allquixotic

I can't help but want to see Arrieta suffer and lose, especially against us. It annoys me to no end that literally going to a different park made him Cy Young. I know we should also blame our coaching and development program, but it just rubs me the wrong way how he flipped a switch the instant we got rid of him. I'd love to see us swat three back-to-back no-doubter homers against him in the top of the 1st. Not only would that be tremendously fun because the O's would be winning, but I would be laughing at Arrieta. Guffawing. I wonder. If we traded Chris Davis to the Rockies today, would he hit 20 or 30 home runs before the season's out?

I don't have a problem with the baseball knowledge or game calling accuracy of anyone on the TV or radio crews this year. I fully understand the difficult circumstances and that they're beholden to what they see on TV. I don't think any of them are dunces about baseball. I'm sure all of them are very nice people, too. The lack of excitement -- especially with Scott Garceau -- is the worst thing for me. Jim Hunter may not have known the sport, but at least he knew how to make a home run call. He was also an excellent setup man for Jim Palmer's often sarcastic retorts. Palmer was so great at underhandedly insulting Hunter for not even "getting it" after Palmer hinted at it and it was so funny. Their dynamic was far more entertaining than Garceau and McDonald.

In some areas of private industry, there's a (fairly brutal, honestly) performance management process called "stack ranking." In stack ranking, everyone's performance is compared against each other, using a combination of objective and subjective metrics. The elite few at the top get raises and/or promotions; the solid contributors get to coast along undisturbed; the struggling end up getting "help" to try to improve their performance; and the worst of the worst get fired. This happens on a monthly, bi-annual or yearly cadence depending on the company. Stack ranking of umpires would be based on their accuracy on calls compared to the "correct" call via video review / electronic strike zone. You could set up the strata exactly as you do for tech workers: give raises to the best, let the good ones keep going, pull the struggling ones from daily MLB games and have them work on their calls and improve in some kind of umpiring camp, and just fire the worst ~1% every year. The other thing you could do is add more umpires to the umpiring pool. This would increase the "overhead" cost of umpiring, yes, but by adding more umpires without adding more teams or games, you could set up a situation where only the best X% of umpires get to call MLB games on the regular. The rest would either call simulated games, extended spring training games, or minor league games until they get better.

I haven't heard much from our radio guys, but it's kind of hilarious how the MLB editors in this highlight reel had to pull in our radio broadcasters multiple times for the call when Scott Garceau is using a living room conversational voice to call a big play where the O's are scoring. Based on this, I'm satisfied with the radio crew. I just really hate Scott Garceau's complete and total lack of energy. Ben is a great color guy but I wouldn't want him calling the play by play either, he's also extremely sedate.

I want Jim Hunter, Gary Thorne and Joe Angel back (and more of Palmer). Listen to the excitement in their voices in these calls and then tell me that Scott Garceau and crew are any good: Compare to: The Phillies announcers were energetic. Our guys sound sedate. Like they're on downers.

The other thing to be aware of is that a lot of our current crop of scrappy players, the ones who are winning us games, were claimed on waivers from other teams. So even though we traded, DFA'ed or let walk a bunch of guys who are now good, we also acquired a bunch of guys who are now looking pretty good, at least with the small sample size.

Wow, good points on all. However, it was impossible we could've known about Arrieta's renaissance. Either the coaching here was just atrocious at that time (and/or still is), or he literally just needed a change of scenery, and nothing we could've done keeping him in Baltimore would've helped. At the time, it felt like keeping Bundy wouldn't help, because having one piece of a puzzle when the 20 other pieces are missing does you little good. It wouldn't have been possible to keep Manny. The club put their franchise man money behind Chris Davis. The only way we could've signed Manny is if we let Davis walk at the end of 2015, and we didn't. Baltimore just doesn't have that kind of money. Losing Villar was part of the rebuild plan -- a deliberate move during a realization that the team needed to rebuild hard. Sure, if we had stayed pat on all these guys, there's a chance that we could be good now. But some of these guys got good because they left the O's organization, and some were flat-out too expensive for us to keep in a mid-market team and with Scott Boras as their agent. We just got unlucky, I think. Traded a bunch of guys we would've been better-off to keep, and kept the one guy who'd turn out to be one of the worst players in MLB (Davis).

At least he was an equal opportunity incompetent umpire! It would be hilarious if he ended up tossing both teams' managers. I can think of at least a few former Orioles managers who would have gotten tossed tonight. Buck. Earl.

Is this entirely in the past, or will we ever see a glimmer of this again?

Ump Tiers Great: Consistently adhere to what the actual strike zone is. Good: Has a modified strike zone (not adhering strictly to the regulation), but he calls it consistently and accurately the same way for the whole game, and his zone is very similar to most other umps in the league right now. Average: Has a modified strike zone, he calls it consistently and accurately, but his zone is a bit unique to this specific umpire. Bad: Has a modified zone, calls it inconsistently (the same pitch is a ball or strike variously), but at least it seems to mostly be similar to other umps in the league. Awful: Has a modified zone, calls it inconsistently, and it's totally different than other umps or nowhere near what the regulation calls for. I've seen a lot of average and bad this year. Tonight's might be awful.

To be fair, I've been watching every pitch closely this season, and that "near-strike" inside pitch gets called a strike VERY often -- both for, and against, the Orioles. And not only with this umpire, or in this park. I know the strike zone is supposed to be a specific thing, but at least the umps as a group seem to favor pitchers on borderline calls this season. I know this home plate ump has been very unpredictable and random tonight, and I don't like that, but at least on that specific call, he went with what the majority of umps this year are calling. I mind it less because it's a consistent thing across multiple umps and games, so the hitters should expect that pitch to be a strike. Of course the ideal would still be to strictly adhere to what the actual strike zone is.

If it were the franchise, he'd realize how awful he is and bow out of his contract and voluntarily take the team off the hook for the remainder of the money he's owed. But no, he needs his millions on top of the tens of millions he's already made.

Well, that was fantastic. At least we cashed in on the 2nd and 3rd no outs. Sisco the man. Answering there keeps us in the game.

If the 2B caught that ball it'd be an out, easily. The ball had him beat by 20 feet. Should've kept it to a single. Still, I'll take it, glad the Phils messed up there. We were lucky.

I wasn't expecting anything good tonight with LeBlanc on the mound, and figured our luck would run out soon anyway, but geez, the ump isn't making it easy for us. He's only giving LeBlanc the middle of the plate, nothing else even close.

Also, I heard on the news somewhere that OPACY put up huge green barriers at the gates so there's no way that fans could possibly see inside the park from outside. They did this to prevent people from violating social distancing rules by hanging out around the park. I also note that OPACY has never had a "sellout" name like "Citizen's Bank Field" or "PNC Bank Field" or anything like that. And OPACY doesn't do the cardboard cutouts thing as a revenue generator. PA or his sons might just be really traditional. I kind of like the way the O's are dealing with this strange season. That's not to say, IF the O's had offered cutouts, that I wouldn't have bought one. I think I might have.

The sound engineers are really poor at keeping the energy going, I've found. There was a situation last night where the Phils had just tied up the game in the 9th, and they had Jean Segura up to bat with a chance to win it on a homer or at least keep their rally going. The sound engineers had the crowd deflate to the "normal buzz" that you'd hear in, oh, I don't know, the third inning of a 0-0 game on a Sunday. No. That's not how crowds work. It's like the whole thing is computer AI controlled, and after the play is done, it "defaults" back to normal. It was strikingly unnatural. In what world does a Phils home team not go ABSOLUTELY WILD in the bottom of the 9th for Jean Segura's entire AB? -- Overall, I feel like the sound engineers around the league are capturing the experience of the crowd noise about as accurately as an 8 year old could in his or her memory of a recent game. There's far too much cheering when an opposing team hits a home run (even accounting for all the damn NYY fans coming down to OPACY). On that note, there's no "cheer rivalry" for nearby teams -- and all of this year's teams are nearby, so we should be hearing a lesser Nats chant at OPACY, for instance. And the energy level dies down to default after every play. Oh, and there's no "sarcastic cheer" when a home team pitcher who's been terrible finally gets an out. There's no groaning when the away team hits a grand slam. It's just amusing how many scenarios are just completely absent or get replaced with generic cheers. And the crowd's reaction to plays is hugely delayed, because they have to wait until they know what reaction to play. Like on a fly ball that isn't obvious if it's a home run, a hit or an out. Instead of the anticipation palpably building, it's just quiet, then 3-4 seconds after the outfielder makes the catch, there's cheering. Far too long of a delay. Overall I'd rather them just not do it. It doesn't feel natural 80% of the time.

In a regular 162-game season, I often observe that our posters who tend to rely heavily on the metrics (for their determination on whether to be optimistic about the team) will wait til at least half the season is gone before they start to draw any conclusions about how the team is doing. Sometimes they'll make an earlier call if the team starts out extremely bad or good out of the gate, but usually they reserve judgment for as long as possible. To these folks, the entire season will be a "SSS". On top of that, we're making history here -- there has never been a 60 game season in the modern era. There have been a large number of rule changes in recent years, starting with challenges and video review, and culminating in the leadoff guy on 2nd in extras. We can only guess how all these factors will come together to change the dynamics of the game, and even after the season's over, the conclusions we draw will not be well-substantiated due to the relative lack of data that a mere 60 games can provide. For the folks who refuse to get excited until there's a statistically significant track record to suggest that we have something special, they may spend this entire season just shrugging their shoulders, then blink and notice that it's over (or that the O's are in the expanded postseason). To them I say: that's their right. I don't care. But I'm excited, and hopeful that this ragtag crew will be something special in 2020. I don't care if Sulser or Severino isn't part of the solution in 2022 or 2025. I'm fine with Elias continuing to make moves with the assumption that we are in rebuild mode. I'm fine with folks not even caring about this season because it's weird, and because the confluence of factors that made this season what it is probably won't happen again. Just to fully lay out my view: I'm totally fine if Elias makes trade moves that harm the O's chances of winning in 2020, if it'll help the club long term. I hope they can win in 2020 despite that. Obviously, I will be upset if I feel that Elias made a move that's not helping us at all (either now or later), but if there's a convincing case that we can give up someone today to have a significant boost tomorrow, I still say go for it. I'm just living in the moment, taking it day by day, and enjoying our baseball team's success right now. Someone's gotta root for these guys!

And the game ends with a quiet groundout! O's win! Geez that was weird. All of it.

Strike two!

Amending my list of ridiculousness: A "Suspended" game that will resume in the 6th inning with the O's having a 5-3 lead, caused by the Nats grounds crew deploying the tarp incorrectly. Cutouts in the stands. Alcohol-free Budweiser. Man on second at the start of extras. A dropped pop-up. Bad outings by three Orioles relievers who've been decent of late. A failed attempt to steal home (after review). Poor broadcasting. (In the 9th) the Phils tied it up, and the home team production crew let the cheering be dead silent while waiting for the pitch in a situation where the Phils could have won. With real fans it would have been deafeningly loud. Game's been on long enough that my FiOS gave me the idle warning. A LEADOFF in-the-park two-run home run. The first ever in baseball history with all those qualifiers attached to it. A pitch that would've been a double play bounces off of Fry's spike for a hit. A cross-up that advances the runners. LOL!

It was ruled a home run.

Davis is our bastion of normalcy. The one player whose play reminds us of the good old days when we understood the game and the world. He's like a lifeline to the past. He sucked before, and he still sucks now.

Austin Hays hit a LEADOFF inside the park 2-run homer. Has that ever happened before? Stress on the leadoff.