Blue Jays Discussion: Blue Jays acquire TROY TULOWITZKI... did I mention his idol is Derek Jeter?

[Gargyn]

Would love to see them be able to grab both price and Ross, regardless of the depletion of the farm if the regular lineup is not touched and we keep Pompey. Imagine the rotation with this lineup? Lol

 

[Bad News Benning]

I think if AA can't swing a deal for a front line starter he will likely find a cheaper way to improve the club.

someone like Leake or Iwakuma to slide into the rotation and give us some solid innings
perhaps some OF depth/lefty bat like Venable or perhaps a regular LF like Parra.

 

[Daisy Jane]

Some of us don't follow baseball the same way we follow hockey.

At least I find it helpful

that's how i see it.
also some people just work better with analogies and comparisons. Yeah you can go "Tulo is really, really important etc" but if you don't follow or don't understand that means nothing to you

sure making it understandable in Hockey-ese sometimes doesn't make sense but it's easier to grasp for those who are new-ish.

 

[Eyedea]

that's how i see it.
also some people just work better with analogies and comparisons. Yeah you can go "Tulo is really, really important etc" but if you don't follow or don't understand that means nothing to you

sure making it understandable in Hockey-ese sometimes doesn't make sense but it's easier to grasp for those who are new-ish.

You don't need to follow baseball to know that being the best at the most premium position in baseball means you're one of the top players in the game.

 

[BayStreetBully]

You don't need to follow baseball to know that being the best at the most premium position in baseball means you're one of the top players in the game.

I didn't even know shortstop was the most premium position in baseball.

I didn't know if Tulowitzki was Kessel-important, Tavares-important, or Keith-important. To read above that it is Forsberg 2004-important puts it into context for me what kind of impact player we traded for.

 

[The Nemesis]

that's how i see it.
also some people just work better with analogies and comparisons. Yeah you can go "Tulo is really, really important etc" but if you don't follow or don't understand that means nothing to you

sure making it understandable in Hockey-ese sometimes doesn't make sense but it's easier to grasp for those who are new-ish.

There doesn't seem to be much to grasp about a statement like "really, really important" or calling him one of the best in the game at his position.

Translating between sports is awkward and inelegant because it usually can't be done in a clean and direct manner. I might say that Reyes going out equates to Phaneuf (expensive player who is passing his prime and appears to lack the significant impact potential in previous years) but I'm sure there are people who might come along and say that's a really faulty comparison. Just as I might agree with the Forsberg comparison on Tulowitzki, but that relies on the audience here with its probably early-20s median age having a clear enough memory of a player from 10 years ago.

you're probably better asking people to explain the trades in general terms (an aging expensive player past his prime, a top prospect with elite potential but a ways to go to reach it, a prospect with great raw tools but questions about putting it all together, and a less interesting mid-level replaceable prospect in exchange for one of the game's elite players and one of the very best at a position where that kind of elite talent is hard to come by). It's likely a more workable compromise than making sport-to-sport translations.

 

[BayStreetBully]

There doesn't seem to be much to grasp about a statement like "really, really important" or calling him one of the best in the game at his position.

Translating between sports is awkward and inelegant because it usually can't be done in a clean and direct manner. I might say that Reyes going out equates to Phaneuf (expensive player who is passing his prime and appears to lack the significant impact potential in previous years) but I'm sure there are people who might come along and say that's a really faulty comparison. Just as I might agree with the Forsberg comparison on Tulowitzki, but that relies on the audience here with its probably early-20s median age having a clear enough memory of a player from 10 years ago.

you're probably better asking people to explain the trades in general terms (an aging expensive player past his prime, a top prospect with elite potential but a ways to go to reach it, a prospect with great raw tools but questions about putting it all together, and a less interesting mid-level replaceable prospect in exchange for one of the game's elite players and one of the very best at a position where that kind of elite talent is hard to come by). It's likely a more workable compromise than making sport-to-sport translations.

That doesn't make me want to give Tulowitzki a standing ovation for his first at bat. Saying his impact is Forsberg-like does.

 

[TootooTrain]

That doesn't make me want to give Tulowitzki a standing ovation for his first at bat. Saying his impact is Forsberg-like does.

Just in regards to the standing O. It's a bit different in terms of culture/connection between players and the crowd in baseball. I don't think an addition of similar caliber for a canadian hockey team would garner a standing ovation. It rarely happens at all unless it's a returning player. There's also a period of time where the player walks up to the plate where a standing O can be received. Heck Rasmus got a moderately sized applause for his debut.

 

[TootooTrain]

Jeff Passan ‏@JeffPassan
One GM thinks Thursday will be A.J. Preller Day: "All of us are just waiting for him to make five trades." Kennedy, Venable gone for sure.

Kennedy isn't great at this stage in his career, but I'll take it. Rental. Shouldn't cost much.

 

[BayStreetBully]

Just in regards to the standing O. It's a bit different in terms of culture/connection between players and the crowd in baseball. I don't think an addition of similar caliber for a canadian hockey team would garner a standing ovation. It rarely happens at all unless it's a returning player. There's also a period of time where the player walks up to the plate where a standing O can be received. Heck Rasmus got a moderately sized applause for his debut.

That's a good point.

In any event, I understand cross-sports analogies don't always work, but for a moderate Jays fan who's just getting back into the game, I think hockey analogies can help. Kinda like giving someone a French language dictionary to look up the definition of a French word when a French-English dictionary will do.

 

[The Nemesis]

That's a good point.

In any event, I understand cross-sports analogies don't always work, but for a moderate Jays fan who's just getting back into the game, I think hockey analogies can help. Kinda like giving someone a French language dictionary to look up the definition of a French word when a French-English dictionary will do.

that's not really a fair comparison. a french-english dictionary is direct and analogous. A word in one language is linked directly to a word of identical meaning in the other. You want to learn what "pomme" means, and look it up to find the english word "apple" The point of the difficulty in cross-sports comparisons is the lack of easy direct relation between complex elements of one and the other. It's more like trying to give someone a french-english dictonary to explain proverbs or idioms. If I gave you a French idiom "Poser un lapin à quelqu’un" (yes, I used the internet to look that up. high school french did not prepare me with a vocabulary full of french aphorisms) and a french-english dictonary, you're going to come back to me with the translated phrase "to put a rabbit on someone." but would you from that be able to grasp the correct meaning, which is that it represents missing an appointment or arranged meeting, in the vein of the English phrase "to stand somebody up."? I'd argue not. Or using the dictionary, if someone said "pomme de terre" and you didn't think to look for that as an actual dictionary entry in its entirety, you might come back with "apple of the earth" and not realize that it really means "potato." Because what that phrase or that term represents is entirely dependent on the context and history of the french language, and not directly analogous to english on literal level. Understanding that the french word for potato means "earth apple" might make sense in retrospect, but if someone came up to you and asked you for an earth apple without having that understanding of the french term, would your first instinct be to give them a potato? or would you just be confused by it?

and that's where the cross-sports comparisons can fail or be awkward to use. Somebody suggested that Tulowitzki is kind of like Malkin. But if I say taht, are you going to look at it in the respect of him being uber-talented but injury prone? or that maybe his early career flashed greatness but since then he's been injury-prone and not lived up to potential? or that he's been held down by riding shotgun with another, better player who gets all the attention? Because none of those are accurate to Tulowitzki, and even the baseline comparison is a little faulty because Tulowitzki's production hasn't been held back by his injuries as much as Malkin's has. Tulo has basically put up superstar-to-MVP calibre seasons in spite of his tendency to miss games every year.

and that's why I think it's better to look for explanations in plain or explanative terms rather than as a cross-sport comparison. Calling tulo Forsberg or Malkin doesn't necessarily capture the reality of what he is. It presents an augmented and imprecise picture. Saying that he's one of the very best players in the league and does so while playing a position that rarely produces talents of that level, and that he's a potential perennial MVP candidate who has had to battle through some injury issues is far more informative. There has to be a level of literalness to make sure the point is properly understood. Otherwise you're just sort of babelfishing it, translating a phrase from one language to another, then putting it back into a translator to get to another language for consumption, at which point you've taken something with a clear meaning and turned it into "my hovercraft is full of eels."

 

[BayStreetBully]

that's not really a fair comparison. a french-english dictionary is direct and analogous. A word in one language is linked directly to a word of identical meaning in the other. You want to learn what "pomme" means, and look it up to find the english word "apple" The point of the difficulty in cross-sports comparisons is the lack of easy direct relation between complex elements of one and the other. It's more like trying to give someone a french-english dictonary to explain proverbs or idioms. If I gave you a French idiom "Poser un lapin à quelqu’un" (yes, I used the internet to look that up. high school french did not prepare me with a vocabulary full of french aphorisms) and a french-english dictonary, you're going to come back to me with the translated phrase "to put a rabbit on someone." but would you from that be able to grasp the correct meaning, which is that it represents missing an appointment or arranged meeting, in the vein of the English phrase "to stand somebody up."? I'd argue not. Or using the dictionary, if someone said "pomme de terre" and you didn't think to look for that as an actual dictionary entry in its entirety, you might come back with "apple of the earth" and not realize that it really means "potato." Because what that phrase or that term represents is entirely dependent on the context and history of the french language, and not directly analogous to english on literal level. Understanding that the french word for potato means "earth apple" might make sense in retrospect, but if someone came up to you and asked you for an earth apple without having that understanding of the french term, would your first instinct be to give them a potato? or would you just be confused by it?

and that's where the cross-sports comparisons can fail or be awkward to use. Somebody suggested that Tulowitzki is kind of like Malkin. But if I say taht, are you going to look at it in the respect of him being uber-talented but injury prone? or that maybe his early career flashed greatness but since then he's been injury-prone and not lived up to potential? or that he's been held down by riding shotgun with another, better player who gets all the attention? Because none of those are accurate to Tulowitzki, and even the baseline comparison is a little faulty because Tulowitzki's production hasn't been held back by his injuries as much as Malkin's has. Tulo has basically put up superstar-to-MVP calibre seasons in spite of his tendency to miss games every year.

and that's why I think it's better to look for explanations in plain or explanative terms rather than as a cross-sport comparison. Calling tulo Forsberg or Malkin doesn't necessarily capture the reality of what he is. It presents an augmented and imprecise picture. Saying that he's one of the very best players in the league and does so while playing a position that rarely produces talents of that level, and that he's a potential perennial MVP candidate who has had to battle through some injury issues is far more informative. There has to be a level of literalness to make sure the point is properly understood. Otherwise you're just sort of babelfishing it, translating a phrase from one language to another, then putting it back into a translator to get to another language for consumption, at which point you've taken something with a clear meaning and turned it into "my hovercraft is full of eels."

I don't mean translating a word like "apple". There is a direct word for that in other languages.

If you said Tulo was analogous to Malkin, I'd think "top 3" player in the game. And that would be good enough for me, to be honest.

Your explanation of the trade is good too. Different strokes for different folks!

 

[beer123]

Any rumors about Anibal Sanchez? He is the ideal ace for the Jays imo.

 

[The Nemesis]

I don't mean translating a word like "apple". There is a direct word for that in other languages.

You missed the point. Or rather points. I was explaining that a) your metaphor of dictionaries was faulty because those work on a one-for-one system of analogous meanings. That there is a word for "apple" in every different language where apples exist as a thing. But trying to move from hockey context to baseball context would be more like looking at the term "pomme de terre" as 3 words, independently translating pomme (apple), de (of), and terre (earth, in the sense of ground, soil, dirt, etc) and reaching the, by that internally sound logic, a completely rational-for-the-exercise conclusion that it means "dirt apple" instead of recognizing that it's the somewhat idiomatic way that French refers to a potato. If you lack that contextual understanding or if the translation doesn't have or can't create a clearly equitable context, you're left making direct comparisons out of component parts that don't assemble into a workable whole. You take a player like Tulowitzki, break down his skills and important bits of info, translate those into apparently comparable hockey skills/info and reassemble them into a roughly equivalent hockey player on those terms. But that hockey player may be a "dirt apple" because the whole and the component pieces don't line up cleanly with their baseball origins if you don't have the contextual background to put it together correctly (ie seeing the term as "potato" rather than its literal interpretation). My whole point is that breaking it down and translating it causes enough to be lost in translation to possibly/probably render the translation useless or inaccurate.

If you said Tulo was analogous to Malkin, I'd think "top 3" player in the game. And that would be good enough for me, to be honest.

Again, this shows where those comparisons fall apart. I never meant it in that way, because I meant the comparison as an illustration of the problems with such imprecision and the room that would exist for misinterpretation. Tulowitzki is more like a top 10 player in the league if he's healthy (and if you can actually bridge the rating/ranking gap between pitchers and position players). If there was an intent to use Malkin as a proper comparable, it was in the sense of a superstar talent who is held back somewhat by an ongoing inability to stay healthy for entire seasons. There really doesn't exist a perfect comparison/translation to hockey terms. And using ungainly or "close enough" ones can only make things more difficult to unravel later when you need to have elements of those views corrected for their inaccuracy. Essentially forcing you to unlearn things you picked up that were wrong before you can relearn better ways to look at things.

Your explanation of the trade is good too. Different strokes for different folks!

That's what I was hoping for. You're better off to get "plain english" explanations and then pick up the baseball info from there than you are to learn baseball though imperfect hockey comparisons, and then need your baseball understanding adjusted to compensate for where the hockey terminology steers you wrong. To go back to a somewhat clunky analogy, using one sport as the lens to learn another is a bit like learning a language with google translate. Yeah you might get the gist of it or some basic ideas that are decipherable, but chances are you're just going to learn stilted and awkward concepts that are somewhat divorced from "real" understanding, and is never a substitute for accurate translations without the contextual drift.

 

[Diamond Joe Quimby]

These weird baseball to hockey translations help portray how undervalued Tulowitzki is to the average Toronto sports fan.

Jeff Carter? Geez.

 

[GoonieFace]

These weird baseball to hockey translations help portray how undervalued Tulowitzki is to the average Toronto sports fan.

Jeff Carter? Geez.

Yeah, that was probably the worst sport to sport comparison I have ever heard.

 

[GoonieFace]

Heard an interesting stat this morning. In 41 of the 102 games (roughly 40%), the Jays have scored 3 or less runs, they are 4-37 in those games. So although people keep saying their offence is other wordly, this goes to show that its a little misleading. So adding another real good bat in Tulowitzki can only help.

 

[inthe6ix]

Okay we get it - Tulo's damn good. No need for the hockey analogies.

As for his performance, I think the nerves got to him in the 1st with the SO, but he looked outstanding after that. His power is unreal and has great range in the hole.

What makes his bat more impressive is that he appears to close his eyes at moment of impact when he's swinging through the ball (yes, I looked that closely at the replays), but whatever works, I guess.

Glad he's locked up long-term.

 

[ACC1224]

These weird baseball to hockey translations help portray how undervalued Tulowitzki is to the average Toronto sports fan.

Jeff Carter? Geez.

I don't follow Baseball more than casually but watched some of the game last night and seeing him made me think of Jeter.

Jays fans are going to love this guy, massive upgrade on Reyes.

How long will he be here?

 

[inthe6ix]

Heard an interesting stat this morning. In 41 of the 102 games (roughly 40%), the Jays have scored 3 or less runs, they are 4-37 in those games. So although people keep saying their offence is other wordly, this goes to show that its a little misleading. So adding another real good bat in Tulowitzki can only help.

Zaun mentioned they (well, maybe apart from Cola) don't hit well in the clutch so a lot of those close 1-run games, they end up on the short end of. I'd like to know how many men we leave on base/in scoring position in comparison to the rest of the league.

 

[GoonieFace]

Zaun mentioned they (well, maybe apart from Cola) don't hit well in the clutch so a lot of those close 1-run games, they end up on the short end of. I'd like to know how many men we leave on base/in scoring position in comparison to the rest of the league.

I mentioned this on here about a month and a half ago and got roasted. The Jays then proceeded to win about 4 comeback games in the span of a week, but since then it has dried up again. When you 3/4 hitters are both batting .235 or less, thats not an ideal situation.

 

[Bjindaho]

Zaun mentioned they (well, maybe apart from Cola) don't hit well in the clutch so a lot of those close 1-run games, they end up on the short end of. I'd like to know how many men we leave on base/in scoring position in comparison to the rest of the league.

We are the best hitting team (both AVG and OPS) with runners on
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/batting/split/38/sort/OPS/order/true


We are the second best team with RISP (both AVG and OPS)
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/batting/split/39/sort/OPS/order/true


We are less good with RISP and 2 outs:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/batting/split/185/sort/OPS/order/true

 

[613Leafer]

What's the situation with Bautista/EE contracts? Could they be easily traded this off season for pitching help, or can they block trades? I think they only have 1 year left on their contracts as well?

Martin, Donaldson, and Tulo are younger and give us a solid trio to build our offence/infield around, so moving one of those older bats could potentially help shore up our pitching needs.

 

[inthe6ix]

I mentioned this on here about a month and a half ago and got roasted. The Jays then proceeded to win about 4 comeback games in the span of a week, but since then it has dried up again. When you 3/4 hitters are both batting .235 or less, thats not an ideal situation.

Exactly, and that's the problem - JB and EE are swinging for the fences on every plate appearance and it seems if they took a little off and went the other way every once and a while away from the shift, they could improve their batting average instead of trying to dead pull everything. It's definitely a Catch-22 keeping their power numbers but sacrificing in other areas - fortunately others in the lineup have been more consistent, but the others' success is masking a real silent problem in the meat of our order.

 

[topched]

What's the situation with Bautista/EE contracts? Could they be easily traded this off season for pitching help, or can they block trades? I think they only have 1 year left on their contracts as well?

Martin, Donaldson, and Tulo are younger and give us a solid trio to build our offence/infield around, so moving one of those older bats could potentially help shore up our pitching needs.

Both have one year left at bargain prices. They both got 10/5 rights this year, they can block any trade.

I still think it's highly unlikely either get moved, in fact it's more likely they get extended IMO... Assuming AA is still around.

With a new Prez in place we should be bigger players in FA, may actually have a chance to add a premium starter