Gaston 'ready to go' as Jays manager

[Avenger]

You know you don't sound too rational when you use childish names like Retardi.

boo hoo,don't care, as long as it annoys the Retardi nut huggers. I'll stop using childish names when idiots on the internet stop using Clarence or Senile or when you insult his intelligence even though you know nothing about the guy or the intellectual ability of other managers.

They underachieved last year because after all that suckage, they still finished 11th in the majors in 3rd order standings and a +27 run differential. According to another ranking of team quality, they were 6th in the majors (http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/1 ... nd-of-2009).

The blue jays have been scoring higher on adjusted rankings or power rankings than their actual record for a long time. That has more to do with our division and an unbalanced schedule than anything else. You could not have thought up of a more irrelevent argument than 3rd order wins to criticize Cito.

Cito was using Vernon, the worst hitter in the majors, at cleanup. He was played Kevin Millar at 3rd and hitting him cleanup as well.

Batting order decisions are so overrated, the difference between Wells batting 4th and 9th(he did move down in the order in the 2nd half) at the end of the season is probably like 20-25 at bats and probably 1 - 2 runs max. He wouldn't have to play Millar if Retardi ever got us a decent bench bat or a first baseman that doesn't hit lefties worse than me.

He refused to play Randy Ruiz.

how is that a bad thing again? Randy Ruiz was NEVER any good, he was hyped up by idiots like Mike Wilner who don't understand how meaningless minor league numbers are when you're a decade older than the prospects you're playing with .

Made decisions citing single digit sample sizes

oh noes, you mean he's doing what most managers in the league do?

and "player confidence".

like what the great Mike Sciosa is doing with Matsui or what Francona did with Ortiz? Maintaining you're players' confidance matters, just because we haven't found a way to quantify it doesn't mean you get to dismiss it.

Cito did great things with Adam Lind, yes. How is he doing this year? He forced a player who is a natural all-field hitter, basically Olerud with power, into a pull hitter pathetically flailing at outside pitches because pitchers know he won't try to hit them oppo field.

Do you guys even try to make sense before you repeat Wilner's talking points? So its Cito's fault that Lind can't go the other way this year even though Lind had tremendous success with going the other way last year when Cito was still the manager(and the unofficial hitting coach) of the team. Lind's problem this year has been his inability to catch up to fastballs up in the zone and he just hasn't gotten hot for that extended stretch for him to get his confidence back.

Having an entire team swinging away at first pitches is not a sustainable strategy. It works for half a year, maybe a whole year, and then your team regresses, quickly.

That's a myth, Cito like any other good hitting coach doesn't have a hitting philosophy that he applies to every single hitter. Murphy, Tenace and Cito have only encouraged their hitters to play to their strengths. Why didn't Cito get Scutaro to hack away and get more power out of him? How did Marco put up career bests in walk rate and iso power? The same goes with Bautista, Cito hasn't stopped him from taking his walks has he?

Guys who do swing on the first pitch on this team(Vernon, Gonzalez, Buck, Hill etc) have always been hackers without plate discipline and pitch recognition ability long before Cito got ahold of them. The ability to recognize strikes from balls is a talent that cannot be developed easily, so you're better of by being aggressive early in the count when you get something you like and using your strengths to your advantage. Maybe i'll take the "omgzzz cito is trying to turn everyone into Joe Carter" argument more seriously if he ever gets a bunch of Berkman's or Youkilis' and then turns them into hackers.

Boston and New York get on base at a good clip not because of Francona and Gerardi's hitting philosophy but because those organizations actively look for players that naturally have a great approach at the plate and they emphasize that at every level in the minor leagues.

[Hummus]

boo hoo,don't care, as long as it annoys the Retardi nut huggers. I'll stop using childish names when idiots on the internet stop using Clarence or Senile or when you insult his intelligence even though you know nothing about the guy or the intellectual ability of other managers.

So you abhor the use of childish nicknames when applied to those people you like, and thus, as retribution do the very same to others? You immediately hurt your credibility as somebody who objectively is analyzing the situation, and clearly demonstrate your emotionally attachment to those being discussed.

Batting order decisions are so overrated, the difference between Wells batting 4th and 9th(he did move down in the order in the 2nd half) at the end of the season is probably like 20-25 at bats and probably 1 - 2 runs max. He wouldn't have to play Millar if Retardi ever got us a decent bench bat or a first baseman that doesn't hit lefties worse than me.

After reading this statement, I was unable to look past your personal feud and had to interject. How can you say that designing the batting order is overrated? It is one of the chief responsibilities and differentiating skills when it comes to evaluating good managers. Choosing the right batting order is, in broad strokes, the difference between winning and losing. Your team may only get three hits in a game - if you design the batting order in such a way that those come in succession, you give your team a chance to win - if you don't, you scattered three hits randomly without scoring, and your team loses. More technically, the batting order is the best way for a manager to get the most production out of his players - there is a reason that speedy players with high averages bat first; It has empirically been shown to give teams the best chance at winning games. You also must protect your sluggers with other dangerous players so they see good pitches, hide your weaker players (or minimize the damage of having them bat, etc.). For you to completely brush off the importance of batting order selection totally discredited everything you would subsequently go on to say.

Other than that, you do bring up a lot of good points in defense of Gaston - it's just the motionally charged and defensive tone that you use that takes away from it. I do not disagree with you; I actually agree with you on many points. Chiefly, I think Cito has been great for the Jays' offense, and has managed to unearth and help many talented players reach their potential. We had two silver sluggers on last years team - going into the season, if you would have taken that wager to a bookie, you would be a rich man right now.

[Hoopstarr]

boo hoo,don't care, as long as it annoys the Retardi nut huggers. I'll stop using childish names when idiots on the internet stop using Clarence or Senile or when you insult his intelligence even though you know nothing about the guy or the intellectual ability of other managers.

Where do you get this idea that anyone who disagrees with Cito is some Wilner or Retardi nuthugger? You're not gonna get me into a lame debate like that.

The blue jays have been scoring higher on adjusted rankings or power rankings than their actual record for a long time. That has more to do with our division and an unbalanced schedule than anything else. You could not have thought up of a more irrelevent argument than 3rd order wins to criticize Cito.

Arguable, but that's another discussion. The Rays alternated between good and bad luck like every other MLB team. And I wasn't using it to criticize Cito. I'm just defending last year's team against people who say it sucked. There's a misconception that the hitting was the culprit but it was actually slightly above league average in each half. It was just the pitching that was too young plus Marcum and Litsch were out. But even there, they still finished with the best xFIP as a team in the AL, FWIW.

Batting order decisions are so overrated, the difference between Wells batting 4th and 9th(he did move down in the order in the 2nd half) at the end of the season is probably like 20-25 at bats and probably 1 - 2 runs max. He wouldn't have to play Millar if Retardi ever got us a decent bench bat or a first baseman that doesn't hit lefties worse than me.

It wouldn't have taken you too long to look up that that each spot gets around 20 more PA than the spot below, so you do that math (it's more than 20-25 PA). I'm fully aware of how overrated lineup orders are, but not when it's egregious stuff like 3-4 spots higher than the hitter should be. That "1-2 runs max" thing is just completely made up, btw. And there were decent bench bats. Bautista for one was ready to step in after Rolen and Rios were dumped. Joe Inglett was another quality bench player. And there was...

how is that a bad thing again? Randy Ruiz was NEVER any good, he was hyped up by idiots like Mike Wilner who don't understand how meaningless minor league numbers are when you're a decade older than the prospects you're playing with.

Doesn't matter if the minor league numbers were meaningless or if he predictably flamed out this year. What matters is that he was drilling in the 130 PAs he did get and Millar wasn't. And it was Cito's responsibility to get him PAs to see what they had in him. There was no excuse to not use him in a throwaway season in favor of Kevin freakin Millar.

oh noes, you mean he's doing what most managers in the league do?

Yes. Except most of them have the sense to not actually admit it.

like what the great Mike Sciosa is doing with Matsui or what Francona did with Ortiz? Maintaining you're players' confidance matters, just because we haven't found a way to quantify it doesn't mean you get to dismiss it.

It matters when it's pure overmanaging. Like with Lind not having the confidence to bat 4th but he can bat 3rd, having Vernon bath 4th regardless of how much he sucked, and Snider batting behind Barajas, Buck and Gonzalez because his confidence is so fragile. It's easy to dismiss confidence-based strategy when people make claims like "Cito trusted Wells last year so he's back this year". Actually, he sucked because of bum wrists last year and they're fine this year.

Do you guys even try to make sense before you repeat Wilner's talking points? So its Cito's fault that Lind can't go the other way this year even though Lind had tremendous success with going the other way last year when Cito was still the manager(and the unofficial hitting coach) of the team. Lind's problem this year has been his inability to catch up to fastballs up in the zone and he just hasn't gotten hot for that extended stretch for him to get his confidence back.

Let's say you're right. Then where's Cito's magic in fixing the swing to adjust? And what's more likely--Lind suddenly can't catch up to the same pitches he was killing a year ago, or that he's trying to do something he's not used to? There's two sides to it and you can't just claim credit for the good one and ignore the other.

That's a myth, Cito like any other good hitting coach doesn't have a hitting philosophy that he applies to every single hitter. Murphy, Tenace and Cito have only encouraged their hitters to play to their strengths. Why didn't Cito get Scutaro to hack away and get more power out of him? How did Marco put up career bests in walk rate and iso power? The same goes with Bautista, Cito hasn't stopped him from taking his walks has he?

Guys who do swing on the first pitch on this team(Vernon, Gonzalez, Buck, Hill etc) have always been hackers without plate discipline and pitch recognition ability long before Cito got ahold of them. The ability to recognize strikes from balls is a talent that cannot be developed easily, so you're better of by being aggressive early in the count when you get something you like and using your strengths to your advantage. Maybe i'll take the "omgzzz cito is trying to turn everyone into Joe Carter" argument more seriously if he ever gets a bunch of Berkman's or Youkilis' and then turns them into hackers.

Boston and New York get on base at a good clip not because of Francona and Gerardi's hitting philosophy but because those organizations actively look for players that naturally have a great approach at the plate and they emphasize that at every level in the minor leagues.

Well that's obvious and I agree; if we had a team of AS caliber hitters, we wouldn't need such a hands-on hitting coach to begin with. But I wasn't talking about literally the whole team man to man. I'm talking about a general team strategy. We're 13/14 in the AL in OBP and only 25 runs above the avg AL team despite having far and away the most HR and highest ISO, meaning that power isn't bearing the fruit it should be. If some of these guys had even a little discipline, that power would mean a lot more and combined with the stellar pitching, we'd be a lot closer to the WC.

[tsherkin]

Cito did great things with Adam Lind, yes. How is he doing this year? He forced a player who is a natural all-field hitter, basically Olerud with power, into a pull hitter pathetically flailing at outside pitches because pitchers know he won't try to hit them oppo field. Having an entire team swinging away at first pitches is not a sustainable strategy. It works for half a year, maybe a whole year, and then your team regresses, quickly.

I think we shouldn't blow up Lind's struggles too much.

He hit .286 over his first 24 games. Then 174 over 28 and 156 over 25.

He made a visible adjustment to his approach. Since then, he's .275 over 24 games and .375 over his last 8. He has 7 HR in the last 32 games, and had 9 over his first 77 games.

You could call it a streak, but we've all seen him starting to handle outside pitches more intelligently again. He struggled, but so did Hill and Overbay, both of whom are also coming around. We jumped all over them, but they've been settling in and getting it done.