It’s the equivalent of Mike Tyson circa 1987 vs a quadriplegic homeless man.

Mike just laid out what I’ve been arguing for several days now. Our pitching coaches/scouts at the upper levels are killing us.

I confess I was amongst the crowd that found Mike’s minor-league recaps a bit hard to stomach on occasion, but this blog entry was pure gold. Poochie really needs to stop thinking about baseball, let alone writing about it. Nicely done, Mike.

.. if the pitching declines are attributed to Conner, does he also get stuck with injuries? How much of the injury issue lands on the head trainer?

So does Connor get credit for: Frankie, Rupe, Wilson, Millwood’s first yr, Padilla’s 1st/3rd yr, Wright’s conversion, Last yr’s mendoza/Galarraga, this years galarraga, Guardado, Last year’s Eyre, Rheinecker’s conversion, Feldman’s conversion, Volquez’ s success, benoit’s success, Littleton’s success, Loes’ success, Dank’s success

And do we blame him for Jenning’s injury, Menodoza’s injury, Millwood’s inj. problems, McCarthy’s injuries, Volquez’s failure, Benoit’s injuries, Harrison/Hurley/Hunter suckiness and Harrison/hurley/hunter injuries, Loe’s failure, Littleton’s failure, Dank’s success

I don’t believe that anyone can convincingly prove that their is a one to one correspondence between success/failure/injury and a single individual. It is simplistic to say the least. I think some blame can be handed out to the Team’s pitching philosophy but do you genuinely believe that all of the minor lg pitching coaches teach any differently? As an organization, each winter, a plan is gone over on what the team phil is for hitting and pitching and that is what pitching coaches use as their guideline I imagine.
 
I don’t really hear people call for Jaramillo’s head when a hitter tanks for whole season, and that happens quite a lot. But you forever hear praise for him when a guy is successful. However, the players seem to like him and don’t hesitate to accept the blame when they suck. So it seems with Connor – the players seemed to like him and praise him and I haven’t heard anyone throw him under the bus.

I think volquez sucked in part because he was right on the fringe of becoming the next Juan Dominguez but I guess people forget about that… The coach is always fired because the team can’t be but that doesn’t mean that the many individuals have some role in their suckiness, but first and foremost, the players bear most of the blame. And I think they acknowledge that. You never really hear anyone say, I sucked this year because of Jaramillo or Conner…

Just my 2 cents as I am getting tired of all the simplistic staff-bashing that has become wholly reductive; a player’s success or failure is rather more complicated with the Player bearing most of the responsibility.

The two counterpoints of success and failure were there for a reason; to ignore their interplay is simply to prove my point as your spew forth your reductive claims and attribute blame to a single person. My point was that the attempt, by the likes of you, to map out some type of reductive correspondence between success and failure has little traction when both success and failure occurred with the same coaching staff. If you were a player, no one would respect you because you would never accept fault for sucking, instead blaiming everyone else.

Take a little time to look up your facts and complicate your reductive “Connor turns everything to crap” theory for all ranger pitchers:

1. Rupe missed 04 due to inury and has been injury prone every year since then and has been handled with kid gloves by the staff; he was injured in the minors and now is healthy in the majors due to how he has been handled by the ORG. Don’t forget Rupe’s horrendous campaign as a starter for AAA to bolster your claim that rupe is a starter. Rupe is a reliever due to his health and because he sucked as a starter.

2. By all accounts, save yours, Millwood had a very good year his first year here, pitching 215 IP with a respectable 4.50 era in this park. His injury problems are in his legs not his arm. He has had both good and bad years under Connor.

3. Padilla also had a very good first season with us 200ip /4.50era and this year he has had some dominating performances and has legit top rotation stuff when he is on, unlike Millwood. Again good and bad years under connor.

4. Wilson was converted from a shitty AA starter to a successful relief pitcher in the bigs having an excellent 06 and 07. His injury history preceded this yr having TJ surgery in 04. He has had good/bad years under connor.

5. Wright has successfully made the conversion to a reliable MR after sucking as a starter for his whole career. He made that shift the the rangers and not with some other club. He has been largely good as a reliever, having a bad second half.

6. Your intuiton about Connor’s blame for the loss of Raga is based on zero evidence. The fact remains that it is not an individual but an organization – comprised of many competent people from owner to minors coaches – makes a decision on roster moves and unless you have the transcript of the meetings in which Connor states that Raga sucks, then you are spouting nothing but nonsense. How do you know that the ranger’s AAA/AA pitching coaches didn’t prefer Mendoza or Tejeda over Raga with Connor supporting Raga? How do you know that Connor was in the minority of a 5-4 vote that elected to let him go? You don’t.

  As for Galarraga the player, his success started last year with the rangers and not with detroit but it was largely success in AA and he only made 3 appearance for the big club. His best success occurred with the rangers after they stuck by him after absolutely sucking in the minors in 06 when he was injured most of the year. Remember that Raga only had 4 starts above AAA in his career and all of them were last year. Are you willing to give the Ranger’s organization credit for rehabilitating his career?

7. Mendoza also absolutely sucked in the minors in 06 and the rangers stuck by him and he made a successful ML debut in limited outings last year. However, he only made six appearances so how can you call him a success story or a failure ; like Raga, he was in AA last year so there is no real track record above that level. His injury problems date back to 06 in the minors and did not begin in Texas.

8. Eyre saved this club’s ass last year when everyone was injured. His era elevated in the appearances before his injury. There was a reason the rangers named him pitcher of the year of something at their awards banquet and kept him on the roster this season.

9. Rheinecker made a successful conversion from SP to lefty specialist and did well in that role. The rangers were counting on him in that capacity this season and have suffered without him.

10. Feldman the conversion into an innings eating starter occurred with the rangers and any idiot can see him as a great success story – the emergence of a #3 starter from a career reliever completlely out of nowhere.

11. Loe and Littleton had success as relievers when they started in the bigs; now they suck. Loe had success in 05 but was converted to a starter in 06/07 and sucked. You could blame Connor for this shift but Loe in fact demanded the opportunity to compete for a rotation spot. Do you blame connor for Loe’s abject failure or the entire org for forcing a releiver (who sucked as a starter in the minors) to start on a club that didn’t have enough legit starters? Littleton was outstanding in 06 average in 07 and sucks now, again success and failure under the same staff.

12. Volquez was penciled into the rotation this year based on the success he had last year after his demotion to the low minors. That is succes with Connor. Your decision to overlook the fact that Volquez was a childish idiot is your own oversight. Again, people like you like to blame the coach but not the player. Do you think the talented Juan Dominguez failed due to a pitching coach or because he was an loser? Volquez succeeded because he finally grew up and listened to what people were saying to him. His success last year (under connor) netted Hamilton. Your analysis is just stupid, blaming Connor for Volquez being a manchild; then faulting Connor when he finally has success last year and this year.

13. Benoit was converted from a shitty starter into an a full time reliever under Connor. he was an absolutely dominant set up guy last year a had two excellent yeas prior to that among the lead leaders in IP for a reliever.

14. As for Danks, he did not have a good year last year and he was shut down with an injury to end his season. Do you blame shitty Chisox pitching coaches for that? Did some meddling coaches twink his delivery to cause his premature breakdown? Should they be blamed for his first significant injury? So he added a cutter this year- why didnt their staff recommend that he add it last year? Who is to say that the rangers would not have done the same thing having had him on the staff for a whole year to evaluate him. You can’t make any definitive claims about what he might or might not have been here or how the rangers would have handled him or if Connor’s staff would have handled him differently than the AA/AAA coaching staff. There is simply no evidence to support that claim.