The culture thing is interesting. I remember listening to that podcast with Atkins (which was great), but I also remember reading something about Shapiro (perhaps it was from you) that he had a handwritten list of slogans/ethos in his office and there was a picture of it and one of them said 'No dickheads'.
He'd borrowed this from the Sydney Swans Australian Rules Football team who had a famous 'no dickheads' policy when it came to recruiting players. I live in Sydney now and the Swans definitely bought into that culture and were a powerhouse for years and set some sort of record for consecutive years making the playoffs....so maybe there's something to team culture after all eh?
And I could throw out some names of players this regime has got rid of that may have fallen into the 'dickhead' category.
To be more specific, do you think someone like Walker meets that criteria? That's kind of who I envisioned, but maybe my expectations are unrealistic based on small sample size of end of last year?
Otherwise you're going into a playoff series with Robbie Ray locked in to get a start and that is...not....great...Nothing wrong with upgrading at the trade deadline but if you know the playoffs are the goal, and a realistic goal you don't want to start the season with a clear gap.
I suspect it's more of a question for real core pieces than elsewhere. They also seem to have tried to tie a value to everything, so I'd imagine if they had some kind of composite value for every player, a ton of talent could overcome a lack of culture stuff. So that's maybe not limiting choices so much as shaping their opinions. All sort of black box stuff, though. I don't know. A good question.
The culture thing is interesting. I remember listening to that podcast with Atkins (which was great), but I also remember reading something about Shapiro (perhaps it was from you) that he had a handwritten list of slogans/ethos in his office and there was a picture of it and one of them said 'No dickheads'.
He'd borrowed this from the Sydney Swans Australian Rules Football team who had a famous 'no dickheads' policy when it came to recruiting players. I live in Sydney now and the Swans definitely bought into that culture and were a powerhouse for years and set some sort of record for consecutive years making the playoffs....so maybe there's something to team culture after all eh?
And I could throw out some names of players this regime has got rid of that may have fallen into the 'dickhead' category.
They can’t possibly *not* add a starter at this point. Right? Right?
Looks like they did! Um... but they still can't possibly *not* add another one. Right???
I would say that they can't possibly *not* add a pitcher who has a reasonable probability of giving Pearson a run for the #2 spot in the rotation.
I think it’s possible they won’t!
To be more specific, do you think someone like Walker meets that criteria? That's kind of who I envisioned, but maybe my expectations are unrealistic based on small sample size of end of last year?
He’s the one I’d like to see.
Otherwise you're going into a playoff series with Robbie Ray locked in to get a start and that is...not....great...Nothing wrong with upgrading at the trade deadline but if you know the playoffs are the goal, and a realistic goal you don't want to start the season with a clear gap.
Well, we sure didn’t see this one coming!
Can they just sign Taijuan Walker already?
I suspect it's more of a question for real core pieces than elsewhere. They also seem to have tried to tie a value to everything, so I'd imagine if they had some kind of composite value for every player, a ton of talent could overcome a lack of culture stuff. So that's maybe not limiting choices so much as shaping their opinions. All sort of black box stuff, though. I don't know. A good question.