was that he told the truth to the media instead of lying to them and/or keeping his yap shut.
How dare anyone question the masterful work of Jerry Dipoto - HOF GM.
You forget they play on a team that opened admitted they manipulated service time and held top prospects down to gain an extra year of control (while also calling Kyle Seager overpaid and complaining about the quality of the english from some players).
While I do think they wait to see what other moves the GM has up his sleeves - I can appreciate this team doesn't believe Toro gives them a better chance to win this year.
And let's be honest - what % of baseball teams are actually 'trying' to win? Trying to turn a profit? yes.
I think it's short sighted to expect this. These are players who have worked most their lives chasing the dream of winning the world series. These are the same players we want to play with passion and as a result, we should expect them to feel this way.
Personally - I don't want ball players to be passionless robots who look at baseball as a job.
Lewis has been good too - but your point stands.
I used this list to get back up to date on some of these prospects...what's up with Whitley? Hasn't pitched this year at all? Is he going through a Doc transformation?
I think some suspect that SGA is simply able to post those big numbers because he's on a s***** team (see Love, Kevin on the Timberwolves). Most probably don't see him as a franchise player who you can build a contender around (which explains why OKC would offer that deal). I'm assume most of that as I don't keep up to speed on efficiency ratings and other advanced metrics in the NBA (which may suggest he's a f***ing stud you should build around).
I heard that Chicago was one of the only teams that could take on his full salary / cap hit.....so I doubt the had much value at all on the trade market.
Also heard Fleury heard about the trade via twitter so LV did him dirty (or he was ignoring his phone all day)
I'm sure when they were searching out guys to sign to minor league deals - they prioritized how 'clutch' they were. It's the new market inefficiency as all these advanced metric teams don't believe 'clutch' is real. The M's are so smrt.
2017 wasn't really an anomaly - he had 2 other 3+ WAR seasons under his belt. He had this weird pattern where he only hit well in odd years (2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017). Of course that came to an end and now he's just straight up dog s***.