DrungoHazewood

How does this work? This is what I found, but what about free agency dates? This just talks about bonus pools.

If the Orioles call up Henderson, Stowers, and/or Hall today that means they're probably free agents, when... after 2028? But if they wait until late April of next year they're not free agents until after 2029, correct? At least if nothing changes in the CBA between now and then. Of course they could sign any of them to a contract buying out arb years and even some potential free agent years, exchanging potential total dollars for security and locking them up beyond 2029. Would any of them bite on, say, an 8/60 contract on the condition they'd get called up tomorrow?

Mancini had a 114 OPS+ with the Orioles. Even if his replacements have a 90 that probably won't cost the team 5 runs between now and the end of the season.

Runs per game through July 31st, Mancini's last game: 4.17 Runs per game since then: 5.8 Obviously too few games to draw even preliminary conclusions, but they're scoring more runs since the trade than prior.

Making massive long-term decisions on the career of a rookie star based on 70 PA splits is, well, something no one with any sense would do.

Every GM and analytics department and fan can look up Mancini's expected home run totals in any MLB park in 30 seconds. Nobody in 2022 is giving him an extra $100 for unadjusted numbers.

I've read that long ago it was considered uncouth to talk about park effects. Of course nobody called them park effects and there weren't any metrics to quantify them, but everyone understood that it was deeper in RF in Fenway and that didn't help Ted Williams, and it was a canyon in LF* in Yankee and DiMaggio would have had a lot more homers in a lot of other parks. But neither one ever complained about it, as far as I know, because you just played baseball in the park you're dealt. The other team has to play in the same place, so win the game. * I'll mention this again: people complain that deepest LC at OPACY is now 392. For all of Joe DiMaggio's career it was about 460 to that same spot in Yankee Stadium. There probably weren't two-three homers hit to LC in Yankee in an average year. The monuments out there were in play. After the mid-70s renovation it was still pretty deep, but the monuments were 40 or 50' beyond the new fence.

Milligan wasn't washed up so much as completely unappreciated in the Jurassic period of analytics. He had a 1.033 OPS for the Tidewater Tides in 1987, including 91 walks and 29 homers in 136 games. But the Mets rewarded that with two September PAs, and traded him to the Pirates for Tim Drummond and Mackey Sasser. His power disappeared in '88, but still had a .379 OBP for the Pirates in 40 games. Back then nobody wanted a 27-year-old rookie 1B with moderate power, so they let him go, too. Traded to the O's for Pete Blohm, who'd just gone 4-5 in the NY-Penn League and would never play in the majors. The '89 Orioles didn't have a wildcard to shoot for, but they got very lucky with the playoff situation. The AL East was weak that year. The O's finished just 2.0 games out of the playoffs despite having the 5th-best record in the league. It was rare for 89 wins to take the AL East. It did happen in '88, too, but that year five teams were between 85-89 wins. Before '88 the only times no AL East team won 90+ games were strike years ('72 and '81).

Hey, I subscribed to The Sporting News, and they published some minor league stats. I forget if that was weekly? I think weekly. So I at least had some inkling that Finley won the IL batting title in '88, and Worthington was the IL MVP (despite hitting .244-16-73). And I'm quite sure I took Milacki's 1988 debut (three starts, 25 innings, two earned runs, and a 10 strikeout shutout of the Yanks) as indisputable evidence that he was the next Jim Palmer. But, no, no one expected anything. When they beat Clemens on opening day the Sun put something like "First Place Orioles" in big type on the front page (I don't recall if it was the sports section or the whole paper) and everyone knew it was 100% tongue-in-cheek.

Milacki averaged 4.2 K/9 in a league that was at 5.5. Ballard was at 2.6, Dave Schmidt 2.6, Dave Johnson 2.6, Holton and Thurmond under 4.0 out of the pen. Today we'd see that as a giant red flag that none of them would be long for the majors, which turned out to be 100% true. Also shows you how much baseball has changed. While Ballard struck out 2.6 per nine, in Norfolk this year DL Hall has averaged 1.6 K/inning. In 1988-89 Ballard struck out 103 batters in 368.2 innings. Hall has 118 strikeouts in 72.1 innings this year.

I was a freshman in college at Virginia Tech, and I had to "watch" the Olson curveball game on Headline News because it wasn't on Blacksburg cable and I couldn't pick up an Orioles radio station there.

Completely different because the Orioles were in first place much of the year (May 26-August 30, plus a few days in April), while the '22 Orioles haven't been within 10 games of first since early May. Also, if I'd known then what I know now I would have predicted the 1990-91 Orioles regression, as outside of Olson and Harnisch the pitching staff was a bunch of junkballers with by far the lowest K/9 in the league. The '22 Orioles don't have Cal, but they have a much better foundation and deeper base of young talent to build on.

Some of my favorite Orioles are Pete Stanicek, Nate McLouth, Jack Cust, RC Gonzalez (but not Rene), Jim Dwyer, Jack Voigt, Luis Mercedes, Dave Dellucci, Harry Berrios, Cal Pickering, Jon Knott, JR House, and Willis Otanez.

Funny how we can both be Orioles fans, but you root for Roman Abramowitz' boys. I have no love lost for anyone who leaves White Hart Lane for Chelsea. #COYS

From 2018-2021 the Orioles had just two streaks (and they were overlapping) of 7-2 or better in nine games. And now if they don't go 7-2 in their next nine, including six on the road, it's extremely disappointing? I'd be pretty okay with five or six. If you use the log5 method and assume the Orioles are a .505 team, the others combine to be a .425 team then the most likely outcome is they go 5-4.

No, the money isn't the concern. It's the value that could potentially be coming back for a player who will not be resigned when he becomes a free agent. And the compensation is only if the Orioles give him a QO and he declines.

Yea, that guy was a real doofus, didn't need that clownshow stuff on a contender like the 2007 Orioles. Good thing the O's let him go (after 85 PAs of an .870 OPS) before he could put up those three straight years of 25+ homers and 90+ walks.

How much flexibility do they need? They currently sit at about $12M over just paying everyone the MLB minimum*, while they're bringing in over $100M in shared money and 10s of $millions in MASN money. They could add a $35M pitcher and have a lower payroll than the Rays, whose paid attendance so far this year is measured in the dozens. * from now to the end of time I'm going to ignore the Chris Davis payments in all discussions of payroll

Every one of the 30 teams have an analytics department that have this page bookmarked, and knows that with some better luck and a different park he'd have 15-20 homers. If he'd been a Red all year his expected HR total would be 25.

My preference is definitely to go buy one, since there's about a $140M delta between the 2017 payroll and today's. The Orioles could pay full price for Max Scherzer and still have one of the lower payrolls in the league. With a young, exciting team and a 392 sign in LC I think they could attract a pitcher or two.

I don't think we'd miss Santander that much, Stowers would likely be just as good. But I don't like giving up trade chips for a guy with a FIP in the mid-4.00s. He's out of the Bud Norris, Tommy Hunter mold.

More importantly, what kind of name is Jackson Holliday? Sounds like an extra on Gunsmoke, not a ballplayer like Hayden Penn.

Let's look at the list of most productive non-pitchers since 2000: Albert Pujols - Went to community college Alex Rodriguez - High school Adrian Beltre - Signed out of high school in the Dominican Mike Trout - High school Miguel Cabrera - Signed out of high school in Venezuela Robinson Cano - Signed out of high school in the Dominican Carlos Beltran - high school Joey Votto - high school Chase Utley - college Ichiro - went from high school to the NPB in Japan Bonds - two years at Arizona State Chipper - high school Longoria - college Goldschmidt - college Helton - college Mauer - high school Ortiz - Dominican Rolen - high school Kinsler - college Betts - high school So six of the top 20 non-pitchers this century attended a four-year college. I think you might be able to find some value in high school players.

At 6.9 K/9 and 1.5 HR/9 I wouldn't give up more than a single 11-20 prospect, and I'd have to think about that.

What's the Orioles' current payroll? Like $25M? About 0.6 Scherzers. If anyone can afford a free agent pitcher or three it's the Orioles.