DrungoHazewood

This is going to be a off-topic photography thing, but whoever took that picture did it with a mirror lens. See the weird doughnut shapes in the background (i.e. bokeh)? That really only comes from a lens designed with a mirror like a telescope. Today those are pretty rare, although sometimes seen as cheap, manual-focus long telephotos. It would be very, very unusual for someone to use one to shoot sports.

Morrison has hit .183/.271/.365 since the start of the 2018 season. He's not a good defender. He's been cast aside by four organizations in four years. His ZIPS and Steamer rest-of-season forecasts are for a below-average hitter with a .220s batting average and about a .300 OBP. Even if the O's are of a mind to release Chris Davis they have Nunez, Mountcastle, maybe Sisco who could play first. There are always a dozen guys bouncing around AAA who could OPS .750 and play first base. This seems like a nonsense suggestion.

Put yourself in the role of another team's GM. Who on the Orioles would you be interested in acquiring for a legitimately good prospect? And if you're the Orioles, who are you comfortable giving up because the long-term return will likely be better than keeping them?

If you were a fan of the Brewers or Angels or something wouldn't you look at Severino as a kind of 2015 Gerardo Parra? 74 OPS+ previously, 168 OPS+ in 18 games. My assumption is that going forward he's a 85 OPS+ guy with shaky defense.

Between them they're owed about $70M, give or take. That's roughly 11 or 12 wins. Cobb is worth a couple wins, Davis minus at least a couple wins. So you're paying for zero performance but taking on $70M. So, sure, you might find a team that would take all that on if the O's kicked in $65M. Cobb + Davis + $65M for a 24-year-old in the GCL.

Daniel Cabrera hit .009 in his professional career. 1-for-106. Based on his time with the O's in interleague he'd often just stand there and take three called strikes. Struck out in 97 of his 126 PAs. He walked nine times as a pro. That's kind of how I see a Chris Davis walk. Sometimes the pitcher just won't hit his spots four times in seven pitches, even if the batter is not trying.

I don't have any idea what that has to do with him failing to apply for a therapeutic exemption. Is your point here really that if you don't apply you should be allowed to at any moment? I don't really care either way, but I don't see what good it does to argue that the rules shouldn't apply to Chris Davis.

15-20 years ago MLB went through a very public shaming because they didn't pay attention to the impacts of performance enhancing drugs on their players and the game. They put a system in place, after a lot of fits and starts, that was negotiated as part of the CBA and the players agreed to. Whether or not having to reapply for a therapeutic exemption is reasonable, or if it is stupid, those are the rules. Davis and/or his agent knew about the rules, or most certainly should have known about them. I don't like the speed limit, but I know that the law says I have to obey, and if I choose not to I may get caught and be fined. Pete Rose knew there was a ban on gambling, he violated that rule, and was suspended indefinitely. This is how a reasonably civil society works. There are rules that the governed have some kind of small input into, and then you have to play by those rules. If Scott Boras thinks that his client has been singled out or improperly punished I'm sure he will not hesitate for a minute in stating that loudly, repeatedly and on the record. That he hasn't indicates to me that he and most everyone else knows Davis or his representative should have applied for the exemption, didn't, and that's their fault.

I have no first hand knowledge of Davis' condition or his medical requirements. All I know is that he apparently needs a medicine to function, that medicine is on a banned list by MLB and requires an exemption, and he didn't follow the process to get that. That's his fault, unless someone can come up with a set of unusual and heretofore undocumented externalities that made it impossible for him to do that.

Is Casey Mize related to Johnny Mize? They look pretty similar even though they were born 84 years apart.

Do you participate in a golfing organization that has an established drug testing procedure, bans certain dosages of Advil, and has defined penalties for taking one more Advil than is recommended?

Let me see if I understand this correctly. You're saying that if you have ADHD or ADD you shouldn't have to follow the well-established rules to use drugs for treating that condition in the context of a professional sport. Right?

Five walks in three innings. For Brad Pennington that was called Tuesday. Every Tuesday. I think Steve Dalkowski once walked 11 guys during pregame warmups. I was at a AAA game where Mark Wohlers was trying to get over the yips, or Steve Blass disease, and IIRC he walked every batter he faced and threw both a pitch that went about 40' and one that hit the backstop on the fly. That had to be circa '98 or '99. In 98 he walked 33 in 20.1 innings, in '99 he had six walks and recorded two outs. Was demoted to AAA Richmond (when I saw him) and he walked 36 and threw 17 wild pitches in 12 innings. And speaking of Steve Blass, he had that '73 season where he walked 84, hit 12 batters, and threw 9 wild pitches in 18 starts. In July and August he pitched a little over two innings and walked 13, striking out one. From August 22nd through August 28th, 1951 Tommy Byrne of the St. Louis Browns had the following performances: 22nd: 12.2 innings, 16 walks, got the loss. 26th: 1.0 inning in relief, two walks. 28th: 10 innings, 13 walks, also got the loss. In six days he pitched 23.2 innings, walking 31. Some other notable Oriole performance with a decided lack of command: Rk Player Date Tm Opp Rslt AppDec IP H R ER BB SO HR 1 Ray Moore 1957-04-18 BAL WSH L 4-6 GS-6 L 5.1 3 5 5 10 4 1 2 Daniel Cabrera 2006-04-12 BAL TBD L 4-7 GS-5 5.0 3 1 1 9 10 0 3 Jeff Ballard 1987-06-03 BAL OAK L 3-7 GS-6 L 5.2 3 3 2 9 3 1 4 Steve Barber 1967-04-23(1) BAL KCA W 5-2 GS-6 W 5.2 3 1 1 9 6 0 5 Ray Moore 1956-04-18 BAL BOS L 4-8 GS-5 L 4.2 8 8 8 9 1 0 6 Jose Mercedes 2000-09-09 BAL ANA W 10-3 GS-6 W 6.0 3 1 1 8 2 0 7 Mike Flanagan 1976-09-19(2) BAL CLE L 2-3 GS-6 5.2 4 2 2 8 3 0 8 Mike Torrez 1975-04-20 BAL BOS L 2-10 GS-4 L 3.1 5 7 7 8 2 0 9 Jim Palmer 1970-04-10 BAL DET W 3-2 GS-6 5.1 4 2 2 8 4 0 10 Steve Barber 1963-05-22 BAL DET W 2-1 GS-7 W 6.0 4 1 1 8 3 0

It would be pretty bizarre if he was able to get a therapeutic exemption for an otherwise banned drug when he was 18 or 20, and that was still in force with no updates, reassessment or further documentation when he's 30 or 40.

You know Bill Bergen? The catcher from 100 years ago who once hit .139 in a nearly full season, the guy who had a 21 OPS+ for his 3000 PA career? He once had a month where he went 11-for-29 (.379). Occasionally the Gods smile on the humblest among us.

I'm awaiting the O's-Jays game on the 28th at Buffalo. This will be the first time the Orioles play at Buffalo in 67 years. First time in a major league guise that a Baltimore team played there in 105 years.

In 2019 he was 128th of 133 listed outfielders in outs above average by Statcast. By DRS he's a -18 LFer in just over 1000 innings. He's been so poor that he would likely be more valuable DHing, which is hard to do. And "valuable" is relative since a pretty good definition of replacement level is a DH with a 100 OPS+.

It almost has to be service time/Super 2 status. Smith is a DH with a 97 OPS+. I don't see any performance-based rationale for him playing over Mountcastle or even Diaz.

So a couple weeks later batting average has crept up to .240, which would be just the 4th-lowest of all time. But homers now stand at 1.31 team/game, which is 2nd-highest of all time behind only last season. Any thought that they unjuiced the ball seems unfounded. SSS, but singles, doubles, and triples are all down a little. K's just barely off last year's record pace, and walks a up a bit. So, if anything, we're continuing on the trend of three true outcomes baseball. I watched QuickPitch yesterday and probably 60% of the highlights were a big uppercut swing followed by everyone watching a homer land 19 empty rows up in the stands. And that number includes them showing the random last out of every game, which was a strikeout more than 1/3 of the time. Game times sitting on 3:08, 2nd-longest of all time.

Or exaggerated. The 2010 Orioles were a generically bad 66-96 (.407). But they started 1-11 and were under .300 at the 60-game mark. Everyone knows about the '88 team, that started 0-21, and were 15-45, 40-win pace, 60 games in. One reason the '82 Orioles had to sprint in September to try to catch the Brewers is that they started 2-10 and didn't stay over .500 until early June.

It's the baseball equivalent of the guy who holds the football on kickoffs when it's too windy to stay on the tee.

You can bring in a LOOGY with two out to end the inning and remove him between innings, right? So you can guarantee that some manager Joe Girardi is now carving out a role for a 60-game, 20-inning-a-year, last-out-of-the-inning LOOGY.

I'd guess many/most LOOGYs have fairly typical splits when used in other roles, but when asked to specialize they take additional steps like dropping down sidearm and throwing more breaking pitches which make their splits more extreme.

I didn't realize the ball made really good pitchers and journeymen with 5.50 ERAs basically the same thing. I guess that's how the O's have started so well.

I've kind of come to terms with the idea that the age of rationality has passed and the Orioles are being directed by forces we can't hope to understand. If Smith plays center tonight it's probably because of dreams Hyde is having, and I expect a lopsided victory and the moon to turn blood red in the sky.