I’m glad to see somebody finally go off.

Great to hear this kind of talk. Despite his drawbacks, I am becoming a bigger and bigger fan of Reynolds. Sure, words can only go so far, but he’s one of the few speaking with the bat as well.
Reynolds is one of those players I consider to be our nucleus, along with Upton, Drew and Max. I’d be even happier if Mark stepped forward to be a leader of this team, like shown by these comments.

I can pinpoint the moment. It was 3-0; and there were two men on and Mark Reynolds came up to bat, for a moment I was excited that he could tie it up! And then gloom descended on me and I thought, so what? They’ll only lose when the bullpen comes in or when they go to extra innings and they’re already 17 games below .500. Some may say, “Welcome to reality, dope.” but it’s more than that. Now I don’t expect them to even make an effort to win, to make an effort to better their record. I don’t know what the heck is wrong with this team, but I just have no enthusiasm for them anymore. And that’s just depressing.

Reynolds is a guy I hope they hold onto for a long time. His defensive may waffle between amazing and scary, though he does work hard. And sure he has a lot of strikeouts, but he’s well above the Mendoza Line and scores runs. He’s one of the guys that doesn’t seem to take time off while playing.

I just wish someone other than him, J-Up and Haren would follow suit. Not going to give up on the team yet, just saying I’ll consider it a successful season if they stay below 100 losses.

some might think a front office skeptic like myself would be crowing “I told ya so”, but I’m honestly surprised (and disappointed with) how far we’ve fallen. The day AJ was hired, I wrote that it was a political move aimed at deflecting blame for structural shortcomings onto Bob Melvin.

But I also assumed the team would win more, for reasons unrelated to Hinch. One, simple regression from awful April stats towards hitters’ established norms. Two, AJ’s early cupcake schedule (getting tougher as we speak). Three, our LF and SS holes were resolved just as Bob was leaving. All these factors contributed to the long term offense perking up, imo.

Despite these ‘advantages’, the team hasnt won under Hinch, and looks even worse. Morale appears unusually low and Little League references are now common. When a reasonably talented team plays poorly, we may disagree on what exactly is wrong, and certainly it’s the players who need to make plays, but I think it’s very, very hard to look at recent play, or to read between the lines of Reynolds’ rant, and conclude this is an adequately coached (led) major league team.

The variety and frequency of defensive miscues has spiraled from counterproductive to bizarre and alarming. According to Reynolds, players are “giving up” in ostensibly close games. Others are “playing for themselves” instead of helping the team win. Mark doesnt have a monopoly on the truth, but these are really damning insider insights. For a player to confirm that some of his teammates (plural and presumably starters) dont really care is more than a sign of garden variety dissention or individual character flaws – it’s the sign of a losing organizational culture.

Sut and Candy put a good face on it – suggesting Mark as an emerging leader, and I wont deny there’s some truth in that. You have to confront issues before you can solve them. But let’s not miss the big picture. The small picture is our young third baseman called out his teammates, not by name, but by implication. The big picture is that our players lack leadership, focus and commitment. In some cases, they lack self-leadership, but that’s true in every organization, especially among young players.

They lack credible managerial leadership. Two months into the job, Hinch’s voice still cracks in postgame pressers, like a teenager about to cry. One of his goals was to instill confidence in this team and he has not only failed to instill it – he cant even credibly project it. Teams play like their manager. Melvin’s teams were (too?) conservative – and reasonably competitive. AJ’s team too often plays like they dont belong in the major leagues – and deep down, maybe some of them feel that.

They lack credible leadership from the executive box. Not on every issue, necessarily, but in terms of winning, I see no leader in this organization currently responsible for it. Not since Bob Melvin left. AJ’s too inexperienced to be responsible. Josh hasnt had enough time with “his guy” to be responsible. Kendrick doesnt have enough money to be responsible. Derrick feels we’ve been snakebit and perhaps the fans are responsible ;-)

When organizations fail this broadly, employees blaming (or challenging) other employees is to be expected, and may help (or hurt) day to day operations. But it doesnt address the high level flaws in organizational culture. It doesnt address executives with long term contracts who’ve collectively absolved themselves from their team’s wretched performance. Put another way, why is it up to a 25 year old player, who led the league in errors and strikeouts, to put his professional credibility on the line, to try and turn this organization around?

start turning around by the end of the year I think Josh Byrnes should be fired.

Look at Florida. Tampa. Oakland. They all have good spurts surrounded by dismal years where they rebuild. We’re (clearly) rebuilding. We have a TON of young guys who need experience, but are gonna take their lumps, and a few stop-gap veterans in here until others are ready. And yeah, Reynolds has a right to be pissed, because there are definitely some of them who aren’t checked in mentally – Flip Lopez w/RISP comes to mind frequently, look at his splits. Garland has some truly remarkable off-days, despite moving to the easier league.
But it’s not totally dismal. Last season’s best pitcher and best hitter have basically been out all year. We’ve got a significant core of good, young players. Upton’s the face of the franchise. Reynolds is becoming a leader and bona fide cleanup hitter. Drew has moments, and some good pull power. CY has been significantly better since moving his hands down in his stance (1-2 w/ 2 BB yesterday). Haren went from being noticeably behind Webb in effectiveness to being the mid-season Cy Young. Doug Davis has gone from a good #4/decent #3 to being a fantastic, hard-luck #2 (in the NL, add 1 to all numbers for AL), and is the one guy who A) we can get some fantastic value back for from a team looking for a down-the-stretch boost and B) is being undeservedly neglected in the Upton/Reynolds/Haren/Zavada mix of guys playing their butts off. Rauch has rebounded to be very effective over the last month, and might still have some trade value. The same guys who were solid in the ‘pen last season, or even a few months ago, have just not been the same this year – heck, we’re looking to trade our nearly-untouchable start-of-the-year eighth and ninth-inning guys, who have fallen meteorically (Pena, Qualls). We’re not as depleted in the system as people say. Augenstein’s going to be good, as evidenced by his most recent AAA start, his first with a fresh arm, going seven and allowing 2 ER. Parker’s got an ERA under 3 at AA-Mobile, and will be a September call-up for 2010. Whitesell should be in the Majors now, and will be when we start selling. Ryal will be our 2B next year in all likelihood, perhaps bridging the gap to Ciriaco. McAnaney’s a left-handed stud of a starter, something that’s difficult to find these days. Valdez can pitch. We’re set up to have a good upswing in a few years, and for a small-market ownership group, that’s all you hope for. This team is fine.

this is nice but Reynolds has always been one of the more error-prone, sooooo…