Lind: Jays culture hasn't changed (+ shot at Rasmus)

[Rhettmatic]

Pretty candid, Lind:

http://www.torontosun.com/2015/02/24/ad ... -blue-jays

“They haven’t changed the culture of the clubhouse,” said Adam Lind — traded to the Milwaukee Brewers in November. “They’re my friends, but the guys who still run it are still there. Jose Bautista is the voice among position players and Mark Buehrle runs the starting pitchers.

“There might be a few more smiles with Colby gone.”

“Do they think that Justin Smoak will change the culture of the clubhouse? Michael Saunders?” Lind said. “I don’t know Donaldson, but Martin will make a difference. Martin is awesome.”

Lind said the Jays “kind of limped home and we benched our centre fielder the final month,” going 23-29 the last two months.

...

Lind said he was only spoken to by Gibbons on the manager’s first tour when he was called in to be demoted, described Cito Gaston as “awesome,” John Farrell as the “most prepared manager I’d ever seen,” (“relations were good with players, but you have to remember, he was a former pitcher”) and Gibbons 2.0 was “very intense — only in 2014.”

[Lateral Quicks]

That candidness is probably the primary reason he's gone. You can't publicly badmouth your employer like that and expect to keep your job. It's unfortunate because I think he would have been much more valuable to us than Estrada at $4M, but we'll see how it works out.

As for the clubhouse culture not changing, I think he's demonstrably wrong. Guys like Martin and Donaldson, and to a lesser extent Saunders, are demonstrably more intense and focused. And the young guys like Stroman, Pompey, Sanchez and Norris seem the same way.

I find it hard to believe the first time he was spoken to by Gibby was when he was demoted. That doesn't pass the smell test.

If he wants to work for the organization once his playing days are over, he needs to stop badmouthing them in public.

[satyr9]

An interesting piece for sure. But in spite of that, I don't really get why he'd say the culture won't change other than to say he doesn't think he's the problem (I'm not saying he is either). Does he not think the culture is the people in the room? There are a lot of pieces coming and going, that will mean a different culture. Frankly, culture may be the wrong word as it kind of sounds important where atmosphere, mood, demeanor, just something with less heft and import is probably what I'd go for.

Yes, Jose's still going to be A or THE leader, but hopefully he's going to have some help. A kid like Stroman simply can't help but impact the clubhouse, 'cause he's obviously this determined and determined to be positive kid (that's very different than the uber-bro energy a guy like Lawrie would've added).

I also think if you can give a guy like Buehrle a few more types that agree and drive with him instead of against—and I see guys like Martin and Donaldson more in that mold, intense about winning and success—I think it becomes a positive rather than a point of friction (My guess is one of the points he leaves unsaid is that Buehrle and Dickey are a very weird fit as the vets on a rotation). These things are incremental and also hard to predict. Sometimes opposites complement and sometimes similarities bristle. Predicting how personalities will mesh or clash is impossible. But obviously, with those pics of Martin sitting and working with the kids from day one has me feeling optimistic today.

Lind might be right it all amounts to the same thing, but with so many starters replaced and two guys who have been explicitly clubhouse leader types on their former teams, I can't imagine how one could believe it won't affect this year's culture. It's not guaranteed to amount to a different result, but it's going to be a different club.

[Santoki]

I think Lind should be given a bit more credibility than we might want to give him considering how long he was with the Jays. Sure, it could be sour grapes but he would know more about the culture in the room than anyone else. He also isn't saying the culture was the problem. He's just pointing out that if their goal was to dramatically change the culture in the clubhouse then they haven't done anything about the actual guys who are in charge. Maybe you're right and it's just the supporting cast of guys that needed to be replaced but my take from this was that he was more speaking about guys like Jose and Buerhle and their roles as leaders. He's not throwing them under the bus but he's not exactly cementing them as guys who are the best to lead.

[satyr9]

There's two parts to it for me. One: sports leaders are all the same. In that way I think changing the guys in the room is better than changing leadership. If you replace Jose Bautista and Mark Buehrle with other vocal guys, you're going to get the same speeches and attitude, it's all how receptive the guys are to that particular voice (that's not to say there isn't any value in changing leadership sometimes. New voice with the same message can help too). Even so, quantifying this in value is nebulous at best and impossible to predict, but I think you're right that Lind wasn't even saying it was a problem last year.

I have no idea on that front, mostly the team lost 'cause too many bad players played too much. A shocking observation that I'm sure many of the regulars shared and didn't help chemistry.

Which leads me point two and what I think matters far more. Forget how the new guys attitudes will affect the clubhouse compared to the old players' attitudes, the playing style of the new players is more conducive to a happy clubhouse. Better defense and less hackery at the plate is good for morale. I know nothing negative about Dioner as a person in the room, he's probably a fantastic guy, but I'd bet a healthy sum it's an easier task this year keeping pitchers happy 'cause they'll feel more supported by Martin on the field with his play. Same goes for the defense both between the pitching and positional and within the positional. Whatever went wrong with Colby last year, it likely wasn't helped by the fact Melky's incredibly limited range made his job harder and when things were going poorly made him look worse. I'm not trying to cast blame on either, just trying to say that the most important ingredient to emotional team chemistry is physical team chemistry. If the team clicks on the field, and I like this team's chances quite a bit, they'll click elsewhere. This isn't rocket surgery and doesn't even speak against Lind's point, but I do think it's weird to say that so much player turnover will lead to minimal effect because Bautista and Buehrle are still here.

I have no idea how new players, or old players for that matter, responded to leadership in the clubhouse, but to say it won't change is to say Lind thinks Smoak will respond to it the same way Lind did and Pompey will respond how Colby did or Donaldson how Lawrie did, which strikes me as unlikely at best.

[Randle McMurphy]

Same old oblivious Lind with no filter doing damage even when he's out of the organization. It's really no wonder AA dealt him for Estrada. I don't even think there's any malicious intent to it all, but he manages to slight quite a few people in that article.

[dballislife]

winning will solve culture issues, winning will solve all issues

[s e n s i]

He also fielded ground balls at first, where manager Ron Roenicke said Lind will play every day — “until he shows he can’t hit left-handers.”

lol when 830 AB's isn't a large enough sample size

[Michael Bradley]

Well, AA spent the first few years of his tenure strategically picking up players with attitude issues for less than their talent was worth (Lawrie, Escobar, Rasmus, etc), so it's not surprising that there would be issues with certain guys. I don't think it's fair to blame that on the team's lack of success, but that's always going to be the narrative when expensive, veteran-laden teams do not make the playoffs.

As far as Lind, his mouth got him traded and nothing has changed since he left, apparently.

[tecumseh18]

He also fielded ground balls at first, where manager Ron Roenicke said Lind will play every day — “until he shows he can’t hit left-handers.”

lol when 830 AB's isn't a large enough sample size

$7.5 mill is lot to pay to platoon a defensively challenged 1b-er. The Brewers obviously talked themselves into believing that that Lind could hit lefties. It's just unfortunate that player stats and splits aren't readily available in this day and age.

As for Lind's mouth, some guys like to be candid, even if they're not all that smart. That's what Larry Saunders was talking about in explaining that he didn't have freedom of speech. I can imagine how frustrating it must be. With the Raptors, Antoine Wright was probably smarter than Lind, but just had no ability to clam up when asked about problems with the team. Great for us fans, not so great for his career.

[satyr9]

$7.5 mill is lot to pay to platoon a defensively challenged 1b-er.

The problem is that statistics, and therefore value, are cumulative. Lind might create something like 20 runs above replacement over 400ish PA when he's healthy and happy, mostly against RHP, but if you try to stretch him out to 550ish by starting against LHP, he's so bad he's giving 10-15 runs back. It's completely against all rhyme and reason to turn a 2ish WAR part-timer into a 1ish WAR full-timer.

The only reason they're saying it is because their lineup potentially doesn't have a better option. The CI back-up, Luis Jimenez, has worse numbers against LHP, albeit in a small sample. Also, the 4th and 5th OF are LH and terrible against LHP (in case you wanted to do something like give Braun some days at 1B). It's basically going to be the 2C, Maldonado, but if that's Lind's competition, he could actually win.

They didn't even bring in a LHP mashing NRI, which wouldn't have been all that hard. Would having a guy like Ryan Ludwick as your 5th OF over Logan Schafer really be such a hardship if it could also take Lind off the field against LHP? It's just weird they aren't doing anything at all to try and allow for the possibility they're going to want to pull Lind against LHP, even if they start out using him.