Dbacks vs Cubs: Desperate Times Call for Stupid Measures

DWKB

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I still want to see where he's at later in the season as I have my doubts about him. Nonetheless, he does represent an upgrade over anything we toss out there as a leadoff man... :bang:



Skaggs will be 23 this summer, so he's still so young... I have my doubts about him ever being an "ace", but again, aside from Corbin and Miley, he is a massive upgrade over anything else we trot out to the mound...

In the end, I can understand the move KT made here. It's clear the early evidence is that he lost - bigtime - in this trade... However, I'm sure he was convinced that Parra/Pollack/Campana would be as good, if not better leadoff options than Eaton. And that his moves to acquire Cahill & McCarthy (don't laugh) would pay off. Along with Corbin and Miley and with Bradley available later in the year, I can see his logic and making a run at a power hitting Trumbo...
In the world of GM's, if you aren't losing deals then you aren't doing your job - because you aren't making deals...
The problem with KT is that it's nearly impossible to identify a deal he's done where he's come out on top. Even the Bauer deal is starting to look unvfavorable as Bauer had a great outing yesterday in AAA. That deal still requires much more time, and you have to factor in Bauer's brain malfunctions... But the deck is seriously stacked against KT. Hard to see him surviving much longer.

I just want to know when I can serve you this

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and you say "You know, maybe DWKB (among others) knew what he (they) we talking about and me......well not so much". ;)
 

82CardsGrad

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I just want to know when I can serve you this

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and you say "You know, maybe DWKB (among others) knew what he (they) we talking about and me......well not so much". ;)

Contain yourself dude...You know, as well as anyone, that I have been stating all along that 2014 would be the year where I hold KT accountable. I simply wanted to give him 3 years or so, to have his deals mature and manifest into something positive or negative.
It's still very early in the season, however, as I noted above, I honestly can't say I see a deal he's made where has come out on top.
But I never proclaimed Towers to be anything more than what he is - a deal-making GM.
 

DWKB

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Contain yourself dude...You know, as well as anyone, that I have been stating all along that 2014 would be the year where I hold KT accountable. I simply wanted to give him 3 years or so, to have his deals mature and manifest into something positive or negative.
It's still very early in the season, however, as I noted above, I honestly can't say I see a deal he's made where has come out on top.
But I never proclaimed Towers to be anything more than what he is - a deal-making GM.

I understand, some of us could see the negative in the moves at the time they were made and some of us needed time to see them happen while calling the prescient ones "haters" or some form of "Tower Derangement Syndrome" and exclaiming "Great Trade" all along the way.

The season is early, but a sweep of the Dodgers and the DBacks are 10 out before May. Worst record in MLB by 4 games right now with a -40 Run Diff (next team is at -25). They ain't no playoffs for this "win now" team, and sadly there ain't a fraction as many potential new players in the pipe to try out.
 
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82CardsGrad

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I understand, some of us could see the negative in the moves at the time they were made and some of us needed time to see them happen while calling the prescient ones "haters" or some form of "Tower Derangement Syndrome" and exclaiming "Great Trade" all along the way.

The season is early, but a sweep of the Dodgers and the DBacks are 10 out before May. Worst record in MLB by 4 games right now with a -40 Run Diff (next team is at -25). They ain't no playoffs for this "win now" team, and sadly there ain't a fraction as many potential new players in the pipe to try out.

For sure... this season over, which is nothing short of amazing to say on April 17th... :bang:
Towers made his deals and now they are his legacy... He will hang for those deals for sure.
Time to move on...
 

BC867

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For sure... this season over, which is nothing short of amazing to say on April 17th... :bang:
Towers made his deals and now they are his legacy... He will hang for those deals for sure.
Time to move on...
I wonder, once the move is made to part ways with our GM, our Manager (and therefore, his best friend, our Bench Coach) and to demote our inexperienced Pitching Coach . . .

. . . if Roger Craig could be persuaded to be our interim Pitching coach for the remainder of the season.

Mike Harkey could be reclassified as Assistant Pitching coach (just as we have an Assistant Batting coach) and do a lot of the routine work for him. Assuming that Dave Duncan's tenure as Special Assistant to the GM was just for Spring Training.
 

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I wonder, once the move is made to part ways with our GM, our Manager (and therefore, his best friend, our Bench Coach) and to demote our inexperienced Pitching Coach . . .

. . . if Roger Craig could be persuaded to be our interim Pitching coach for the remainder of the season.

Mike Harkey could be reclassified as Assistant Pitching coach (just as we have an Assistant Batting coach) and do a lot of the routine work for him. Assuming that Dave Duncan's tenure as Special Assistant to the GM was just for Spring Training.


Have no clue about most of that... but, I'm pretty certain that whatever "role" Duncan was supposed to have played with this team, never actually panned out...
 
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Phrazbit

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I still want to see where he's at later in the season as I have my doubts about him. Nonetheless, he does represent an upgrade over anything we toss out there as a leadoff man... :bang:



Skaggs will be 23 this summer, so he's still so young... I have my doubts about him ever being an "ace", but again, aside from Corbin and Miley, he is a massive upgrade over anything else we trot out to the mound...

In the end, I can understand the move KT made here. It's clear the early evidence is that he lost - bigtime - in this trade... However, I'm sure he was convinced that Parra/Pollack/Campana would be as good, if not better leadoff options than Eaton. And that his moves to acquire Cahill & McCarthy (don't laugh) would pay off. Along with Corbin and Miley and with Bradley available later in the year, I can see his logic and making a run at a power hitting Trumbo...
In the world of GM's, if you aren't losing deals then you aren't doing your job - because you aren't making deals...
The problem with KT is that it's nearly impossible to identify a deal he's done where he's come out on top. Even the Bauer deal is starting to look unvfavorable as Bauer had a great outing yesterday in AAA. That deal still requires much more time, and you have to factor in Bauer's brain malfunctions... But the deck is seriously stacked against KT. Hard to see him surviving much longer.

I understand the logic of "if you're not making moves you're not doing your job"... but KT took it way too far. Its pretty clear that if the team had done literally nothing in terms of trades or free agent signings since 2011 and promoted purely from within that we would have a much much much better roster that would also have like 50 million in extra payroll to work with to fill in some of the holes. KT's biggest problem is his lack of patience.

I get really worked up thinking about all of it... we really had a potentially dominant team, maybe not a perennial WS contender but a squad that for 10 years could have won a lot of games and been a ton of fun to watch, and it was dismantled with basically no return. Now the franchise is left to start over and in its worst condition since 2004.
 
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I understand the logic of "if you're not making moves you're not doing your job"... but KT took it way too far. Its pretty clear that if the team had done literally nothing in terms of trades or free agent signings since 2011 and promoted purely from within that we would have a much much much better roster that would also have like 50 million in extra payroll to work with to fill in some of the holes. KT's biggest problem is his lack of patience.

The team didn't bring him in to just do nothing. No GM does that... But yes, the team would, sadly, be better off had he done just that.

He literally swung and missed on just about every move he's made. And now, there is nothing that can save him. After we get sweeped by the Dodgers this weekend we then go onto to play 16 games in 17 days. At best, we come out of that stretch with a 7 & 30 record... Hard to believe he and Gibby survive much longer after that point...
 

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The team didn't bring him in to just do nothing. No GM does that... But yes, the team would, sadly, be better off had he done just that.

He literally swung and missed on just about every move he's made. And now, there is nothing that can save him. After we get sweeped by the Dodgers this weekend we then go onto to play 16 games in 17 days. At best, we come out of that stretch with a 7 & 30 record... Hard to believe he and Gibby survive much longer after that point...


Well on our way to that 7 & 30 record! Holy crap this team is brutal. Aside from Goldy who is such a pro's pro, the only other "bright spots" are the recent performances from our pen which comically includes Cahill! Every other facet of this team sucks, including the coaching....wow....


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Had great seats last night. My friends rule.
 

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Mulli

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So weird that Arroyo would make one batter look bad, then give up a bomb to the pitcher. Twice.
 

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So weird that Arroyo would make one batter look bad, then give up a bomb to the pitcher. Twice.


Outside of the pitcher - Travis Wood, Arroyo actually pitched well enough to give the team a chance... But, Wood pounded him and out only offense was Goldy... Yea, Trumbo hit a solo dinger, big deal...


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devilalum

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"I think we know we don't have the balance I still think is the right way to go, and I think we need to recognize (that). To this point, there are only a few teams that are starting to do exotic (defensive) shifts, which is an element of a much bigger picture of (baseball analytics) …

"We aren't doing that because I don't think we have studied the data at a level they've studied it. Now how valuable is it? I guess we'll see. You'd like to have the information, make a judgment on how valuable it is, and either use it or not use it. We don't have the level of information in that category that (other teams) have. I think we need to do a better job in that area."

http://www.azcentral.com/story/spor...ks-owner-backing-management-team-now/7855827/

They've got a $100 million payroll and the don't have the time or interest to look at analytics?
 

Mulli

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Outside of the pitcher - Travis Wood, Arroyo actually pitched well enough to give the team a chance... But, Wood pounded him and out only offense was Goldy... Yea, Trumbo hit a solo dinger, big deal...


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Outside of the pitcher...:big laugh:

:$
 

DWKB

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devilalum

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Been that way for a long time. It's what kept me from working for them back in the day. No investment in analysis.

Back then talking to Rizzo trying to convince me Sergio Santos would be a MLB SS. :)

Seems pretty ridiculous when you consider the relatively tiny investment it would take to join the 21rst Century.

Is this why Towers makes such horrendous decisions? Is he one of those old school "I judge a player by lookin' 'em in the eye" kind of fossils?
 

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Seems pretty ridiculous when you consider the relatively tiny investment it would take to join the 21rst Century.

Is this why Towers makes such horrendous decisions? Is he one of those old school "I judge a player by lookin' 'em in the eye" kind of fossils?

What's strange about that - if it's true - is that Towers isn't all that old - hell be 53 in November.
I heard Bickley yesterday talking about Upton's departure from AZ... his remarks never touched on Towers, only Gibby. He stressed how Gibby and Upton never got along and that Gibby was the sole force behind the benching of Upton.

As I mentioned in another thread (or was it this one...:D), I am seriously wondering just how much of a role Gibby has played in the departure of players like Upton, Bauer and Eaton.
KT ultimately pulled the trigger and again, he will pay the ultimate price... However, I would not at all be surprised if Towers was heavily influenced by Gibby...
 
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Phrazbit

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http://www.azcentral.com/story/spor...ks-owner-backing-management-team-now/7855827/

They've got a $100 million payroll and the don't have the time or interest to look at analytics?

The Trumbo trade, the Arroyo signing, the Upton trade, the Cody Ross signing... a bunch of moves that viewed by statistical values made zero sense. I think Towers deliberately ignores that kind of stuff. The self congratulatory stuff he does when announcing his deals, I think is him trying to display that he is so clever and sees things the stats dont... only he does not.

Towers perception of players is so backwards, he looooves to jump on guys from other teams right after a season which seems like an aberration when judged against their careers (the Arroyo and Ross signings especially fit this bill), while if one of his guys has a slump he dumps them as quick as possible, even if the slump seems like an aberration given their previous trends (Eaton, Upton, Kennedy, Skaggs).

A long trend of buying high and selling low, and its led the franchise to ruin.

And as dumb as I think just about everything he has done is, the Cody Ross signing, while of lesser impact compared to some other goofs, stands out as spectacularly stupid.

It was everything dumb about Towers all in one signing.

Substantially overpaid a guy who was barely above replacement level, did it under the justification of filling a "need" that did not exist, the pompous self congratulatory press clippings afterwards... that article about his signing and how brilliant they were for targeting this "winner" (who'd only played on one winner in his entire career). It also caused a cascade of bad moves afterwards... it was the final straw before trading Upton as we now had a glut of outfielders... so the obvious solution is to trade the best one... by far. Which led to the outfield lacking offense... which led to the Trumbo disaster.

I probably need to ban myself from even thinking about this team for a while. I get so worked up thinking about the avalanche of idiocy, one dumb move leading to another, reactionary move after reactionary move, filling imagined holes while creating real ones and treating out entire farm system like a 5 dollar bill he found in his pocket.

What kind of moron looks at Trumbo... a terrible OBP, one dimensional power hitting 1B/DH and sees him as a solution to an imagined hole in the outfield?

I could cry... or puke, probably both.

I'm ranting now.
 

Lefty

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The Trumbo trade, the Arroyo signing, the Upton trade, the Cody Ross signing... a bunch of moves that viewed by statistical values made zero sense. I think Towers deliberately ignores that kind of stuff. The self congratulatory stuff he does when announcing his deals, I think is him trying to display that he is so clever and sees things the stats dont... only he does not.

Towers perception of players is so backwards, he looooves to jump on guys from other teams right after a season which seems like an aberration when judged against their careers (the Arroyo and Ross signings especially fit this bill), while if one of his guys has a slump he dumps them as quick as possible, even if the slump seems like an aberration given their previous trends (Eaton, Upton, Kennedy, Skaggs).

A long trend of buying high and selling low, and its led the franchise to ruin.

And as dumb as I think just about everything he has done is, the Cody Ross signing, while of lesser impact compared to some other goofs, stands out as spectacularly stupid.

It was everything dumb about Towers all in one signing.

Substantially overpaid a guy who was barely above replacement level, did it under the justification of filling a "need" that did not exist, the pompous self congratulatory press clippings afterwards... that article about his signing and how brilliant they were for targeting this "winner" (who'd only played on one winner in his entire career). It also caused a cascade of bad moves afterwards... it was the final straw before trading Upton as we now had a glut of outfielders... so the obvious solution is to trade the best one... by far. Which led to the outfield lacking offense... which led to the Trumbo disaster.

I probably need to ban myself from even thinking about this team for a while. I get so worked up thinking about the avalanche of idiocy, one dumb move leading to another, reactionary move after reactionary move, filling imagined holes while creating real ones and treating out entire farm system like a 5 dollar bill he found in his pocket.

What kind of moron looks at Trumbo... a terrible OBP, one dimensional power hitting 1B/DH and sees him as a solution to an imagined hole in the outfield?

I could cry... or puke, probably both.

I'm ranting now.

There are people on this board who think this was a great trade and the Diamondbacks got the better end of it. :bang:
 

Lefty

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Tyler Skaggs pitched tonight and gave up 2 runs in 7 innings as the Angels won and Tyler is now 2-0.
 
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