Howarth criticizes Reyes' contract, defence; Reyes responds

[Nights King]

Howarth like Wilner is a despicable weasel. They're mouthpieces for the organization but suddenly into analysts when it comes to bashing certain players the front office isn't so enamoured with anymore. You can criticize Bob McCown all you want but there's a reason he's never had those two on his show, he knows what's going on. Wilner and Howarth would never dare criticize a player unless their pushing the agenda of the front office, which is weird because what the hell is AA trying to achieve here. Maybe they're dumping his salary and cutting future payroll so they're setting up Reyes as lazy unmotivated guy.

[augustine]

Long term, I see Reyes as more of a CF than a LF. His bat doesn't really play for a LF, while his speed should play in CF. Remember, Reyes' problem is with lateral quickness, not forward speed.

Short term, Gibbons has to get the balls to make defensive substitution for Reyes/Goins at the end of close lead games, as he does with EE/Smoak and Francisco/Lawrie last year.

[Skin Blues]

Maybe they're dumping his salary and cutting future payroll so they're setting up Reyes as lazy unmotivated guy.

So your theory is that AA has given the go-ahead to Jerry Howarth to criticize Jose Reyes as being lazy in order to facilitate a trade.

[Santoki]

Long term, I see Reyes as more of a CF than a LF. His bat doesn't really play for a LF, while his speed should play in CF. Remember, Reyes' problem is with lateral quickness, not forward speed.

Short term, Gibbons has to get the balls to make defensive substitution for Reyes/Goins at the end of close lead games, as he does with EE/Smoak and Francisco/Lawrie last year.

Lateral quickness is pretty important for CF as well. Has anyone ever gone from being such a poor SS defensively to a CF???

[Skin Blues]

Long term, I see Reyes as more of a CF than a LF. His bat doesn't really play for a LF, while his speed should play in CF. Remember, Reyes' problem is with lateral quickness, not forward speed.

Short term, Gibbons has to get the balls to make defensive substitution for Reyes/Goins at the end of close lead games, as he does with EE/Smoak and Francisco/Lawrie last year.

Lateral quickness is pretty important for CF as well. Has anyone ever gone from being such a poor SS defensively to a CF???

SS to CF is a pretty common transition. Off the top of my head, Billy Hamilton.

[Santoki]

Long term, I see Reyes as more of a CF than a LF. His bat doesn't really play for a LF, while his speed should play in CF. Remember, Reyes' problem is with lateral quickness, not forward speed.

Short term, Gibbons has to get the balls to make defensive substitution for Reyes/Goins at the end of close lead games, as he does with EE/Smoak and Francisco/Lawrie last year.

Lateral quickness is pretty important for CF as well. Has anyone ever gone from being such a poor SS defensively to a CF???

SS to CF is a pretty common transition. Off the top of my head, Billy Hamilton.

At the tail end of a career though?

[Nights King]

Maybe they're dumping his salary and cutting future payroll so they're setting up Reyes as lazy unmotivated guy.

So your theory is that AA has given the go-ahead to Jerry Howarth to criticize Jose Reyes as being lazy in order to facilitate a trade.

Not exactly but i do think the organization is really down on Reyes. Howarth and Wilner are slimeballs of the highest order, they'd never dare criticize anyone that the front office really cares about

[torontoaces04]

Man...cannot really disagree with anything Jerry said, but he tore Jose a new one.

Jose caught some serious feelings.

[augustine]

Lateral quickness is pretty important for CF as well. Has anyone ever gone from being such a poor SS defensively to a CF???

Normally outfielders (try to) run in a straight line, which Reyes is still good at. But, you are right that some lateral movement may still occur.

[phillipmike]

I wasn't aware that Reyes led the AL last year in errors at his position.

Donaldson led for third basemen in 2013 and 2014. Errors isnt the be all end all.

[Lateral Quicks]

Long term, I see Reyes as more of a CF than a LF. His bat doesn't really play for a LF, while his speed should play in CF. Remember, Reyes' problem is with lateral quickness, not forward speed.

Short term, Gibbons has to get the balls to make defensive substitution for Reyes/Goins at the end of close lead games, as he does with EE/Smoak and Francisco/Lawrie last year.

Lateral quickness is pretty important for CF as well. Has anyone ever gone from being such a poor SS defensively to a CF???

As the resident expert on lateral quickness on this forum, I must concur.

[PowerPlant1]

It wasn't only Reyes' play. He went into territory regarding Reyes' 'smile.' It's easy to see where that could be taken personally. If it had just been on the defense and contract then the criticism would have been received better since it remained as objective as possible. As for the contract though, the Jays signed Reyes, so it is ridiculous to just center on the player.

The defence warrants criticism. The blunders haven't helped the team and the attacks on Reyes' smile is likely some kind of theory that Reyes' attitude is causing the mistakes. It may be contributing. Even so, a smile also brings benefits. One can't just assume that becuase a player is smiling that he is somehow 'content' with his play nor working on his defense.

[Brew666]

Not exactly but i do think the organization is really down on Reyes. Howarth and Wilner are slimeballs of the highest order, they'd never dare criticize anyone that the front office really cares about

I more subscribe to the theory that Howarth is just an old man yelling at clouds and speaking his mind. Bautista and Dickey are still with the club so you can't really say he was acting on behalf of the front office and attempting to run them out of town . If so, he would've been attacking Lind, Rasmus and Vizquel as they all got blasted in the media after they left. If anything, he could be catering to the audience more than the front office.

No question Wilner is the shilliest of them all.

[Skin Blues]

Lateral quickness is pretty important for CF as well. Has anyone ever gone from being such a poor SS defensively to a CF???

SS to CF is a pretty common transition. Off the top of my head, Billy Hamilton.

At the tail end of a career though?

I don't know, but Reyes still has good speed and is a bat-first player. Many shortstops are glove-first and/or don't have much speed, so when they lose the ability to play SS it's not worth it to put them in the OF. Even still, he'd be fine in left and we can use Pillar or Saunders in CF. He's just so brutal at SS and costs a lot of runs. It would be reeeeeally nice if Goins would learn how to hit, but that's obviously a longshot.

[Kevin Willis]

I guess Howarth is partly responsible for the turnaround and saving Gibby's job.

[LBJSeizedMyID]

Reyes to CF is not the solution. Reyes to second a better one.