DrungoHazewood

I know, being positive and hopeful concerning a new guy who comes in saying all the right things is terribly naive. It must be fun going through life certain that abject failure is just around every corner. You can't even admit that saying the right things and having a good plan is a positive.

We're Orioles fans. When a new guy shows up at our very nadir armed with a history of success and a plan we're not going to assume abject failure. Well... the vast majority of us aren't.

There you go, you get the internet. Reasonable and rational is always the disappointing territory of losers and appeasers. If you're not in the 90th percentile you might as well have never tried.

Elias is putting up a smokescreen by talking about signings that will never happen while negotiating with Austin for a new ballpark for 2023 after sticking Baltimore with four straight years of 130 losses. Prove to me that's not happening. See, atomic could be right.

Whatever you need to do. I'll just be happy we're beyond "all forms of player acquisition have too low an ROI to try."

The appropriate response is to complain about how they're not going to win 72 games this year because Elias spent all winter working on his tan.

You will be. On the other hand "the largest signing period the Orioles have ever had" could be a disappointing year for an average team.

I'm not entirely sure what the point is. Are you saying that the last six weeks is more representative of his ability than his career numbers? If so, why?

Yes, I'm using the largest sample of data, not cherry picking numbers to pretend to prove a point.

Do you understand the positional adjustment? Mancini gets a positional adjustment of about -8 as a full-time RFer. At first that would be more like -12 or -13. As an outfielder Mancini has been something like a -12 defender per 150 games. At first he's been a -2. Do the math... that means his theoretical value goes up by five or six runs per season if he's a full-time first baseman instead of an outfielder. The difference between replacement level and productive player is a lot more than five runs a year.

You know that two years ago he had an .826 OPS while he was playing the outfield for the first time in his life and was worth +2.3 wins. If you take off a third of a win for only OPSing .800, I'm still curious as to how he's going to be 20 runs worse in the field than he was in 2017? Currently he's on pace to have almost exactly the same value as in 2017. Last year, with a .715 OPS and -14 fielding he was right at replacement level. You're implying that he's going to be a -35 fielder this year, which would be one of the very worst fielding seasons of all time. Of course you are.

According to the Fan Cost Index (and yes, you can quibble with their methodology) the O's are the 4th-cheapest MLB experience. About half of what it costs to go to a Cubs or Red Sox game. I mentioned a few weeks ago that a foot-long Dodger Dog and a regular beer cost me $22 or $24 in early April.

I'll be happy if he ends up being a cheap and reasonably effective corner utility outfielder for a few years. He, Mancini and Manny Machado were all born in 1992, so there's not a ton of building and growing going on here.

With ever-skyrocketing K rates this probably should come with a caveat, but Koji did retire with the highest K:BB ratio in modern MLB history at over 7:1. He had a higher rate in the majors than in Japan, since he spent most of his Japanese career as a starter and most of his MLB career relieving. The official all-time record is a couple tenths higher than Koji, but James Burke played from 1882-84. Walks took something more than four balls, he was pitching from flat ground about 50' from the plate, and all but 12 of his innings were in the Union Association. The UA is officially designated a major league because of a misunderstanding of its quality - the Delmarva Shorebirds would be highly competitive if dropped into that league. Second fun James Burke fact of the day: his career BB:WP ratio is 0.85. Career 40 wild pitches, 34 walks. That is pretty hard to do. Anyway, the record is Koji's.

Half the staff is elated if they get through an appearance without allowing a homer to Duane Kuiper.

I'd like to see a study/argument that wasn't financed or conducted by a sports team that showed positive ROI for a stadium financing deal.

Sure, but he's 26 and from 23-26 he declined from adquate CFer to "33-year-old Adam Jones".

Harper's problem is that he's 26 and he has old player's skills. Over his past 900 PAs he's hit .243, and he's a corner outfielder. If he loses another step the only place to go is 1B/DH. And he's not DHing since he's signed up to play in the NL until the end of time at $27M a season.

13.8% LD rate? The lowest rate in the majors in 2018 was 17%. I have to think that's due for some staggering regression.

.234 BABIP and an ERA nearly two runs lower than FIP. And I was just starting to like the guy.

According to bb-ref Smith exceeded the rookie eligibility limits last year.

And opponents and teammates who have never seen a gym, probably have nutritional deficiencies and a few cases of the consumption, and average 5' 8", 152 lbs.

One thing in his favor is that HR rate and HR/FB rate and batted ball bins stabilize early, like in 100 or 200 PAs. HR per flyball is 50 BIP, according to that Fangraphs article I cited the other day. Smith's HR/FB rate is 17%, which is double his prior MLB/MiLB rate. Maybe he's pulling a Jose Bautista? I wouldn't want to assume that, but his batted ball outcomes are very different than in the past. Also, his LD% is almost 24%, which is way higher than ever before. I'm not sure what to make of that.

Yea... but... I don't really believe it. This is where WAR needs a slope of history adjustment. A really aggressive one. Keefe had his 20-win season in 1883. In the American Association. In a 98-game schedule. He threw 619 innings and completed all 68 of his starts. The AA was the new, upstart league that only began play in 1882. So it was a 2nd-year expansion league, in an era where all of the things we associate with MLB were either non-existent or very primitive. I'm guessing the New York Metropolitans were a team that had existed as an independent team prior to 1882, then just joined the new league. Keefe's 20-win season happened on a team that finished in 4th place in this proto-major league. Think about that. They went 54-42, but had a 20-win-above-replacement pitcher on the staff. That's saying that if Keefe had been hit by a train on opening day the Mets would have finished about 34-62, going from a .560 team to a .350 team on the basis of one player. I think we need to take a step back and remember what pitching was in 1883. It was pretty early in the transition from the 1860s model of tossing the ball up and letting the batter put it in play, to the modern pitcher who's actively trying to get everyone out himself. You still couldn't throw overhand. You were throwing from a spot on flat ground about 50' from the plate. Obviously if you could throw 619 innings in a 98-game schedule "max effort" wasn't even the faintest glimmer in anyone's mind. Keefe was relying quite heavily on his defense, far more than any modern pitcher, although he did have more strikeouts than any other team. He allowed 78 unearned runs, or more than one per start. So, I don't know. In the context of a league that's the equivalent of an indy league today, with radically different rules, and no scouting or minor leagues or really any kind of the detailed information you'd have today... I guess maybe 20 wins is a decent guess. But I'd also say that if you put a good modern pitcher in that environment he'd be completely unhittable. Every game would be a shot at a no hitter or a perfect game. Imagine Chris Sale pitching mid-level college ball.

Yea, but Cody Bellinger is on pace for 17 wins.