DrungoHazewood

I believe that was the last MLB forfeit that didn't result from some kind of fan-related disturbance like the Mets' ball (or bat?) day fiasco or Disco Demolition Night. There has to be some backstory with the O's game and Weaver. Bricks on a tarp, really? I think Earl was hung over and didn't want to be there. Or he had some prior spat with one of the umps and wouldn't let it go. Edit: When did Bull-Pen become one word? Or was this a weird Canadian thing and it was always one word?

If they're not trading Means who are selling off? The staff is Means, Cobb, Givens and a bunch of waiver wire fodder. I don't think the O's record in the next two or three weeks has much of anything to do with whether or not they trade Givens and Cobb.

I think Greinke gets there first. Greinke isn't quite a HOF shoo-in yet, but even by traditional numbers he's Don Drysdale with 40 fewer losses. But Grey-Rod is a higher pick than Halladay.

Luis Sojo has three rings. Lew Ford started a playoff game for the O's. So, sure. Performance over their last 14 pitches. Duh.

I mean, players definitely improve when you surround them with better players. They would have anyway, but putting better players around them didn't sabotage the development.

Those players are relatively cheap, they're not going to bring back a top prospect in a deal, and could play some role on the next good O's team. I guess Iglesias i on the fringe of that last statement. So there's not much reason to trade them, I think Elias stands pat on those players.

I assumed as much. When I do one of these little mini-research projects it's usually because I'm interested in the outcome because I really don't know. In this case I thought the number would be low, but I had no idea it would be zero. If someone eventually takes a high school pitcher 1-10 and they make the Hall it will be unprecedented. Which leads to why... and my speculation would be that doing the things necessary to get the attention of scouts and get drafted in the top 10 at 18 are hugely counterproductive to having a long career. I'd guess most 18 year old ace pitchers are destined for surgery.

He's well aware that expanded playoffs just means that 1/16th of playoff teams will now win the whole thing. On day one of the playoffs an average team has a 6% chance of winning a ring, and the O's ain't an average playoff team. If everything works out brilliantly they'll be something like the 16th seed. No rational mind would throw away a rebuilding season for a small chance at a getting to a series of playoffs they'll have less than a 5% chance of winning.

From 1909-1914 Baker had a 153 OPS+, and led the league in homers from '11-14 (with totals ranging from nine to 12). Got MVP votes in the primordial awards of the era for four straight years. Possibly the best five-year run of any pre-WWII third baseman. He took off 1915, possibly related to Connie Mack's firesale with the A's. From '16-19 he had a 118 OPS+. No black ink besides leading in games played in '19. Took off '20 for some kind of personal situation. From '21-22 he had a 98 OPS+. Was that just age, or would his decline been more graceful without the break? I want to know!

I mean, anything is possible. But what are the odds that a high school pitcher taken high in the first round is going to have a HOF career? Here's a list of the best 10 careers out of high school pitchers taken in the top 10 picks: Zack Greinke (#6 overall) Clayton Kershaw (7) Dwight Gooden (5) Jon Matlack (4) Josh Beckett (2) Kerry Wood (4) Mike Morgan (4) Bill Gullickson (2) Joe Coleman (3) J. R. Richard (2) So far, since the draft started in '65, there has never been a HOFer picked as a high school pitcher in the top 10 picks. Roy Halladay (#17 in '95) is the only 1st round high school pitcher to be inducted into Cooperstown. This is out of 430 high school pitchers taken in the 1st round. Clyde going to the Hall was always a longshot.

It's just quite unlikely, instead of pure, unadulterated crazytalk.

This season will be good in some science experiment-y kind of ways. You* always wonder what Home Run Baker's career would be like if he didn't randomly take two separate years off in mid career. This year we get all kinds of players with gaps that are unrelated to baseball health/performance. * By "you" of course I mean me, and probably just me.

I don't know if there's ever been a case of a single contract keeping a team from competing. The Rays win all the time with a $60M payroll, which is several Mike Trouts shy of average. The Angels have a ton of resources, and certainly could win pay Mike Trout whatever. But they don't develop talent, they plug holes with 30-year-old free agents, and forever they've been getting almost nothing out of Albert Pujols' $27M a year. They're a random collection of below-average-ish talent with Pujols and Trout thrown in. It's almost like they've convinced themselves that LA teams have to have big names, they can't rely on the farm.

In 1993 the BaySox had just become a thing and PG County Stadium wasn't ready, so they played home games at Memorial Stadium. I went to a game, and it started to rain. The BaySox org was kind of a skeleton crew, and they really didn't have a grounds crew. So they asked for volunteers from the stands. I think I ran down to the field, of course I'd take the opportunity to be on the same field Cal and Brooks once played on. We rolled out the tarp no problem at all. If the Nats need a paid groundskeeping consultant I'm available.

There's rushing, and then there's rushing. Clyde made his MLB debut a few weeks after he graduated from high school as a starting pitcher on a 57-105 team. And he still wasn't that bad. When we talk about rushing prospects we're usually debating the merits of an extra half-season in AA or something. The other day we were discussing just how large the step was from AAA to the majors. David Clyde skipped straight from facing 120 lb 15-year-olds to facing Rod Carew and Tony Oliva the same month.

Something is going on. His fastball has been about 91 forever, this year it's 87.

From mid-1988 until spring 1989 the Orioles added Phil Bradley, Gregg Olson, Brady Anderson, Curt Schilling, Chris Hoiles, Tim Hulett, Mickey Weston, Brian Holton, Bob Melvin, Mike Devereaux, Dave Johnson, Kevin Hickey and called up Steve Finley, Craig Worthingon, Bob Milacki, and Pete Harnisch,. The '12 Orioles added Wei-Yin Chen, Ryan Flaherty, Wilson Betemit, Jason Hammel, Luis Ayala, Miguel Gonzalez, Nate McLouth, Steve Pearce, Darren O'Day. Late the previous year they acquired Tommy Hunter, Pedro Strop and Chris Davis. They called up Manny. The '20 Orioles have added Jose Iglesias, Pat Valaika, Wade LeBlanc and Tommy Milone, while getting back minor leaguers and salary relief for Dylan Bundy and Jonathan Villar.

Hurt? I don' think losing four mph on your fastball is just a dead arm period. Risk factors: Most batters faced in the league in '16, missed half of '17 and '18, and in '19 he looked healthy but had his highest ERA ever. I suppose he could DH. He's about as good a hitter as Davis, with about as much left on his deal.

You'd think that, but if your starting pitching matchups for the start of the first playoff series are Bullpen Day, and TBD against Gerrit Cole and Masahiro Tanaka it might be an uphill battle. Jose Iglesias has spent almost 50% of his career batting 9th. For the Orioles he's spent all but three PAs batting third. His OPS is like 300 points above his career mark. The Orioles success has been in large part due to Alex Cobb, Tommy Milone, and and Shawn Armstrong. Milone had a 5.67 ERA since 2016. Over the past two years Cobb was hurt, and when not hurt was 5-17, 5.36. Armstrong had a 5.74 ERA last year. Pedro Severino has a 1.014 OPS. His career mark is .682. This is a .500 team like I'm brain surgeon, and if somehow they get the 4th wildcard or whatever the odds of them winning the Series are near zero.

He's 30 and has a .692. If he was influenced by Votto isn't not apparent, he walked 20 times in 146 games last year. That's positively Mountcastleian. I think Votto has had weeks where he walked more. He's not a terrible hitter, but I'll be happy if he finishes '20 much over .700. I remember when Iglesias first came up with the Red Sox he was touted as the next great defensive shortstop. That never quite worked out, but he's a solid defender.

Ray Knight's monthly OPSes with the Orioles: April: .920 May: .670 June: .687 July: .598 August: .630 September: .646 If only he'd swapped April and July maybe they could have flipped him at the deadline.

Thanks for running the numbers. I'm good with 10, because lower than that and you get the impression that almost nobody is any good. In history there have been 569 position players as good or better than Brian Roberts (29 wins and change). Let's just say 600 position player become pros every year (20 per team for 30 teams, used to be less MLB teams but more MiLB teams), and pro baseball's been a thing for 150 years. So almost 100,000 pro players ever. Very roughly a 0.5% chance of becoming Brian Roberts the day you sign your first pro contract, on average. 10 WAR is more like 1.5%.

Hey, I was at one of those games, too.

All analogies only go so far. The draft lottery tickets are much more likely to hit than a real one. You probably have a 1-in-3 chance of a the #1 overall pick being a good player, while the #30 is probably more like 1-in-6 or 1-in-10 or something, with the likely difference in value pegged at $10s of millions.

Now we almost have to list the most cobbled-together rosters of all time. #1 is probably the Ty Cobb(led) strike game. Another may be the Orioles' game from July 18, 1902, directly after McGraw skipped town and took Iron Man McGinnity and other with him to the Giants.