Moose Milligan

I admire the guy for trying to hack it on his own and not having access to the Orioles anymore. If the Orioles were smart (they're not) they'd still give him access anyway since he appears to be a well-liked journalist. But I don't see how he's going to make it if the articles are like this. I agree, not much there.

I don't know if that player isn't in our organization yet. If Jean Pinto has a great season, he might sneak into the bottom half of the list. Agreed on the second point. Not sure if that player appears on the list next year but I will bet by 2023 that he does.

I don't know if Frobby has any skin in the game to guarantee anything. I'm assuming he doesn't. You're correct, if they're stupid enough to let this go on to affect opening day, they can let it go on for months. Have you seen the leaders of the two sides? I think you should start preparing for the worst.

Yep, it's hard to tell if it's swing mechanics or he just doesn't have the hand/eye coordination and bat speed to do it.

**** homie, I can't help it if my vocab skills are next level.

I've been on record as saying that I think both sides should recognize that there's so much to lose and that they can't afford to have another '94 situation. Or any work stoppage. After the '94 strike, they had the good fortune of Cal and The Streak in '95 that recaptured some interest. Then a few years later the powers that be looked the other way on PEDs while McGwire and Sosa chased the homer record. And they continued to look the other way on PEDs until reporters started snooping around. They can't do that again. There's nothing on tap like Ripken and they've played out the homer barrage. Fine, juice the ball, see what happens. They've been bashing homers at astronomical paces for 20+ years, there's nothing new there. What are they going to do, deaden the ball and have a bunch of low scoring, 2.5 hour games? No one cares. There's so much to lose but the lack of alacrity in order to hammer something out is alarming. I didn't think there'd be a stoppage but the fact that these two sides are hardly talking is ominous. Unlike '94, there are so many more options for sports fans to choose from. There are so many more THINGS to choose from to capture someone's attention in general. As we're getting closer to Spring Training, it's becoming more and more apparent that having pinecones like Manfred and Clark in charge of this is a sign of impending doom. Oh well.

Nice to see it. Curious to see what other times since 1990 we've had 5 in the top 100, but at the same time I don't want to trigger the PTSD.

I dunno, I think a lot of it depends on ST. If Stowers has a monster ST and makes the roster on opening day, where do you put Stewart? Is he a full time DH? If that time isn't here, you are correct, it is quickly approaching. I think they need to make it simple for Stewart...don't focus on defense, we'll make you a full time DH. Just focus on hitting. The OBP skills are there, if he could hit .250 he'd probably be around .350 OBP. That would be valuable. But his biggest problem outside of the defense thing is that he can't catch up to a fastball. He gets beat constantly. baseball reference says that for his career, he's hitting .147 against Power pitching (how they determine this, it neglects to say) with a .612 OPS. Now that's over 136 plate appearances so it's still a relatively small sample size, but still...he gets beat with a good heater. In a game where more and more guys are reaching high 90s and triple digits, that's problematic and doesn't bode well for him, IMO. I can see wanting to give him some at bats for the first couple months of the season, but I dunno. I wouldn't be upset if he was let go/traded before the season starts.

Ripken's signature has changed a bit over the years, but that one still looks off.

Just about anywhere, really.

I agree, there's wealthy places to live in any area. But if it's even money, where do you think a player would go? And no one said anything about taking less to go play in a nice place. If it's still even money, I don't see a player picking Baltimore...and the outfield fences have nothing to do with that.

Well, i disagree with you. 6 months isn't exactly a small stretch of time. Sure, you have to travel, but your city is your base. Endorsement money? It's not the 60s anymore. It doesn't matter where you play. Fernando Tatis was on the cover of MLB The Show last year. I'm just going to say it, Baltimore's not a great city. I know a lot of Baltimoreans have an inferiority complex about the city due to being wedged between DC and Philly and NYC. All of those cities have much more to offer than Baltimore. You can have your offseason home anywhere you want, but wouldn't you want to make it simpler, especially if you have kids? Why go through the stress and the inconvenience of playing in a city like Baltimore when your offseason home is in a better area? Makes no sense. Feel free to disagree all you want but if anyone wants to be objective about Baltimore being a great place to live compared to other cities, I think they'd admit that it ranks low compared to other cities. But Fells Point!!!!!111

Also, let's be honest here. The city matters. And I'm not saying that Baltimore is a terrible place because it's obviously attracted some high quality free agents over the years. But it can't hang with a place like San Diego. Does anyone think a free agent pitcher is going to worry about a wall configuration instead of the actual city?

If all things on contracts are similar, I'm assuming they'd go with who the better overall team is with the best chance of winning. While all the things about pitching in OPACY are true, I think the biggest factor, by far, is that this team has largely been ****ty for many years.

I agree, that's a great comp. I can't believe the White Sox traded him. The lack of power will be a turnoff for some people but I don't really care if he can get on base at a decent clip and play good defense.

Fair enough. I mean, I dunno what someones legs and ass have to do with whether or not they can catch up to a fastball or play decently in the field. I'm assuming people passed on Altuve for similar reasons. Certainly not every small player is as good as Altuve but if you can play, you can play.

I'd prefer to look at results.

I mean, little calves and meaty thighs and rear. If that's not enough to not draft a guy, I dunno what is.

Wonder if he can be a fast riser through the system. If what @DocJJsaid is true and the Cuban league is like High A, it seems reasonable that he could start in Aberdeen and if all goes well, Bowie by halfway. I'm assuming our SS situation won't be solved this season, so maybe there's a chance he could get called up to Baltimore if the position continues to be a weak spot. Probably being too optimistic but this is an exciting sign, IMO. Seems to have great patience at the plate, great bat to ball skills.

Testy, aren't we? Trolling, really? His comment did have zero to do with saying the team has done a good job with the changes, but let's not pretend that practically almost every thread on here is on a completely different topic by the 4th or 5th page. I did find his comment interesting seeing as how the state funded the changes over the years. IMO, I thought it was the Orioles doing it out of pocket, but silly me I should have known better. Not that it makes a difference but the next time you want to go on a rant about how cheap the team is, you can use that as ammo.

Well they can move to Harrisburg, PA.

I took a closer look at the artist renderings of the new LF area, I think it actually looks pretty cool.

This is some @DrungoHazewood type **** but IIRC, they really wanted it to be 66 feet and there was an error somewhere along the way. Someone, in a Spinal Tap moment, got the dimensions wrong. This article says that's not true, https://www.mlb.com/news/why-is-the-mound-60-ft-6-inches-away It's a really long read, though. Not gonna lie, I lost interest.

Pins in golf, when every hole is a different shape and length, is a bit of false equivalency. Every baseball field has different dimensions at the walls but the dimensions inside the diamond are the same. I'd agree with deadening the ball, but I don't think that would ever happen. I mean, for diehards like us, we're showing up no matter what. But MLB, I think, feels that it needs to have high scoring games in order to keep the casual fan interested. I've said it before, but I'll say it again here...MLB wants its cake but wants to eat it, too. They want high scoring games which inherently take longer to play but they want to shorten the time of the game so they're going to do things like limit mound visits, pitching change rules, etc.