DrungoHazewood

Moe Berg.

One of many things I haven't seen is a batting title. The only modern Oriole to win one was Frank, five years before I was born and with the 3rd-lowest mark in league history. In my lifetime I want to see an Oriole hit .400. That seems likely.

I just barely remember Stone, I was nine. But I definitely remember '84, listening to the radio when they announced the Cy Young and being dumbfounded that Mike Boddicker didn't win. He was the only guy in the league to win 20 and he led the league in ERA. In that era it should have been a slam-dunk, but the voters had lost their minds and decided that relievers were more valuable than starters. Willie Hernandez had an excellent year, as did Quiz, but Boddicker pitched almost twice as many innings.

Worthington was the 1988 IL MVP. He hit .244/.303/.419 with 16 homers and 73 RBI. That was a pitcher's league, but that has to be one of the weakest MVP lines I've ever seen. He was 32nd in the league in OPS. The voters must have thought he was Brooks with the glove. It was a little like Mountcastle's MVP where he wasn't nearly the best player in AAA. He just was the (one of the) best real prospect(s) who wasn't called up after a couple hundred ABs.

If not for the ridiculously high attrition rate among pitchers they would have to change the rules. If 90% of pitchers got through their careers healthy the league ERA would be a run or run-and-a-half lower. The strike zone would have to go back to the belt, or they'd have to juice the ball. Although I think Wally Bunker wasn't destined for a long and successful career in any case. His 19-5, 2.69 season came with four K/9. Even in '64 that was only 2/3rds of league average. Almost no one is successful starting out striking out 2/3rds of average. His BABIP was .216. Completely, utterly unsustainable. The same year Koufax had a BABIP 30 points higher.

I'm sure he did, but I can't call him a one-hit wonder when he had previous seasons of 15, 12, 12, and 11 wins. Coming into '80 he had thrown almost 1500 MLB innings to a 4.06 ERA. Sheets, Coggins, Ballard, Pearce... they fit the definition far better. If Stone is a one-hit wonder, then so is Nick Markakis for '08. Jim Gentile for '61. Chris Hoiles for '93. They were all regulars in the majors for quite a while, but had a peak year well above any others.

I don't think Harry Grove meets AA standards. There have been various calls over the years for upgrades and maintenance, so it would surprise me if it could host AA ball. I doubt it's proximity to Harrisburg. Frederick is closer to Bowie, and Baltimore, and Washington, and Potomac.

In 1912 the Red Sox had 185 steals and 182 caught. And they led the league in scoring. In 1950 the Tigers were 23-of-63 on steals.

Is it the Orioles choice?

The York Revolution and SoMd Blue Crabs draw fewer fans than the Keys and apparently have a workable business model. I would think that the Atlantic League would consider expansion if places like Harry Grove were vacant. 200k fans at $8 a head, plus a few hundred $k in advertising, and maybe half a million or a million cut of concessions and beer... What, $3M or so in revenues, with a player payroll that can't be more than $200k. The owner isn't getting rich, but they could probably make that function.

But when you talk about the desperation of sports leagues, don't forget the symbiotic relationship between satellite/cable and major sports leagues. If not for live sports there would be seven people, all 88 years old, who wouldn't have cut their cord.

Exactly. Baseball was the most popular team sport in America for a century before MLB signed their first TV deal. But it was different. In another thread I estimated that the 1936 St. Louis Browns probably had total revenues for the year of a few hundred thousand dollars, and a payroll under $150k. Even after factoring in inflation that's a total payroll of about what the O's paid for Jose Iglesias, and total revenues of what they might bring in for attendance revenue in a week in 2020.

No matter what the topic there will be some small subset of the population who will stridently, doggedly advocate for a solution that is 180 degrees out from the consensus, and will be amazed and angrily bitter that their evidence that the sky is green is not being taken seriously. See: @JTrea81

Newhan is THE poster boy for anything can happen in a small sample of at bats. Up to the moment he debuted with the Orioles as the age of 30 he had a .550 MLB OPS in 97 PAs, and a mixed record as a journeyman minor leaguer. From 2005 through the end of his MLB career he OPS'd .629 in the majors. But... in June of 2004 he went 19-for-43 (.442) with a 1.324 OPS. In July of 2004 he had an .815 OPS, and in August he had a .771. His first month with the O's he hit over .400 and was basically playing like Ty Cobb. Remember boys and girls, hitter BABIP takes 800+ PAs to stabilize.

I think it's real. Multiple sources have him pretty highly rated.

Following up on Billy Gardner... Luis Aparicio's first year in Baltimore he led off in 650 plate appearances and scored 73 runs. Among players on that team with 150+ PAs he was 11th in OBP. But he was really fast! Aparicio's batting line was like Adam Jones or Jonathan Schoop, if they'd hit 18 doubles and four homers a year. The 60s and 70s were a weird time in baseball history, where the league got collectively stupid and decided that 40 steals were the equivalent of 100 points of OBP. (Hint: it's not even close)

Same for me, just substituting 1866. It's a little embarrassing, but I'm not sure I'd heard of Everett Mills until just this morning.

I've recounted this in bits and pieces in other threads, but I'll do it again: - Played countless backyard, street, and sandlot games as a kid. Often one-on-one, two-on-two, and sometimes one-on-one with an all-time pitcher. I kept stats on graph paper that I posted on the fridge. I hit .951 with 120 homers in 1982. - Went 8-for-10 in my Little League career. Someone outed me for being three weeks too old and I got kicked out of the league, even though I was the smallest player on the team. Stole a base off two of my buddies who went on to play high school ball. All of my hits were line drives up the middle. Played some shortstop, as well as first base as I was the only player on the team who could dig a short-hop ball out of the dirt. - Played a bit of backyard whiffle ball. I had a ridiculous slider that broke 10' and was totally unhittable. Which also contributed to my (assumed) torn rotator cuff. - Played church and Pax River intermural softball from roughly 1990 through 2006. Started off as a shortstop/center fielder. I had little power but got on base constantly and was really fast, I often led off. Most of my hits went right through the pitcher's box. Managed my Pax River team for a few years. I've long had problems with my right arm/shoulder, and at some point it got painful enough that I shifted to the outfield full time and my last year I played left-handed. When my oldest was on the way my wife told me I couldn't play sports five days a week, which was completely reasonable. So I dropped softball and just played indoor soccer. I've only played a handful of softball games since*. My youngest played a few seasons of T-ball, my oldest then took 18 months off from soccer to play baseball. But both have been back to soccer full-time for about three years. They're both my kids, small and really fast/quick, so their skill set suits soccer better. My oldest's baseball career involved a lot of pounding the ball into the ground towards third and beating the throw to first. * Had a work softball game a few years ago where I had a side bet with another branch head. His team won, so somewhere there exists a picture of me in an ARod Yanks jersey. And I have a Yanks' hat signed by the other branch to remind me of my dishonor.

Billy Gardner often comes up in searches for the worst-hitting regulars, he had several Richie Martin seasons as a regular. So I'd never have thought he led the league in any positive offensive category. Even the year he led in doubles he was the O's leadoff batter all but two games all year and he scored 79 runs. That has to be close to some kind of record, like fewest runs scored in 140+ games leading off. (Actually it's not... Horace Clarke of the '73 Yanks led off in 141 games and scored 59 runs all year. You have to try pretty hard to do that. Ralph Houk shoulda known better. When your everyday leadoff hitter is 5th or 6th in the team in runs you're doing something wrong.)

I never knew about it, either. Or I forgot.

At least we have Belarus as a control group. Their nutty dictator is telling them to continue on like nothing is happening. Their soccer league is the only one playing games - I have an app with all the world's soccer league scores and it's hundreds of cancellations, and then the Belarussian Premier League. Apparently they're signing all kinds of new media deals to broadcast matches since they're literally the only game on Earth. I say we all become FC Slutsk fans.

Previous (MLB) Orioles no-hitter was by Jay Hughes in 1898 against Boston on April 22. I'm guessing there were several minor league Orioles no-hitters in the interim, but the records are hard to come by. In looking for one in James Bready's book, I stumbled upon Ralph Worrell, who'd be a good candidate for the one-hit wonder thread. Especially in today's context. In 1918 at the age of 20 he went 25-10 for the International League Orioles. Then promptly caught the Spanish flu and died. Laymon Yokeley (known as Norman in the bb-ref archives) apparently threw a no-hitter for the Baltimore Black Sox of the Negro American League in 1929.

Let's see a pitcher from the 60s come to modern baseball and face nine guys in a lineup who can all hit a ball 400' at any moment. Palmer faced Jose Tartabull in that game (.622 career OPS, two homers in 2000 PAs), Danny Cater was betting 5th with 10 homers and a .657 OPS, Tommy Reynolds and his .602 career OPS, Dave Duncan with a .457 in '69 and a .636 career, and the pitcher's spot. It was a bit easier to throw 142 pitches in a game when half the lineup of a good team was worse than Stevie Wilkerson. The 2019 Orioles benched Dwight Smith when his OPS fell near .700. He had a better batting line than five or six of the '69 A's starters.

I thought his claim to fame was being one of the better defensive catchers in baseball for 20 years? And sliding around the tarp during rain delays. And the WS thing. And for saying goofy homerisms on MASN. Oh, and getting knocked into the next county by Bo Jackson.

So the article says/implies the definition is one great season out of nowhere. I originally was going to go with Tito Landrum, but he had one game, basically. Pearce might get the nod. Through age 30 he had 847 PAs of a .694 and was worth less than a win. At 31 he had a .930 and was worth 5.8 wins. Only caveat is that he went on to have other good seasons, just not nearly that good. Ballard has about as good a case. His only season with an ERA+ over 100 he ends up with 18 wins on an all-time Cinderella team. Newhan was DiMaggio for a month or so. But on a forgettable team. Wayne Garland got 20 wins and a big contract from the Indians out of a year where he only started 25 games. Mike Young got ROY votes the year before his best season, and he was supposed to be good. Sheets did his damage the year of the juiced ball. Oldtimer category: Heinie Reitz had 65 career triples, 31 in 1894, second highest total of all time. Never had more than 13 in any other season. Joe Corbett, brother of heavyweight champ Gentleman Jim, went 24-8 in 1897. Never pitched in more than 14 games or won more than five in any other season.