Comments on Drunk Jays Fans: Thursday Suchwhat

Parkes, his OBP was bad last year. He also suffere...

2008-12-08T10:06:10.471-05:00

Parkes, his OBP was bad last year. He also suffered an injury (this is well documented, check it out). Additionally, are you putting more weight into his 50 game away sample, inwhich his OBP was .225 and SLG was .317 to be more indicative of his true value, or his career .318/.434 (including his shit year) of his true value? Making this claim would be akin to me saying that Vernon Wells would be a .400 slugger after 2007 because he slugged .396 at home and .409 on the road that season, but we all know this would be a completely ridiculous thing to say, right? So why the different standard when we are talking about different players? (This is a legitimate question - is history littered with players who NEVER recovered from a wrist injury? I don't know.)

He also is considered a well above average defender (ie, better then Scoots).

You guys can shit on him, but he is NOT a bad short stop. Even if he never achieved the levels people thought and just reverted to pre-2008 form, he'd be a fine acquisition. At 6.5 he is not overpaid. See Renteria, Edgar for this definition. Greene is also entering his age 29 season, which means he should have 2-3 good years left. You guys are seriously, seriously, underestimating him. He's not the 2nd coming of Ernie Banks, but he is a reasonable risk acquisition, where the upside is an above average offensive and defensive shortstop to hold the fort down till (we pray) J. Jackson is ready.

8:50,While drafting players out of college is cert...

2008-12-05T19:26:52.267-05:00

8:50,

While drafting players out of college is certainly a plan, drafting players out of college in years 1 thru 4 and then switching to high school players is an entirely different plan. I questioned whether the latter was a defined reality.

Further, #2 point contradicts your #1 point and is not relevant. It's akin to saying "JP is the GM. It's his job to sign the best available players. He should be fired for not signing A-Rod, trading for
Santana, etc..."

Of course he's the GM. But if his job process was anything like any senior manager that I know, he was told to present a plan of how he plans on winning if he were hired. Id bet my left nut that the only reason he was asked to present said plan (as opposed to mgmt seeking a more traditional, less Moneyball-ish GM) was because upper mgmt wanted him to say how he was going to build a contending team quickly at a low price. This entails drafting college players almost exclusively.

As to your third point, see my comments above about Russ Adams and the '02 draft. Then go to www.thebaseballcube.com and look at the draft
results for the top rounds of the '03 to '05 drafts. I would like to a hear a convincing argument how the picks of JP have underperformed those made by Billy Beane. Heck, throw in '02 also if you want since the average Beane pick hasn't exactly panned out that great.

Parkes, fuck off, you know nothing about baseball....

2008-12-05T16:59:29.648-05:00

Parkes, fuck off, you know nothing about baseball. leave the analysis to others that understand the game. Khalil Greene is a decent SS, very underrated by stupid fucktards like you. You don't have a .800 career OPS on the road by fluke, you assbastard.

Holy shit, just how much of this shitbag's cock are you going to suck? This is amazing! Keep it up!

Keep up the good work guys, your doing an admirale...

2008-12-05T15:52:46.530-05:00

Keep up the good work guys, your doing an admirale job bringing content in an really slow time.

Hey Ryan go fuck your mother for me.

2008-12-05T15:18:22.232-05:00

Hey Ryan go fuck your mother for me.

Judging by what the Padres got for Greene I'm pret...

2008-12-05T15:00:08.130-05:00

Judging by what the Padres got for Greene I'm pretty sure Parkes isn't the only one who thinks that he's an overrated sack of shit.

hahahaha dude tells parkes he knows shit then pull...

2008-12-05T14:59:11.747-05:00

hahahaha dude tells parkes he knows shit then pulls out a .700 ops on the road stat. glad the message boards are back to hilarious.

"Anyone getting tired of the recycled content from...

2008-12-05T14:41:00.799-05:00

"Anyone getting tired of the recycled content from other sources and the JP ass-kissing-with-tongue-out vibe at Drunk Jays Fan? Calling out Jamie Campbell for kissing ass, when that's all this blog does day in and day out? Lame shit!"

wow, parkes>>>ryan.

Parkes, fuck off, you know nothing about baseball....

2008-12-05T14:39:36.200-05:00

Thanks SP. Also Ryan, perhaps you've noticed that ...

2008-12-05T14:36:28.708-05:00

Thanks SP. Also Ryan, perhaps you've noticed that FUCK ALL IS HAPPENING right now. We don't have much to work with here.

Ryan...What the fuck are you talking about? I'm pr...

2008-12-05T14:31:49.502-05:00

Ryan...

What the fuck are you talking about? I'm probably the biggest non-Anonytard critic of the DJFs here and I assure you, they are not JP ass kissers.

And recycled content...that's kinda what blogs do. DJF takes those sources and provide their own unique insight, wrong or not, it's definitely interesting.

Anyone getting tired of the recycled content from ...

2008-12-05T14:18:08.820-05:00

Anyone getting tired of the recycled content from other sources and the JP ass-kissing-with-tongue-out vibe at Drunk Jays Fan? Calling out Jamie Campbell for kissing ass, when that's all this blog does day in and day out? Lame shit!

.225!! You can't make that shit up.

2008-12-05T13:19:16.023-05:00

.225!! You can't make that shit up.

At this point, is Russ Adams at SS really such a b...

2008-12-05T12:50:00.773-05:00

At this point, is Russ Adams at SS really such a bad option?

-Russ A.

You honestly think Khalil Greene is an improvement...

2008-12-05T12:42:11.555-05:00

You honestly think Khalil Greene is an improvement over Scutaro/McDonald?

His OBP last year on the road: .225

I shit you not.

Total fucking overrated sack of shit.

Baseball Reporters Association of America

2008-12-05T10:20:51.877-05:00

Baseball Reporters Association of America

Substitute "Retard" for "Writers". It's a lil joke...

2008-12-05T10:10:50.183-05:00

Substitute "Retard" for "Writers". It's a lil joke Law started awhile back that has taken off in the blogosphere.

What is the BBRAA?

2008-12-05T10:08:40.432-05:00

What is the BBRAA?

"why in THE FUCK did the jays not trade for khalil...

2008-12-05T09:57:23.701-05:00

"why in THE FUCK did the jays not trade for khalil greene? All it took was some dude named mark worrell."

Because he makes 6.5m this year and our payroll is likely to be in the 90m range, and there's no way it's a good idea to spend the majority of our free dollars on Khalil Greene, regardless of his OPS on the road. This wasn't about the cost of acquiring him, it's about the price of keeping him.

"so, um, in the search for a platoon partner for l...

2008-12-05T09:19:55.520-05:00

"so, um, in the search for a platoon partner for lyle underbay, what about ryan shealy? he had a heck of a september (950 ops) and the royals have jacobs now with kila somebody in the wings. low cost mencherson replacement..?"

LYLE UNDERBAY, baha, you crack me up.

true, we need the shealy. or sign manny/bonds.

why in THE FUCK did the jays not trade for khalil ...

2008-12-05T09:18:37.784-05:00

why in THE FUCK did the jays not trade for khalil greene? All it took was some dude named mark worrell.

Khalil is an above average defender and a .800 ops hitter outside of PETCO.

The Jays are straight FUCKED. For fuck's sake.

1. Early in his tenure, JP as much as said that he...

2008-12-05T08:50:21.885-05:00

1. Early in his tenure, JP as much as said that he was focused on college picks (who have more of a track record and require less time to develop) to "restock" the system. As far as I can tell, that's called a plan.

2. The notion that JP wasn't "allowed" to draft more promising players because they were in high school seems ridiculous to me. JP is the GM. He can draft whoever he wants. Now, if he lacked the resources to scout HS players, that's a different story.

3. If the 2002 draft reflected JP's values, and not a corporate mandate, those values look a bit questionable in retrospect, don't they? If I'm a university president, and I decide to fire half of my recruiters, then recruit students from only 5 of 10 provinces (to save costs), and my competitors end up with a deeper pool of talent, wouldn't it be fair to take a second look at my approach (even if I never called it a "plan")? I think this is what happened to JP, so eventually he modified his approach, and the results have improved.

so, um, in the search for a platoon partner for ly...

2008-12-05T08:39:33.086-05:00

so, um, in the search for a platoon partner for lyle underbay, what about ryan shealy? he had a heck of a september (950 ops) and the royals have jacobs now with kila somebody in the wings. low cost mencherson replacement..?

We're sort of going in circles here. But I guess m...

2008-12-05T06:24:17.342-05:00

We're sort of going in circles here.

But I guess my point is that neither you nor I TRULY know what JP was "allowed" to do back in 2002 relative to what he's been able to do in recent years. Nor have I ever seen it mentioned anywhere that it was actually part of the "plan" (if there was one) to exclusively use top picks on college players in the early years and then diversify down the road. That's not to say you know this to be the case, just that I have not (and I spend way too much time reading about the team so I like to think that I am fairly in-the-know).

I also have no idea what Corporate or the division heads told JP with respect to his ability to allocate scouting resources. Anecdotally, I do recall reading in "Chasing Steinbrenner" (a book by a Boston beat writer that follows Epstein & Ricciardi) that JP advised his scouts to rank a trip to the mall to catch a movie above scouting a high school game, to give you a sense of the attitude the team had in the early days of JP's tenure. This suggests more a focus of values than resource allocation.

Perhaps it's a function of your opinion of JP's role in Oakland. DePodesta was senior to JP. But your comment implies an opinion that JP was very much out of the higher echelons in Oakland, which I was not aware was the case. To the contrary, I was under the impression that the reason JP was hired was so that he could do in Toronto what he had done (as a junior to Beane) in Oakland. Which is why I don't think it's relevant to hold something against him that ran against his raison d'etre, especially in light of the performance of Adams compared with likely alternatives. Which was what I told someone privately last week or so.

But you bring up an interesting point when you suggest that Ricciardi failed relative to Beane. Is that really the case? If you look at Ricciardi's top picks from '02 - '05 and compare them to Beane's picks (yes, Toronto picked earlier... but had fewer picks), JP actually looks pretty good. So to me, your use of the word "benighted" to describe the adherence to a strategy that had produced exceptional results in Oakland and has thus far served the Jays fairly well (and we can argue about this) is a bit harsh.

Sorry for the length.

My point is that JP shouldn't be excused for imple...

2008-12-04T22:29:34.842-05:00

My point is that JP shouldn't be excused for implementing a benighted draft philosophy, no matter how much "sense" it made on its face. I was always a bit baffled by the idea of restocking the farm system with college players, with a view to diversifying at some point down the road. Now, I could understand this approach if Rogers had said, we're only giving you enough money to scout college players. Not sure if the scenario was that extreme.

I think what happened is that Beane had had some success with the college approach in Oakland. He and DePodesta identified some advantages to focusing on college players (for one thing, the computer-friendly A's front office discovered that there were a lot of college stats that could be crunched to reveal previously hidden value). Ricciardi carried that philosophy with him to Toronto, but he was either a bit late to the party or unable to execute the draft strategy especially well.

To his credit, JP seems to have figured out a few things and revised his approach accordingly. Ironically, however, the most successful high picks in the last couple of years have been college players: Cooper, Arencibia, Cecil, Mills. The touted HS players (Ahrens, Jackson, Tolisano, Eiland) have struggled. So who the hell knows. Overall I like the blended HS/college approach (while looking for undervalued players wherever you can find them).