Moose Milligan

I hope he ends up happy wherever he is.

I understand why you guys would think Jones goes to SD but if we've learned one thing about him this year, he wants to be close to this area for his wife, kids, charity. SD makes sense for Jones cause he grew up there but if he doesn't wanna get traded out of Baltimore for those reasons he mentioned earlier this year, I don't see him going to a west coast team.

I don't think there's going to be much of a market for Jones this offseason at all. I feel bad thinking that cause I wish him nothing but the best but I just don't see him getting more than an ST invite.

In this day and age? Kinda. But with Gausman's stuff, he should be a a high strikeout pitcher.

Well, it's wrong when you're looking to prop up a pro-Gausman argument.

Well if you did FIP, you'd be a more informed fan. FIP is fielding indepent pitching, which is essentially looking at what things a pitcher can control vs. what he can't (fielding) and factoring an ERA out of it. IIRC, it measures the ability to create strikeouts, while limiting homers, walks and HBP. For Gausman, it's usually slightly higher than his real ERA. In other words, taking fielding out of it, he still wasn't very good.

It was a good piece. I'm all for a guy who's confident with his stuff and getting batters out with good command. I would like to see him promoted to AA for the rest of the season. Also liked this particular comment:

Look at his FIP, tell me what you see.

What's a Korean strikeout?

Call me if he's still doing it this time next year.

He's looking better, I agree.

Yeah, it's hard to argue with any of that, really.

I just think he should retire. Work out a deal with the Orioles to get some percentage of the salary owed until the end of the contract in exchange for him walking away early. I'm not advocating for Bobby Bonilla ridiculousness but if the Orioles can piss away 3 million for Tillman this year and another 3 million for Colby Rasmus, they can give Davis something similar to NOT play until the contract is over or something. Now there's no incentive for him to do that, obviously he's going to be interested in getting the full amount of that contract. But I just can't imagine being so terrible at my job, I'm hoping personal pride gets in the way somehow. If I was that bad at my job and was well aware of it and my company gave me a large sum of money to just not come back for 3 or 4 years, I'd be inclined to listen.

I know, it's such a luddite thing to look at. Wins and losses! How 1975 of me. I think it's still a good stat but doesn't always (obviously) tell the whole story.

Not sure, I'm on baseball reference and I don't that listed under the splits. You can see what he's done in individual parks but it's jumbled together with AL parks. I'd do some math and figure it out because that's a good question and one worth knowing the answer to, but I've gotta dip outta here. Here's the link: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=gausmke01&year=Career&t=p Real quick look, 4.50 ERA at the Mets, 7.20 ERA in LA, 6.75 in Washington. These are obviously really small sample sizes though, thats why I looked at interleague on the whole.

It's only going to hurt because the Orioles couldn't get it out of him. But as I said previously, they never were. So what's the alternative, just hold onto guys and not have them produce here because we're so afraid of having them go elsewhere and producing? It's my hope that they'll figure out how to develop pitching but there's no way to tell that they'll be able to. Maybe the Braves can tease it out of him, but he's 3-10 with a 6.33 ERA in interleague, it's not like he's performed well against the NL. Granted some of those games came in Baltimore where the opponent got to use a DH.

I'll follow that up with 39-51 on teams that were mostly winners, too. I know, I know, I know, someone's gonna pull out their WAR trump card like they're all high and mighty, just save it. 4.1 WAR on a playoff team where he went 9-12. Nice ERA+ of 119 but the rest of the seasons have been pretty underwhelming.

Terrible pitching, too. Terrible coaching and player development. Someone, anyone, explain to me how Gausman was absolutely indispensable. I'd love to know. Was anyone able to objectively look at that guy and see a future Cy Young award winner? A top of the rotation starter? All Star? Wins leader, strikeout leader? ERA leader? IP leader? No, no, no, no, no, no, and no. What'd Gausman do especially well while he was here? How is he any different than someone else's 3 or 4 starter? Why's everyone around here so butthurt about losing a #3 starter for a team that probably won't be any good for the next 2-3 seasons and is going through a rebuild? Why is the Kevin Gausman trade such a stupid trade when there's absolutely nothing unique about him? I saw a guy with a hard fastball that was straight as an arrow with spotty command and spotty command of his secondary pitches. Yeah, he's got an impressive arm but so do a lot of others, guys in the high 90s aren't hard to find these days. Sometimes he looked great, sometimes he didn't. That's the definition of a #3 starter. People are so afraid that it'll be another Arrieta situation. Whatever. First, let's stop pretending like we're the only fanbase to ever give up on a guy to go on and have success elsewhere. I'm pretty sure every fanbase outside of the Yankees and Sox mopes around with this woe is us crap and thinking that they're the ones that have a unique problem of giving up on players who go on to have good careers elsewhere. Just. Stop. We're not special snowflakes like we think we are. The thing about Arrieta is that it wasn't ever going to happen here for him. So if Gausman goes to to Atlanta and wins a Cy Young, we'll know that it wasn't going to happen here for him, either. And we'll know what we've known all along, that this franchise has sucked for years and player development, especially pitching. So if we can agree that it would never have happened here for Arrieta and never would have happened here for Gausman, why's everyone pearl clutching? I really don't get it, someone clue me in. Why's everyone so petrified of another Arrieta situation when we all know Arrieta never could have achieved those heights here? What's the outcome you'd have preferred, holding onto Arrieta and just screwing him up more? So what if Gausman goes to the Braves and lights it up, he wasn't going to do it here, right? Adair, Peterson, Wallace, McDowell all couldn't get through to him and bring to life this magical pitching God that the OH braintrust has been glorifying for years. The only measure of hope would be to hire a pitching coach in the offseason that could have made a difference for him. That's it. And hope isn't a plan.

Well, Mazzone was a giant bust here. I'm sure he had something to do with Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux but I think those guys were going to be good no matter what. I'm convinced Maddux himself is probably the smartest pitcher of the past 40 years and didn't even need a coach. Roger isn't Mazzone, not even close. I like Roger cause I'm a fan of the 86 Mets but that's about where it stops. I'm not sure what he's done to help pitchers since he's been here. Housecleaning time, everyone goes.

Seeing that pic of Thome in an Orioles uniform made me smile.

What, a real coach like Mazzone? That guy was a fraud.

Roy, I love ya man but it's one start. Let's see how he finishes up the year. And if he's dominating next season, I'll believe it. He threw some gems while he was here, I am not ignorant of that. It was just followed by a bad start or a start where he was cruising and then imploded.

Preach it, Roy. I don't think Gausman does any better than he was here but still. It's annoying.

Cop out. We can't just throw up our arms and go "Ah!!! It's the AL East!!!" whenever things get tough. Anyone we bring up is going to have to survive in the AL East. It's a reality that we've got to deal with. Plus if Gausman is so good like people are making it out to be, he should have thrived in the AL East. He should thrive no matter what.