DrungoHazewood

Maybe if they had two real CFers playing RF and LF.

Isn't everyone? Steady Eddie Murray had the following consecutive-month OPS pairs during these years with the Orioles: 1977: .630/1.044 1978: .669/1.069 1979: .731/1.074 1980: 1.142/.827 1982: .733/.918 1983: 1.301/.652 1984: 1.161/.752

But the underlying numbers are different. He's walking batters at more than twice his career rate. And he hasn't allowed a homer yet. He'll probably allow a homer or five, and we'll have to wait to see what's up with his control.

That's by bb-ref's rWAR, which basically gives the pitcher credit for how many runs are allowed on his watch without regard to underlying numbers. By fWAR he's sitting at 0.1, because fWAR puts very heavy weight on the underlying K, BB, HR rates, and Brach is walking a batter an inning. He has a 2.20 ERA, a 3.85 FIP and a 5.10 xFIP. Unless he gets his control fixed his rWAR will make a beeline for his fWAR.

The Marlins' team OPS+ is the same as Mark Belanger's career OPS+: 68

Nobody acquires six or seven legitimately good players a year on a consistent basis.

Sure they are. They didn't put all of their resources into winning the most games this year. In fact, they didn't put much of any resources into winning this year. They assembled a 50- or 60-something win team on purpose. Tanking has little or nothing to do with whether the players they have on the roster is trying. All professional players try most of the time. Even when they're on a team that is probably going to win 57 games.

I always assumed that the '89 Orioles were absolutely epic defensively, and we talk about gold glovers all over the diamond and three center fielders with Brady, Anderson and Devereaux. But those three only played together a handful of times, and they finished 3rd in defensive efficiency in the AL, and 8th of 26 in Total Zone. And then look at the '88 team and they were 18th in TZ. I remember them being mostly 35-year-old DHs, but there were 8 worse MLB teams.

I remember Worthington being touted as a plus glove at third. But the retroactively figured metrics says he was pretty bad. Somebody thought he was a great fielder, since he won the IL MVP in '88 with a .722 OPS, and was 4th in the '89 ROY with a .718.

From 2011-2018 the Orioles allowed 74 steals per season, and 36 caught, for a 68% SB percentage. Over that same time the average MLB team allowed 95 steals and 37 caught, for a 72% rate. So a laser-focus on TTP meant the O's slashed 21 steals a year from the opposition, while catching them just as often as average. That's roughly four runs a year. That's something. That's the number of runs Brian Matusz allowed in 1.1 innings on June 12, 2011.

I have both a circle change and a palmball that play really well off my 63 mph* heater. * that's with the reliever velocity bump. If I'm starting I sit in the low-to-mid 50s.

But what do they watch? My kids have played Rec and RecPlus soccer for many years, along with a bit of baseball. They primarily watch the Xbox. FIFA, Madden, Fortnight. When they watch TV it's usually not sports. They watch way more YouTube than sports. When they watch sports it's soccer first, then occasionally the O's, sometimes some football.

It's an issue, not a risk. And there's a sure way to bring down salaries: do nothing, let baseball's popularity further wane, and the revenues won't support the salaries. Salaries don't drive costs - revenues drive salaries. Management sets prices, more-or-less, to maximize revenues. As they always have. In 1925 management tried to maximize revenues and profits. In 1875 management tried to maximize revenues and profits.

What would you expect back in trade for Means? I'd expect someone a lot like John Means - someone better than an org guy, but not a top 100 prospect but maybe some reasons to like him. It would be dumb luck if they came out ahead. Of course there's risk this is a temporary blip. But you're not trading him for a sure thing, you'd be trading him for someone else with a decent risk profile.

In his first 11 MLB games Towers had a 2.17 ERA, but 3.3 K/9. Means is striking out eight per nine. See my post directly above: pitcher's K rate stabilizes after 70 batters faced. Means has faced 134. I remember watching Towers pitch for the Baysox the year he had 26 walks and 26 homers allowed in 183 innings. 1.2 BB/9 is cool and all, but he often was hit hard.

So... attendance will stabilize or go up when MLB comes to terms with not being the most popular sport?

This is a simplification, but more-or-less: “Stabilization” Points for Offense Statistics: 60 PA: Strikeout rate 120 PA: Walk rate 240 PA: HBP rate 290 PA: Single rate 1610 PA: XBH rate 170 PA: HR rate 910 AB: AVG 460 PA: OBP 320 AB: SLG 160 AB: ISO 80 BIP: GB rate 80 BIP: FB rate 600 BIP: LD rate 50 FBs: HR per FB 820 BIP: BABIP “Stabilization” Points for Pitching Statistics: 70 BF: Strikeout rate 170 BF: Walk rate 640 BF: HBP rate 670 BF: Single rate 1450 BF: XBH rate 1320 BF: HR rate 630 BF: AVG 540 BF: OBP 550 AB: SLG 630 AB: ISO 70 BIP: GB rate 70 BIP: FB rate 650 BIP: LD rate 400 FB: HR per FB 2000 BIP: BABIP Source: Fangraphs.

It's like 1% better. People in modern western society aren't generally keeling over because of lack of trace minerals they need to get from Evian. I'm probably a bad person to talk about this, but I generally think that normal relatively healthy people don't need supplements and diets and vitamins and cleanses and three gallons of water a day and all this fad stuff. Eat a reasonable diet (and reasonable is a pretty wide set of goal posts) and you're way, way ahead of most of the history of humanity. You'll be fine, just don't always eat Twinkies and Dr. Pepper as your main meals.

In the year 2100 people will look back at us and get this funny look and shake their heads and wonder what the heck we were thinking. About a lot of stuff, but surely about bottled water. "Would you like free water that's nearly 100% safe out of the tap, or essentially an identical product that you can pay 2.50 for? Oh, I'll take the expensive one!" This is a bubble that has to burst, right? This isn't 1780s London, where the tap water was full of human waste and cholera. If you're not in Flint or maybe South Sudan you're fine.

I think the odds are pretty low of the O's moving. But they're not that low!

Not in MLB, not any more. In the 50s through early 70s a lot of teams moved and it was chaotic. In the past 45 years the Expos/Nats are the only team that has moved.

Expansion teams in Montreal, Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Halifax.

I don't think so. Not unless it has pretty radically changed in the past four years.

What is that map? It's not the official MLB media territory/blackout map, because that one has all kinds of overlap.

If there's more demand for certain games, and less demand for others, why would any team charge the same for both?