tntoriole

I agree. It remains to be seen if he will be as good a player.

Another altercation with the manager perhaps....

I agree. But it will make the clubhouse a hard place to manage and affect the atmosphere of young players coming in, because Davis is not just going to sit on the bench for two years or more and be nice.

I will say that it seems that there are many who seemingly believe Mountcastle is at the very worst interchangeable with and likely will be a significantly better replacement over his career than Mancini....better hitter, better fielder. I think the only thing he is better at at the moment is being younger and less expensive. We shall see.

I think autocorrect is satanic.

Marconi is too busy with his radio invention to DH......lol. Hard to see how that makes any real difference on the field in 2020 and it surely worsens any trade value for Mancini. If I plan on Mountcastle just taking his position, then I pretty much have to trade Mancini now this winter. And Davis won't just sit, imho.

What do you do with Mancini if you bring up Mountcastle? And with Davis still on the team?

It makes no difference at all. Unless Mancini is traded, Mountcastle is at Norfolk.

Well, maybe we have plenty of those 3-4 WAR, .900 OPS guys in the wings down there at Bowie or Norfolk....not that I see any of them waiting out there in the midst of being the worst team in baseball. The reality is, sure, we can replace him at first with someone less productive and less expensive, with the idea you can spend the money elsewhere and get more value. That is what all teams think. But then you actually have to do that, not just speculate about it. Which becomes a crap shoot when you trade anyone. But our reality is we have lost way more than 200 games the last two years and are the worst team in baseball. So...maybe we had best think twice about one of the only valuable players we have before we just conclude he is Danny Valencia. . At least I hope Elias thinks it through a little more and a little differently.

How can you not be an optimist and root for this team?

The only part we perhaps disagree about is that I believe Trey will continue to significantly improve on 2019 and perhaps, given the repeated use of the word limited, you do not. Aalthough I am not sure what your ideal first baseman would be since Trey was at 3.7 WAR , 7th for all MLB first baseman and it would have been more without outfield defense drag and with continued play only at first. . Alonso was top at 4.8 Muncy at 4.8 and Santana at 4.4, Freeman at 4.0. I believe Trey can be a 4 WAR first baseman and is a better first baseman than Freeman defensively in my opinion.....what does that cost on the market these days? Anyway that is the trade argument I would be making...potential 4 WAR cost controlled first baseman for the next three years with off the charts character who can fill in a pinch in the outfield or DH.

There were those on this board who believed he was not going to make the team and said so relentlessly, who said he would never hit even 20 home runs and said so over and over, who said he would certainly not have the year he had this year but instead was peaked out at 2018 performance levels. He is a more than adequate first baseman and he would have already played there exclusively if not for a certain albatross on the team. He will have a better season next year in every category than he had this year, imho. He learns offensively and he learns to change what is not working. At the same time, if ME can get true value in return, it would be an excellent time to trade him.

I agree...development is very important...but organizations winning pennants usually have a few players who have become superstars when everybody, including often the team that picks them, did not even think they would make the majors. Drive and ambition is a hard variable to measure quantitatively but in many fields of high performance skills sets, it turns out to be the determining factor between average and superstar. On our team right now, I have always, always been high on Trey since he was at Frederick because he has drive like no Oriole I have seen since Cal. He demands so much of himself and is willing to adjust, modify, tweak, grow...I think he will continue to exceed expectations in a major way even from where he is now.

Great article....thanks for sharing. Very insightful guy. You have to think he really helped Mancini. Trumbo: “I’ve tended to be a guy that tries to put the ball in play more than I necessarily needed to. I think that’s the reason I haven’t ever taken as many walks as I would like, and other people probably would like. My early upbringing centered on a very contact-oriented approach. I see guys who are similar to me — big power, but the on-base isn’t necessarily near the upper echelon — and those guys I can usually talk to a little more. But it doesn’t make it any easier, because I’ve struggled my entire career to take a respectable number of walks. Laurila: If you do want to keep playing, there’s the issue of teams willing to give you an opportunity. Logan Morrison mostly just got minor-league invites last winter as he was coming off injuries of his own. Trumbo: “I have a suspicion that it would be similar for me. The guaranteed major league deals are hard to come by right now. It seems like a lot of guys are signing minor league deals with the hope to have a good spring and make the club. Would I be willing to do that? It’s definitely an option. I don’t know at the moment how attractive that is, or even how reasonable it is health-wise.” Laurila: What if you’re offered a hitting coach position? Trumbo: “One thing I’ve done a lot over the course of my career is travel quite a bit. I’m originally from the west coast, and I’ve been playing on the east coast for awhile now, so location would have some bearing on that. So would the specific role they’d be talking to me about. This is all premature; none of that has happened yet. But to answer the question, some guys are naturally inclined to stay in the game in a coaching capacity, while others are not. I fall more in the first category.”

Yeah...go find another Altuve. lol. So much of this game is just luck, pure and simple. All the projections and data in the world don’t explain heart and drive.

Reports in Boston media where he was apparently on the list of possible new Boston GMs is that he is now “unhireable and a pariah.” Unfortunate.

My favorite ranting comic Lewis Black is BOTH a Redskins and Orioles fan...here was an after concert rant about BOTH of his teams that he does spontaneously in response to texts from fans...

I always root for the AL representative to the Series....it is just my way.

Probably not....although the only other time the Yankees in their history lost a postseason series on a walkout homer was 1960 on Maz's homer for the Pirates.

That was such a hugely intelligent at bat by Altuve in that most extreme of pressure situations. He had seen Chapman fall in love a bit with the slider in the previous at bat to Springer, throwing it for strike but not throwing that 99 mph fastball for a strike...walking him. And then he throws two fastballs out of the zone to Altuve...then strike one with the slider....and Altuve anticipating that Chapman is throwing the slider for a strike because he doesn't really want to go 3-1 on him there....sure enough, in the zone, a bit of a hanger of a slider....BOOM. Brilliant at bat.

Watching Chapman's sardonic little grin on the mound as Altuve rounded the bases.....:"Yes, that's right, you arrogant so and so...he beat you and now you will go down in Yankee lore as the guy who gave it up." https://www.mlb.com/yankees/news/aroldis-chapman-reflects-after-yankees-alcs-loss

In truth, most any option is either unlikely to happen or worse than just status quo. I am resigned to another 100 plus loss season with Chris Davis doing exactly what he did this year.

I am glad this OP was not around in the 1960s...1969-1971...average attendance was never even at 14,000 with the greatest teams of all time. Guess what...still here. I will love to look back on this thread and some of these posts in three or four years when we are back in it. And when we get back in it AND the Nats are a power team...maybe a true rivalry will exist and maybe even a Beltway Series. A true rivalry will fire up new fans in both areas. Either way, the Orioles are going nowhere. Not in 10 years, not in 15 years, not in 100 years. No other location has Camden Yards, Babe Ruth’s birthplace, Cal, Frank, Brooks, Eddie, Earl and MLB is not going to leave this iconic ballpark and its tradition empty and abandoned to move to ummm Nashville...lol. My niece also is the agent now for Harbor East and other new downtown condos...they are as hot as anything in DC or anyplace else.

I liked Rene Gonzalez...he was friends with my brother and we got good seats...lol.

If the OP is saying that we will likely be signing a bunch of 6 year free agent fliers and Rule 5 draft types, I definitely agree. If it is saying we will sign any ML free agent pitchers as a stop gap, then no. Mexican League, Korean, etc. will be targets too for cheap pitching fliersI suspect.