bluedog

Hall's control stats were so suspect that I just knew he was going to struggle to stay in the rotation. I looked for the best high upside left handed prospect I could find and Kelenic was the guy. I probably wouldn't do that IRL, but in Ootp I took a shot.

I'll be buying 24 the moment it comes out. We should form a chat group on OH for Ootpb players and compare notes.

Nope. Highest difficulty AI and Trade settings.

Ootpb has a model for player development as they age and GRod evolved elite stamina during the season which is why he was able to work 115 pitches. A man can dream right?

My favorite thing in the minors though was Heston Kjerstad putting up 46 HRs and 125 RBIs in Bowie to take home Eastern League POY honors.

Stallings was IL Pitcher of the Year with an 18 - 4 record. Extreme ground ball pitcher with elite defense behind him played well in Baltimore once Dean Keller went down with an injury requiring TJ surgery.

Game 3 - Aint the Beer Cold! Cedric Mullins and Gunnar Henderson each greeted McCullers with 1st inning blasts to right field as the O's built a 3 - 0 lead. Stalling's gave the O's just enough to get the game to the back of the O's bullpen where Cionel Perez, Ryne Stanek, Tom Cosgrove and Ron Marinaccio blanked the Astros with 3 innings of solid relief. Marinaccio needed only 10 pitches to grab his 45th save of the season as he sealed the O's first playoff series win of the Elias era. Gunnar Henderson's second two run homer run of the night gave the O's the lead for good in the 8th and helped the rookie of the year candidate to bring home series MVP. Next up the O's take on the Cleveland Guardians.

Game 2 - John Means pitched 7 innings of 2 ER ball with 10 Ks, but was outdueled by Christian Javier and took the loss. With nobody out and down by 2 runs, Cedric Mullins singled in Terrin Vavra in the 8th inning, stole 2nd base and went to 3rd on an errant throw from the catcher. Then Rutschman, Henderson and Stowers each struck out swinging to strand the tying run at 3rd. Next up Garrett Stallings versus Lance McCullers Jr for the decisive Game 3.

Not sure if anyone will find this fun or not, but here goes. I picked up Out of the Park Baseball 2023 a few weeks back and started a league as the O's. I made a number of impact trades including DL Hall for Jarred Kellenic who slotted into Left Field for the team from day one and delivered 34 HRs / 3.3 WAR while playing elite defense. Hall ended up leading the league in Walks for the M's, so I felt pretty good about this trade. Traded away Hays, Mountcastle, Urias and Mateo and picked up Gavin Sheets while turning over everyday 2B duties to Vavra and RF to Stowers allowing the team to run out 8 lefty / switch hitters each day against RHPs. Along the way, upgraded the bullpen with Brian Cosgrove and 3 former Yankees relievers who all fell into a roster crunch when NY signed too many high profile free agents. Rutchsman ended up the top C in the majors (6.3 WAR, .398 OPB), Kelenic was the 2nd ranked LFer and Gunnar was #6 at the hot corner in the bigs (33 HRs / 102 RBIs and 4.8 WAR) Grayson Rodriguez ended up 18 - 9 with a 2.77 ERA and a league leading 236 Ks for 6.0 WAR. GRod is likely the Cy Young and ROY winner in the AL. Net result - the O's grabbed the last wildcard with an 87 - 75 record and took on the Houston Astros in round one. The one O's youngster who had a terrible year was Vavra, who hit .154 for the season and couldn't hold down the starting 2b job. But he stuck as a super utility guy and a clubhouse leader (Ootp Baseball tracks personality types and contributions to team chemistry...). But - in the first playoff game against the Astros, Vavra was called to pinch hit in the 10th inning tied 6 - 6 with the bases loaded and delivered a bases clearing triple against Abreu to give the O's the win. After a walk, Stowers crushed his 2nd jack of the night to give the O's a 6 run lead, capping off a 4 hit, 8 RBI game and grab Game 1 MVP honors. Game box score attached. It's not real, but it still made me happy to see the O's win a playoff game... Have had a blast managing the O's elite farm system in the game. Let me know if anyone cares how the rest of the playoffs turn out.

I guess I wonder why Ortiz would have more trade value than Mateo. Ortiz has what, 3 months of playing at a high level? He's not a top 100 prospect yet. Mateo is a more well known quantity who is playing at a high level at the major league level.

Yes. Is he a cornerstone or a sell high candidate? For me, this all comes down to how you feel about Ortiz. If Ortiz is as good a defensive player as Mateo and has bigger offensive upside, I am all for trading Mateo, assuming he is valued by other teams well enough that he'd bring back quality assets in return. I haven't watched Ortiz enough to know if he is *the* guy. Thoughts?

Interesting. Knowing he's going to probably not come to Camden no matter what we offer him because of his hate of the wall, maybe Elias gives him a huge offer just to provide his agent maximum leverage in other negotiations. Also does double duty of showing Elias is serious about spending money on high profile FAs without actually risking getting another Chris Davis contract. I'm not sure Elias has the balls to play that kind of game of chicken.

Well we are now in the territory where you can't honestly express an opinion about Odor because of how negatively OH will react to saying anything about Odor. Unless I'm mistaken that was my first criticism of Odor. It was honest - my heart literally sinks every time he comes to bat in a meaningful situation. Watching the O's right now is like getting a Porterhouse at a AAA steakhouse. Odor is like biting into a piece of bone and chipping your tooth. That's no over the top hate against the guy. When he gets a hit I cheer. When he turns a tough DP I cheer. But honestly, given his late inning / clutch situation heroics from earlier this season, I feel like he'd be more valuable as a late inning PH and defensive replacement. Is that so crazy?

This is legit hilarious.

I remember the O's nearly winning the division one year against the Brewers when they were 3 games back with 4 games against Milwaukee to end the season. The O's won the first three games to tie everything up going into the final day. Palmer was on the mound for the final game and unfortunately we lost, but it is a great reminder of how big late season head to head series can be for teams trying to close a largish gap in the standings. The O's are 7 back today in the loss column. I can easily see us picking up 4 more games before we play the Yankees the final week of the season. How exciting would it be if we entered that 3 game series just 3 games back of them? REALLY long odds to sweep them, but the excitement would be HUGE.

What is the lineup today? I haven't seen it yet. I have only one issue with Hyde's lineups. Just one. Otherwise I love how he's handled lineups, the bench and particularly the rotation.

I hated seeing Hyde pinch hit for Stowers last night instead of for Odor who was next up. With a big lead, I'd rather give Odor some rest and see what Stowers can do against a left handed pitcher.

Do you offer Judge 5 / $250M just to screw with all the other front offices? The O's are one of the only teams that could afford that contract given our low payroll for the near future. If another team beats that then it benefits the O's by making someone else overpay.

Agreed.

Thanks. We all have to deal with tragedy. What helps is having others with empathy to help us through it. My dad was a huge Cleveland fan. He and I went to an O's / Indians game every chance we got. Last few weeks before he died he was in a medical coma. I sat by his bed and read him Cleveland box scores every morning. I like to think it helped. Sports can divide us or connect us. I may be a softy, but I prefer the latter. I wish OH was a little more forgiving. We're all connected by our love of the O's. I don't know about why the O's would lose faith in Lopez. That's why I was asking about whether there was a makeup concern.

You mean getting them *and beating them* in the first round?

It's crazy to attack someone for being off topic by starting an entire thread of off-topic posts about being off-topic. If avoiding off-topic posts is so important to you, you should have sent me a Private Message instead with a suggestion about staying on topic. and back on topic - I've followed the O's since 79 - over 40 years. I have enjoyed this team more than any other team in my lifetime because of how they win. Every single time that Odor comes to bat, I feel irritated. My enthusiasm for the team gets over written with "WTF is this guy doing getting constant playing time when there are obvious better options on the bench and in the minors". So yes, Odor is absolutely reducing my enjoyment of this team. Not sure why I would make that up as a pretext to go off-topic about Odor since this is the 1st time I've mentioned on OH how much Odor bothers me.

I'm not sure what this has to do with Baseball, but I lost my dad last year after a 3 year bout with Cancer. I am CEO of a tech startup and I have 200+ investors in my company. All of them were supportive of me while my Dad was in the hospital, but they also held me accountable for running my company and doing my job. Not because they were heartless people but because that's real life. If I needed to take time off to be with my father because I couldn't concentrate on work, that would have been acceptable and we would have appointed someone else to run the company in my absence. Trading Lopez is a head scratcher. I don't think Elias has shown a pattern of acting irrationally, so I was simply asking might there be another reason he made that trade. Lopez just blew a save where he hit two players in an inning and yelled at one of the guys after he hit him. He blew consecutive saves against the Twins where he seemed to get rattled just before he was traded away. I don't think its crazy to ask the question whether or not Elias lost faith in his ability to handle the pressure of the game in high leverage situations. As for knowing that Lopez had family problems, I don't follow the O's closely enough that I know their personal stories. I watch their games on MLB.tv when they are competitive. I come here when they are winning to share the excitement with other O's fans with the hope that its a safe and low stress place to hangout and rap about baseball.

I didn't question his makeup. I have no idea about his makeup. I asked whether or not the team questioned his makeup which *might* explain the strange move of trading away an all-star closer, whose under team control for years during a pennant race. If you and I were friends sitting in a bar, over a beer, you probably would have responded constructively by sharing your insights about his background. I didn't know about his kid. I certainly would never want to suggest that someone who's dealing with personal family issues has makeup issues. But instead you attack me and suggest I'm some kind of heartless person for saying something you frame as negative. You never seem to pass up the opportunity to go negative on people. OH should be a place where people can talk about the O's safe from constant criticism and negging. Guess its not.

We are having a discussion about favorite Oriole teams ever and I post the one reason I'm not sold on this being my favorite team ever and you think that's off topic?