Balta1701

From a PR standpoint, telling the customers that things are great or already fixed on a night like last night just comes off as completely tone deaf. The day that the investigation report on Toyota’s acceleration problem or VW’s falsified emissions tests comes out, the customers don’t want to hear how great next years models look. When Mark McGuire was hauled before Congress and volunteered to lead an effort to limit steroid use, no one wanted to hear it because he was “not there to talk about the past.” Acknowledge the customers anger, say that we let our fans down, and say we will make it up to them in the future. Thats it, don’t talk about the great job you’ve done, because you haven’t.

I still remember reading a story many years ago of a father who saw that Mets roster and bet his son that they were a .250 team, no better no worse. The son took the bet knowing that a 162 game season cannot give a .250 winning percentage. And lost.

He is also the kind of guy who spends an entire winter talking about leadership and guys who play the right way and then thinks “you know the kind of leader I want? Mike Clevinger. I need that kind of leadership and will pay a premium price for it.”

Translation:

From the last thread on this topic:

This debacle developed under Tony. He's the one who let all the terrible personalities fester. This started in 2021-2022 with Tony as manager. I have never figured out what happened during that 8 game losing streak in April 2022 when suddenly the entire infield forgot how to field, but all I have is "something off the field was on all their minds." He had an opponent throw at his own damned DH for crying out loud.

There is nothing Getz should say tonight other than some version of "Yeah this sucks, we did a poor job." The fan base wants to hear nothing else. Give us at least a little while with the pitchforks and shut your mouth.

Yes, Tony LaRussa.

Hell with this political stuff cleared out, this thread is history come on.

They even got a hot dog reference this is gold. Make this person the GM.

Detroits gonna be pretty hung over tomorrow.

The one where I bothered looking at his numbers was a game against the Royals. He imploded against the Os in his next start. He opened against the Mariners. His good starts were Seattle, Detroit, Colorado, Miami, Minnesota, and KC.

Different fight, not worth having here. The problem here is that people believed his 7 starts were great without looking at the BABIP line or peripherals and convinced themselves he could keep something up based on a true fluke. He needs to be a different pitcher. Maybe he can be, but right now he was really bad.

If he stays healthy for 2 years he might make 3x that.

Over those solid 7 starts he had a .156 BABIP. He had an ERA of 5.5 with a .200 BABIP. He had a 5.08 K/9. No qualified starter in MLB had a K/9 under 6.33, and out of the bottom guys almost all of them have ERAs in the high 4s. He doesn’t make up for this with exceptional control or high numbers of ground balls. He had a handful of good starts based on luck, but his profile is of a guy with an ERA in the high 5s right now if he were to pitch enough for fluky things to average out. Maybe he figures this out with more work, but he didn’t improve on this at all during the year, in his last 17.2 innings he struck out 7, so his K rate was getting worse. The guy we saw in 2024 will not be a tolerable starter. Maybe he adds a pitch. Maybe he adds velocity. Maybe he figures out how to strike people out with work. Maybe his control improves. Maybe you move him to the bullpen and he picks up velocity. But 7 solid starts based entirely on a .150 BABIP would only fool Rick Hahn into thinking it was real. Right now he is not a starter.

As of right now I’m not remotely convinced that Thorpe is a starter. Thorpe was not a guy who could be a successful starter with what I saw this year. He might come back stronger next year or add a pitch or something like that, but not the guy I’ve seen so far. I will give you Smith and Noah as potentially solid starters if they avoid the surgery

One thing I didn’t appreciate as much until this round of articles. When a guy like Ohtani or Soto or Wheeler hits the market, they are hitting the market because their teams could absolutely afford them back, but they’re likely to get more money than the team has to spend. These are the QO guys, a team would be happy bring them back if the contracts work out. But when a guy like Grandal, Lynn, Keuchel, Graveman, Clevinger becomes available, that’s a guy almost any team could re-sign if they wanted. The Dodgers could absolutely have kept Grandal, the Astros could have kept Graveman, the Padres could have kept Clevinger, the Rangers didn’t have to trade Lynn (maybe he’s the worst example here but this will stick). In other words, if you have payroll limit, you are getting guys teams could easily afford and don’t want. One reason why a team might not want a guy back is they think they’re about to fall off a cliff. I figured this out a while ago, it’s why so many White Sox FA signing faceplant, the White Sox are selectively getting guys who teams think are about to fall apart because that gets Reinsdorf his discount. But it turns out there’s another reason a team might let someone go - they’re just assholes. If your team is willing to sign free agents but only the cheapest ones, you get a double toxic combination - guys who are likely to fall apart and guys that teams want gone because they’re assholes.

Which part am I supposed to argue with? Robert and Moncada weren't actually hurt? The White Sox did not actually go 1-8 with a -30 run differential?

Like regardless of what you think of the way the abuse case was handled, he's generally thought of as an asshole around the whole league. Back in June I was listening to Houston sports radio at night and they were talking about pitchers who could be available at the deadline, one of them brought up Clevinger, the other guy asked where he wound up this year, the first guy said the White Sox, the second guy said some version of "serves him right, dirtbag." I laughed.

There's a good chance he outlasts Chris Getz.

Mike Clevinger was brought back by choice and paid a premium over what any other team would pay for the pleasure of it.

If you read this, it’s clear that JR thinks things went bad because Tony isn’t managing any more.