Tony-OH

I ended up reading this entire outstanding piece. Two things I learned out of this, Mell Hall certainly is at the top of the list of bad guys in baseball history, and holy crap there was a some bad parenting going on in some of these cases.

I've heard Belle was always a good teammate, just hated the press and was indifferent to the fans.

Haven't seen him signed by anyone yet.

After tonight's 14th straight loss, a 7-6 extra inning affair where the bullpen blew two separate leads, the team sits at an amazingly pitiful 15-42. I want to fire myself so I don't have to play this any more at this point. Not sure I've ever simmed a 14-game losing streak or a team to this kind of record. Truly amazing how everything backfires during games. The pitching has been beyond awful with a team 5.62 ERA and has allowed 118 home runs in 56 games. Yes, more than two a game. the next closest team is Detroit who has given up 88. Only Seattle's team .690 OPS is worse than the Orioles .697 in the AL. It's just a sad, sad team. In the minors, of the top prospects , only Adley Rutschman has done well. i just promoted him to AA Bowie where he joins the ultra disappointing DL Hall. Honestly this sim is the absolute worse case scenario for how the season would have gone. It's not fun to sim or to discuss so I just stopped, plus, no one really cares. haha

I haven't been updating on line because it's depressing, but the team has lost 13 straight games. I did release Chris Davis though after Memorial Day.

I think we already see this in the international arena. International players know who the Yankees are. they are less inclined to know much about the Orioles. I do agree though that a salary cap is only one aspect to leveling the playing field.

I gotta disagree with the NCAA analogy as its apples to oranges to a salary cap in my opinion. The reason there are haves and have not in college, and it's is due to facilities, stadiums, fans, tradition, system/coaching staffs and TV exposure. vs an even playing field because they all have the same scholarships. Not to mention the boosters that find ways to "pay" highly talented players to attend their school.

Let's hope he pitches better than he did in my sim.

Reyes was a BP guy who couldn't take his raw power and convert it to game power. I might've tried him as a pitcher before cutting him lose because he's got a special arm but maybe they looked at it and it wasn't going to work. Breazeale was pretty bad defensively and didn't have the power to make up for his lack of defensive game.

There's another way to look at this though. This gives these young man an opportunity of getting on with their lives. While I'm sure it's a lot of fun at times to be a minor league baseball, and there is no short supply of young men willing to play, the vast majority of minor leaguers have no major league future. While it may hurt at first, many will take this as the kick in the pants they need to get on with their lives and start working on that next phase of their lives. Many former minor leaguers end up very successful because of the drive it took to be exceptional at baseball and the hard work it took to play at the professional level. I do feel bad for the Dominican guys though since there are less opportunities and they typically don't have the education level as the American players. As for this entire situation, I think we're going to see a lot of teams start releasing players as they grapple with losing short season leagues and of course, the COVID situation that has made the minor leagues questionable this year.

Yeah, although the more I look at things the more I realize this is the same offense as last year minus it's two best hitters (Mancini and Villar). The only guy hitting of late was the guy I got for Sisco (Aquino).

Haha, no doubt, But in my defense, the guys that are doing decently have been the guys I've brought into the organization. It's the actual Orioles that have for the most part bombed.

https://www.orioleshangout.com/2020/05/21/os-lose-7th-straight-after-9-3-shellacking-by-blue-jays/

I'm going to double up on Weams request here. We get it, there are differing and strong opinions on this, but unless it specifically affects whether baseball will be played this year or not, keep it out of this thread!

I agree. I'd be happy with Florida and Arizona camp games and hope they would find a way to televise them if they won't let fans in. I don't think the minors can play in their stadiums without fans. They don't get the revenue the MLB teams get through TV and radio.

This is where I'm at. Whether I agree with the limitations or not, I will watch and then hope we have a normal year. Some baseball is better than no baseball.

We initiated the Hangout section as a no wave section. I guess I don't have a problem if people want to have fun by standing up and cheering while other people are standing up in unison, but it won't be done by me, my family, or people in the Hangout section! I'd also like to add that the drunk guy who tries to get the wave started is almost as annoying as the drunk guy who turns around and tries to get everyone on their feet when they deem cheering necessary. I don't need anyone to tell me when to cheer or to get excited. I've been watching baseball for about 45 years, I got this.

We are not getting political at all. All I said was IF individual Governors and Mayors want to stop baseball from happening in their stadiums that it should not deter MLB from starting up the season. There are alternatives and they should be used in order to get the season started. I won't address your opinion on why Hogan and Young are making the decision they are making because that does then become political. Saying that, Hogan did say if players played in OPACY that some would get the virus and Young just shut his city down through the summer. If they are saying something different now, good, I hope they come to their senses or at least bend to the strong pressure being put upon them from a large part of the population. As for baseball, if there are going to be no fans at the games, then I don't care where the Orioles home games are played. As a member of the media, I imagine our access would be very limited as well so it wouldn't matter whether the games were in Camden Yards or Nashville in my opinion.

Haha. I honestly don't even care anymore. If it allows the Orioles to get on TV, they can play wherever for their home games. my main point is that MLB should not let individual Governors and/or Mayors affect whether the league plays or not. If one won't allow them to play, just move the games elsewhere. Can't keep allowing these officials to keep us all hostage for whenever they personally feel it's safe. If it's not safe for the players to play in Camden because Larry Hogan says so, well move them to Frederick, or Sarasota or Nashville for all I care and play ball!

This time though they will actively decide to take baseball away from people when it's something that could help so many. I just don't know. As much as I love baseball, I'm questioning a lot of things right now and trying to put things in the right priorities. No worries though, I've already had someone ask me to name my price for this place so it will still be here regardless of my future decisions.

The players union need to come to the realization that a salary cap has to happen at some point. When MLB is offering a 50-50 split of revenue, it's a pretty good place to win the court of public opinion, especially when Glavine is correct, the players never come out looking good because of the money they make compared to the common fan.

Quite simply just move the franchise down to Sarasota or potentially Frederick for this season. If there are no fans it doesn't really matter although the rainouts will be pretty high during the summer in Sarasota. Baseball can not allow these governors to affect whether they play or not. If a Governor shuts down the stadiums they own, just move those games to a place that will allow the games. Nashville has a great Double-A stadium and Tennessee is opening up. Move the games there for all I care but get them going and on TV. As much as I'd like to see fans be able to attend, I've come to the realization that there are people in this country that are going to do whatever they can to make sure that doesn't happen.

This seems quite clear that the union is digging in their heels and will come off as the bad guy in this scenario. It is of no surprise that Clark and Boras are behind this. they are no friend to the fan or the game, but solely focused on greed.

Interesting piece. This pretty much summarizes it's conclusions for this conversation. "Major League Baseball suffered the most from the 1994-1995 strike of the four work stoppages studied. League average attendance took 12 seasons to recover from the 1994- 1995 strike, and league average operating income took seven seasons to reach its previous levels of stability. Overall popularity of Major League Baseball has been in a steady decline since the beginning of the strike in 1994, and Major League Baseball has been reduced from the second favorite sport in America to third in fan polls. The reason for this dramatic result as compared to other work stoppages studied could be the rise in high-action sports in the early 1990’s. Baseball has long been viewed as a slow-paced, drawn out game meant for casual fan involvement with few thrilling moments per game. Fast-paced sports such as ice hockey, basketball, and extreme sports such as skateboarding, snowboarding, and surfing were gaining national exposure and popularity due to the constant excitement and high energy levels. The cancellation of the postseason and the World Series took away any potential interest for the casual fan that would usually start paying attention at that time. Established sports such as baseball were slowly losing market share to these new competitors, and when baseball didn’t have any output for nearly eight months fans left to go to other forms of entertainment in droves." This illustrates my point that baseball can not afford another black eye. As places open up across America, it will be hard MLB to recover if a season is destroyed because they couldn't figure out how to best share the money to be made. Grant it, they can try the "safety of the fans, players, and personnel" angle, and that might work for some, but when places like Texas, Florida and Georgia are open wide and back to normal, it will be hard sell that they couldn't play baseball this summer. I literally would have to consider whether I would want to be involved with baseball if this occurs.