DrungoHazewood

He was an unusual case. Most catchers stop being productive in their early-to-mid 30s, and that includes the best ones who ever lived. Bench tried to move to third at 34 and was done at 35 after two mediocre seasons. Simmons below replacement from 34-on. Piazza was replacement level three of his last four seasons. Mauer stopped catching at 30. Dickey's last 110-game season was at 32. Carter's last good year at 32. There are few counter-examples like Fisk, who magically had one of his best three-year runs starting at 40 just when magical performances became suspiciously common,, but not all that many like that.

I like the idea that he catches 40-50 games a year, DHs/1B the rest, and OPSes .950. But that's a weird profile. I'm struggling to think of anyone who ever did that. Mostly (i.e. 99% of the time) if you have a bat like that they just move you to 1B/DH/OF and be done with it. Okay, King Kelly. In his prime he'd catch some, but play more at other positions. Of course this was 140 years ago. Gene Tenace. Kind of. A little over half his games behind the plate.

Maybe? His thought process would probably be that's through age 33. Which means his next contract isn't going to be anything like that big. Most catchers are in steep decline by then, or shortly thereafter. And the idea you could move him to another position is silly. So he might hold out for more, knowing this is his only big contract.

Is Basallo really going to be a catcher, and keep hitting? He has several ways he can go. And it's a little complicated because I have my doubts he's in the same league with the glove as Rutschman. Just kind of guessing here, but my gut feel is that Basallo is more Carlos Delgado than Rutschman or Lance Parrish or Ted Simmons or whatever comp you want to use for a big-hitting catcher. And Delgado is more of a ceiling than a destiny... But you have to love a kid who can handle AA pitching at 19.

I don't know, I didn't put a whole lot of thought into it. He is basically a 5-6 win catcher, pretty clearly the best catcher in baseball. But you're probably right, 3/100 on top of 3/45 may be more reasonable. 6/150? 8/200? Somewhere in there.

That's why you try really hard to extend Gunnar, Adley and probably Holliday, and the rest you probably don't.

If I were the O's I'd offer Gunnar 15/500 this offseason and see if he'll bite. With an opt-out around year eight. I don't know how you'd do Adley's extension. I don't want to insult him, but as a catcher who's already 26 you just can't give him anything like that. It would have to be 6/180 or something.

Perhaps he thinks that the O's can straighten him out a bit, and that's the best shot he has at getting back the Majors. So far in 2024, between (mostly) AAA and the Majors he's pitched 35 innings and allowed 38 runs. He'd have to be wildly delusional to think he has any leverage at all, like threatening to leave the org if they don't call him up.

Absolutely it's groundless. Giving Vieira five batters of exposure in a 0.0 leverage index relief appearance, then releasing him, is very, very different than "plopping him into the starting rotation and expecting him to be a solution." I can't believe we're actually discussing this. There's zero indication that Elias wanted Vieria to be anything but a short-term mopup arm, but people were actually suggesting this means that Teheran was signed to go straight into the O's regular rotation? C'mon.

Yes, it's disturbingly common for random people online to assume that Major League GMs make transaction decisions based on six-year-old rumors. And then actually post those thoughts without taking five seconds to think through whether that makes any sense whatsoever. Clancy the Beer Man knows Julio Teheran hasn't been an effective pitcher in five years, but somehow Mike Elias is blissfully unaware of this and just signed him to take us to October glory? The most likely explanation here is that Norfolk needs a pitcher, and the O's scouts and analysts think that just maybe they can tweak enough to get him back to semi-serviceable MLB pitcher for deep depth.

Is there anything in the recent history of the Orioles' front office that would make you think anything remotely like this is what's happening? "We just built one of the great farm systems in baseball history and turned a 52-win team in arguably the best team in the league, but we really can't tell a starting pitcher from a dead armadillo."

You are the man, Bob! But I really hope I'm not playing pickleball at your age. I'd rather play over-70 soccer or softball or something. I'll consider it a life well lived if I get red-carded for a two-footed, studs-up tackle in my 70s. Pickleball is the new shuffleboard, for the folks who moved to Del Boca Vista, set the thermostat at 82, and drive their golf carts 50' to the mailbox every day!

I'm assuming you were just this close to turning in your fan card after the Andino game in '11. Since, you know, people were happy in a non-sanctioned way.

The trophies the O's got for signing Kevin Millar will live forever.

I don't know... 50%? 75% No matter the outcome tonight's game will move the O's championship probability a small fraction of 1%.

Says the fan of a team that just three years ago finished roughly 122 games out of the 2nd wildcard, and has less than 10 playoff wins in the last 40 years. You're saying that if the 2022 Orioles had won an extra three games and made the playoffs, only to get bounced, after a 52-win 2021 season, you'd have been embarrassed?

Most supposedly obvious mistakes are not really. They're choices based on a bunch of different information, including things fans don't generally know like who's available today, who's nursing a whatever that makes him semi-unavailable, who spent the night on the can after bad crab cake... Hyde has to manage the clubhouse and personalities, and getting the bench guys some kind of playing time, and getting through 162 games, and on and on. 95% of "obvious mistakes" are going to have a plausible reason why they were made that doesn't involve the manager being stupid or spacing out. And every manager has any number of decisions that some subset of fans will decry as an obvious mistake, so the baseline for whatever manager we're talking about isn't zero mistakes, it's the number that a typical MLB manager supposedly makes. I'll give you a big wad of cash if you can find me a fanbase in any sport that thinks their manager is brilliant all the time. The best you're going to get is "eh, at least he hasn't screwed anything up in a week or two."

I think that over the long term there is absolutely a better chance of winning if you get to skip the first round of playoffs. It's simple probability. If you have a 60% chance at winning any given post-season series, you have a .6^3 = 22% chance of winning three straight series, and a 13% chance of winning four straight series. Of course in any single post-season or series there's a reasonable chance that the wildcard wins and the division winner loses. But over 10, 20, 30 years you will almost certainly see an advantage from skipping the wildcard series. It's like asking if you'd rather be a .320 hitter or a .270 hitter? Obviously .320, even though next week the .270 hitter might get more hits.

The Orioles lost 196 times in games that Jim Palmer started.

I look at phrases like "found their swagger" as narratives that ESPN makes up to describe teams who are playing well, similar to how a good team loses four of seven and there's the inevitable story about how their unaddressed weaknesses are coming back to bite them, or wondering aloud if they have leadership issues. When someone's full time job is to write or talk about sports they need so say something, and people generally don't like endless stories of the form ".575 team sees short-term fluctuations due to random variation".

You're probably right, using the least-logical lineup possible in each and every game would cost you more like 2-3 wins.Especially if it's a non-DH league and you're constantly giving the pitchers the most PAs.

Since 1901 16 teams have played at least .688 ball for a full season (non-COVID edition), and just 14 over a full season of at least 150 games. Over that same span 38 teams have played at least .688 ball over their first 60 games. 11 of those teams (including the 2020 Dodgers) didn't reach 100 wins on the season. Also, remember, there are some teams that won 111+ games and started worse than 42-18, so these aren't full subsets of the first group. For example, the 1906 Cubs, owner of the best record since 1900, started 41-19 and then got hot. The '22 Dodgers were 37-23 on their way to 111-51. The '26 Yanks started the year 43-17 and ended up 91-63 with Ruth and Gehrig in the lineup. As mentioned the 2022 Yanks were similar. The 1928 Yanks started 45-15 and went 56-38 the rest of the way. The '53 Yanks went 46-14 to start, and 53-38 the rest of the way. The best 60-game start ever was the 1912 Giants, who went 48-11-1, and 55-37 (.597) from then on out. I'd guess there's about an 80-90% chance the Yanks win less than 111 games this year.

The 1921 IL Orioles had a 27-game winning streak, which was the professional record* until broken by the 1987 Salt Lake Trappers. That would be nice to beat. * The 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings won something like 81 consecutive games, but that was before leagues were established and many of the wins were against local amateur nines of questionable quality.

No, it's not better to be a wild card team, it's better to win the division. But all you can do is play your best and hope the Yanks come back to the pack. You don't make short-term transactions and punt future wins to try to pass a 107-win Yankee team for the division title.

The MLB OPS so far this year is .698, and OPACY is a pitcher's park.