Cito Blames Fans for Losing.

by Tom Dakers on Sep 10, 2009 12:02 PM EDT in Analysis Comment 28 comments

The story that everyone is picking up on, out of yesterday's game, is that the Jays had their lowest attendance ever since Rogers Center opened. There was 7 people (all named Fred) there last night. No not really, I'm just too lazy to look up the number. Now ignoring that the team has changed how they count attendance this season, so it is as likely as not that there have been smaller crowds, it is sad that the numbers were that few. And I'm guessing today will be worse.

But this line from Cito Gaston is what caught my attention:

"In order to get back to where we're going, we need our fans out here," he said. "We need their support, so hopefully they'll realize that and come out and support us."

You get that. It's not his fault or the player's fault or JP fault that the team is losing, it is the lack of fan support.

Now Cito, despite all the things I've written here over the last year or so, I really do love you man. I mean if you write your autobiography, I'll be first in line to buy it. Or, you know, if you can't afford a real ghost writer, I'll do it free. I think you have a very interesting story in there. And I know you could teach me a million things about baseball.

But, frig Cito, when any business starts blaming their customers, you know it is in trouble.

You know, Cito, I love baseball and will watch any baseball. I'll watch semi-pro ball, I'll watch kids play, I'll watch lousy teams play. I'll even watch the damned Yankees play. And, for better or worse, the Blue Jays are my team. I watched them before your first run as manager and I'll watch them long after you are gone from the team.

But Cito, if you want fans to come to the games, you have to give them a reason to come. Now it doesn't have to be winning baseball, because we know only one team finishes the season happy and if winning was all we were interested in, well, I guess we'd be Yankee fans and spend all our time defending the massive payroll trying to ignore the fact that my mom could build a winning team if she could pay players several times what other teams are able to. What would be the fun in that?

But, you have to give us hope for the future. Here it is September and you are still running Jose Bautista and Kevin Millar and all out there. They have proven to us fans that they aren't going to be part of a winning team. Oh, Baustista hits lefties ok and if that was all he was asked to do, I wouldn't mind him and I get it that Millar is a good guy and nice to have around in the club, but put out guys that give us a hope for the future.

Get Travis Snider and Randy Ruiz in the lineup everyday. Get JP to call up some of the other young guys. You have some sway with him, you could convince him. I know J.P. Arencibia didn't have a great year, but then neither did Barajas, Arencibia will be part of the organization next year. Barajas, we don't know. Brian Dopirak is someone the fans might get excited to see. I've love to get a look at Scott Campbell. Aaron Mathews could, at worst, spell Vernon Wells some. What has Wells done this year that makes you think the fans want to see him 158 times. I'd love to watch Zach Stewart pitch. Let us get excited about seeing the young guys

You want fans to come to the games, it is up to you. Show us something that we want to see. If you won't do that, don't blame the fans for not coming out.

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I disagree

about Arencibia. How many catching prospects do we have to go through before one makes it? If he needs more seasoning, let’s be patient.

I don’t understand why Ruiz isn’t in the lineup everyday, and Snider should be playing against lefties too.

Really, I just want this season to end.

Sports And The City

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by eyebleaf on Sep 10, 2009 12:08 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

You and me both

What a heartbreaking season

Life as a Toronto Sports Fan?... *sigh*... It is what it is...

by JohnnyG on Sep 10, 2009 12:09 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

There is no reason not to have Ruiz and Snider out there everday

And it makes less and less sense to not give Castro and Dopriak a taste of the bigs.

Life as a Toronto Sports Fan?... *sigh*... It is what it is...

by JohnnyG on Sep 10, 2009 12:10 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

This made me mad.

How can Cito blame the fans for not showing up when he doesn’t show up half the time? Managing a baseball team takes more than filling out a shitty lineup card and then sitting on your hands for 3 hours. I was the biggest Cito homer the past year or so, but I want a new start. I don’t know who it will take for this team to play up to their potential, but it isn’t Cito.

I jumped all over a poster in May for saying “Maybe there is a reason he’s been out of baseball for 10 years”. Unfortunatey I’m starting to agree. Maybe I’m wrong and maybe he is the reason that Lind and Hill are having fantastic years, but for every good story this year, there is 2 bad stories.

And so, Craig finds himself leaping from blog to blog, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap, will be the leap home.

by craig in calgary on Sep 10, 2009 12:13 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Beeston was on the fan last night and made it sound like Cito should be

around next regardless of a new Prez or not. I didnt get that same feeling for JP mind you.

by ClintB on Sep 10, 2009 12:22 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Amen!

What really drives ticket sales is hope. With the start of a new season, you hope that your team will be better than it was last season. If the beginning of the season isn’t going very well, you hope that the team will rebound. If that doesn’t happen, you look at the newer players and hope that they will be part of the answer next year.

This year, everything the Jays have done has been killing hope.

by siggian on Sep 10, 2009 12:24 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Hope

Cito deserves our praise and credit for managing teams that won two professional championships. But let’s face it … those teams had one of the higher payrolls in baseball at the time and talent out the wazoo. Cito is right in the fact that if fans don’t come out and support the team they cannot expect a winner. But we all know from the Leafs that it takes much more than fans coming out to make a winner. The Jays stopped performing like champs before attendance started slumping. Everyone (myself included) loves to support winning teams and finds it hard to justify supporting losing teams. If Cito and management want the fans to come to the park and support the team then they need to do more to field a winning team than just talking about the past and making line-up cards that keep veteran players happy. Personally I think our best hope is if the new Rogers (sans Ted) sells the team and they clean house. I know that hasn’t been a popular opinion when I have shared it before but I still believe that is the way to go.

'some witty quote'
Too Lazy to Care

by DieHardDummy on Sep 10, 2009 12:49 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I don't find it hard

to justify supporting a losing team. They’re my team, sometimes they’re great, other times they suck. Sometimes they lose because of injuries, other times it’s because they got outbid for free agents, other times (as with most of the 90s) it’s because they sold the farm to make a run at it (successful I might add) and now they have to reap the consequences. We cannot delude ourselves into thinking that this team can ever be like the Yankees and be perennial contenders. I absolutely believe that any time we make a serious run at it and enjoy two or three years of contention, we will pay for it with three to five years of rebuilding. I’m absolutely ok with this and will continue to support the team during the down times.

I DO find it very hard, however, to justify supporting a losing team that has no discernible plan in place to improve things.

I think that’s a key difference that, unfortunately, many people (including Cito and Rogers by the looks of things) have overlooked. It’s not (just) the losing that’s driving people away. For some of the casual walk-up fans who usually don’t come anyway, it might be true that they’re even less likely to show up now given the team’s record. But to be going down to the 10K mark would suggest to me that even the hard-core fans are staying away. I don’t think anyone who’s been a fan for any appreciable length of time is put off by losing per se, we’ve certainly done plenty of that over the past 16 years. They’re just fed up with not having a direction.

I’m ok with management saying it’s going to blow up this team and start over. I would be willing to go to a game and watch Snider/Ruiz/Arencibia/Dopirak et al. get smoked, even if they end up being even worse than the Milluccis. I just don’t see any reason to continue to support a team that sucks and doesn’t appear to be committed to fixing the problems. I’ll keep up through the blogs and occasionally watch on TV if I can stand it, but at this point I refuse to buy a ticket to watch the games, even though I’m 40 minutes away by public transportation and could easily go to a few dozen games a year if I wanted. It’s a crappy position to be in, but I feel that if I go to a game at this point I’m basically supporting the status quo and I won’t do that.

by voodoomusic on Sep 10, 2009 3:39 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

really, cannot be a perennial contender? For decades the Detroit Red Wings of NHL was one of the lowliest teams in the league. Over the last 10-20 years, Detroit has suffered one of, if not the worst economy of any major CMA in the US. Yet, they are one of, if not the best, NHL franchises in the league. There is more than one way to skin a cat. The Jays need to figure out a different strategy than the Yankees if they want to win AL East. This does not mean the Jays cannot win.

by aagoodfella on Sep 10, 2009 7:56 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

There’s a huge difference in circumstances between NHL Detriot and MLB Toronto. The NHL has no where near the disparity of payroll that exists in baseball, nor does it have three of their most dominant teams in one division with an unbalanced schedule.

I know people feel that there is some kind of philosophy outthere that will be the key in elevating Toronto past Boston and New York on half the payroll, but that just isn’t going to happen outside of extreme luck. Boston and New York have the unique ability to retool their team at any point in the face of any challenge at will, which is something the Jays simply don’t have the resources to do. There is virtually no financial setback either team can’t afford to absorb and make a money deal to mitigate, which is why they have dominated the league.

At this point, the Jays either need to be bad enough for a long time to be able to cherry pick top prospect and make some very smart short-term trades, like Tampa, or up payroll and compete aggressively on the market. I just don’t see some kind of small market Beane-esque approach that will suddenly put us back on a level playing field.

by dexfarkin on Sep 10, 2009 8:43 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

well put

If MLB had a salary cap, as the NHL does, things might be altogether different (depending on how hard/soft they made the cap—I imagine that if it ever happens there will be enough exemptions that teams like the Yankees and Red Sox can still outspend everyone else, just not by as large a margin).

People see that the last decade has produced 9 different WS winners (or whatever it is, don’t have the list in front of me), including some relatively small-market franchises, and assume that means there’s competitive balance. I think that’s superficial and silly. Everybody knows that once you get to a five or seven-game series it’s pretty much a tossup, and the best team on paper is only marginally more likely to win.

The issue is that teams like Boston and New York can buy their way into the playoffs basically every year. As dexfarkin pointed out, there is no injury, retirement, suckage or combination of all of the above that can’t be remedied near-instantaneously when you have the money to go out and sign 3 Type As (2 of which are pretty much indisputably among the top 10 players in all of MLB) in a single offseason. So even if once you get to the playoffs it’s only a 1 in 8 chance, they’re still making that dice roll 8 times every decade, instead of a team like Tampa that might get to make that dice roll once in a decade.

I enjoyed Moneyball the book. I think Moneyball the philosophy has some serious problems, especially when you try to apply it to the Blue Jays. I’ll certainly give Beane the credit for finding and exploiting inefficiencies in the market. Today, in the age of Fangraphs etc. when anyone can get detailed statistical analysis on demand, I don’t think it’s possible to be so far out ahead of the crowd anymore. (Even though Cito, not to mention Richard Griffin, doesn’t seem to understand concepts like OPS. This is probably at least a small part of the reason we’re having such difficulty, with the supposed-Moneyball GM and the anti-Moneyball manager.) Beane was also able to win his division (and thereby make the playoffs enabling that dice roll, although it hasn’t come up yet) with teams that won 85ish games playing a much weaker schedule than Toronto does. Although even winning 85 games was an impressive achievement given the kind of payroll he had to work with, he certainly didn’t have to build a juggernaut like we would to try to take down the big guns.

I think Toronto, like any small to mid-market franchise, can be fairly consistently successful if it employs a combination of shrewd drafting, excellent player development, savvy payroll management (that means saving money during rebuilding years but then reinvesting it when the team is close—not letting it disappear into Rogers’ coffers never to be seen again), and solid free-agent acquisitions (that means picking up good complementary pieces and maybe a rental player on rare occasions to get us over the hump—not trying to build an entire team through free agency, and not throwing money at over-the-hill guys hoping they rediscover their former glory). By “fairly consistently successful” I mean that in a given decade I think we could make three or four good runs at the playoffs (you should usually have at least a two-year window with a good squad provided you haven’t completely splashed out on rentals), a couple of years of pretty craptacular rebuilding (like this year), and the balance somewhere in between, solid but unspectacular years where the kids show promise and we win some games but come up short. Like the last few years, we win around 86 games and finish third.

I wouldn’t call that a perennial contender, but I’d call it a damn successful franchise if we made the playoffs 3 times every 10 years, given the competition as well as the sheer law of averages (30 teams, 8 spots, so even if you don’t play in the AL East the percentages would say you make it once every 4 years). I would certainly take it in a heartbeat over no playoffs in 16 years, don’t you think?

by voodoomusic on Sep 10, 2009 11:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The main issue is that the competitive nature of the AL East is virtually non-existent. Yes, in any other division, you have a reasonable chance to make the playoffs, and any team can beat any other team in a best of five/best of seven matchup, so money is no gaurantee of a World Series.

However, what Toronto faces is a schedule specifically designed to force it to play three of the best teams in baseball more than any other team in the American League. So you’re absolutely right that we could catch lightning in a bottle. The trouble is that there is really no consistent front office approach that can negate the reality that making the playoffs requires mainly luck on our part. If our pitching hadn’t fallen apart in 2006, we could have made a run. If our offense hadn’t disappeared in 2007-2008, we could have made a run. However, we can’t adapt mid-season to problems and Boston and New York can.

by dexfarkin on Sep 11, 2009 8:46 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

all sports suffer from divisional scheduling … NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB .. for a variety of reasons, primarily to drive rivalries / attendance and save on travel costs

personally, I would like to see all teams, to the extent possible (not so much so in the NFL), play each other an equal number of times, instead of focusing their schedules in their own division … that way the truly best teams would make it into the playoffs - however, I think most folks would disagree with this

in any case, pro sports is subject to ebbs and flows in competitiveness …. I remember a day when NL East was the most powerful division in baseball, not so much so now. In NFL, NFC West used to be powerful, now not so much, same with AFC West. At one point NHL Northwest won stanley cup 6 of 7 years, likely now? Not.

Guys like Jeter, Posada and Arod are all nearing retirement. They will all be hard to replace. The Yanks are bound to sign at least one bad Wells-like contract to replace these guys. They could very likely be much less competitive for years than they are right now. Moreover, look at the Bosox, before the recent iteration of the team, it was 18 years since they won a pennant and 11 years before that. Jays are in a down cycle, but it is hardly insurmountable.

Jays have lots of young pieces (Lind, Snider, pitchers+) and not so young (Hill, Wells, Ruiz) and other wildcard types (performance or contract) like Encarnacion and Vespa that are good. It does not take that many tweaks to make this team a contender. Just cuz the Jays are at the bottom of a cycle does not mean that they can never win again.

by aagoodfella on Sep 11, 2009 3:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

partially agreed

I do think the Yankees may have a hard time at least temporarily when they lose a few of the older guys. Having said that, I know I’ve said it before but they signed CC, Tex, and Burnett in one offseason! Right now if they lost Jeter, Posada, A-Rod etc. I think the limitation would be more who’s available to sign (this year’s free agent class is nowhere near last year’s) than what their budget would tolerate. It may take them a few years to replace all those guys but they’ll have the bucks to outbid everyone else for whatever potential replacements do hit the market. There’s always deadline deals as well.

As for Boston, their sudden change in fortune is easily explained: John Henry only bought the team in 2002. Before then they had been spending more like a mid-market team. Once they started emulating the Yankees in terms of payroll, that history of losing came to an end pretty quickly. They’ve been luckier in the playoffs than the Yankees, and their front office is smarter, so that’s allowed them to do even better than New York over the past several years.

I don’t think I said the Jays can never win again, quite the opposite really, but I don’t think there’s a magic bullet that will allow Toronto to go head-to-head every single year with teams that spend double. And I also don’t think it’s a matter of ebbs and flows, I think this is the new economic reality. Toronto’s payroll (during the WS years) used to be higher than the Yankees’! Don’t see that ever happening again.

by voodoomusic on Sep 11, 2009 3:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

That’s pretty much my point, and it is excerbated by the unbalanced schedule limiting our chance for the post season. I think we will be competitive again, and I can see it happening quite soon, but it is a window of opportunity, which will pass and then take another cycle to happen again.

by dexfarkin on Sep 11, 2009 5:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I never suggested that they could never win again. What I am saying is that there isn’t an operational mode floating around out there that will negate the disparity between Toronto and either Boston or New York. So, yes, through the ebbs and flow of the seasons, we will be competitive, but never consistantly so. Boston and New York do not face that same fact. Their financial advantage means that they will remain competitive in perpetuity, and the other three teams in our division must rely on luck as much as any other factor unless we have the same resources.

And comparisons to other sports aren’t really valid, because there simply isn’t another similar circumstance that combines the same limited access to the post season with an unbalanced schedule against the two significantly highest payrolls in the league.

Just a minor point, A-Rod isn’t anywhere near retirement.

by dexfarkin on Sep 11, 2009 4:57 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well, Is That Really What He Was Saying?

I do not think Cito’s comments are blaming the fans for their losing ways. Instead, what he is saying is that it is a cooperative effort, and if the team is to win, they will need fan support. With this, I am in agreement with Cito. If the Jays are going to be a championship team, they are going to need a boost in attendance to 31k+ average from 24k-ish right now — again, all IMHO.

Having said that, Cito can be held in part culpable, He is doing some highly questionable, in fact I would say “foolish” stuff. Sorry Millar and Bautista, but there is really no reason these players should have seen game time from late August onward. If the Jays cannot win this year (which they cannot), than they sure as heck should be laying the groundwork for next year. What are groundwork moves? Well, that would include getting Snider out there every darn day and early in the order so he can get as many ABs as possible. If Snider is still learning MLB, it makes alot more sense for him to make mistakes and learn when games do not matter as opposed to next year when games start counting again. The same is true for Ruiz. Moreover, Ruiz is not a certainty for the roster next year so it makes double sense to play him as much as possible now so the Jays can make an informed decision as to whether to use him next year or not (in the interest of disclosure, obviously I am a big Ruiz fan and hope he makes it). Similarly, lets start working these minor league pitchers and get them some MLB pitching. If they get bombed, too bad, at least they will learn that if you are going to leave hanging off-speed stuff in the MLB, the ball is going to get SMASHED.

Cito’s comments are correct, but in that vein, Cito, you need to look in the mirror. Are you making decisions that make fans realize that you have the team’s best interests at heart? The answer to that is no. Sometimes as the manager, you have to make decisions that anger some player over their personal agenda. However, if you work for the Jays, individual interests should be subordinated to the teams goal of winning. That is what keeps fans.

by aagoodfella on Sep 10, 2009 3:30 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

With Doc's Pitching and you get 11K attendance

You know your fans doesn’t give a damn, but like so many of you have said, it certianly helps for us fans to have something to look forward to. I cannot agree more that it seems like our team has no direction, no plans, no roadmap to see where the hell we are going with the team.
For those of us who blog, i would consider we are decent fans of blue jays to the point we would like to discuss our opinion of the team. We all know this year is a lost cost, why not play the youngers from AAA and see what happens? Are we using Millar like we are not going to keep him next year so we can get the ‘best’ out of him before he go? Seriously, its sad, but I don’t think the fans can do much at this point that it will ‘help’ the team in any way, so why would Cito ‘blame’ the fans?
As for myself, if I don’t watch the jays, i wouldn’t watch baseball at all. Come on Cito, I would really hate it to lose interest in the jays and/or baseball. Make baseball interesting again, not just winning, but give me something to look forward to.

by Outz on Sep 10, 2009 4:06 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

sigh

This team as been run into the ground long enough. Im glad only 11K showed up. We deserve better and need to get off our asses and do something. let them know how we feel. Set up a huge protest with the other blogs and lets make it happen…A Call to arms!! Yeah its nice to talk about these things in cyberspace but for the sake of saving this franchise something has to be done. Just look at what the Detroit Lions did a few years ago. they protested so much at home games that the GM Matt Millen was eventually fired and now they have proper people in place and the outlook looks better for them.

by syc on Sep 10, 2009 5:30 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Hummm. I think Cito is being mis-quoted/understood here...

I have to agree with aagoodfella, Cito isn’t blaming the fans for loosing. His comment is one many managers and team owners have said many many times…the team needs the support of their fans. He’s not demanding this support but asking.

As with any professional sport, its the fan support that makes a team truly great. Without a solid fan base the team will have a motivation problem, a financial problem and an issue with recruitment. Jays management needs the gate revenue, TV, plus all the stuff fans buy that make the economics work. Without the money and fan base, lets face it not many quality players will want to be a Jay. The Edmonton Oilers are in a similar boat – a fairly tight budget under the previous owner group; a city with crazy fans but limited revenue base and the city is regarded as the least desirable place to play hockey in the NHL. Toronto is a bit far away from the baseball centre of the universe – they can fall into the same trap quickly.

I agree that keeping Millar and the usual list of under-performing suspects in the line-up doesn’t help produce runs – you can’t bench 2/3 of the starting line-up. And really the poor production goes way beyond the favorite whipping boy Millar or Barajas or Bautista or (feel free to fill in the blank…).

"Baseball statistics are like a girl in a bikini. They show a lot, but not everything." ~ Toby Harrah

by No Bunting on Sep 10, 2009 8:36 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

they just signed Comrie for $1M / year … down from $4M / year previously! Wow. I wonder if Hilary Duff is gonna dump him?

I am not sure why folks would not want to play in Edmonton. The fans are very good there.

by aagoodfella on Sep 11, 2009 3:01 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

cough Edmonton is a dump cough

And so, Craig finds himself leaping from blog to blog, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap, will be the leap home.

by craig in calgary on Sep 11, 2009 4:58 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Hope!!!

With respect Siggian have you not been watching the Jays this year? We have a huge amount of hope in this team. From guys like Lind and Hill to the possible emergence of Snider and let`s not forget our quality rookie platoon of Rep, Romero and Cecil. No that`s the one thing Toronto has going forward hope

by voidhelix on Sep 10, 2009 8:59 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

For Lind, Hill, and Snider, I counter with Millar, Delucci, and Bautista. I’m not saying the Jays are without good young players, it’s just that they also have these huge holes in their lineup and seemingly no way to plug them. As far as the pitchers go, I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two of them really struggle next year.

You feel optimistic about the future and earlier in the year (even after they began their slide) I would have shared that optimism. I knew that early in the year that they were playing way over their heads but the slide since mid-may has been horrific. I also know that the team is not nearly as bad as their record since then.

by siggian on Sep 10, 2009 11:01 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

But none of MIllar Delucci and Bautista are around next year.

And I would object to including Bautista he has been pretty good for what he is this year. He shouldn’t be an everyday player but rather a plug in the lineup to give people a rest. He has done well against Lefties and would be more suited to a part time role.

Life as a Toronto Sports Fan?... *sigh*... It is what it is...

by JohnnyG on Sep 11, 2009 8:17 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

They will be back next year under different names (eg Wilkerson and Mench, and the three pitchers the year before that) if JP is still the GM. It won’t be all of his fault either because I think there will be a budget restraint that forces him to gamble once again on signing some aging veterans to fill in the holes. And Cito being Cito means that these aging veterans will be given lots of opportunity to play.

I’m including Bautista because he’s been in 91 games and has 249 at bats. I don’t object to him being on the team as a backup player but he is being used far too often in the starting lineup, especially in the second half of the season.

The real problem is not that this team will be a bad team next year. The problem is I don’t see this team winning enough games to be in the playoff hunt next year and I think the problem will be in the area of offense.

If you look further down the road, I think that the limbo of finishing third or fourth in the division will continue as long as the Jays are in the same division as two rivals who outspend them by two or three times. If Vernon Wells was on either of those teams, they could afford to buy out his contract (especially New York) if they wanted to do so and then sign a good free agent as a replacement. The Jays can’t consider that route.

(It’s interesting that if JP survives this year and next he will have gone full circle. When he came to this team, he was saying that no team should have one player earning such a huge percentage of the team’s budget as Delgado was. In two years time, it is very possible that Vernon Wells will be the new Delgado.)

by siggian on Sep 11, 2009 9:54 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Fans?

BJays have the players to contend next year! They performed admirably the firat part of the year, leading majors in standings, defense, hitting and pitching, in spite of losing all starters except Doc! They have outscored the opps, the first team in 90 years to do so and be under .500! But Cito has to go- he can’t manage! How many times did an intentional walk by him cost the game? How many times did a rookie pitch magnificently for 5 innings and fall apart in 6th? How many times must we go through a lack of scoring with runners on base? It’s not just bad luck or choking, it’s the manager not pulling right strings!
How many timed must Gaston go through these lessons?
Fire Cito and we have a contender next year!

by Abe Paul on Sep 12, 2009 11:47 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Cito must go

I think I was the poster who said months ago that BJays won’t win with Cito! They won IN SPITE OF him in ’92 and ’93 because they had highest payroll and best personnel – they were like the Yankees now! I think I could have managed the Jays to champions those years! The reason that no one hired Gaston in 15 years is they knew it too.
I think you are overestimating Snider. His production is good his defense awful! He has cost Jays some games! A good DH perhaps?

by Abe Paul on Sep 12, 2009 11:57 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs