Using assets in the proper way

Oh, boy.

Know how I’ve wanted to be a fan of some team and was quite enamoured of the TOD?

Well, whoopee! This has been a Blue Jays fall to remember. Thanks, Alex.

On the R.A. Dickey deal, which has to be the culmination of the best fall in franchise history:

Here’s the thing about prospects:

They’re PROSPECTS!

No one has any real idea how they’ll turn out, for every “can’t-miss” there’s a “didn’t-make-it” and every general manager worth his corner office knows this.

And that’s why the TOD deal makes more sense that you can ever imagine.

It was great of AA to turn around the Jays farm system to stock it with what everybody seems to term blue-chip talent because it’s all about stockpiling assets in today’s sports world.

And then you can use those assets in one of two ways:

You can wait until they mature – or hope they mature – and stock your major league club with them; it’s painstaking, of course, and there are no guarantees but at least it affords your fans some sense of promise and that – eventually – you’ll be all right.

Or, and this is what I like most, you can use those assets and turn them into bigger, more proven assets, which is precisely what Alex Anthopoulos did in the R.A. Dickey deal.

The GM spent enough time making sure he had sufficient organizational depth that he could pull off two deals this winter to absolutely energize his team and its fan base.

Good on him.

Now, I hope Travis D’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard go on to have long and illustrious careers and there suggestions from people whose opinions I respect that they will.

But I’d much rather be a fan of a team whose GM seizes the moment, goes for home run instead of bunting the runner over as long as he has the assets to pull it off. He did, good on him, glad he got something for them, my patience was wearing thing.

(Of course, I’m leery about knuckleballers for a lot of reasons but that’s for another day)

I was trying to think of the last time sports fans in Toronto were more looking forward to a season than they are today about the Blue Jays.

Maybe back in the early-2000s with the Vince-led Raptors? And that was more than a decade ago.

Cannot for the life of me thing of a legitimate off-season when pucks fans were as pumped; don’t recall an Argo winter this active in eons; and I have no clue what the TFCs do since they seem to play almost 12 months a year.

A special time, indeed.

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Seriously.

Nothing says Christmas better than a little Twisted Sister.

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I was just a kid dealing with mono – which is a perfect way to just laze around on a couch for few weeks – about the time of the Watergate hearings back in the day and they were, as Those Of Us Of A Certain Vintage will recall – quite compelling.

And one of my all-time favourites in that whole sordid affair was Sen. Daniel Inouye, who was something of the conscience, as I recall.

Sam Ervin was another favourite but Inouye was cool.

Turns out he was far, far more than just that, as we found out yesterday when he passed away.

RIP, sir.

And I know there are other oldsters around here, did you have a favourite in those hearings?

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It’s the annual Sports Department Christmas Party and Buntoss tonight (yes, you can fully imagine the carnage that might occur at one of those) so it’s a night off from the IGBT; be back tomorrow.

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I’ve been on the road so much I’d forgotten that Tuesdays mean Super Son has to be in school at 7 a.m. and, trust me, Super Wife didn’t let me forget.

Sorry I’m a bit late; had a wee drive to make.

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Hey, check out Not Grace Kelly’s tome on Tristan Thompson, glad he used his time in Cleveland to good purpose.

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The Raptors?

Yeah, they practiced yesterday, was no compelling news at all; a quick workout setting up the three games in four days that starts tonight and, as you might expect, lots of chatter about the contribution of Jose Calderon of late.

The money quote came from Alan Anderson:

“He's like the glue. He does everything, man. Without Jose I don't even know if we could win any of these games. He's amazing to us. Rebounding, passing, vocally leads everybody, talking, gets everybody in their positions. He's just like our calm, poised leader on the floor. It's great to have him.”

Not much more to say than that, is there?

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You know me and the Canadian women’s basketball team, right?

Have been on that bandwagon for quite a while, trying to encourage a lot of you to join me because I’ve seen the program go from nothing, really, to top eight at the Olympics and I’ve been saying since the mid-2000s that they were going to have more global success before the men ever would. I was proven right, I’d say, with two trips to the worlds and the London excursion.

(I’m not saying it’ll stay that way for the next five years because the men’s program is promising but we should have been paying far more attention to the women since about 2005)

And the news yesterday that Allison McNeill was stepping down as the team’s head coach was a bit sad – although I’m happy she’s happy with the decision – and truly the end of an era.

I don’t know how many conference calls I was on with her after her team got drilled at some tournament – and, no, there weren’t ever too many people on those calls – and she’d be telling me they were on the right track and that eventually they’d be talented enough and old enough and experienced enough that the journey would have been worth it. I believed her then and the that London experience proved it to be true.

I asked her yesterday about the journey and the memories and the highlights and she pointed to that final game in London; yes, it was an expected loss but it was, frankly, special.

“We realized what we had done as a group and how we had done it. It felt like we had done it right.”

She had. They had.

Now, I know my man Wayne Parrish will read this, or hear about it, and I’m sure some other folks at Canada Basketball (hello, Michele!) will pay attention so listen up:

You know how you put together that Council of Excellence back in the day to turn around the men’s program and I was always dogging you about doing something similar for the women but we could never come up with someone to lead it:

Give it a month or so, call Allison, make her something like you made Maurizio with the men. You won’t regret it.

You’re welcome. -

 

 

 

Comments

[jc]

Landry's back? Maybe it was a pep talk from his couchmate on the weekend. Nice for now that he can be eased back in rather than be forced into a short(er) lineup

Blogger's note: Cleared to play, I'm told

[Grant]

@LeeZ 11:53 - Like!

[David C]

"What did the President know, and when did he know it?"

Maybe the most memorable quote from the Watergate hearings, asked by Sen. Howard Baker, a Republican from Tennessee. Might have propelled him to the position of Senate Majority Leader three years later.

[David C]

Correction: Howard Baker became Senate Minority Leader in 1977 and Senate Majority Leader in 1981.

[Vikz]

If someone had to give me odds on if Calderon would lead the league in triple-doubles a quarter into the season, I would have put the odds at something like 10000:1. He's been playing lights-out basketball.

[GM]

I've long wondered who Not Grace Kelly was. Today I decided to check him/her out by clicking on the link. I trust some of the Irregulars here who say he's great, but I sure didn't see it in this piece. What a mess. It's all over the place. I like the snark and references, but it's really badly written, I thought. "This is a hard kid not to love" is but one example that stood out. Is that like a kid hard not to love? I'll give him another chance based on the recommendations here. Hopefully he'll be a bit more focussed.

Fans are all thinking the Raptors are winning because Bargnani and Lowry aren't playing. That may or may not be true, we'll never know. But one big factor is the schedule and the length of time the new faces have been playing together. They may very well have won these games with those two guys. I forget who it was last year whose departure coincided with games against lesser teams, but it always happens. I think the schedule is more of a factor than the missing players.

No IGBT tonight? But I've got no other commitments! Do you mean I have to sit alone with my thoughts?

[Lorie]

Good Evening Doug,
Watergate. Summons up a whole raft of recollections...couldn't take my eyes off John Dean when he was testifying. And Mo! Well, as a girl whose hair always had a mind of its own and would not be contained, I was soooo jealous of her always-in-control, cool, never-a-strand-out-of-place sleek blondness. Polished and poised every single minute. And as reserved and professional as Mo Dean was, then you had her very opposite. The delightful, the unpredictable, the sadly discredited Martha Mitchell. The shabby treatment of whom has even lead to a clinical descriptor: The 'Martha Mitchell Effect'. All manner of legacies. Another was the 'Rose Mary Stretch', originated by Rose Mary Woods and perfected during that iconic multi-tasking moment where she reached for one thing but inadvertently erased something else...and it turned out to have been some pretty important stuff. (Ever do that, Doug?) Thank you to Allison McNeill for all she did for womens' basketball in this country - and I hope somehow she continues to remain involved. I follow her on Twitter and her motivational tweets are very much appreciated. And thanks to you, Doug, for telling her story and her teams', too. Now thinking about being laid-up and kind of stuck following something you might not normally follow on TV, I was hospitalized for quite a long period of time during one of my pregnancies and it was during an iconic season of a certain TV show. And every Friday evening all the maternity nurses on duty would gather in my room to watch my TV for a few minutes as we followed the drama of Sue Ellen and J.R., Pam and Bobby and Jock and Miss Ellie. Glad they made me get to know the Ewings. Was fun stuff, indeed!

[doug]

why do people feel compelled to write comments like the first few today...if you don't like women's b-ball don't watch, if you don't like Kelly or he isn't your cup of tea or pint of ale don't read, ...why the negative stuff?/....as for the TOD I too am excited but I temper it with Bautista is still a question mark as it was a major wrist prodcedure he had done and timeline for return is a year/year and half and I don't want him to force it....also although I am not opposed to the hiring or I should say the re-hiring of Gibbons, to put him in charge of this roster is a big task with bigger expectations...he is not a seasoned vet manager...so best thing for him is a fast start, the hiring of him for this team is a dubious one I feel...but I hope I am proven wrong....ok happy drinking with your fellow scribes....cheers...

[doug]

I have said this all along in regards to the plethora of strikes we have seen lately in pro sports...owners are not dumb they look at Dana White/UFC and his lucrative television contracts/ his gate revenue.his PPV etc. but also what he pays his "athletes"....its chump change, but what the commish's and owners don't understand is basketball/football/hockey are suppose to be legitimate sports...I don't mention baseball as the owners and players both realize there sitting on a cash cow....Dana White and his revenues have the other leagues drooling and their dead wrong to do so....ok cheers

http://www.thestar.com/sports/boxing/article/1303919--roy-big-country-nelson-makes-48-000-for-ultimate-fighter-win

[Penguin]

Funny isn't it that the Raps have tried for years to replace Calderon and he's beat back every challenger. That being said, while I generally think the team plays better right now with him rather than Lowry, it will be interesting to see how he and the team handle the quickness tonight of Irving. Probably could use Lowry tonight. You have to wonder how Anderson's praise of Calderon is going to be read by Lowry and how it will play out in the locker room.

I'm old enough to recall the Watergate hearings pretty well. Ervin was great and so was Inouye, who I haven't thought of in years. Another I recall was the Connecticut senator, Lowell Weicker.

[marc in panama]

Hola Doug,

I cheered for Nixon. Every story needs a great villain.

ciao amigo,

marc in panama

[Gary M]

I remember watching those watergate committee hearings back when there were moderate repubs like Howard Baker. And remember the day they told us in advance that Butterfield (?) or some such guy was going to drop a bombshell. Nobody could imagine what it was because the guy wasn't very prominent, then he told the committee that everything that happened in the oval office was on audio tape. That changed everything.