ashbury

Maybe lack of public evidence of the fire in the belly for the job, which is what I also perceive to be what holds back Molitor from getting the nod without any need for further interviews. Note that this is not the same as the fiery personality type, for which Mientkiewicz gets positive reviews. I think the ideal candidate hasn't surfaced yet. You want cool under pressure; you want the burning desire to win; you want an analytical mind who also trusts what he sees; you want youthful vigor and the wisdom that comes with age. And so on. And you want no red flags. If after all this it eventually circles back to either Glynn or Molitor I think we will be OK.

I don't hold Mientky's on-field fight against him forever. But I would like to see him build up three more years on his resume with no further embarrassments to himself or his team. That could be as a minor league manager, or as a major league coach. Sitting at Gene Glynn's right hand side, for instance; they might team up well, I don't know. But no, not as Gardy's immediate replacement. And I agree with the comments that his being young doesn't preclude him from being considered old-school, if he views Getting After It as more important than talent for example.

A few good nuggets. For the folks who bemoan the culture of losing, he throws out a bit of red meat there, with one comment near the end.

Why? Terry Ryan stated at the Gardy Firing press conference that they would look both internally and externally. That takes time. Given they didn't have the next manager already lined up, a month seems like a reasonable timeframe to me.

Yes, I'm looking forward to seeing what Phil Hughes can achieve once he gets his curveball straightened out. / old joke, I know

Back when slavery was legal in the US, there were opportunities to work in the master's house (you might know the offensive phrase I'm alluding to), an opportunity built on racism, and I might or might not condone the choice made by the individual (the movie Django took a less ambivalent stand on that), but it's not any kind of a justification for the system. Probably we're both saying "don't hate the player, hate the game", but I'd rather emphasize the second part of that construction.

And we thought Chief was old.

I think you're underestimating how valuable a league-average center fielder is. It won't be Cepeda-for-Sadecki bad, Robinson-for-Pappas bad, maybe. But still bad, if that's how it plays out.

Bat boys haven't changed much, in their enthusiasm.

Or, Rosenthal's tweet got the substance right but mixed up the wording a little.

"You can't quit me! I fire!" But seriously, I expect it was amicable. Anderson is exactly the coach that Ryan probably wanted to do right by, in telling the coaches that their status would be in limbo at best until the new manager is named. Anderson probably thanked Ryan and confirmed he would look elsewhere. They're grownups.

It's a little murky to me what this "upside" represents in practical terms. It's explained, way deep in one of the links near the top of that page, as "roughly speaking, a 75% projection". The median projection would be even lower. But, is that for an entire career, including the decline phase and any seasons marred by nagging injury? If so, the career-years he has could be significantly higher, and even "typical" years could be a bit above, and coupled with gold glove caliber defense that could be pretty exciting indeed. I'm not sure if anyone, including this rater, is yet ready to completely rule out that his absolute ceiling could be "Willie Mays".

I think where this comes from is the individual pitch ratings shown in this report. The conventional wisdom I've seen is this: If you have 5 pitches (graded plus or above on at least three), you can be an Ace. If you have 4 pitches, you are a #2. With 3 pitches, you're a #3. With only two, you're either a back of the rotation starter or else a reliever. I'm paraphrasing, maybe someone will feel motivated to locate a better writeup - was it from Sickels? The ratings in this report on Meyer's pitches are worrisome from this POV. Super solid fastball, very good slider, and after that... a changeup that may or may not make the grade. With a fastball/slider combination like that, maybe a very very good reliever. Mind you, I don't believe such a simple categorization covers every pitcher. But it's coming from experience, just as a rule of thumb, from guys with better scouting abilities than mine. (Of course, a box of rocks might make a better scout than me... )

Then my work here is done.

USAFBallast, on 02 Oct 2014 - 12:43 PM, said: Military Training Instructors are widely noted for their unpublicized acts of kindness.

I didn't issue the warning, but I agree with Brock that a Mauer thread may automatically draw moderator oversight more quickly than an average thread, just due to past experience. However a phrase like "dumb as a box of rocks" (if that's the one that caused this warning - it may have been edited out by the time I saw it) stands a good chance of earning a warning, even if applied to Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne. I would not say that Mauer receives special protection in that regard. If the intelligence of someone associated with the team was thought to be a legitimate issue, I'm sure a thread could be constructed that would pass muster at this site. The moderators aren't here to squelch discussion of ideas. But casual disrespect establishes a tone that ultimately leads to diminished quality of discussion. I don't doubt there are posts that violate this principle of "posting with respect" yet receive no action. There are gray areas and there are 8 moderators and there are many posts every day, so some variability will happen. As the Comment Policy states, an un-checked violation does not make it open season for everyone else. You can report a post if you think it's gone seriously off the rails; people who read every post every day may need to have a high threshold before doing this, just because so much gets posted. Just to be clear, it was not a moderator who posted that Nolasco "stinks", assuming you're talking about the thread regarding the recent tweet. Moreover, the context was "stinks as a player", which isn't quite the same as simply "stinks". Finally, we don't often initiate public discussion of moderator actions on individual posts, so don't assume that no action was already taken there; editing may or may not occur in a given case where a warning is given.

FWIW Nolasco is 31, and at age 31 I thought I was pretty grown up.

About Warning Points The vast majority of posters never need be aware of the TD warning system. But in cases of violation of posting policy, site owners and moderators have the authority to issue warnings, which usually come with one or more points. Such warnings are delivered in an automated fashion via the Notifications system (accessed via an icon near the top of each page that will be highlighted if you have a notification pending), indicating the reason. Please note that a moderator might also choose to reach out to you informally via a PM; unless a warning point is mentioned, such a PM is informational only, and is merely a request to modify your behavior. Warning points ordinarily are assessed one at a time, but flagrant violations could result in more. Each warning point expires (becomes no longer active) 120 days after being issued. The site staff can view everyone's warning record, but no other readers will see or know about yours. The system is automated, so that when you reach a certain number of active points, your posting privileges are temporarily suspended, i.e. you are "banned". Do not expect a separate warning message that this has happened, or is on the verge of happening. If you can't post or send PM's, check your warning point total before asking for help. Each time a warning is given, whether or not one or more new points are assessed: 3 active points results in a 24 hour ban. You can still send PM's.4 active points results in a 72 hour ban. You can still send PM's.5 active points results in a week-long ban. You cannot send PM's.6 active points results in a month-long ban. You cannot send PM's.Site staff also have the capability to make a ban permanent, if a poster demonstrates chronic indifference/hostility to site posting standards.

Why do you believe that? You just demonstrated you think he's terrible at it. / or you think he just demonstrated he's terrible at it.

Good game and all, but I'm out.

I didn't come away from it thinking whichever team won was a real threat to go all the way, but the game was a real good one, with plenty to pick apart and plenty of individual heroics.

Wait, you're saying they brought in Deduno with runners on?

Probably not, but more because of the length of contracts to snare these guys, than the annual value.

To me, an NFL game in person is much inferior to the TeeVee version. I haven't reached that point with baseball, FWeverIW.

J.J. Gardyhire - first player/manager since Rose!