the truth is, i’ve felt the same way as that caller for a long time, so i’m glad someone brought it up, and i hope you can accept that as constructive criticism, although i doubt you’re willing to accept it at all…when i listen to your show, i want the opinion of a baseball ‘insider’, not the opinion of someone that comes across as a blue jays employee…

i think at times you don’t draw a distinction between discussions on areas of weaknesses for the team, and flat out negativity…

i know you pride yourself on being the voice of reason, and providing balance to those that live and die with every result, but in my opinion, for what it’s worth, you’ve gone too far with it, and have lost that equilibrium for yourself…

all that said, i do enjoy your show and think that besides what i’ve said above, you’re the best i’ve heard in terms of post game stuff on any station for any sport (and i listen to a pretty decent variety, from a lot of markets)…so none of this should be taken as a ‘you suck Wilner’, cause you definitely don’t…

MW: I appreciate that you think I don’t suck, and I agree with you, but I think you’re completely wrong with your main point. There is a massive distinction between saying a team is “on pace for” X number of wins and saying that you don’t believe an underachieving player will continue to underachieve. The first point is made to illustrate that things aren’t as bad as those people make them out to be – another way of saying “You realize that you’re complaining about a team that’s playing at a 95-win pace, right?” Which is not to say at all that I believe they’re going to win 95 games.

MW: I don’t believe anyone has been pounding these teams, and you’re in error if you believe that mediocre starting pitchers don’t have great games. They do, just not as often as the great ones do. Just as a .300 hitter doesn’t get three hits every ten at-bats, a pitcher with a 4.50 ERA doesn’t always give up a run every other inning.

Wow, what a complete dope. The thing is I always tend to sit beside guys like that when I go to the game. Makes an argument for staying at home.

Mike, how impressed are you this year with the Jays approach and patience at the plate? They are working the pitcher MUCH much better this year and not giving at bats away. I LOVE it. Wait until the bats heat up. Look out!

MW: I really do love the approach. It seems as though they’re routinely getting pitchers close to triple digits in pitch count by the fifth inning.

MW: Read every other answer in the comments section.

Yes, he’s been good for fits and starts in 2010 and 2011. But so have many baseball players. For 2011 you’re talking about 183 ABs. In a larger sample size last year (201 ABs) Albert Pujols hit .259/.330/.388). Does that make him middling (at best) hitter? The answer is no, and the same logic should apply to Lind.

And you can’t simply exclude how he hit versus left handed pitching in an analysis of a player as a whole – if his 2010 was “dragged down” against left handed pitching… well what does that tell you about the player? It tells you he had a bad overall year. It tells you that he should have been (and likely still should be based on his career #s) platooning.

Let’s just face the facts regarding Lind: he has put up exactly one great year in the MLB (now going on 3 years ago), one “good” half year (2008), one “poor” half year (2007) and two consecutive “disappointing” years (going on 3) that were generally poor, with brief flashes of very good/great.

As hard as it may be to face, Lind’s numbers are what they are.

MW: Everybody’s numbers are what they are, but what you so easily dismiss is the fact that his numbers against left-handed pitchers dragged him down. You can’t gloss over that. It doesn’t mean he had a “bad overall year”, it means that he hit lefties very poorly and was just fine against right-handers.

MW: So he can hang out on the disabled list with Sergio Santos?

MW: It depends on what you consider to be average. Bautista “reverted” to an .896 OPS after the all-star break, which on its own would have been good enough for the top 10 in the A.L. over the full season. I don’t consider that to be average. Also, the fact that Richard Griffin wrote something doesn’t mean that he’s right and I’m wrong.