Stoeten Responds to a Comment And Then Likes The Smell of His Own Shit So Much That He Recycles it as a Post
Anonymous (9:18 AM):
The Jays drafting under J.P has been mediocre at best. The only regular position player from J.P's drafting is Aaron Hill and Adam Lind (finally)and the only starting pitcher is Shawn Marcum. In seven years that's it folks. The farm system has consistently been ranked in the bottom five and the most recent listing of top 100 prospects had one Jay prospect.
If the Jays had been contending this year do you think they would have been able to do a deal like Milwaukee? Probably not because any deal would have wiped out the Jays farm system as we only have a smal handful of good prospects.
Also, Burnett is a .500 pitcher and as good as he has been lately his record is still barely above 500.
Yes, wins and losses are a poor way to judge a season but an adequate way to judge a career. Yes, pitchers might have blips in their career where the W/L is skewed (Stieb, 14-13, 2.48 ERA)but over a career these things even out and that is why the great pitchers have great winning percentages and the mediocre ones (Burnett) have mediocre winning percentages.
Stoeten (12:20 PM):
I disagree for a lot of reasons. Here's one: Look at the 2001 Jays, after 7 years of Gord Ash's drafting. Wells didn't play a full year until 2002, so he was just a very good prospect. Halladay came back after being completely rebuilt, and it was no sure thing that he'd take off the way he did. Rios had been drafted and looked like a good prospect. Billy Koch was the closer and contributing. Felipe Lopez and Cesar Izturis were just starting out on the long road to being mediocre ballplayers. Brandon Lyon was in the process of being rushed to the bigs. And that's about it. Now we think so highly of Ash because of Wells, Halladay, Rios, and McGowan, but then? After seven years Ash's drafting had (unless I'm forgetting someone) basically produced Billy Koch and a half-season of the rebuilt Halladay.
You just cannot at this point say that Ricciardi's drafting has been a failure.
To the point about the farm system constantly being ranked low, don't discount the fact that JP gutted the scouting department and may have suffered a bit of a backlash from the scouts who make up those kinds of reports.
Now, the stuff about Burnett is just beyond wrong, I'm afraid. To win a baseball game you need both hitting and pitching. To call Burnett a .500 pitcher or a mediocre pitcher is like saying that the '06 Jays lineup-- when they were hitting the shit out of everything, but couldn't get the pitching to go with it-- was a mediocre lineup because they didn't get wins. No! Obviously they were a great lineup. Their 109 OPS+ as a team would, this year, tie them with Detroit, slightly behind Boston and the Cubs (110) and the major league leaders, Texas (115). But they didn't get pitching so now they're mediocre? It's an absolutely warped way to look at it, and people just use the ".500 Pitcher" tag to shit on Burnett just for the sake of it.
There are legitimate reasons to not like AJ or to explain why you feel that he hasn't met the expectations placed on him by the size of his contract, but pulling out that he's a ".500 Pitcher" and using it to make him sound way worse than he actually is isn't one of them.
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36 rational and reasonable comments:
Russ Adams remains to be JP's only bad one. Even Romero is starting to turn the corner, he's been pretty good over his last 7 starts.
This whole city is fucking retarded, they don't realize how good JP is. He has never made a bad trade, he has had solid drafts, and always puts a competitive product on the field. Do they want Ed Wade or Jim Bowden, 2 guys making retarded moves for their teams? There's only one Billy Beane, and JP compares favorably with the next tier of GMs.
Stoeten, how is it you tried to defend AJ Burnett by quoting batting statistics from last year? Fail. His career stats are strikingly similar to other forgetable .500 pitchers: Chuck Dobson, Juan Guzman, Steve Busby and Carl Morton. Not too impressed, eh?
He is very much an average major league pitcher; far from useless, but a long way from an All Star. He's never won more than 12 games in a season, has a lifetime 79-75 record and career ERA of 3.87. He gets beat up during the 2nd and 3rd trip through the lineup, which is reflected in his late-game statistics.
Nearly everything about the results he produces screams mediocre. His polarized numbers epitomize average: 9th in wins, BUT 5th in loses, 1st K's, buuuut 2nd BB's allowed.
He's also shitty on the road and a bit of a 'troublesome character' in the clubhouse. I can't his legacy being anything more notable than that of the average pitchers I named previously, but I'd love for you to tell me otherwise.
The point is why in god's name would you use wins to evaluate a pitcher when they are next to useless?
You're calling me out when you obviously didn't read what I wrote? Fail. I clearly said that there are legitimate reasons not to like AJ-- I think my argument, and my analogy to the hitting, is more about the absurdity of using wins to place a label on a pitcher (or a lineup) when so much of what makes a win is out of their control.
Spencer, tell me how do you know he's a troublesome character in the clubhouse?
oh and take a look at the pecotas for burnett and halladay, at the 50% prediction for 2008 it has burnett at 5.2 warp and halladay at 5.5 warp
^^What the hell are those? Star Trek baseball stats?
Parkes: Maybe we have more information and know the player a little more than the average fan.
Did you know the guy doesn't really like baseball that much? Did you know the guy doesn't have a passion to play the game that much?
Cloud9's ridiculous comment just goes to solidify our belief that hockey fans are stupid.
".500 pitcher" is an epithet used only by the laziest and most intellectually dishonest of us.
If you're not curious enough about baseball to look at a stat other than wins and losses for a pitcher, then you should probably just go back to your little hockey blog and make the case that Tie Domi was the Greatest Leaf of all time because he led the team in penalty minutes for years.
Fellas, fellas.....can't we all just get along and agree that Ash and Ricciardi are both shitty general managers?
@Stoeten-- I agree that wins and losses are a sliver of the pie when determining a pitchers value. CERA, WHIP, ERA+, QS's are all very important and slightly more practical. Wins and loses aside, it is still reasonable to call Burnett average or mediocre, just as I stated initially.
@DP-- not sure who Spencer is, but since I was the one who used the phases troublesome character, I'll reply.
Anyone can throw stones at guys they've never met or been around, which is why I tried to minimize my character assassination by using such suggestive wording. My perception from all the information I've consumed from beat writers and those with clubhouse access seems to suggest he feels above the city and for most part above the team. I'll never chirp his effect on the mound, but his actions have led everyone to believe that he wants out of TO and that abandon ship mentality casts a negative cloud on those around him. That, in a nutshell, is why I feel his influence is potential harmful, hence my initial designation.
Hey tao, you're a class act, but you jumped the gun. Thanks for offering up your take on my comments without substantiating a single thing in return. Excellent way to make a point by sensationalizing the content on my web site and calling hockey fans stupid. Well done.
Derek, according to Baseball Reference AJ is in the top 30 among active pitchers in career ERA (28th) and WHIP (26th) (minimum 1000 IP/3000 PA/100 decisions). He's allowed the seventh fewest hits per 9 and is 10th in K/9.
Sure, a lot of pitchers get eliminated (only 106 qualify), but that's hardly mediocre, no?
Oh and Derek — you're using Griff (guys with clubhouse access) as the basis of your argument that Burnett is 'above' Toronto?
Well no wonder we all believe you ...
Out of curiosity, what self-respecting baseball player wouldn't genuinely believe they're above playing in Toronto?
We are the handful of die-hard fans, and we're not even all that die-hard. We're the Florida Marlins of the AL East. I love this team, I don't mind this city, but I've come to terms with the fact that we're not anywhere near the level of the Yankees, the Sox, the Angels, or any of the other premier teams in the league. You live with it, as does A.J., but there's nothing wrong with knowing it's true in the first place!
Being in the top third by those metrics certainly does qualify him as above mediocre. I might argue that the sample size speaks to his longevity (which was shown above to be impressive), rather than his current value/capabilities, but when you compare career v. season the disparity just isn't there (as my case would prefer).
It goes without saying that I am very surprised with how his numbers stack up v. active pitchers over the past 5+ seasons, I'd of benefited from considering that earlier. I'll retract my mediocre position in favor of surprisingly above average.
buck-- I fully disclosed my distance from Burnett when I justified calling him troublesome. It's a feeling that I have -- and others share (like adams) -- that Burnetts' attitude can, and probably does, have a negative impact. I believe the marathon that is the baseball season lends itself to considering the impact of seemingly marginal elements like these (which is why I am not a huge fan of Vernon Wells, but thats for another day).
//Cloud9's ridiculous comment just goes to solidify our belief that hockey fans are stupid.
".500 pitcher" is an epithet used only by the laziest and most intellectually dishonest of us.//
Says the man who got all in a tizzy because the the media spotlight was on Joba and not on Jesse Litsch.
He's generally shitty in anything to do with walks or wild pitches and such, though, so I should cop to my cherry picking a little.
//Parkes: Maybe we have more information and know the player a little more than the average fan.
Did you know the guy doesn't really like baseball that much? Did you know the guy doesn't have a passion to play the game that much?//
That shit never gets old.
No one has ever been able to show that a player's 'attitude' has any effect whatsoever on the rest of the team. You don't even know what his attitude is anyways.
Derek: that post was actually me defending Burnett's attitude. I love the little bastard. :)
Actually, sorry Derek... which of my comments were you reading into when you said "like adams?" I am just now realizing you may have failed to recognize my facetious quotation of Riccardi's Dunngate comments. Which would be hilarious, but for which you could (possibly) be forgiven since you're not a regular commenter as yet.
"No one has ever been able to show that a player's 'attitude' has any effect whatsoever on the rest of the team. You don't even know what his attitude is anyways."
So you're trying to disprove the concept of team morale? I should warn you, that may be a difficult position to defend.
The question with team morale is: Did the team win because they had good morale? Or did they have good morale because they were winning?
We'd tend to lean towards the latter.
RE: ^^^Christopher and our Joba blowup:
Our point was that we were sick of the hype surrounding Joba, and we used what was a very impressive start to the season by Litsch to put the Joba hype in perspective.
We freely admit, though, that with the benefit of a few months worth of perspective, we might have been on the wrong side of this argument.
The necessity of clubhouse love can be summed up by Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent playing in the World Series together.
It don't fuckin' matter.
When you get 25 guys that love (or pretend to at the least) each other you get the Blue Jays of the past ... oh God ... so many years.
"The question with team morale is: Did the team win because they had good morale? Or did they have good morale because they were winning?
We'd tend to lean towards the latter."
I'll agree that both are important, but hey, right now I work at a very successful organization with people whom I variously don't like, respect, or enjoy being around. My productivity suffers as a result; if I cared about this organization, I'd probably be more useful to it.
So what I'm saying is that team morale is far more important in my opinion than in yours; but I don't think Burnett harms team morale on the Blue Jays.
I haven't seen anything admirable from Stairs this season, he's played his way right out of the subcocular region of my heart. I'm sick of Wells and Rios generally looking like they don't care, although in the case of Wells I now think it might be more that he's discouraged.
Those are just random thoughts, I'm going to trail off now.
Adams is such a red herring used to combine with Romero to try to prove that JP's drafting was the worst of all time. I will grant you that Romero is looking like a terrible pick and is only now starting to turn his minor league career around. But to group in Adams with Romero actually makes the argument less effective.
In 2002 every media outlet was giving the Jays good to very good grades in the draft. It's only because Adams caught Chuck Knaublauch disease that people seem to think that Adams was a bad pick (combined with Kazmir's emergence as the player drafted after Adams).
It's that crystal ball argument all over again. Nobody (not even Nostradamus) predicted that Adams was going to fall so far so quickly.
"We are the handful of die-hard fans, and we're not even all that die-hard. We're the Florida Marlins of the AL East. I love this team, I don't mind this city, but I've come to terms with the fact that we're not anywhere near the level of the Yankees, the Sox, the Angels, or any of the other premier teams in the league. You live with it, as does A.J., but there's nothing wrong with knowing it's true in the first place!"
-- maybe you weren't around in the late eighties - early nineties? it was all ball all the time in the summer. What has happened is that multiple years of watching a team continually disappoint you leads you to separation. Build a winner and then talk about the fans.
also, early on guy used Guzman as an example of a mediocre pitcher. His arm was fantastic until he shitted it out. First 3 years - 40-11 with a sub 3.30 ERA. His arm just died.
Beau, I want to believe the glory days could be recaptured; but I don't think they can, I think the Jays were a fad, and from what the long-time beat writers say, the fans back then in the days of high support weren't even all that into it or intelligent. Which, I mean, is okay by me. I don't need other people to validate my love for the team. But I can understand, from a player's perspective, their opinions on playing in this city.
(Sharing a first name with Hill and a last name with Adams can get really confusing around here.)
I just can't believe that every fan at Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park is intelligent or into the game for the right reasons either. The fact is that, if a team is winning the fans trickle back - and when the stadium is full it's a fuckload of fun to be at - and when it's a fuckload of fun to be there people want to go and are enthusiastic.
Clevelend certainly wasn't drawing fans from 79-92 - near worst in league every year. Then from 94-2002, although they had a new park, they were a great team and 1st or 2nd in attendence 6 years in a row. The last 6 years they haven't been great and they're around 10-12th in attendence in AL each year.
You put a winner out there and the dome will fill.
I believe the counter argument (just to present it not advocate it) is that since JP drafted more college players, there will be no more players from the 2002 draft that could make it to the majors still. Whereas with Ash when he drafted high school kids, the picks would come along 6 years later. JP said it is nice to have talent, but you can't wait six years for it to develop.
-brent in Korea
The question with team morale is: Did the team win because they had good morale? Or did they have good morale because they were winning?
Is it really inconceivable that both of those statements might be true?
Winning makes you happy. So obviously the latter is justified. But speaking from experience, playing on a team of positive/fun/energetic/happy/good-mannered guys leads to all-around better play. Conversely, playing (or working, however you want to look at it) with a bunch of jerks is anti-motivational.
Good attitudes alone won't automatically lead to winning, but playing in a positive atmostphere is certainly a good motivator. I don't see how anyone can really argue against that.
Also, re: winning leads to better attendance.
Does nobody remember Yankee Stadium in the early 90's? That team should be proof enough that building a consistent contender can turn an embarassingly empty ballpark into a packed house every year. If the Jays start winning (or at least contending) on a regular basis, the Dome is going to start looking like it did during the glory days again.
^
Agreed. There are countless examples. In fact, every team is an example - except Florida and Washington.
I will point you guys to an excellent post by the excellent writers at Southpaw.
http://thesouthpawbaseball.blogspot.com/2008/07/truthiness-and-revisionism.html
And I'll say this about JP. He has NEVER made a bad trade, EVER (remember Sirotka and Loaiza? Would JP ever do that?). He also rarely makes god awful signings. Wells might be overpaid (because of Godfrey) but at least he's good when he's healthy. The Thomas signing was bad, granted. The extra year with a vesting option was just retarded. But even the golden-testicled John Schearafvaafuaholz made shitty signings (Mike Hampton anyone?). So much of being a GM, and baseball in general, is about luck and JP and the Jays have definitely not been lucky. I will stand by JP's record to the death. He has been a very good GM with very bad luck. And there's really no reason to fire him after this season. All he has done is improve each season in his personnel decisions. Tony LaCava looks like he'll be a great GM one day but would a rookie GM really be an upgrade over JP?
Fuck, links never post right on this thing.
Here it is again
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