The Ricky Watch

[Alex]

Anybody notice at the end of an inning against the yankees, Magruder has a smile on his face as he runs in from the outfield alongside Bradley, he's obviously at ease and is saying something in a joking matter to Bradley, meanwhile Bradley has this self-absorbed really intense look on his face...they cut away for a commercial before Bradley reacted, if he even did.

Stuff like that is really bad.

[The RotoTribe]

I think The Teacher Raises a good question. I think that if we look at some of the teams with winning traditions, the Yankees, the Dodgers and maybe Atlanta, something happens to their mediocre players. Somehow, they get better.

Now you can say that these guys, when they reach the majors are professionals, and the manager should not be blamed for poor fielding. One reason that this isn't correct is that players reach the majors at a pretty early age. Bradley reached the majors before being fully trained. Gutierrors should be fully trained, but perhaps the fact that he's playing second instead of shortstop means he needs more training, too. But to get back to my main point, I think that the reason these mediocre players play better with good teams is that the good teams work on all situations. They have good management and good coaching. Players cannot become complacent just because they reached the majors.

[The Genius]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by the teacher:
How much of this ineptitude can be blamed on the individual players, and how much of the blame should be shouldered by charlie and the coaches?
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Bud Shaw must have read your post! In today's PD he says:
"But what damns him (Manuel) is that ... the teams he has managed have not played fundamental baseball particularly well."

[Swanny]

I think there are a few posters still out there who understate what a horrible, horrible signing this was. Why Shapiro gave this guy a 3 year deal when he wasn't exactly coveted by many other teams is a complete head scratcher. Yes, Shapiro had to clean up some of Hart's mess but he has already began making a mess of his own and the Ricky G, Lawton and Wohlers contracts are 3 messes we could live without.