deward
-
Posts
1423 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by deward
-
-
41 minutes ago, emmett16 said:
Remind me what they won?
Division titles, playoff series, tons of games.
-
1 hour ago, emmett16 said:
The point is winning, not the players, builds the brand. If the team wins the brand will grow. Plain and simple.
That worked really well for Oakland and Tampa.
-
1
-
-
9 minutes ago, emmett16 said:
First thing that comes to mind is Just about everybody successful college basketball team. Duke, Kentucky, UConn, etc. turnover every year, win every year, massive attendance and merch sales.
Not apples to apples. College sports fans know going in that every player is only there for a limited time. You still knew you were getting the entire collegiate career of those players (before the recent changes in transfer rules, anyway). Your favorite star wasn't getting poached by Duke mid-career (again, before the transfer portal). There's a big difference between that fan experience and knowing that all your best players will be lured away by teams with deeper pockets after a few years.
-
12 minutes ago, Roy Firestone said:
When so many starters are struggling offensively ,the Orioles may not have the luxury of letting him work his way out of a slump for " a considerable ;length of time"..the bottom of the order, especially Mullins...is killing us.
The O's are 7-3 over their last 10 games. I'm not sure anything is killing them.
-
12 hours ago, Frobby said:
Bradfield has shown some signs of heating up since returning from the IL. Tonight, he singled and tripled in 5 PA to raise his BA to .247 and his OPS to .715. Not where you’d want them but moving north a bit in May. He also stole a base, but then got picked off 2B.
I was just noticing that he's put up an .810 OPS since his return (over 7 games). Baby steps, but nice to see.
-
1 minute ago, LGOrioles said:
His swing is also very short. IIRC it’s under 7 feet, shortest I could see on the O’s.
Good call, I should have brought that up as well. He's evidently very direct to the ball. 15th shortest swing on the leaderboard.
-
6 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:
I think what @Just Regularsaid in the other thread, there's more Cobb than Ruth to his game is accurate. Kind of ignores that Cobb slugged at a .512 clip for his career which is always a surprising number to me, but the point stands. I don't think Adley's going to become that big thumper we've been dreaming on. I think he'll max out at around 25 a year which is certainly good but he's also going to have 15-18 homer seasons, too.
He'll hit for a consistently good average though.
I can't help but wonder if Adley has deliberately slowed things down this year in search of more consistent hard contact. His exit velocities and hard hit rates are fine. I'd be curious what his max bat speed has been, but I don't see that tracked. I suspect he could hit a bunch of home runs if he really wanted to sell out for power, but doesn't want to make that trade off.
-
1
-
-
3 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:
I agree. It's interesting information but it's also one more thing to wring hands over when it comes to analyzing players, deciding on who to extend/trade for/get rid of, etc.
One of the interesting points from that article is that, similar to pitcher injuries in the chase for more velocity, they expect an uptick in batter injuries (obliques, ribs) as they throw caution to the wind to try and max out bat speed.
Meanwhile, two-time batting champ Luis Arraez is at the bottom of the bat speed leaderboard, at 62.4.
-
1
-
-
22 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:
Looking forward to the cries about Adley's below average bat speed and what that means for him moving forward.
This is good information, not surprised that Gunnar, Cowser and Mounty are ranking high. Would have expected Westy in there.
Westburg is at 70.8. Like Adley though, he squares up a ton of balls.
-
1
-
-
Lol, I see I was a little slow on the trigger here. Perhaps this can be merged with the other thread?
-
The Athletic has a piece out on the new Statcast bat tracking numbers. The gist is, while we're still in the early stages of figuring out what it means and how best to apply it, one of the early lessons is that short, fast swings tend to lead to good results (duh). To that end, they put together a chart of players generating better than average bat speed with shorter than average swings (they're defining those benchmarks as 74 mph or faster for bat speed and 7.5 ft of swing distance or less). Gunnar, Cowser, and Mounty all make that list.
https://theathletic.com/5477905/2024/05/13/mlb-new-bat-speed-numbers/
If you're curious, Adley has put an average bat speed of 69.3 mph (below average), but he does so with a very short swing (7 ft).
-
Kjerstad gets a crack at LF
-
53 minutes ago, LookinUp said:
I don't doubt Tony's assessment of tools, but I'm not as down on Beavers' as this thread seems to be. Remember, he was always the guy who had the physical stature but hadn't gotten to his power yet. It was always supposed to be the last tool to come.
I also don't want to over react to small sample sizes here. Beavers is in AA for the first time this year. Yes, numbers tend to go up there, but it's also been April/May weather, first time in the league, etc etc.
With all of that said, he has 3 HR and 5 2B in 25 games. Over 150 game season, that's 18 HR and 30 2B. That's his pace while playing his first games in AA in relatively cold weather.
If he can turn into that type of hitter at the ML level and play plus defense at the corners, he'll be a very valuable player. That's not easy to do, and the profile is different from the power potential that all of Cowser, Kjerstad and Stowers have, but it's still useful, and there's still time for more power to come through.
Beavers had 156 PA in AA last year. He's up to 266 career PA in AA with a .874 OPS, which isn't shabby, but is definitely a step behind the kind of numbers Mayo, Kjerstad, and Cowser put up there. That said, I generally agree with the premise that plenty of guys have made successful careers as corner outfielders by hitting doubles, putting 15 or so over the fence every year, generally being a tough out at the plate, and playing defense. I do think his best value to the O's may come as a trade piece to a team that wants to see if there's more power in there.
-
1 hour ago, Greg Pappas said:
I'm not sure if it's just a short-term slump, related to the injury, or just a natural age-related regression. But I've not been comfortable with this pen since Bautista went down, during the entire off-season, nor thus far this season. If we get Prime Kimbrel, then yes, it makes a big difference. Yet, even with that (not likely) the other bullpen options, outside of Cano, Coulombe, and maybe Perez, are not good enough to make for a quality pen. Reinforcements could arrive soon from the starter pool, but regardless, that's for another discussion.
Prime Kimbrel is gone to baseball Vahalla, never to return.
-
1
-
-
8 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:
You'd target Stowers and Norby over someone like Cowser or Mayo?
Oakland wouldn't getting those guys as part of a package (doubtful they'd even be on the table); I think the argument was that Oakland should try to use Miller to patch multiple holes.
-
1 minute ago, Moose Milligan said:
I didn't say they were great. But I also think people here have different expectations from local broadcasters and what you get on a national broadcast.
I don't know if I've seen anyone on here be complimentary of a national broadcast crew no matter the situation (playoffs, in-season broadcast, etc). Like, a national broadcast team is supposed to talk about things at a general level. They're not supposed to be super in depth about the Orioles, they'll know a few things that they'll have found on some simple research, but overall they're really not here for us...and when I say us, I mean the die hard Orioles fans who are aware of what side Connor Norby leans when he farts in the Tides dugout.
So, I don't expect great things from the Apple TV broadcast crew tomorrow night because they're not here to cater to people like me.
And I'll enjoy not listening to Kevin Brown.
I don't expect that from national broadcasts either, but I do expect that the delivery at least be enjoyable, and I don't find them to be. All a matter of taste, of course.
-
1
-
-
9 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:
Just put two and two together and realized tomorrow night is an Apple TV broadcast.
So, two straight games free of Kevin Brown.
I think the crew in the booth is by far the weakest part of the Apple broadcasts, from what I've seen so far. Not a fan at all.
-
I was watching with my wife last night (who likes baseball, but doesn't usually spend much time worrying about the broadcasters) and her reaction to Newman was "ugh, she's so annoying, where's the other guy?"
-
6 minutes ago, RZNJ said:
Is that bad?
I'm a little confused by that one too. Doesn't seem like a problem.
-
9 minutes ago, spleen1015 said:
That is what I said. But what I said is not what you said I said. It's pretty easy. #12.
I'm assuming you're saying that you want the talking about the streak to end, not the streak itself. Your actual wording was ambiguous enough to be taken either way, hence my teasing. However, have it your way. Please add to whatever it is you're counting.
-
6 minutes ago, Frobby said:
He was dominant for his first 10-11 appearances, so I don’t buy “he just doesn’t have it anymore.” He doesn’t have it right now, that’s for sure. The O’s will try to nurse him back to it. They invested too much not to try.
Fangraphs did a piece on his early success and concluded that, while his stuff has clearly declined, he was getting a ton of called strikes on what seemed to be hittable pitches, and expressed concern that it wouldn't be sustainable. We all have to hope that he's not as bad as he's looked lately, but there may have been a smoke and mirrors aspect to the first three weeks.
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/call-him-butter-because-craig-kimbrel-is-on-a-roll/
-
47 minutes ago, spleen1015 said:
Like a lot of folks on here, you put words in my mouth. Good job.
I wish it would end because I'm tired of hearing about it. This team is good enough for it to go on a lot longer, too, so that makes it even worse.
Those are your words. Apologies for ribbing you a bit over the thing that you actually said.
-
1 hour ago, spleen1015 said:
No idea why, but I'm so tired of hearing about this. It doesn't mean jack. Losing the game last night because Kimbrel blew it would have been a tougher pill for me to swallow than this streak ending.
I wish it would end because I'm tired of hearing about it. This team is good enough for it to go on a lot longer, too, so that makes it even worse.
"Man, I wish these guys would just get swept already. Their refusal to go on an extended losing streak is really ruining my fan experience."
-
59 minutes ago, emmett16 said:
Isn’t it technically a 4 game series 2 home 2 away
I dig the streak. To me it just stands for consistently playing baseball at a high level. I’m not gonna lose any sleep when it gets snapped but it’s pretty cool while it’s intact.
Fully agreed. Getting swept sucks, so I'll gladly take them not getting swept in the regular season for as long as they can manage. I've seen this team get swept enough over the years, they can put off the next one for as long as they want.
-
1
-
David Rubenstein 2024
in Orioles Talk
Posted
I'm looking at the Rays record over the past decade and I'm a bit confused over your definition of "have not won much". However, my argument is simple - teams that don't invest in payroll don't win championships in baseball. Over the past 21 years (I was going to do 20, but added the extra to include Florida's win in 2003), the average payroll position relative to the league of the eventual WS champ was 9th (see below)
9
Only three of these teams had payrolls in the bottom half of league:
Florida in 2003 had by far the lowest payroll, at 25th. Their payroll climbed to as high as 18th over the next couple of years, but they couldn't maintain their success and haven't made the playoffs since, outside of the COVID season.
KC in 2015 had the 16th lowest payroll, barely below the median payroll for the year. They haven't been back to the playoffs since.
Houston in 2017 had the 18th lowest payroll. This was their big breakthrough year after their tanking/rebuild, and they haven't been lower than 11th since, and as high as 4th.
The trend is obvious. After the Marlins' miracle run in 2003, no team has won the WS with a payroll lower than 18th, and that team (Houston) is an obvious outlier as they were in the basically the same spot as the O's now (on the upswing from a full tear-down). While KC and Florida both had years where everything came together perfectly, they were unable to sustain their momentum. The O's were 23rd in payroll on Opening Day, and the current roster is good enough to win a championship, but history suggests they'll go the way of Florida and Kansas City if Rubenstein isn't willing to invest in the payroll. Consistently letting the talent drain out of your organization because you aren't willing to pay them won't lead to multiple championships and it won't keep fans engaged.