This is what has to happen
by BigTimeBlueJayFan on Jul 9, 2009 1:51 AM EDT
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Print1) BJ Ryan needs to go away. Check. Done. See ya!
2) Vernon needs to be asked if he will re-negotiate his contract to keep Halladay here. Maybe spread out the payments over 121 years.
3) Halladay needs to be signed.
4) Rios needs a trip to AAA to fix his swing
5) League needs a trip to single A to start over
6) Whoever is responsible for all the injuries to pitchers needs to be fired. Arnsberg perhaps or the trainer?
7) JP Ricciardi needs to be fired. Long overdue in my opinion.
8) Cito needs to be fired unfortunately.
9) Arnsberg needs to be fired.
10) Tallet needs to get back in the pen.
11) We need another starter or two for next year somehow. The focus should be on that as I believe the hitting will be there. Shore up the pitching now.
Basically, we can be super competitive in 2010. We just can't ship everyone out now or we won't have a chance for another five years. It's 2010 or it's 2014. Take your pick.
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Cito, JP, and Arnsburg are doing a good job
Look, this skid is frustrating, but firing eveyone will not help. How are any of these 3 guys responsible for the freaky string of injuries that have become borderline comedic. We are still .500, have a pitching staff of cast offs and rookies, our “two best hitters” have struggled, but they are still playing good ball. A poorly managed team would have folded yesterday, but they almost won it.
Cito and Arnsburg are doing a hell of a job with the young kids, and lets see what Cito can do with a healthy lineup and what Arnsburg can do with the Doc/Romero/McGowan/Marcum/Litch rotation that we should have.
I’ve never been a big JP fan, but lets sit back for a second and look what he’s done. Our system is full of young good arms, we are fielding a competitive team. We are all in love with the left side of our infield which only JP could have pulled off. His bad move IMO was the BJ Ryan contract. While I wasn’t fussy about it at the time, it signaled to the world that we had money to spend and were ready to compete…later that summer AJ Burnett and Troy Glaus came, both moves that made our team instantly better.
We are 1/2 way through the season and still at .500. This is a fine season, especially given the expectations that people had for us. Lets hope Snider comes back soon, we have a fun second half and get our pitching staff worked out and quit trying to blow something up that was already blown up by injuries.
Happiness is a long walk with a putter in your hand.
by craig in calgary on Jul 9, 2009 10:56 AM EDT reply actions
I have to disagree
Cito is a good coach at teaching the kids the fundamentals of hitting etc. but an abysmal situational manager. Too many times this season there have been situations crying out for him to make a move and he just sits there with his arms crossed, doing nothing.
A Nation of Masochists TRUCULENCE!! It's not just a word. It's a way of life.
So.. Much... RAGE!
When will you people get it? JP has ran the team for eight years. We have missed the playoffs eight years. He convinced ownership to increase payroll… wins increased with the increased payroll, but can you really give a guy much credit for that?
Some people on this blog site need to a serious knock on the head and realize that JP has done very little but talk a good game. Look beyond what is being done. You all thought it was stupid when I suggested Lind was the better hitter than Wells and deserved to be moved up from the five spot… but guess what… Cito did it, and now you all agree that it should have been done and was the right call.
Epic fail.
And you better believe...
That these injured pitchers are partly the organizations fault!! You ever hear of pitch counts? I don’t think anyone on our staff has. Have any of our young guys ever gotten the “Joba” rules?
(Note: I don’t believe I am smarter than anyone in the TO organization. Whenever I come up with new ideas you all seem to think that I am implying that. I just look at what other qualified GMs would do and steal there ideas.)
Do you know what the "Joba Rules" are for?
The idea behind the Joba rules is to stretch out a young pitcher’s arm.
Casey Janssen was injured in April 2008
2006 IP: 136 2/3 (Minors: 42 2/3, Majors: 94)
2007 IP: 72 2/3 (All Majors)
In fact, Janssen was moved into the bullpen in 2007 and was being planned for a starting role in 2008. This was just a case of bad luck.
Jesse Litsch was injured in April 2009
2007 IP: 187 1/3 (Minors: 76 1/3, Majors: 111)
2008 IP: 196 (Minors: 20, Majors: 176)
Again, Litsch’s arm looked very durable. Even in the minors in 2006, he’d pitched over 150 innings.
Dustin McGowan was injured in July 2008
2006 IP: 111 1/3 (Minors: 84, Majors: 27 1/3)
2007 IP: 181 2/3 (Minors: 22, Majors: 169 2/3)
2008 IP: 111 1/3 IP
McGowan is one case where you may have a point. An increase of 70 innings from one year to the next is pretty significant. However, McGowan’s arm was not 20 years old. By this point, he was 25 years old and had pitched 150 innings in back-to-back seasons in 2002 and 2003.
Shaun Marcum was injured in June 2008 and re-injured in September 2008
2006 IP: 131 (Minors: 52.2, Majors: 78.1)
2007 IP: 159 (All Majors)
2008 IP: 168 1/3 (Minors: 17, Majors: 151 1/3)
Marcum is a case where the problem probably was not an issue of increased innings, but one in which he tried to come back to early from an injury and was left in a game too long. From what I remember, Cito routinely left him in games after his pitch count had been reached. Now your argument says that you would be firing J.P. because he did not fire Cito.
Handling pitching arms is not a science, no one has all the right answers. Some teams get lucky and some teams have rotten luck. J.P. has put together a fine stable of young arms. In spite of getting a total of seven starts from these four major-league ready pitchers, this team is one game below .500 — do you really think that is a reason to fire J.P.? You want his replacement to trade Doc? Fine, Doc is under contract through next season. Why not keep J.P. around until next year’s All Star Break and if this team is not competing for a playoff spot, dump him then?
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
great point
The other thing is that a team like the Yankees can sign Sabathia, Burnett, and Pettitte in the same offseason among many others, of course, to “fill out” its rotation and so it can take it easy with it’s young pitchers, using them in the back slots of the rotation and limiting their innings. The Jays don’t have that luxury, the team has heavily relied on those early and mid-20s guys. And that didn’t stop Phil Hughes, once widely considered the best pitching prospect in baseball, from getting hurt last season. I’m certainly open to the possibility that the Jays are doing something wrong with their young arms, but firing people without understanding what that might be won’t help at all.
"Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms... The game of ball is glorious." - Walt Whitman
by hugo on Jul 10, 2009 8:41 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
I cannot believe I put an apostraphe
between its, easily my most hated grammatical mistake!
"Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms... The game of ball is glorious." - Walt Whitman
First of all...
I apologize for being rude.. just very frustrated when I posted that.
I don’t have a problem with the Janssen or Litsch injuries… however I do have a problem with the Marcum and McGowan injuries. First of all Marcum in 2007, I believe it was, stated that he was suffering from a dead arm in September, but was still continually put out on the mound to pitch every five days. Now if I hear that my pitcher is done for the year from my pitcher’s mouth, I am going to give him the rest of the year off. We were well out of the playoff picture at the time.
With McGowan it was the fact that he has always had arm problems and yet he was sent out with a very high P/C limit or none at all… You are right that 70 IP is too high of a jump for a pitcher as I believe the acceptable increase per year without putting strain on a pitcher is 30 IP. In April of last year McGowan had six starts, five had him throw between 99 and 105 pitches and the one that didnt he threw 87 and didn’t get out of the fifth.
But I’m not about the past… I could throw out how AJ Burnett was misused during his time here, and I am sure countless others suffered from the slow hook that seems to always plague the Jays.
Now for our prized rookie who is about to And I pray this does not happen suffer from his misuse this year.
Ricky Romero’s IP by year:
2006 125.2 IP
2007 93.0 IP
2008 163.1 IP
2009 101.1 IP (about 14 starts left… 6 IP average start… +84 IP)
185.1 IP projected.
Not a bad increase from the previous season! But remember that Romero has had shoulder and elbow problems in his career. Also, pitch counts from June and July:
6/5 90 pitches
6/11 99 pitches
6/16 109 pitches
6/21 118 pitches
6/26 106 pitches
7/1 113 pitches
7/6 107 pitches
7/11 108 pitches
Doesn’t this seem high? It worries me the lack of consideration that our whole management team shows in pitch counts. I know that a lot of people don’t believe in PCs but when your organization has had so many injuries should you maybe look into them and maybe say…. “Ricky has been throwing a lot lately… maybe we should cap his next start at 80 pitches.”
I wouldn’t fire JP for this reason Hugo. I would fire him for almost a decade of poor results.
Tom… once again i apologize, but I don’t always feel the need to prove my points with copy and pasted stats. If you want to look up the PCs on AJ Burnett while he was here go right ahead. I will be validated. I will post facts and observances as I see them and if you think I am wrong then you can prove it to yourself.
Jessef… there have also been years when our pythagorean record was lower than our actual record. All balances out in the long run.
Regarding Pythagorean Record
I don’t see how your statement that it “all balances out in the long run” supports your logic that J.P. has “done very little but talk a good game.” In the case of last year’s team, it did not balance out, which is one of the things which kept the Jays out of the playoffs (of course Brad Wilkerson did not help).
The point I’m making is that J.P. actually constructed a very good team last year and this year’s team should look better than it does right now. As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m not quite sure I understand why this team can’t be competitive next season.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
If you feel you can't make a point without being insulting
this is not the place for you. You’ve had a warning. Adults can disagree without insulting.You think none of us know pitch counts? Maybe you should find people that live up to your level of intelligence.
Saying pitch counts has caused injuries without any suggestion of proof and then telling us we are dumb not to see it is….interesting.
by Tom Dakers on Jul 10, 2009 12:15 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Wouldn't agree with this . . .
“J.P. has done very little but talk a good game.”
The 2008 club could easily have been a playoff team.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
Firing arnsberg would be a horrible idea
hes done a great job with the pitching staff… the injuries are not his fault.
Onions Baby Onions
Wells and Rios
are a huge problem for me. Frustrating as hell when you know they can hit so much better than they’re showing. The other thing that bugs me about the current team (and this goes back to when Gibbons was in charge too) is that there doesn’t seem to be any fire in them. You never see guys showing any real emotion either on the field or in the dugout when things are going well or really crappy. I just wonder what the overall team spirit is like in the dressing room and its effect on our performance.
In relation to Arnsburg, I can’t see how you can blame him for injuries. Its just pure bad luck, which we seem to have by the bucket full at the moment.
I friggin hate when people call out players on a lack of passion. I hate it. You have no idea what is going on in their head.
Every see Wells curse when he pops out? Yep all the bloody time.
Did you see the dugout shots two last night in Tampa when they came back to tie it 9-9 that dugout was happy and bouncing all over the place.
Pitchers don’t look disgusted when they give up hits and homeruns?
What do you want them to do, pull a Manny and just start flipping things around? Because thats productive.
'But I don't want to go among mad people' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that' said the Cat 'we're all mad here'.
course you have to overlook that Vernon does show emotion when he doesn't do well
and Rolen does and Doc does.
I do thought wonder why people need guys to act like idiots to prove they cares. Was Lou Pinella a better manager back when he threw a fit every other game?
Sorry Im just angry that they lost again, And work isn’t going well either so Im a bit on edge.
Not to mention I really really don’t like that argument.
'But I don't want to go among mad people' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that' said the Cat 'we're all mad here'.
you don't like it
because it is a tired and senseless argument. And especially inapplicable in the case of Wells, who is visibly busting his hump (as he should) every time he grounds out. He knows he’s not playing as well as he’d like. Also, FWIW, he’s smacking the ball in July, granted we’re only about a week in but he hit well in the 2nd half of June too.
You want to complain about a player? Great, but don’t accuse them of not caring or not trying. It’s beneath an intelligent fan to make that sort of argument.
"Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms... The game of ball is glorious." - Walt Whitman
the other one that I love is speculating on the 'mental' status of a player.
If a guy isn’t hitting he’s got a mental problem?
if he can't hit in certain situations but does in others
then yes, he may have a mental problem
And so might I....
And so might you. Let’s just talk about what the players are doing, instead of pretending we are psychiatrists. Let’s stick to pretending we are baseball men
According to his book,
Joe Torre didn’t want Carl Pavano because he made a bad toast at a Wedding Rehearsal dinner in Florida.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
okay---let's discuss what wells is doing
for most of the season he was batting cleanup and not hitting with risp…since he’s been moved down in the order, he is back to being a good hitteragain
true..though he's been hitting fine on the road all the time.
So I’m not taking it for granted that hings are better until he comes home and hit here. He’s had a number of one week or two week periods where he’s hit well, I’ll believe he’s pulled out of it when he’s hit well for a week.
agreed
the thing that kills me is that he has it in him to do well for us…maybe not 30 homers but lots of doubles, steals, good obp etc
and i am pretty sure that if we do trade him, he’ll shine elsewhere
yeah I'm sure he has good baseball in him.
he was terrific last year. And I don’t really see why he can’t have a great second half of the season. But then I didn’t see any reason he shouldn’t have a good first half. Time will tell I guess. Last season he hit .318/.365/.566 in the second half. I think we’d be pretty happy with that, but I’m not putting money on it.
Once again...
Expect his .280/.330/.470 line….. those are his career numbers (about) and that is all you should expect.
UUUUGGGGHHH
okay
I’m not too unhappy with an 800 OPS with good baserunning and (anecdotally) decent enough defense from a CF…
Prehistoric Hoops - a neat little Raps blog
Ok. So maybe I got a little carried away with all the firings. Frustration coming out. I do believe JP needs to be fired.
The point I would like to explore is point #2 – Vernon Wells contract restructuring. If I was Vernon I would realize that I am not worth all that money and don’t really need that much to survive. I would also look at the fact that I am playing with the best pitcher in the world and would like to continue to do so in an attempt to get to the playoffs. Otherwise, if the team continues with my contract of 121 million and I don’t play as well as I should be, then we have no chance. So I will give up some of my money or take it over a longer period of time and give some to Roy.
by BigTimeBlueJayFan on Jul 10, 2009 8:45 AM EDT reply actions
Now we're onto something
Why don’t we just ask Vernon Wells to bribe Doc Halladay?
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
it's an interesting idea I have thought about myself
I see two possible roadblocks:
First, Wells has already essentially done this (though for the team generally, not specifically for Doc). His deal is ridiculously backloaded already and he has already deferred a ton of money. I promise you this was not Wells’ idea, as he is smart and surely understands the time value of money.
While he certainly, as you say, has enough to live on, he may somewhat justifiably feel that he has already deferred more than his share and be reluctant to do more at a time when the Jays are cutting payroll and there’s no guarantee that Doc resigns. He might say “work out a deal with Doc first and if you do and you need more money, come to me then,” and that would mostly be a fair thing to say. He might (though I have no idea whether he would or not) also feel that the Jays didn’t improve the team by spending the money he already deferred to them, so why should he do so again now.
The second potential roadblock, which would make no difference to me but might (or might not) to him, is that the players union generally pitches a fit when someone does this.
"Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms... The game of ball is glorious." - Walt Whitman
by hugo on Jul 10, 2009 9:14 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
I don’t know what it’s like to have 121 million coming my way, but given my middle class lifestyle now, I can’t imagine how you would spend that amount of money. I am sure these guys live a completely different lifestyle. That being said, do you want to spend your entire life being remembered as the guy who was overpaid and made the Jays mediocre for a long time or do you want to be remembered as the guy who realized that the GM screwed up and perhaps offer to reverse the stupidity a little bit.
I would love to think that Halladay wants to play his entire career for the Jays, but why take less money to play for a team that might have a chance when you can get more money playing for a team that definitely has a chance.
by BigTimeBlueJayFan on Jul 10, 2009 12:49 PM EDT up reply actions
As far as the players union
Couldn’t Wells opt-out and resign instead of restructuring his contract? I know it would essentially amount to the same thing, and it wouldn’t necessarily be easy to convince him to do it, but what could the players union say if he did? He could say he thought the market would be kinder, it wasn’t, and he had to accept a pay cut.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
It’s all hypothetical anyway. He’d never do it. he probably thinks he deserves the whole sum and more.
by BigTimeBlueJayFan on Jul 10, 2009 2:44 PM EDT up reply actions
I can’t say anything about it, I would never do it so my company could sign a co-worker.
'But I don't want to go among mad people' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that' said the Cat 'we're all mad here'.
It’s different though. Your probably making enough to live on and then some extra so you don’t have to work forever. Vernon could feed an entire country for a year. The economics are totally different so you can’t compare his situation to yours.
by BigTimeBlueJayFan on Jul 12, 2009 2:43 AM EDT up reply actions
I still would always always take more money then less money. Regardless of what it is for.
If the BlueJays offered me 10 Million to be a fan of their team
And the Yankees offered me 20 Million, I am sorry guys but I am buying a new Jersey that day.
Even though I love the Jays and 10 Million would be enough for me to do what I need to do and set up my girls education savings and max out my retirement savings and buy a house and pay off school debt and still have plently left over, I would till take the most money and anyone that says different I think is just fooling themselves.
Unless it is a matter of a small percentage of what is being paid. I.E Jays paying 18-19.5 and the Yanks paying 20 you may have a choice, but I have to admit I would be hard pressed to choose less.
'But I don't want to go among mad people' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that' said the Cat 'we're all mad here'.
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