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Memo to Mike Elias: For an eloquent antidote to the failures of the recent "Oriole way" of run-killing offense, please see the latest report detailing the success of "Guards Ball."
Whaddya think? Small sample size, or wave of the future?
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Not fired up, per se, but engaged in the ramp-up to playoff baseball.
On one hand, it's like the spring training phase of gearing up for playoffs.
On the other hand, it's like the playoffs have already begun. We're qualified for round 1, which consists of the next 6 games. Even watching the other teams play now is entertaining, as they jostle for entry to the next round.
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Slight topic tangent, but in the hindsight 20/20 dept., what if the Orioles had decided to do minors graduation in stages by ages: promoting Ortiz (25) and Norby (24) for key roles on this year's contending team, and letting the younger Holliday (20) and Mayo (22) get further seasoning in the minors while things played out in Baltimore.
Yeah, there is the Corbin Burnes factor, but a comparative WAR exercise might be a wash even just for this year, never mind future retained value. (Not to forget, too, DL Hall).
Oh well, a couple of good playoff starts from Burnes and Eflin, with timely hits from Holliday and Mayo, puts all this to rest.
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14 minutes ago, Just Regular said:
Did you see Soto himself is celebrating his upcoming free agency? His HR in Seattle last night gave him all 30 ballparks.
Gerrit Cole may or may not be doing a Boras Corp side hustle consulting gig coaching him on how you say "Speaking as myself and no longer as a member of the ballclub..." moments after your club is eliminated.
"It's a great feeling for me; so many different ballparks, so many different dimensions," Soto told reporters, including MLB's Bryan Hoch. "I just want to get all of them checked in. What a way to go into free agency, with all 30 ballparks checked on my list."
LOL I thought that just had to be Just Regular satire.... but the link is real, and the Yank-dissing (in effect) quote. Sometimes you can't beat real life for satirical effect.
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36 minutes ago, LookitsPuck said:
11 games left.
2 against Giants, 3 Tigers, 3 Yankees, 3 Twins
Tigers have an easy schedule with just 1 left against the Royals, 3 Orioles, 3 Rays, 3 White Sox
Twins have 2 against Guardians, 3 Red Sox, 3 Marlins, 3 Orioles
Royals have 1 Tigers, 3 Giants, 3 Nationals, 3 Braves
Mariners have 3 Yankees, 3 Rangers, 3 Astros, 3 Athletics
Thx for the breakdown. We have to finish ahead of two of these four teams. Mariners and Tigers both 6 GB in loss column, but also the hottest two of the five teams. Therefore, an actual dogfight, who'da thunk? We also still have a 3G advantage over KC.
The order of difficulty in schedule, offhand, looks to be: SEA, BAL, MIN, KC, DET.
So I see our best chances with the elimination of SEA (-6/7) and MIN (-4).
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6 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:
I’ve got a sneaking suspicion we’re witnessing one of the all-time collapses. I voted no.
Me too but I couldn't bear to do it!
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I imagine there's a big increase in errors on defense that coincides with our struggles in the second half. And not just by second-string players replacing injured starters. (cough*cough*Gunnar)
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9 hours ago, Sports Guy said:
Sorry but that response from Fuller sounds to me like too many words, concepts, abstractions, and if that's how he communicates, wordy and convoluted, it's a lot for hitters to carry "into the box." Not to mention all the specifics involved, re. what pitches and locations to look for, all the analytics of how to do the swing and torque the body, etc. I'm no coach but I can imagine a whole season of this approach just becomes information overload.
Maybe it's not rocket science, after all (with all due respect to ex-NASA Sig).
Maybe the antidote is more Zen: just see the pitch and hit the dang thing.
BTW I think the analytical, overthinking approach is better suited to the pitching side, where you can plan your attack based on all the data. Hitting is more reaction, no time to think. You can't beat pitching using the same approach--rather, need the opposite approach, to counter with instinct and intuition. At least, that's my cheap (2 cents) advice!
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Not much to argue with here. Though regarding the struggling young un's, might as well keep throwing them out there most days, to flush their yips and get them "battle tested" this year. Then they'll be in a better position to succeed next year (or get lucky in playoffs). Certainly nothing left to prove in AAA.
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I'm still new to watching Ravens and I don't watch the other teams' games, but it seems the Ravens draw way more penalties than the opposition, game in and game out. Is that true? If so, it's another indictment of "pained expression" Harbaugh.
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Bowie and Norfolk both win today 2-1. With basically a shout out from long lost prospect (#5 pick) Carlos Tavera.
Day before yesterday, they also both won 2-1.
Baseball is a funny game.
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At this point anything is possible. We could do a 1-game WC and Adley could hit a bomb, and everything's cool, we go from there, rolling dice. (Tito Landrum says hi). I mean, last year we were sitting pretty, and it meant nothing. Conversely, this year we look cooked, and it still means nothing in Oct.
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To me the OP implies "... so far." So, yeah, Holliday so far is pretty disappointing, and Mayo too. I would rank these two tops, since disappointment also implies expectations, which were sky-high, can't-miss for both (albeit age-adjusted).
Beavers and Fabian always had more question marks about their swing and miss, with upside more as projects (hope for the best).
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I wonder what the pecking order is for lefty relievers, or if they can even carry all four: Coulombe, Akin, Perez, Soto?
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The line that made my smile the chirpiest: "Go to War Miss Agnes!"
Orioles Magic in them thar words.
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11 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:
Rodriguez, Bradish, Means and Wells is 80% of a starting rotation.
It's absolutely ridiculous that we've got a chance to win the division.
Mind you, it's not like we missed all of that quartet this season. Combined they made 35 starts, good for 17-6 (mostly GRod at 13-4) to add to our winning record.
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9 minutes ago, Cheetos said:
Fire. This team needs a group of players that will lock the coaches and reporters out of the locker room and light some heat under their 🫏’s. It doesn’t just need to come from Hyde.
We need some hardcore, old school chew you out leaders. The question is, does this club have those type of players?
And the question that goes with it is, does that always make a difference? When it works, and the firebrand is a peak Frank Robinson, we hear all about it. When it happens and doesn't work, it doesn't make for a good press narrative.
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23 minutes ago, wildcard said:
1) Injuries. 2) Breaking in rookies. 3) Fatigue 4) Pitchers not holding runners
To me #3 is the item that doesn't belong here, since there's no reason to think the Orioles should suffer more from fatigue than any other team. If anything the roster age skewed toward youth/prime years should be in their favor. The one detail that might make a difference is having your franchise player be a catcher (Adley), or older player (Kimbrel), where fatigue could have more of an impact.
Injuries in general, probably yeah. Every team has them, but I imagine ours are objectively worse than most this year.
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13 hours ago, Punchandjudy said:
Buck up Roy…and most everyone else for that matter. The regular season doesn’t matter at all anymore. The Rangers weren’t the best team in their division last year, much less the AL, and certainly not in baseball yet they were the champs. They got hot in the playoffs and won it all despite their crappy pen. No reason this team can’t do that. Get GRod back, Columbe, Westburg…Gunnar or Santander goes on an Adonis Garcia run. Just get in the playoffs and roll the dice. Marginal teams can win it all, the Rangers showed the world how it’s done. Stop living and dying with every game. Those days died with playoff over-expansion.
I'll take the "both things true" option on this question. In other words, the above is obviously true and a popular sentiment; yet, here's the other side of it:
The playoffs don't matter at all anymore. The Rangers weren’t the best team in their division last year, much less the AL, and certainly not in baseball yet they were the champs. They got hot in the playoffs and won it all despite their crappy pen. Our Orioles may do the same, or they may not. It's a roll of the dice. A better gauge of our quality is the full season, even though the drama is spread out over six months instead of one game/week/month. Just finish strong and be proud of our division title. Marginal teams can win it all in the playoffs, so stop living and dying with that short sample size. The days of a meaningful championship died with playoff over-expansion.
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Those scorecards quantify what I was griping about earlier, that irks me the most: that the umpires generally are way more prone to expand the strike zone to favor pitchers, by a factor of 97% compared to 88% calling balls inside the box... in a game that's already inherently favoring the pitcher, plus the increasing advantage of extreme velocity and breaks.
The ideal should be an elegant balance between pitcher and hitter, so for the umps to routinely favor the pitcher just seems fundamentally unjust. As many commenters note, it's just like they want the game to end quicker so they can go to dinner.
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7 hours ago, bpilktree67 said:
The players association probably wouldn’t allow it but I would pay the Norfolk and Bowie guys another two weeks of salary let them play each other, then if we win the division the major league team could play a game or two vs the Tides to try and stay sharper.
Cool idea in theory, but imagine the gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair if an Oriole got injured in the tuneup(s).
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Red Sox have failed to take advantage. And now look who's just 1/2 game behind them and closing fast (8-2), the Tigers! Still nine games behind us, though.
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19 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:
Nope, can't turn back the clock. Even if Witt is doing what he's doing this year...if Adley's putting up a repeat 2023 performance, I wonder if we're having these conversations. We might be, but not to this extent.
It also comes down to what do you value at that 1:1...a catcher? Or someone that projects to be an up the middle infield talent, great speed, hyper athletic...who stands to have a longer career? A longer peak? If you're looking at it from that perspective, it's Witt...and it was Witt back then.
My post admittedly glosses over that the Orioles started winning right after Adley was called up and the intagibles that he brings to the table. IIRC, in early 2022, we were all fit to be tied on here, we were calling the Orioles a dumpster fire, etc. That stopped after he was brought up and we registered a winning season.
Yeah, funny how the intangibles lost their flavor when the tangibles started declining.
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1 hour ago, Moose Milligan said:
No one's crying, but to think that we could have had Witt AND Gunnar...damn. We would be looking at potentially an all-time great left side of an infield.
I do not believe this is who Adley really is...I think there's a bit of a back issue going on. I don't think he's his full self.
His new plate approach this year is awful and I'm not sure what that's attributed to. I can't imagine a scenario where SIGBOT and others have told him to sacrifice his plate patience and OBP skills, yet here we are.
This said, I have to acknowledge the idea that his best years at the plate are already behind him. That possibility does exist, unfortunately. If that's the case, then it will be hard to watch Witt and wonder what could have been.
We have to remember that Adley was the consensus #1 overall pick that year. I'm sure if you went back and looked at all the publications from that year, there might be one or two writers that had Witt #1...and I'm sure there are some posters here that would tell you that "I had Witt over Adley!"
It's important to remember that Adley was the first pick that Elias made after arriving here. Since then, we've seen him take Kjerstad when practically no one had Kjerstad linked to us at that slot. He took Cowser at a pick when most projections had him being taken after us. And, IIRC, in a year where there wasn't a consensus #1 overall pick, he took Jackson Holliday...I can't remember anyone saying Holliday was a chance to be the first overall pick in that draft.
So Elias hasn't been afraid to think outside the box and draft a bit differently when the Orioles have had high picks in the first round. It's mostly paid off...Cowser looks like he'll be a cornerstone piece...at least he'll be a very solid to sometimes great every day player. Holliday looks like he belongs in his second go-round in the majors this year. Kjerstad's issues have been bad luck, however he has his believers. Let's not also forget that Elias was part of the braintrust in Houston that took Correa #1 when Mark Appel was considered the player to go #1 overall that year.
All of that is to say...I wonder if Elias picking Adley in his first year was him playing it safe for his new boss, the fans, etc. I wonder if there's a part of Elias that had Witt rated higher than Adley, yet he knew that he had to make a good first impression on his new boss and he knew he had to give the fanbase something to get excited about and that played a part into taking Adley over Witt. Had he been here for a year or two prior and already garnered the trust and support of Angelos and the fans...I wonder if he takes Witt instead.
I've been thinking about that for about a month now, especially after looking at how he's drafted in the high pick territory every year after taking Adley. Adley's selection at 1:1 is becoming somewhat of an outlier when it comes to Elias "being the smartest guy in the room," as some have derisively called him during this recent stretch. I wonder if the smartest guy in the room really was dead set on taking an older college catcher over a hyper athletic and projectable high school shortstop #1.
You make a good case for that plausible scenario. Only Elias or an insider would know.
All the second guessing aside (why not? that's what we do here), I think Elias (and fans and the media spotlight) were all gaga over Adley until this latest tailspin. But as this season progressed, the two players' trajectories crossed dramatically (Witt up, Adley down); where before, Adley was in the lead, albeit 2 years older.
2022-23-24 WAR:
Adley 5.4, 4.3, 2.8
Witt 0.9, 4.4, 8.7Can't turn back the clock, but can't dispute that Witt looks like the clear leader from here on in.
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Elias: It's on me
in Orioles Talk
Posted
Well, good on posters who proved the SSS side of "Guards Ball." I just found it striking in terms of the narrative in that article, which was basically the same as what most around here were complaining the O's lacked: clutch hitting, passing the baton, aggressive running, getting runners in from third, etc.
I guess the real bottom line is "whatever works." Which of course varies from case to case. The old Bill James postseason wisdom was that HRs are the ticket, since you face good pitching and get so few hits.
So back to you, Elias, keep crunching those numbers...