Mondo Trasho

Personally, I was hoping for a three game series between them, with games 2 and 3 going at least 15 innings each.

Yeah but I say we just take all the suspense out of it and win tomorrow. No need to involve anyone else.

There's a surprising number of people who grew up around the public spotlight, and have PR people giving them advice on what to say/not say, who simply can't help themselves and blurt out whatever dumb thought crosses their mind. Politicians, business owners, executive officers, team owners, etc.

Not only did they have that 17 inning game in Boston, they also had an 18 inning game in Seattle later that year. I remember staying up until what must have 3 or 4 am watching that. I also remember how hyped the crowd was that first playoff game at OPACY.

Obviously, sweeping the Rays would have been great and would have all but locked up the division. But the Rays burned 4 games and have nothing to show for it. That's not bad at all. Now we just need to take care of business with the remaining 13 games.

My thoughts exactly. Obviously we all wanted them to win, but in my mind I didn't see them going far in the playoffs even if they had won that game.

The 2014 team was talented enough to at least get to a WS (if not win it), even without Machado, Davis and Wieters. They just ran into a white hot team and got swept. Happens. This team has great talent, but lacks experience. I'd love for them to win a championship, something they haven't done in my lifetime. But there are no guarantees. If they continue to have a great process in place for building the team, having this kind of talent won't be an anomaly but a norm. Hopefully.

I'm neutral on it. Mostly because I'm neutral on retiring numbers in general.

I don't know anything about rebuilding baseball teams or what players to sign or pick or whatever. I just know as a fan, I don't see the wisdom of adding additional payroll to win another 10-15 games. So I don't blame the O's for "tanking" if that's what it takes to eventually build a winner. I do think baseball has a problem though if the general perception is that every year 3-5 (or so) teams aren't even putting forth an effort to win that season. I'm not someone who thinks that a salary cap is the answer, but MLB has to think of something to make teams not have to resort to being uncompetitive. Maybe the answer is being much more selective on who gets to own a team. I don't know. As for the Elias and the O's, I'm skeptical that we're going to compete anytime soon. Not because of any flaws in the process or in Elias. But just that the fundamentals of the organization have been so bad for so long that it seems unrealistic to expect a 5 year turnaround. Unless the goal is to compete for 3-5 years, then rebuild for 5-7 years. I don't know, just my thoughts about the process and "bashing the O's."

With a salary cap, I don't think you see guys like Freddy Garcia pitching into his late 30s, or Kenny Rogers pitching in his 40s, or BJ Surhoff playing until 40. That might be a good thing, or it might be a bad thing, I'm agnostic on that question. My only point is a salary cap is not what makes the NFL have more parity than the MLB (to the extent it does, because even that is debatable). Football has advantages that cannot be replicated in baseball.

I know this has long been the "in vogue" thing to say, but it ignores the inherent advantages football has over baseball in maintaining some sort of competitive balance. The biggest one being that randomness is a bigger factor when you only play 16 (and now 17) games and you have a single elimination playoff tournament. The real impact of the salary cap in the NFL is guys in their mid to late 20s with marginal talent (relative to the rest of the league) end up unemployed and out of the NFL because their production can be replaced (or much of it anyway) by incoming college players at a much cheaper price tag. Even implementing a floor isn't going to help as all you'll get is rebuilding (or otherwise tanking) teams race to pick up the worst contract to eat up salary space while the rest of the team is ripped down to the studs. I don't know what the answer is, but I do know a salary cap is not a magic solution.

Back during the pits of 1998-2011 streak, I stopped watching after Bedard was shelved in 2007. He had been one of the only reasons I had been watching (that game he pitched against the Rangers was unreal). It wasn't because I didn't care, it's just...it was too depressing. As that 1997 team retreated further and further into the rear view mirror (I was in 4th grade when they lost to the Indians in that ALCS) turning things around just seemed impossible. That changed in September 2011 when the team just seemed to come alive, especially in that infamous game 162. And obviously the great five year run they had afterwards. My feeling when MacPhail came in back in 2007 was that turning the franchise around was a long term thing, like 10+ years. It wasn't about draft picks or particular trades, it was about changing the way they did things from the ground up. Which not only takes time to put in place, it also takes time for the impacts to be seen at the major league level. My fear then (as it is now if I'm honest) was that ownership would not have the patience to see a rebuild through to the end. Meddling owners might give up control in order to win, but giving up control to still be losing wears thin eventually. To the original point of this post, I too have stopped watching. I'm not mad, I'm just sad. The team doesn't have to win a pennant for me to watch, it just has to be more exciting. And it's stopped being that. I'm an Orioles fan much more than I've ever been a baseball fan, so even paying super close attention to the minors has never been my thing. I used to be a 13 game plan holder, but as my career has progressed, making the drive up from Virginia has become less and less feasible. I hope fans come back, and I hope TV ratings (or however people end up watching) get better when the team gets more exciting, but honestly, this franchise has been on almost 40 year slide, with brief upticks every so often. And now that is complicated by the return of baseball to DC, especially that team has had some recent success. It might take some work to get fan interest back. I don't know, just some random thoughts I guess. But I understand the frustration, I really do.

I don't have a hard deadline on when I'd like to see this team winning, making the playoffs and contending for a world series. Obviously the sooner the better, but I'm not fixed on a certain date or a certain number of years. What I want to see is an organization committed to consistently making sound decisions, even if all of them don't work out. Because if you're making the right decisions and putting the right systems and processes in place eventually things will turn out well. If we do that, today's decisions will not only pay off in 2023 or 2024 but in 2033 and 2034.

We're probably never going to know exactly what would happen if the Nationals didn't exist (or if either of the two Senators incarnations never moved), but another factor to keep in mind re: DC and NoVa folks: the traffic. The traffic has gotten remarkably worse in the past 10-15 years, especially in western Fairfax and Loudoun counties. A trip to Baltimore to see the Orioles in 1998 was a lot easier to make than it is now. In theory, those who weren't going to games would at least be watching on TV, so I don't know how to factor that in. But I'm sure it's a factor.

There's a good podcast that goes into the issue of whether government funded or subsidized stadiums are ever worth it in terms of making money on the initial investment (multiplier effect, etc.). Occasionally an indoor one will break even because it can be used year-round, but almost always they are money pits. What one does with that information is entirely up to them.

I don't know, when he was in Montreal he pulled off a huge heist by sending the Dodgers Delino DeShields and getting Pedro Martinez in return.

Re: the Nats impact: I live in Loudoun County, Virginia. Up until 2015 we had 13 game season plans and made the two hour trek to see the O's. Since then, I've gotten married, moved to a different job, and have commitments that make it hard to go up to OPACY consistently to see games. I had some training in Baltimore last year and went to a game afterwards, but otherwise I haven't been much. Traffic down here sucks and it basically requires the commitment of an entire day to see a game. Hard to justify that when the team is where it is. Just saying. I happen to be a fan because my parents were O's fans (both from the Baltimore area), but most of the people I know down here who are Nats fans now were never really Orioles fans. They might have gone to a few games here and there because it was closest team to go see but they weren't really fans. In middle school and high school I think I was the only person who ever wore Orioles shirts or hats. I'm sure the Nats had some impact on attendance but not an overwhelming one.

Why is ERA the end all, be all of statistics? I don't have any preference for any particular metric, but it seems like having a wide variety of stats to look at that try to account for various factors would be valuable. Not something to be sneered at.

To be fair, I don't think that those were the wrong choices. They were choices that didn't work out, but they were the right choices to make.

Yeah, I don't know that we win that game even if Britton had pitched. Still a bad decision not to bring him in, but I'm not sure they win the game either way. That's why I'm not all that upset about it.

In 30 years when we see the first genetically engineered athletes, the current hand wringing about PEDs will seem quaint.

It's only a tank job in the sense that they've chosen to do things the wrong way for many years (with a few good moves here and there) and as a result things have finally bottomed out. I don't think they're intentionally trying to lose, it's just this is the path they must go on to get to where they need to be. It could have been a lot less painful if done 10, 15 or 20 years ago, but we're here now.

The NBA is probably the least competitive league of the big four (I don't know anything about hockey so I can't speak for it, but of the other three for sure). The max and super max contract rules have arguably exacerbated the problem. Yes, small market clubs can retain their players, but so can the big market clubs, and unlike the smaller markets they can also attract talent from other teams while doing so. The franchise tag "works" in the sense that teams keep their player, for a time. But a large part of why it works is that it's a very large one year contract in a sport that doesn't have guaranteed money. I'm not sure it's been a good thing for the NFL, nor am I sure it would translate over to baseball. I think baseball should open things up more. Change the foreign player rules maybe, allow teams to trade draft picks. Let franchises be more creative in how they build their teams.

I'm not a talent evaluator, so I'm not sure who I wanted the O's to pick. To me, it's about more than any one draft or any one player. There needs to be a culture of consistency in finding and developing talent. In the draft, free agent signings, undrafted players, international talent, etc. Any one player can flame out, get hurt, whatever. But if we're doing the right things consistently, there will be more than enough to make up for it.

Hence, why I wrote "probably very low". Yes, it hasn't happened in the MLB for quite some time (outside of the Expos to DC) but it's happened in other sports.