Moose Milligan

I agree with this the most. I think, to a certain degree, that analytics might be doing the game a disservice from this perspective. Greater value placed on strikeouts, less value placed on stolen bases. It used to be a bad thing to strike out, now it's not anymore. How do we rebound from that? Dunno. But when the guys that are re-writing how the game is viewed are wielding power and influence, it makes it tricky.

In 1920, there weren't TV commercials. Yes, it's a different game but I'm partially convinced that the length of the game is due to the amount of cutting to commercials there are. Also the amount of relievers being used. Unfortunately, commercials aren't going anywhere. I watched a game from the 90s a few weeks ago on youtube, the pace of play wasn't noticeably faster. The average game time is about 3 hours, that's the same for an NFL football game. I'm struggling to figure out why people are complaining about a game that takes 3 hours when most of them are perfectly happy to dedicate that amount of time to an NFL game on a Sunday afternoon in the fall. IMO, the game is fine as is (minus not having a DH in the NL) even though I liked some of these proposed rule changes. I've said it before, I'll say it again, MLB is so petrified about losing the next generation of fans, the ADHD Little Timmys who can't peel their attention away from their iPad for 2 seconds to look at anything else. Well, ADHD Little Timmy isn't going to care if a batter can't leave the batters box or not to keep the game moving. ADHD Little Timmy isn't going to care that a pitcher has 20 seconds between pitches. ADHD Little Timmy isn't going to care if the game is 2 hours and 55 minutes or 3 hours and 5 minutes. ADHD Little Timmy isn't going to care if the K's per game is skyrocketing. ADHD Little Timmy WILL care if someone hits a home run. And then it's right back to the iPad or whatever other digital thing he's pre-occupied with because the game is inherently boring and slow and for old people. And that's what MLB has created without the benefit of steroids (that we know of, wink wink), a game like the late 90s, early 2000s where there's a ton of homers and a lot of offense. When I was a kid (I can't believe I just said that) in the late 80s and early 90s, 30 homers was a BIG DEAL. Now there are guys hitting 30 homers I've never heard of. This is what you wanted, right, MLB? Homers all over the place sans PEDS, high flying offenses and exciting pitchers who throw 100mph gas without trying. So what are we whining about? What needs fixing? Bud Selig, as folksy and clueless as he appeared to be, wasn't that bad. What was the worst thing he did, oversee a tie in an All Star game? Look the other way on steroids when owners and players and fans were setting attendance records? This Manfred guy...take a page from Bud. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Keep a steady hand on the wheel.

Yes.

Yes: expand the rosters, universal DH, single trade deadline, ML contracts for two sport athletes, lowered mound, 20 second pitch clock (loosely enforced) No: 3 batter rule, draft advantages for winning teams and penalties for losing teams

What if?

Under, not really close.

Sounds like a good hire. This organization is way ahead of where it was a year ago.

Analytics is all encompassing.

Token post on analytics, Sig, Elias, Hyde, etc. I already covered it so you don't have to.

Who's the fastest in the system then?

Happy New Year, you filthy savages, even you @atomic. Looking forward to a new era in Orioles baseball with you.

Woooooooooow.

Not only will you get fired because you can't run a 11 second 100 yard dash, but you'll get to keep your money, too. I agree, he's just lost it.

Richie Martin! Welcome to the suck!

Here we go, the Elias Era is blasting off!

Yup, not efficient. I remember a lot of deep counts, falling behind on batters, etc.

Weirdo.

I agree with brother Frobby's #4 take. Quite frankly, he's gotten way too much time here, IMO. They should have figured out a way to get rid of him halfway through last year. 2017 was bad enough, 2018 was the worst ever. And the only reason I'm even remotely thinking that he should get a chance this year is that hopefully Elias and his crew can dissect some things. That, and we're saddled with his contract for awhile so we might as well get used to it. ?

Not a lot of meat to chew on. We're all hard on Davis here, I think all of us are rooting for him to get back to being productive though. He seems like a good dude, a good teammate and the past couple seasons had to have sucked for him. It's easy to be all "ahh, what does he care, he's making 23 million a year, must be nice!" but no one likes to suck at their job. Especially when everyone can see you doing it, and everyone who's seeing you doing and bitching about it can't even come close to doing it as good as you can, even when you're hitting .169. I'm not getting my hopes up but I hope Elias can dial up some magic and get Davis back on track. No one else is going to take Davis off his hands so hoping he gets back to speed is all we can hope for.

I understand the argument and the reasoning behind it. But for me, IMO, it's selective storytelling to a certain degree. It's excusing the bad starts by propping up the good ones almost as if to say "He's really a 3.30 ERA pitcher, just don't look at the bad stuff!" You're right about Maddux, he didn't have dominant fastball velocity but he had pinpoint control and exceptional movement, too. He had command of all of his pitches. More importantly, he was incredibly smart and knew all about setting up hitters. Moyer, IIRC, had some similar tendencies and by the end of his career his fastball was around like 80 mph...I threw harder in high school. He also had like 4 or 5 pitches and great command, too. If you are not going to be a power pitcher who can get by on sheer stuff, you need to do the other things exceptionally well if you want to stick around and succeed. There needs to be plus command, there needs to be two or three absolutely fantastic pitches that you can throw at anytime for strikes. There needs to be a genius Maddux-like brain between the ears. So when we take away Hess' bad starts and say "Hey, look at what he CAN be," I find it a bit misleading. Because I didn't see someone with exceptional command last year, I didn't see fantastic offerings other than a pretty good curve. Again, I'm not saying every pitcher we have has to have Severino power, but there's gotta be something to identify who can get by and succeed without throwing in the upper 90s. But even looking at his game logs, the 3.00 ERA talk is still misleading. In the month of September he had starts where he went 4.0, 5.0, 4.1, 5.0 and then, finally, 7.0 innings. Safe to say that if Hess is getting the start, the bullpen better be ready. Over the month he did have a pretty good 22 strikeout, 7 walk ratio in 25 innings. Still, opponents had an .886 OPS against him. They hit .282 against him. The good news is that time is on his side. He's still young. He can improve. He threw 63% strikes which isn't bad. Can he develop? Can he get some better command, develop secondary offerings? I'm all for giving the guy time next year because there are some good things about him. Can Elias and whichever new coaches identify flaws and make some tweaks? I'd much rather watch him than Cashner. I mean, I'd rather watch my clothes on the tumble dry cycle instead of Cashner but still.

Close! If it was mid-season form I'd definitely be pitching a fit about Cashner, fully aware that he's our crappy pitcher. Now my morning has been ruined since I've remembered he's on our roster.

I know I just said Bundy and 4 JAGS....I honestly completely forgot about Cobb and Cashner. I sat here for like 2 minutes trying to remember who else the Orioles had in the rotation this year. I'm glad I forgot. But yeah, like I said....Bundy and 4 JAGS.

BTW, I can't stand the "Well if we take away his 10 terrible starts, he's a Cy Young candidate!!!" argument. Please. Just stop.

I agree, I just don't see any reason to think he's going to be a good starter. He's got similar stuff to what @luismatos4prez said, Tyler Wilson, Berken...any of the nameless/faceless interchangeable 4.75+ ERA guys we've brought up over the past 15 years who the MASN announcers have tried to be kind to. We're going to have a hard time filling out a starting rotation. It's Bundy and 4 JAGS...and, IMO, Bundy is a JAG, too. Might as well give Hess as much time as he needs to figure stuff out at the ML level, there's no real reason not to, even though I think his stuff is average and he's not a long term solution. I can't think of a starter in the system at the higher levels that absolutely NEEDS to be evaluated. Although we've got a whole offseason ahead to acquire some other arms.

He's a 4th or 5th starter with middling stuff.