The Jays Lied About Ryan's Injury. Your reaction:
| I'm Disgusted |  74 (34.74%) |
| No Big Deal | 52 (24.41%) |
| Who Cares? | 87 (40.85%) |
213 votes | 13 featured comments
I won't say I'm "disgusted" (even though that is how I voted) but I have a lot of questions. Why not just say BJ has a sore arm? Sore arms happen to every pitcher at one time or another. Instead, they say he has a sore back (which is pretty serious to lie about) and when BJ went down, made the fans think he has a sore arm and an issue with his back. The big closer is falling apart!
The whole thing is just arrogance on the part of the GM. And it is just another frustrating thing in a very young season.
I just don't see it being in a GM's best interest to tell fans the truth, so I've never really expected them to. I'm min the "Who Cares?" category - I'm not surprised.
I should have asked this before I voted - but what is the difference between "no big deal" and "Who Cares?"
I just don't see it being in a GM's best interest to tell fans the truth.
I don't mean to be confrontational here, but can someone please explain WHY they think the above statement is true?
How did the GM benefit from lying to the fans, rather than just being evasive like most tend to be?
I'm more pissed off now about than I could have been before, especially since it looks like they pitched a 50 million dollar closer who wasn't in game shape yet, and who had a known elbow problem of some kind, in several games.
I don't mean to be confrontational here, but can someone please explain WHY they think the above statement is true?
How did the GM benefit from lying to the fans, rather than just being evasive like most tend to be?
I'm more pissed off now about than I could have been before, especially since it looks like they pitched a 50 million dollar closer who wasn't in game shape yet, and who had a known elbow problem of some kind, in several games.
No big deal means (to me) that you don't have a problem with how things were handled.
Who cares means that it's not an issue.
Who cares means that it's not an issue.
Generically, I think everyone can admit that it is often in a GM's best interest to lie to fans. Some examples,
"We think we've got a shot at the postseason"
"I think XXX has just hit a rough patch right now and will turn the corner soon"
"You can't put all the blame on XXX for the loss, this was a team loss."
"We're not shopping XXX around the league."
If you disagree with the above, then there isn't much sense going further.
As to why it may be in their best interest to lie about this specific case - Mike Rutsey of the Sun has provided a pretty good reason already:
"Ricciardi wouldn't go into the specific reasons which led them to fabricate the nature of the injury but a good guess is Ryan's personality. He can be crusty, is not one for idle chatter and is no fan of media scrutiny at the best of times." (http://www.torontosun.com/Sports/Baseball/2007/05/05/4155824-sun.html)
I can easily see how it's in a GM's best interest to keep his closer's mind clear versus having a few fans react negatively. Judging by the poll, about 40% of rather intense fans actually care about this. Given recency bias and selection bias involved in such a poll, there really seems to be no effect.
"We think we've got a shot at the postseason"
"I think XXX has just hit a rough patch right now and will turn the corner soon"
"You can't put all the blame on XXX for the loss, this was a team loss."
"We're not shopping XXX around the league."
If you disagree with the above, then there isn't much sense going further.
As to why it may be in their best interest to lie about this specific case - Mike Rutsey of the Sun has provided a pretty good reason already:
"Ricciardi wouldn't go into the specific reasons which led them to fabricate the nature of the injury but a good guess is Ryan's personality. He can be crusty, is not one for idle chatter and is no fan of media scrutiny at the best of times." (http://www.torontosun.com/Sports/Baseball/2007/05/05/4155824-sun.html)
I can easily see how it's in a GM's best interest to keep his closer's mind clear versus having a few fans react negatively. Judging by the poll, about 40% of rather intense fans actually care about this. Given recency bias and selection bias involved in such a poll, there really seems to be no effect.
AWeb wrote:
I'm more pissed off now about than I could have been before, especially since it looks like they pitched a 50 million dollar closer who wasn't in game shape yet, and who had a known elbow problem of some kind, in several games.
This is right on. Why didn't the team just shut down Ryan for two months in early March - that way, he'd be joining the lineup in early May and not mid-June? Did the team's doctors not know that the problems were as severe as they ultimately were discovered to be? If you recall, in his last appearance during spring training, Ryan was very shaky in a game against Minnesota.
I can understand why the Jays would have been reluctant to come clean with their fans about the true nature of Ryan's injury during the spring. After all, it would have dampened fan enthusiasm, which in turn would have led to fewer tickets sold. Since that essentially constitutes a fraud on the paying public, I'm at a loss to understand how anyone could be any less than disgusted with the blatant mistruths coming out of the front office.
I find none of the categories apply.
I'm irritated, but hardly disgusted. I assume that everything that comes out of a baseball person's mouth should be treated with the same skepticism we treat what comes out of a politician's mouth. ("How can you tell he's lying? His lips are moving.")
Everything is said to achieve a purpose, and certainly not to shed enlightenment or impart information for the sake of it.
In such a world, honesty is the best policy mainly because it's always easier to remember the real story than it is to keep the fictions straight. And at the heart of it is the adversarial relationship between baseball people and the media. Baseball people assume, the same way we assume that the sun rises in the east, that media people are out to get them. They take that for granted. It's an article of faith. It is impossible to exaggerate how deep and how fundamental this is.
The media likes to think of itself and present itself as the fan's representative, but that is absolutely not the way they are regarded by baseball people, who to a remarkable degree are really barely aware of the fans. It's the media that they actually deal with. Who are out to get them. (Unless they're actually on the payroll, of course.)
I'm irritated, but hardly disgusted. I assume that everything that comes out of a baseball person's mouth should be treated with the same skepticism we treat what comes out of a politician's mouth. ("How can you tell he's lying? His lips are moving.")
Everything is said to achieve a purpose, and certainly not to shed enlightenment or impart information for the sake of it.
In such a world, honesty is the best policy mainly because it's always easier to remember the real story than it is to keep the fictions straight. And at the heart of it is the adversarial relationship between baseball people and the media. Baseball people assume, the same way we assume that the sun rises in the east, that media people are out to get them. They take that for granted. It's an article of faith. It is impossible to exaggerate how deep and how fundamental this is.
The media likes to think of itself and present itself as the fan's representative, but that is absolutely not the way they are regarded by baseball people, who to a remarkable degree are really barely aware of the fans. It's the media that they actually deal with. Who are out to get them. (Unless they're actually on the payroll, of course.)
Would you tip your fellow poker players off to some of the cards in your hand, or would you bluff. It's all one big game of poker anyway. Maybe he was in talks to get a reliever and he didn't want his fellow GMs to know he was looking at starting the season without his #1 and #2 relievers. A back injury is somewhat less threatening than an arm injury in BJ's line of work. Maybe he should've called it a stiff neck. Every GM in pro sports lies somewhere along the line. If it had scored him a solid relief pitcher, would anyone here be complaining? Didn't think so. It's all part of the game within the game. I guarantee you, the better the GM, the better the liar. Not to pick on anyone, but look at baseball's "fox in the chicken coop" John Schuerholz. Do you think he's never lied to the press? The difference is he wouldn't be stupid enough to admit it. That's where JP screwed up.
In such a world, honesty is the best policy mainly because it's always easier to remember the real story than it is to keep the fictions straight.
I don't really agree with this statement. First, the Jays were never caught up in an issue with the fictions. They came out and confessed, so to say they had difficulty maintaining the lie is inaccurate. Second, a simple lie (such as it's a sore back, not a sore elbow) isn't really that difficult to remember. I doubt that the media is given access to areas that BJ is getting treatment, so they can't see what's sore and doctor's probably can't say much about a specific injury.
Also, there is the whole idea of a big lie being easier to convince people of than a small lie (not going to say who the author is as he was a pretty awful man). That theory seemed to be pretty effective for him and still seems to hold today.
Honesty is one of those things that instinctively we don't like to question as being important/easy, but when most people examine a variety of situations, in their own life or others' lives, that isn't always the case.
It's no big deal to me. I trust the Jays' doctors - if they said during spring training that this was not an injury that would keep BJ out for a significant chunk of the season, then why shouldn't the Jays lie about it? On the other hand, if the doctors told JP that it was a serious injury that required immediate attention, I trust that JP wouldn't ignore the doctor's recommendation and have BJ on the opening day roster.
Given the above assumptions, I'm guessing that the Jays didn't think Ryan's injury was serious during spring training. Obviously they were wrong about that. Who's fault was it? Maybe it was the doctors', and maybe the Jays should look for a new medical staff. Maybe JP really did go against the doctor's recommendation, in which case Mr. Godfrey should think hard about JP's future in Toronto.
Given the above assumptions, I'm guessing that the Jays didn't think Ryan's injury was serious during spring training. Obviously they were wrong about that. Who's fault was it? Maybe it was the doctors', and maybe the Jays should look for a new medical staff. Maybe JP really did go against the doctor's recommendation, in which case Mr. Godfrey should think hard about JP's future in Toronto.
Wasn't Tim Johnson the target of some pretty tough criticism for a non-baseball related lie? Maybe it wasn't the lying, but rather the phony machismo that did him in. People got really exercised over Kenny Williams' non-disclosure of Sirotka's arm troubles when he was dealt to the Jays. Maybe that's different too.
Ultimately though, no one is fooled by this kind of lie. Not fans. Not other general managers. Not people who work for him. The next time JP says something about an injury or his intentions, it won't be just Magpie who is raising a skeptical eyebrow. It is really hard to see whatever advantage was gained by the line was worth the price.
Ultimately though, no one is fooled by this kind of lie. Not fans. Not other general managers. Not people who work for him. The next time JP says something about an injury or his intentions, it won't be just Magpie who is raising a skeptical eyebrow. It is really hard to see whatever advantage was gained by the line was worth the price.