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Pretty strong quotes in this John Lott piece:

http://sports.nationalpost.com/2013/03/ ... -my-heart/

Exiled to a minor-league clubhouse, Ricky Romero walked out of the trainer’s room and found three reporters waiting. At first, he was hesitant to talk. Then, speaking softly, he poured his heart out.

He words conjured pain, confusion, anger and defiance. No matter what his bosses say, he does not believe he belongs in the minor leagues. He will not be there long, he said. If anything needs remedial attention, it his confidence, not his delivery mechanics, he insisted.

After the Toronto Blue Jays left-hander pitched on Tuesday, he felt encouraged. Then he was called into an office to face four men who had spent the spring telling him his rotation job was safe. This time they told him he had been sent to the minors and would stay there as long as it took to fix his faulty mechanics.

“You get knocked down like that right after the game, it’s something you don’t expect,” Romero said. “It hurts and it hits me to the bottom of my heart, because I care so much and I’ve worked so hard for everything I have.”

His first reaction: “‘Is this supposed to help my confidence?’ When it first happens, you’re kind of like, ‘Whoa.’ A million thoughts go through your head. I don’t know if you guys have ever been fired from a job, and you go and sit at home and say, ‘What the hell did I do wrong?’”

its pretty clear ricky has been heartbroken and can't recover.

He wears his heart on his sleeve.
Sometimes that can be a good thing, but I think he allows his emotions to get the better of him, and that affects his confidence.On the other hand I think it's his personal/family history that creates that burning desire to succeed, no matter what.It's a tight rope walk for sure.Bottom line is he needs to fix his mechanics and even if he's not cut from the same cloth as Doc or Lee, they had to swallow their pride and head back to the minors as well.Maybe he can take some solace in the fact that they returned to MLB and dominated.

This is a pretty key quote:

John Lott ‏@LottOnBaseball 53s
Romero: "In no way, shape or form do I want to be here, and I don't have to agree with the decisions they make."

He got to where he was by being firey and not quitting. It may not make for diplomacy but James is right, it drove him to be one of the better pitchers in the AL. Let's see if he can conjure that fire up again and work on his mechanics.

Of course, if his body is shot, maybe nothing can be done to fix him.

Talks a big game - unable to back it up right now.

Dems the breaks Ricky. Toronto isn't messing around this season.

Its good that he's upset about being sent down, gives him that extra fuel to fix the issues he having and get back up north to help the team win games. Gets me thinking if Happ continues to pick well this season and Ricky figures his issues out will one of them be used as trade bait at the deadline if were in a position to improve the club???

Rhettmatic wrote:This is a pretty key quote:

John Lott ‏@LottOnBaseball 53s
Romero: "In no way, shape or form do I want to be here, and I don't have to agree with the decisions they make."

meh, the quote continues "But at the same time, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, you’ve got to maintain that attitude of got to keep working, because the goal is to go up there and help the team win"

I have no problem with any of what he said. I think anyone would be just as upset/disappointed in his position.

Good. He needs to be if he's going to make it back this season.

What I found interesting was that he basically came out and said it was entirely a confidence/mental thing (contrary to AA suggesting it was a mechanical issue repeatedly). In a way, that could make the process entirely more difficult. He's got to try to find that inner belief in himself and his abilities again. Perhaps the demotion will work as motivation to help him reach that point, but I'm not so sure it will. It's completely up to him now where his career goes from here.

When you listen to him speak, sure he's disappointed as any competitor would be, but I didn't get the feeling he was pissed with management. More pissed at himself. Nothing to worry about.

Not entirely unexpected, and as people have said, possibly useful, but a shame nonetheless. I've been around when guys get sent down...in spring training, it comes in waves...and it's always hard to see. Even guys you know had no real chance are often crushed, because they at least believed they did.

People are citing different quotes as keys, and all have validity, but to me the most interesting line is about the 4 guys who spent ST telling him his job was safe. That's the weird thing about managing egos...you always have to build trust, but you sometimes have to lie to do it.

Harry Palmer wrote:Not entirely unexpected, and as people have said, possibly useful, but a shame nonetheless. I've been around when guys get sent down...in spring training, it comes in waves...and it's always hard to see. Even guys you know had no real chance are often crushed, because they at least believed they did.

People are citing different quotes as keys, and all have validity, but to me the most interesting line is about the 4 guys who spent ST telling him his job was safe. That's the weird thing about managing egos...you always have to build trust, but you sometimes have to lie to do it.

Yeah, it seems the decision completely blindsided him. It's no excuse for a pro athlete in his position, but I do wonder if the belief that his job was secure caused him to be a bit complacent and affected how he pitched. It would be only natural. Either way, though, it doesn't matter now. He's going to have to give his best to get back.

I'd be more worried if he said he wasn't pissed.

I think the organization may have felt that telling Romero his job was on the line would have caused even more pressure for him, mentally or otherwise. At least now they can say that they didn't put any real pressure on him, and he still couldn't correct whatever mechanical flaws he was showing.

I understand Romero's anger, and I actually like it. He should be upset, even though the Jays were more than justified in making that decision. Let him use that as motivation. Unfortunately, if his problems really are his knees, then I'm not sure motivation will be enough.

Agree on the 'white lie': when you have a guy working on his mechanics, the last thing you want is for him to feel like he's pitching for his job, even if he is.

"What the hell did I do wrong?" =



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+



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x the 2012 season

Schadenfreude wrote:Agree on the 'white lie': when you have a guy working on his mechanics, the last thing you want is for him to feel like he's pitching for his job, even if he is.

I agree with what you're both saying, except (and you had to know that was coming) once you're taking fairly drastic steps to alter mechanics and having to answer questions in the media about it too, I think they should all be professional enough to handle something like "This is what we need to see... As it stands right now we want to correct X before we're happy running you out there every 5days. And realistically what we're asking of you is too difficult to accomplish and sustain in the remaining time period before we break, so, while we haven't finalized anything, right now we're seriously considering you starting the year down here to complete the process."

I can see waiting on that kind of conversation, 'cause you want to see if he'll progress naturally before taking those steps and there's no point messing with his head when you don't have to, but a week ago or 10 days or whatever it was, I really hope someone was having some kind of frank discussion with Ricky. If he was a 22 year-old rookie, I might obfuscate the situation right to the end and make it sound like a change of heart or something, but Ricky's not a kid anymore, he should be able to handle some frank discussions about how he's perceived by the coaches without it wrecking his psyche. How else can they get him to do anything?

None of that is to say that didn't happen. Publicly backing him until the last second doesn't bother me. I would not change my stance until I absolutely had to, 'cause having to answer the questions Ricky fielded for an extra week or two would not help him adjust at all. But there's a big difference between internal and external, unfortunately there's no way to know about the internal. If they really blindsided him because he wouldn't react well, then either they're reading him wrong and should have a bit more faith in his character (or at least test it to find out), or Ricky should grow the **** up. I'm not laying blame or casting aspersions anywhere, but there does come a point to me where coaches and vets should be able to discuss problems a bit clearer than they at least let on to the press.

NB: This is both a rant about modern teaching and lack of direct communication by those who lead as it reflects Rickey's confusion...it's a bit long.

Today's modern equivalent of discipline is letting the student hang themselves with their own rope regardless of timelines or difficulty of completion. Nowadays, lack of time means teachers have to follow more and more rigid guidelines for completion to assist their students to accept more and more information in a shorter time.

The guidelines have replaced the teacher, ostensibly to provide a more inclusive attempt at self improvement for the student. But whether they know what to do or not, often students need individual assistance and be told they are making mistakes. And not just to notice the mistakes, but to be shown the magnitude of them. All mistakes are not equal.

The idea goes something like this: We tell you what we want, how you can get better in excruciating detail using a checklist and then dump it in your lap, whether you have a reasonable time to do it or not. Either you seek help with what we've given you in that time frame or you are "not taking responsibility for your own actions" a polite way to say you are **** up. It sounds great but ignores the reality of the difficulty inherent in questioning your superiors, as well as the depth of the problem.

This way. if anyone complains, like say....Lind, they can retort, hey, we told you what to do...you could have come to us...it was up to you to communicate if it was unclear....blah blah blah. This way, there is "plausible denial" from the higher ups. To be honest though, a little forthright communication at the correct time could have addressed this issue and helped the individual sooner. All this "rubrc" based crap disguised as objectivity is essentially a way to make what is grey black and white and to distance the learner from the teacher (ie. CYA). It looks pretty but it's not more unbiased than any other construct.

I find it hilarious, too. Like you're going to tell your employer that you don't feel his assessment counts because three other managers gave it a 5/5. Guess what? That's not important. It's THIS guy you are working with and you have to have a healthy understanding of needing to please THEM as individuals. People have a right to make reasoned judgements and don't need to always explain every inch of them or perfectly agree about the end product. The point is, telling people they have to ship up or ship out is sometimes appropriate. Playing nice and pulling the rug out sometimes will breed this kind of discontent, whether the org. has tried its best to provide Ricky with options for feedback (rubricesque) even with the best of intentions.

In Rickey's case, he's a big boy. He has to be able to take a little honesty (privately) from his managing team and have them tell him the truth about his situation. Basically, it looks like they took it's early and it's spring training approach and waited too long to assess him properly until he had that horrible outing against the minor league players.

They knew then he probably wasn't making the team and could have told him so...but CYA technique told them they needed to give him the full shot to say they were being "fair" instead of trying to directly address the problem right away.

Rickey seems overly sensitive here--but it''s the surprise that is interesting. He bought the media message that the team was selling, which means, he wasn't let in on the thought process. Maybe he didn;t need to be, maybe he did. Maybe he was naiive, but I think someone should have intervened before today to alert him as to the thought process--even if they didn't want to tell him before. THAT would be fair.

Does anyone else worry that the problem really is the mechanics? Forget about Management's little white lies, if Rickey can't accept that his delivery is broken, how will he ever recover. Telling himself its just a matter of confidence is the worst lie of all.

Good point. That is also concerning.