Post-Victory Scorn, "Another Embarrasing Moment In JP's Career", and Another Picture Having to Do With Nothing
My sanity is usually questioned-- typically by younger folks-- when I post on here about how much I enjoy the Fan590's Prime Time Sports, but I must admit, I found myself wondering if they might be right as I listed to this afternoon's clusterfuck of Jays analysis shat out by McCown, Kelley and their esteemed guest, Richard Griffin.
Now, to be fair, they did say a few things that were bang on-- or, at the very least, kind of sound bang on.
Griffin did question "the lame duck GM promising the manager he's going to be back next year," which he's exactly right is ridiculous.
But... there was also his suggestion of Brian Cashman and Terry Ryan as his two preferred candidates to take over for Ricciardi. Hey! Those guys have been in charge of two of the most successful franchises in the majors. Sounds great!
Er... as long as you ignore the fact that the Twins were under .500 for Ryan's first five seasons, that he's never really had the opportunity to fuck his team up with an expensive free agent, and that the two signature moves of his tenure involve basically falling ass-backwards into Johan Santana, and then giving that shrewd old wheeler-dealer Brian Sabean a right proper hate fucking. Doesn't every major league GM candidate have some kind of raping of Sabean on his resume? Oh, and Cashman's just the guy who coasted on the team Bob Watson built for his first three years, and has since failed to bring home another World Series title, despite dishing out buckets of cash to elite talent like Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright and Kei Igawa, trading for a washed up Kevin Brown, and just for good measure, trading Mike Lowell for Ed Yarnall.
Now, that's a pretty cynical way for me to look at it, I guess. But um... holy fucking shit! Are we allowed to look at things a bit cynically today? Hell motherfucking yes. I'm pretty sure that after Griffin pulled out the quote I've used to title this post in reference to the release of Shannon Stewart, all bets are off.
"Another embarrassing moment in JP's career"!??!???!? And then he rubs salt in his own shit by pointing out how "Reed Johnson is playing on a championship team," adding that JP "never was fond of Reed Johnson." Because, y'know, that's why he drafted him, put him on the major league roster, and gave him over 2,000 plate appearances.
What the fuck? This seriously makes my head hurt. So is Reed Johnson the magical ingredient that is putting the Cubs over the top? Is he really what the Jays are missing? Is the fact that this move made complete sense based on both players' numbers at the start of the year and the plans that the Jays had at the time for their left fielder meaningless? Can you start to write revisionist history the day after something happens? Are we seriously still talking about this?
For shit sakes, no. Releasing Shannon Stewart is not an embarrassment. Releasing Frank Thomas? That was an embarrassment, because the move to sign him genuinely didn't make sense at the time. The Stewart move did, and as counterintuitive as this may sound, the fact that it did not work out does not validate the opinion of the morons who couldn't wrap their heads around it at the time.
They went on!
JP continues to be a fucking idiot, we were told, because of the revolving door at third base-- where the problem has been "one looks better than the other from afar." Well holy fucking shit, JP, you asshole! Why do you keep bringing in guys who look better than the last guy, you goddamn clown! Where's your plan?!?
And then there was the Scott Richmond issue, or as Griffin-- who obviously hasn't seen that Nicorette bullshit they do between innings-- put it, "the most ridiculous promotion in the history of [the] Blue Jays."
Now, I'm not going to claim like I know all that much about all the useless guys the Jays have given cups of coffee to over the years, and I'm not even sure that I disagree about Richmond not likely being worthy of the call, but Griffin saying "blow it out your ass, JP"? Kelley calling this last pathetic gasp of Olympic baseball "the dream that might have been the dream of a lifetime"? Griffin implying that Richmond wasn't just being kind to Canada baseball and his friends on the Olympic team when he said yesterday in the clubhouse that "luckily it wasn't his decision"? Or scoffing at that fact at "on Friday he's pitching for a .500 team at Fenway Park" when his Canadian teammates are squaring off against Cuba?
I don't know what sport these guys have been watching for the last ninety years, or however long they've been around, but pitching in a major league game at Fenway fucking Park!!!!
Seriously! I don't even know how much I like the job that Ricciardi has done, but I'm finding myself constantly defending him because people who I'd expect to be able to come up with a cogent argument for why Ricciardi has been a massive failure can't get past pulling out the most complete fucking petty horseshit possible. Help me! For fuck sakes look at what I've become!
(PS: Right now I'm listening to a fucking retard calling in to Wilner parroting meaningless talking points that are straight from this exact kind of bullshit. Fuck off!)
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19 comments:
so much to comment on here, so I won't bother covering everything.
1. maybe you'll come around to my point of view that Bobcat might be good radio, but he knows as much about baseball as a used up fucking douchebag....at least that's the way he comes across, with his bullshit .500 pitcher references and analysis. I hope for his sake, it's pure schtick.
2. see, that's how I feel about JP....I find myself defending his moves not necessarily because I feel strongly they were the right moves at the time, but because of the asshats who can't string together enough cognitive reasoning to make a valid point, other than "fuck JP's big nose and his Boston accent, he has to go!".
3. SI's Jon Heyman reports there was a rumor that one of Lucchino or Epstein would be leaving Boston....and at one time there was a rumor that Lucchino would be coming to.....Toronto? He throws some water on it by saying LA has emerged as a possible destination...but Toronto? Interesting.
THIS TEAM DOESN'T HAVE A FIRE IN ITS BELLY
JP NEEDS TO MAKE MORE GUTSY MOVES
THINGS NEED TO BE MORE LIKE 92/93!!!!
christ
"3. SI's Jon Heyman reports there was a rumor that one of Lucchino or Epstein would be leaving Boston....and at one time there was a rumor that Lucchino would be coming to.....Toronto? He throws some water on it by saying LA has emerged as a possible destination...but Toronto? Interesting."
There's a good way to get Manny to sign next season; bring in the Red Sox president. I'm sure he'd love that.
The best part of the Reed Johnson stuff is that it ignores that the Jays best hitter right now is probably their left fielder. So, if the Jays had kept Johnson, they'd have a lesser hitter blocking Lind and the team would be worse off right now.
Reed Johnson was drafted in 1999, before JP took over.
Touche.
litsch is back, parrish gone
Now, I'm pro-Olympic baseball but I have no idea how people are still harping on this Richmond thing. The kid said himself that he'd rather be with the Jays (is it unethical to link to your own blog?). Any person who grew up playing baseball would say the same thing. This might be his only go-around in the bigs and you better believe he will be thankful for getting the call, no matter what he missed out on.
I do, however, think it's silly to say that losing Richmond shouldn't matter for the National team because they aren't picked to win a medal. They weren't picked in 2004 and yet they were an unbelieveable catch in the top of the 9th away from playing in the gold medal game.
Also, stoeten, I was going to link you to that picture as a joke because of your hate-on for the Olympics but how about this one instead? http://www.corriere.it/Fotogallery/Tagliate/2008/08_Agosto/09/CU/1.JPG
Er, here
Damn that was a good post.
McCown the other day made a comment the other day that players don't score from second on grounders to the outfield because "even if it gets past the outfielder, it only rolls a few feet and then hits the wall". It was like watching a science documentary that after making sense for a while suddenly announces that the earth is flat and the moon is made of green cheese. It was hard to know how to take the rest of the show. Comedy? Or an elaborate joke?
Apparently they're moving Parrish back to AAA (despite him being pretty good in relief, IIRC), moving Richmond to the pen (good thing he's missing the Olympics) and calling up Litsch (apparently it only took 3 starts in AAA to fix what was wrong).
Maybe the Jays should hire Bob Watson
I would have liked to have seen Reed Johnson with the team because, when you take the fact that they are all multi-millionaires out of the equation, a guy getting hit by baseballs constantly is awesome.
But yeah, if Reed or Stewart or Wilken-- OK, had kept Lind down, that would have been an actual disaster. If these idiots are going to savage JP for what Stewart did, you have to give him credit for bringing up Lind, sending him down to snap his slump, and somehow magically bringing him back exactly when he knew Lind'd took off.
Left field is the best bat on the team! He's 25! How are they still whining about this?
I'm pretty sure the guy who started with a paperclip and traded up to a house made all his trades with Brian Sabean.
Prime Time Sports is still on the air? I thought they got canned for eating babies.
They're a hockey show. Anything they say about baseball is anecdotal.
3 somewhat cogent arguments to can JP:
1) He cares more about appeasing the brass by filling the seats than putting a winning product on the field.
- Refusal to admit the Jays are ever out of the playoff race. Will not sell parts/expiring contracts to get prospects in return when appropriate.
- Lying to the media/fans about injuries (BJ Ryangate) in order to sell more season tickets.
2) Signing too many player friendly contracts that hurt the team in the long run.
- Frank Thomas extension based on plate appearances (main reason behind argument that lead to Thomas departure)
- AJ Burnett player option (no benefit to team - either paid to be injured or walks in 2009)
- Back loaded Vernon Wells contract will reduce trade value while he is likely to be on the decline later in career
3) The inability to sell high on any Blue Jay ever...other than Orlando Hudson
- Ok so this one's a bit of a stretch so fuck his big nose and Boston accent.
I don't think JP is a BAD GM...I just don't think he's good enough to win a title for this franchise. It's time to move on from the mediocrity of his reign.
Can we stand together and tell him that 85 wins just doesn't cut it anymore???
jay, I hear what you're saying, and A for effort and all, but....
1) if he's doing these things to appease the brass, ie: he's basically carrying out the master plan....then why would he be fired? In fact, he'd actually be doing a good job by the standards of the brass.
2) you could argue, stress could, because who can say for sure, that the player-friendly clauses were absolutely required to entice them to sign....otherwise, we would be bitching that he isn't signing anybody.
3) maybe true...I'd like to add Hillenbrand-Accardo to the mix, but that wasn't selling high so much as bending over Sabean.
And much as it appears I'm defending him constantly, I definitely agree that the bottom line is winning and playoffs, so there you go.
Now does anyone have a fence I can sit on?
OK OK - so I wrote that off the top of my head...but I still think they're decent reasons (and better than what most people are reasoning with).
I'll definitely give you #1. Can't really argue with your logic at all even though I don't agree with the business practice. Ethics anyone?
#2 - You can argue they were necessary to sign the player...we don't really know...but maybe if these clauses were required he shouldn't have signed the player and invested the money elsewhere.
I can really only argue this for Thomas and to a lesser extent Wells. There is the least risk associated with giving Burnett the option. With Thomas, JP should have seen how his final years played out in Chicago before building a plan that was contingent on Frank getting hurt/cutting his playing time. For Wells - I doubt that Vernon wanted the majority of money in the backend of his contract. I'm pretty sure it was an organization decision to free up resources to make a run at the world series in the first 2-3 years of the deal. Very short sighted (even more so in hindsight).
#3 - This is really opinion - hard to 'prove' either way. I'd argue that Hillenbrand wasn't traded at his peak. The league knew that he had to be moved out of town after his spat with the Jays. JP just made a good move and fleeced Sabean.
Regardless - I think JP has had his time in the sun. I don't think he's done poorly here - just not good enough for my liking. I won't lose sleep or boycott the team if he's back. He's no Dave Littlefield afterall - he just needs to move on.
^^ fair points. I won't lump you in with the asshat JaysTalk caller crowd.
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