Feel the Excitement: Jays @ Astros (Today - Some Other Time)

[C Court]

This team is still an embarrassing disgrace of a spectacle and nothing short of.

Agreed. Arguably the worst Jays squad in 20 years.

But please don't blame Alex. It's not his fault. He did everything right.

You got em!

Bosh/Bargnani/Turkoglu under-perform with an incompetent head coach who was handpicked by the GM and the Raptors' dismal performance is on Bryan.

Johnson/Dickey/Cabrerra under-perform with an incompetent manager who was handpicked by the GM and the Blue Jays' dismal performance is on the players.




Can't have it both ways.

[tecumseh18]

Can't have it both ways.

You can't compare the stupidity of putting together a Charmin-soft front line in the NBA with taking a chance on bargain individual MLB players - each with their own liabilities (injury-prone, age, druggie) - who have been stars in their own right. Constructing an NBA team is all about finding and fitting complementary pieces together. Constructing an MLB team is a completely different exercise.

The only time Bryan did it right (trading for Matrix), the guy had no intention of sticking around. We won a bunch of meaningless games at the end of that season, costing us a shot at Harden/Rubio/Curry for the sake of establishing a "winning culture". The idiocy was monumental. Colossal. You can't compare Colangelo to AA. Dickie was an overpay, no question, we knew it at the time. But he seemed like the cherry on top to confirm a division title at a time the Sox, Rays and Yankees seemed weak. Bad decision, but mainly in retrospect.

I never liked Gibby, but the main job of a baseball manager is making up the line-ups and calling in the relievers. Can't really complain.

[Santoki]

I never liked Gibby, but the main job of a baseball manager is making up the line-ups and calling in the relievers. Can't really complain.

It's not though, is it? There's something more to it or else you could just forego a manager and have someone in a press box making those types of decisions. Managing a team of players to a successful season over the course of many years cannot always be quantified and that's what drives the statistical types nuts.

[Fairview4Life]

I never liked Gibby, but the main job of a baseball manager is making up the line-ups and calling in the relievers. Can't really complain.

It's not though, is it? There's something more to it or else you could just forego a manager and have someone in a press box making those types of decisions. Managing a team of players to a successful season over the course of many years cannot always be quantified and that's what drives the statistical types nuts.

http://blogs.thescore.com/djf/2013/08/2 ... uld-he-go/

Don’t get me wrong, managers aren’t so nonessential that any old **** could do what they do. They need to run a bullpen, they need to strategize in-game– two things that Gibbons does particularly well. And yes, there is certainly an element to what they do that involves creating a positive work environment, too, even if the on-field impact of that sort of thing can only plausibly believed to be marginal, no matter how badly some folks feel the need to pretend otherwise. As I’ve said many times, there are just too many other forces– natural born competitiveness and the drive to maximize earnings– and factors– like the weeding out on the way to the Majors of players who can’t handle pressure or respond negatively on the field to having teammates or managers they don’t like– to hold a manager and his magical culture-creation abilities in anything close to the regard that we do when it comes to that stuff, even as we bizarrely acknowledge the unfairness of how we do so, and completely ignore the chicken-and-egg nature of any of this kind of talk.

Do winning cultures produce winners, or do winning teams produce winning cultures?

The answer actually would seem pretty bloody obvious if people could just be bothered to look in front of their noses and see it. The Rays didn’t make the playoffs in 2012 or in 2009: did Joe Maddon suddenly get dumb or lose his magic, or is the world infinitely more **** complex than this “the manager creates a winning culture and then the players go win” bull? Look at the last two NL Managers Of The Year– Davey Johnson and Kirk Gibson– who each watched their teams go tits up in the year following their award wins. How could that be??? How could Jimy Williams have been a manager of the year? How were Joe Torre and Terry Francona bad enough to be fired from their first gigs? How can Ron Gardenhire and Mike Scioscia win Manager Of The Year and in short time watch their teams fall apart? Or Bud Black or Jim Tracy?

[s e n s i]

i'd much rather be handcuffed financially paying buehrle and reyes a preposterous amount than overpaying by outbidding ourselves for guys like turkoglu, kapono, fields, bargnani, derozan, kleiza etc.

AA chose a direction and his end game was a world series or contention at the minimum -- something Centre Court agreed with last offseason.

BC chose a direction and his end game was a 8th seed in the playoffs. for several years.

at the same time, it really isn't that difficult to make the playoffs in the NBA. much easier at least than making the playoffs in baseball. but hey let's continue to compare apples and oranges.

btw bosh didn't underperform as a raptor at all. he actually overperformed. a 25 PER and a .592 TS% in 09-10 and that's underperforming? this logic would suggest he's underachieved his entire career and is really a 1st ballot HOFer, top 10 big man of all time.

[C Court]

AA chose a direction and his end game was a world series or contention at the minimum -- something Centre Court agreed with last offseason.

This is a total red herring and completely irrelevant.

First, I did NOT agree with all of AA's moves. Second, even if I did .... what difference does it make?

Fact is that it does not change the reality that the Blue Jays, as an organization, are arguably in a worse position in September 2013 than they were in September 2012.

The notion that we agreed with AA and therefore that makes it all okay is preposterous.

Look, you, me, Alex, Sports Illustrated and everyone else were all flat out wrong about the trade with the Marlins and the subsequent trade for an old RA Dickey and the signing of a roid-free Melky. How does that change anything? The Jays are still a mess - a bigger mess than last year's disasterous season.

So while some point to hindsight bias, the real issue is hypocrisy bias.

That said, I'm leaving for Rogers Centre in a few minutes to watch this sad sack bunch of so-called ball players try to beat the Yankees.

[C Court]

hindsight bias or whatever nonsense people want to wash over crappy results as, does not mean AA gets to skip the performance evaluation

failure = being fired

bye Alex

Alex we all loved your moves but in the end you still suck!

You're right. At the end of the day, Alex is graded on the on field performance of the Blue Jays.

The notion that we're judging Alex based on hindsight is lame.

[dagger]

That said, I'm leaving for Rogers Centre in a few minutes to watch this sad sack bunch of so-called ball players try to beat the Yankees.

Me, too, and the dome won't even be open.

[Fairview4Life]

You're right. At the end of the day, Alex is graded on the on field performance of the Blue Jays.

The notion that we're judging Alex based on hindsight is lame.

Not understanding why the Jays got the results they did and just firing as many scapegoats as you can is a terrible way to run any business.

[Schad]

Someone else start a series thread...I did my part in sacrificing a series to the Astros, someone else needs to step up and own the thrashing we're about to earn.

[Fairview4Life]

First, I did NOT agree with all of AA's moves. Second, even if I did .... what difference does it make?

If you want no credit for your opinions from last year because they ended up being wrong, then why should you get any credit for your opinions this year? If this is just results based, and we don't care at all about context or figuring out why the results were what they were, then we shouldn't pay any attention to your calls for firing people this offseason, right?

[Santoki]

I never liked Gibby, but the main job of a baseball manager is making up the line-ups and calling in the relievers. Can't really complain.

It's not though, is it? There's something more to it or else you could just forego a manager and have someone in a press box making those types of decisions. Managing a team of players to a successful season over the course of many years cannot always be quantified and that's what drives the statistical types nuts.

http://blogs.thescore.com/djf/2013/08/2 ... uld-he-go/

Don’t get me wrong, managers aren’t so nonessential that any old **** could do what they do. They need to run a bullpen, they need to strategize in-game– two things that Gibbons does particularly well. And yes, there is certainly an element to what they do that involves creating a positive work environment, too, even if the on-field impact of that sort of thing can only plausibly believed to be marginal, no matter how badly some folks feel the need to pretend otherwise. As I’ve said many times, there are just too many other forces– natural born competitiveness and the drive to maximize earnings– and factors– like the weeding out on the way to the Majors of players who can’t handle pressure or respond negatively on the field to having teammates or managers they don’t like– to hold a manager and his magical culture-creation abilities in anything close to the regard that we do when it comes to that stuff, even as we bizarrely acknowledge the unfairness of how we do so, and completely ignore the chicken-and-egg nature of any of this kind of talk.

Do winning cultures produce winners, or do winning teams produce winning cultures?

The answer actually would seem pretty bloody obvious if people could just be bothered to look in front of their noses and see it. The Rays didn’t make the playoffs in 2012 or in 2009: did Joe Maddon suddenly get dumb or lose his magic, or is the world infinitely more **** complex than this “the manager creates a winning culture and then the players go win” bull? Look at the last two NL Managers Of The Year– Davey Johnson and Kirk Gibson– who each watched their teams go tits up in the year following their award wins. How could that be??? How could Jimy Williams have been a manager of the year? How were Joe Torre and Terry Francona bad enough to be fired from their first gigs? How can Ron Gardenhire and Mike Scioscia win Manager Of The Year and in short time watch their teams fall apart? Or Bud Black or Jim Tracy?

That's why I qualified my statement with "over many years". We've all seen how writers fall in love with the "turnaround" coach of the year winners. It's why Jerry Sloan never won a COY. The same goes for baseball. Even great managers have years where their teams miss the playoffs, but as long as they're highly competitive (like the Rays were in 2009 and 2012) they'll continue to run the team without too many questions.

Literally any coach/manager can have a great year, but it takes a certain type to consistently do it. A good manager with a winning team is normally borne from a well-run organization where systems are defined and players are often interchangeable. It's an extremely difficult thing to define and quantify, but for the people who decry the "fire him" folk for their supposed ignorance, the ones who say a manager makes no real difference, I feel, are just as naive/ignorant to the factors that go into creating a successful organization.