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Slappy

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About Slappy

  • Birthday 10/01/1975

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  • Favorite Current Oriole
    Adley Rutschman
  • Favorite All Time Oriole
    Cal Ripken Jr.

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  1. The gas can is a promo waiting to happen.
  2. '89, '12, and '22 are all pretty comparable. All of those teams had extremely low expectations coming off of multiple losing seasons in a row. All 3 had 2 things in common that were really key to turning things around: vastly improved defenses and shut-down bullpens. And all 3 featured the debut of players that would be key long-term contributors to the franchise: Olson in '89 (he pitched a little in '88 but not much), Machado in '12, Adley in '22.
  3. I don’t really trust Forbes’ numbers, but given our payroll decline it isn’t inconceivable. For a team that could be on the hook for legal settlements, shoring up the balance sheet isn’t the worst thing.
  4. I’m just amazed the OH found things to argue about in a thread that has almost unanimous support!
  5. What impresses me so far is the speed off the bat. These guys are not getting lucky rollers, these balls are getting smoked at 95+ over and over. I’ll be the first to admit that the Nats and Phils have awful bullpens but hey, these were supposed to be 2 contending teams.
  6. A little luck goes a long way in a 60 game season. I’m trying to stay realistic, but these guys are legit hitting rockets. Young teams that mature at once surprise people, and some of these games are already starting to feel like 2012 games.
  7. How long before Waldo gets put in the stands?
  8. Being negative is always easy, because there is no cost when you are wrong.
  9. The 60 game and extra playoff format is key, and turns small sample sizes into important details. All it takes is one good month and one .500-ish month and we are playing postseason ball. In a full season we’d be exposed but we’ve already faced the best pitchers on the two best teams in our division and are still standing...
  10. Hunter has been a loyal employee for a long time, and I'm glad the club kept him in some capacity. He would be perfect for things like emcee'ing opening day, or reunions, or season ticket holder dinners, whatever. But it was pretty clear that the fan base was not happy with his broadcasting performance, so they moved on. This is the kind of action we need to see from the Orioles - running it as a merit-based business, instead of an ole boys club.
  11. I really didn't start following the O's daily until '89. So in that context, the 90's and 10's are the main comparison. 90's for overall W/L were far better, Camden was the best ticket in baseball, and Ripken was the toast of baseball. 10's were probably more exciting, coming out of a long dormant period, some incredibly memorable games (Andino walk-off, Ripken statue game, Wild Card, Game #2 '12 ALDS, Delmon double), and being able to follow some sure fire future Orioles HOFers like Jones. Overall, I can't complain too much about the 10's. We had our ups and downs for sure. But 3-4 playoff appearances a decade, i'll take that. Hopefully some of them end in a parade in the 20's.
  12. I wonder how much of our lag behind the Sox is drafting, and how much is player development? Probably a little of both. Or a lot.
  13. Assuming Villar and/or Alberto are not traded, I think the infield is pretty much set except for 3B. Maybe they give Ruiz another year to develop there, maybe Alberto plays there (and Wilkerson at 2nd), or maybe Bannon surprises and grasps the position.
  14. The immediate and future value we received was far above the immediate and future value our trade partners received. So, yes, DD did do pretty well with those trades, overall.
  15. Nice. Couple other interesting tidbits: Walks: 2019: 12 (+40) 2018: 15 Strikeouts: 2019: 8 (+23 in a higher K environment) 2018: 12 The offense made some nice strides this year away from the Duquette/Showalter "swing for the streets" mentality. Still a long way to go, but it's an improvement, our best BB ranking since 2012 and our best K ranking since 2013. We also ranked 6th in the AL in stolen bases, something we haven't done since leading the league (!) in 2007. Overall, we were just better at scoring a competitive number of runs this year. The times we scored 3 or fewer runs: 2019: 69 (8 shutouts) 2018: 93 (15) (2014: 72 / 11) There's no secret for this club. It needs to improve its pitching dramatically, and secondarily, improve the defense. We had a very good year in the minors with pitching, which is encouraging. I definitely think, despite another awful W-L year, the franchise is not in horrible shape going forward.
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