DrungoHazewood

That's the rule: three batters or the end of the inning.

If there's more than one or two they'll just clarify the rule that says you have to go on the DL (sorry, IL) if you come out for injury.

Ohtani will probably be the only two-way player for a long time.

He has about 17 wins through age 29. There are 183 pitchers (through 2015) who had between 15 and 20 wins through 29. 12 of them (6.5%) ended up with more than 40 wins in their careers, led by Curt Schilling at 83. The median career total is about 20 wins. Think about that a minute... if you were worth 15-20 wins through 29, your most likely career value is 20 or 21 wins. Typical example is Scott McGregor: 18.7 wins in his 20s, 1.5 in his 30s. Jamie Navarro was worth just over 15 wins in his 20s, -5.3 in his 30s; that was 183rd on the list. So going solely by historical precedent Corbin probably has one or two good years left in him.

I don't think so. Erickson had one season with the Orioles with an ERA under 4.00. And quickly declined under heavy workload. From 1993-96, when he would have been hitting free agency, he had an ERA+ of 93 (real ERA of about 5.00). He might have gotten a large contract if he'd been a free agent right after one of his really good years, but more likely he'd have gotten something like Ubaldo in the 4/50 range. And in 2020 the analytics guys would be pretty skeptical of that 4.8 K/9 and 4.50ish FIP.

For all the people who complain about WAR, this is WAR's wheelhouse. How much value has come out of the first round in the last five years? How much in 1965-70? How many players in the first round never make it to the majors compared to 30 years ago? bb-ref and WAR make these kind of questions answerable. In 1990, no chance, it would have been mostly subjective and ridiculously hard to compile. Not that I'm volunteering...

In other words, an average team should get a 40+ WAR guy about once in 30 years, one other 30+ guy in that timeframe, and a 20+ every 6 or 7 years.

That highlights the challenge with cheating. Is it funny, or is it the death penalty?

There is the difference between signing with a team like the Giants playing in a big ballpark in the NL West, and signing with a 54-win Orioles team in a bandbox in the AL East. If Trevor Cahill had a minor league deal on the table with both the O's and Giants, he's taking the Giants' offer immediately. The O's would have had to sweeten the pot.

I've long been in favor of geographically aligned leagues. No solution is going to be magic, we're not going to bring back the 1920s when baseball was pretty much the only major sport and there was little competing entertainment. But you can probably help things a bit if you rarely had out-of-timezone games, and they tweaked some things to get games back to something like 2:30. Young fans could actually see most of most games, and with quicker pace it might hold their attention better.

The Orioles had (easily) the best #20 overall pick of all time in Mike Mussina.

Hunter Harvey needs a throwback 1977 Topps card.

I don't mean that post in any kind of demeaning way, Tony certainly knows the reality of the draft. But sometimes I think it's useful to remind the community of that. We tend to think of draft picks in the top 20% of their slot as terrible disappointments. And they are in a way, because even for the highest picks the odds of being a star are not great. Markakis is a good example. At 24 he was a coming star. He had a 7-win season. With a little growth or even just consistency he was on path to be an MVP candidate, and with a little durability maybe even a HOF candidate. But he never approached that level again, and has been a kind of average outfielder for a decade. And he's still the 4th-best #7 pick of all time. Less than a third of #7 picks end up with a career that's more valuable than Chris Davis' best season.

Have they? Bundy is 18th in all time rWAR among #4 picks, and they've been drafting since '65. He'll continue to move up for a number of years. Gausman is 16th. Only about 6-7 #4 picks have had a career as valuable as, say, Nick Markakis. People are continuously disappointed by players who have careers in the top 25% of their draft slot. Think about it this way... Nick Markakis, had he been a #1 overall pick, would comfortably be among the top half of all players drafted there. As an actual #7, he's the fourth-best player ever taken there. Ben McDonald was a better-than-average #1.

It's not that he isn't running the team the way you want it to be run, you've repeatedly said that's he perpetuating a fraud and he's liar and a cheat. I unregistered from a particular political party when I thought it was being run that way. I doubt I would continue to be a fan of a team if I thought it was being run in an immoral and fraudulent way.

Got it. You don't hate Elias, you just think he's a cheat and a fraud and he's done absolutely nothing positive, and a ton of negative things. But you don't hate him.

You said in June that the 2019 Orioles were probably going to set an all time record for worst winning percentage in Major League history. Perhaps you were spot-on in that analysis, but Elias and his underlings turned a 30-win team into a 54-win team.

Oriole fans, the kind who actually enjoy the process of building a good organization, aren't really into you spreading hate and discontent all over every thread.

Plans <> Excuses. And nobody ever said five years. Just that rebuilding a 47-win team with gaping holes in infrastructure might take a bit of time.

(Duplicate post)

No, I criticized when I felt they were taking the wrong turn, and praised when I thought they were doing things right. I never thought they were 180 degrees out from everything I ever believed in. You are currently rooting for a team that you believe is perpetuating a massive fraud on the entire Oriole fanbase and the city of Baltimore. If I believed that I'd find something better to do with my time.

Hope. You hope Elias will have been fired. And replaced with someone who puts much more emphasis on short-term endorphin hits.

I'm sure you'll come back in 2022, 2023, 2024 and lavish praise on Elias and team if the work they're putting in now bears fruit. Right? Nah, we know exactly what will happen. You'll continue ripping them to shreds for not winning 75 games in 2020, and how they should have been well over .500 in 2021. If only they weren't so stupid, and the fanbase so gullible. Except you, of course.

I think you need to find a new team to root for. Clearly the Orioles organizational philosophy is completely at odds with everything you believe in. We'd all be better off if you became a Pirates fan or something. Or followed through on your threats to give up on MLB altogether. Does the Washington Spirit have a messageboard?

Are you of the opinion that the game is fine as it is and doesn't need any modifications to appeal to a broader audience? I don't know how you explain to the fanbase that you're going to not have any replays and allow missed calls that are immediately obvious to everyone to stand. And I'm good with trying some things to keep the average game time from passing that of an international test match in cricket.