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A new point of view

With a year's experience heading up the Blue Jays, manager Buck Martinez is making adjustments.

By BRUCE LOWITT, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 1, 2002

[AP photo] Buck Martinez says he learned several lessons last season in his first year on the job with the Blue Jays: “I’ll be more demanding and less tolerant of mistakes.’’

DUNEDIN -- This year, Buck Martinez will explain things differently -- and the Blue Jays had better listen to him instead of their cellular phones.

The players had them, and used them, in the dugout last season, Martinez's first as their manager. Not good, he finally figured out. The idea during the game is to focus on the game and nothing but the game.

"You have to be more explicit, more active in your approach to explaining things," he said, suggesting that his way is the only way. "I'll be more demanding and less tolerant of mistakes and less tolerant of ... well, just less tolerant.

"We have to continue to develop that killer approach. We just don't necessarily understand how to win yet. I know we have a group of a people as a team that have the ability to win the division. We have to figure out what it's going to take."

Someone else trying to figure it out: J.P. Ricciardi, the Blue Jays general manager, previously Oakland's assistant general manager for Sandy Alderson and then Billy Beane. "If you have success somewhere," Ricciardi said, "you want to try to duplicate success. ... It starts with me, and I'm going to hold myself accountable to being able to do the same things we did in Oakland."

At the end of the 2001 season, Martinez said, he knew the Blue Jays had the talent to have finished better than 80-82, third in the AL East. Better than 16 games behind the first-place Yankees and nearly as close (18 games) to the last-place Rays.

"I think we should have been better than that," he said, "but at the same time I think we may have overevaluated what we had going in, especially our pitching staff." None of Toronto's starters had a winning record.

"At the last part of the season, when we had our (starting) pitchers in place -- when Roy Halladay came back (after being shipped to the low minors to rediscover what he was missing) and Brandon Lyon came up (from the minors) and Kelvin Escobar was starting -- we were a legitimate team at that point."

This year the Jays are counting on Halladay as their No. 1 starter, risky considering he's 24 with a couple of seasons under his belt. The rest of the projected rotation: Chris Carpenter, Esteban Loaiza, Luke Prokopec and Lyon, although Loaiza's spot is in question because of a shoulder injury.

And Escobar? With Billy Koch traded to Oakland for pitcher Justin Miller and third baseman Eric Hinske, Escobar becomes the closer. He has done it before. As a rookie in 1997 he had 14 saves in 17 chances. Since then he's been a starter or set-up man.

"Given his arsenal of pitches," Martinez said, "he can come out and throw 98 mph, he can come out and throw a 91-92 mph splitter, and his slider is as good as anybody's in the league. That assortment of pitches should allow him to be successful several times a week."

If he has to return to the rotation, Bob File or Chad Ricketts are candidates to replace him.

Martinez does have one good problem, so to speak. He's got four outfielders -- Shannon Stewart, Jose Cruz, Raul Mondesi and Vernon Wells -- and only three places to play them. But with Brad Fullmer traded to the Angels, "we don't have a DH, so somebody's going to have to do that. They're all capable of being in the lineup every day, that's for sure." DH may end up a rotating job.

"And at third base we have an unknown kid in Hinske, and we have to find out who's going to back up Fletch (catcher Darrin Fletcher), and how the bullpen's going to sort itself out. Those are the main things that have to be addressed," Martinez said, "and that's why we're here in spring training."

Blue Jays

Dunedin Stadium

TICKETS: Full price tickets are $15, $14 and grandstand reserved are $12.50. Tickets available at box office, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. On sale by phone, or by mail: Blue Jays Spring Training Tickets, P.O. Box 957, Dunedin 34697.

CALL: (800) 707-8269

WEB SITE: www.bluejays.mlb.com

MARCH (1:05 starts unless noted)

• 1 -- Yankees
• 2 -- at Yankees, 1:30
• 3 -- Phillies
• 4 -- at Rangers
• 5 -- Pirates
• 6 -- at Reds
• 7 -- Rangers
• 8 -- at Phillies
• 9 -- Red Sox, 12:05
• 10 -- Reds, 12:05
• 11 -- Indians
• 12 -- Yankees
• 13 -- at Rays
• 14 -- at Rangers
• 15 -- at Twins
• 16 -- Indians
• 17 -- at Lakeland (ss)
• 17 -- at Yankees (ss), 1:30
• 18 -- Twins
• 19 -- off
• 20 -- Phillies
• 21 -- at Braves
• 22 -- Yankees
• 23 -- Tigers
• 24 -- at Yankees, 1:30
• 25 -- at Indians
• 26 -- Rays
• 27 -- at Pirates
• 28 -- at Phillies
• 29 -- at Pirates
• 30 -- Pirates

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