Beef Supreme

The Red Sox are an excellent team. Their current record does not make them a "bad" team.

There never was any "illusion of competitiveness" for the 2019 Orioles.

I never suggested otherwise.

Rickard is worthy of note any day that he is on the Orioles' 25-man...to a few Orioles' fans. In the larger scheme of MLB baseball, Rickard is overlooked. "Exceeding Rickard" is not going to be the subject of a future 30for30.

.759 at SS is not horrible. Dodgers have a lot of in-house talent. Plus, they are willing and able to spend whatever it takes to improve the MLB roster. That Jackson was not protected by L.A. is hardly damning evidence that he will fail to be a good major league hitter.

Even in Spring Training, he swings the bat the same, sloppy way. Most of the ST hits I saw from him were fortunate to fall in. He doesn't drive the ball.

No. But we will all witness it happen in OPACY, yet again.

Now you have it right: Elias needs to use Straily to eat innings (even if ineffectively) in order to expose emerging pitchers according to their developmental choreography as the season progresses.

That's a fair assessment. But there is no way I am buying into any theory that posits that Dan Straily has a "solid #3" starter the past few years. I think the "other factor" that played a role was Straily's mediocrity. :-) PS I don't think any team was hindered from signing Straily because of luxury taxes...

I am not sad that they signed him. It's fine. I won't be happy or sad if he pitches to a 4.00 ERA or a 5.00. I will be happy if they trade him for something of value. But I doubt they would get much in terms of value in a July trade. He's just a placeholder, to me, and his stats this season mean little in my eyes.

Then teams should have been lined up to sign him. Interest was limited to the three of the very worst MLB teams - Toronto, Texas and Baltimore. Thus, Straily is not even a #5 on "most teams."

This is an exaggeration, at best. He only had 23 starts in 2018, so that doesn't qualify as a "solid #3." He gave up 31 HRs in 2017 and in 2016 in fewer than 200 IPs -- that's not very solid. Nothing good to say about 2015 or 2014. 2013 was OK, but an ERA+ of only 98. His only full season with an ERA+ > 100 was 2016, which seems a long time ago already For the FIP lovers, Straily registered a 5.11 last season, a 4.58 in 2017 and a 4.88 in 2016. He and has never been under 4.00. Some were clamoring last year for the Orioles to trade for him. Maybe Straily is a #3 on the 2019 Orioles, but there are few teams that he would qualify as anything more than a #5.

Later in his career, Walt asked the media to cease calling him "No-Neck" on TV because the moniker scared his children.

Ummm, Chris Davis is not going send me to the emergency room to treat food poisoning. In that way, Chris Davis is, in fact, better than a rotting beef roast. On the other hand, it would take a million rotting roasts to be as bad as the remainder of Chris Davis commitment to the Orioles.

OK, b/c I think he will get 300PAs, not ABs.

Yes. I posted before reading the comments. But I predicted that he would spend most of the second half of the season on the DL...somehow.

I think he'll hit the DL some time in July and not make it back during the season. Then gets released just before Thanksgiving.

Davis: At Bats, right. Not Plate Appearances?

Some guys are just never going to learn to take walks. Like Shaq never learned to hit free throws.

I can't understand the fetishization with "BA/OBA spread." If you hit well, you may be able to take walks. But if you stop hitting, nobody is going to walk you. The only time that walks are as good as singles is with no one on base. Give me the hitter with a high BA and a high xwOBA and I won't give one hoot about the spread between OBA and BA.

<<rimshot>>

You are right that the two are different. Point was, surgeons like to do surgery. Sort of like, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I don't think the numbers back up the claim that "most (pitchers) are going to have to get TJ." It might be that most pitchers who visit Dr. Andrews get TJ, though. Masahiro Tanaka recovered from his UCL tear with PRP injections. If I were injured, I would hope that I could recover with plasma rather than surgery. Maybe more pitchers nowadays think the new technology is more appealing than getting sliced open.

I don't see anything wrong with seeking a second opinion or a third opinion. It's his body. A buddy of mine was scheduled for back surgery in 2000. It was a third opinion that convinced him to cancel surgery. Instead, he immobilized for 48 hours and start doing yoga. To this day he has not needed surgery. And he still has a single digit golf handicap. No human -- whether Dr. Andrews or anyone else -- is omnipotent. Fulmer could still follow Andrews' advice but he might feel that his decision was better informed with three opinions. I doubt that if I were in Fulmer's shoes that I would dive headlong at the first suggestion of surgery. Even if it came from the renowned doctor.

Martinez moved to the pen last year and speculation was that he might begin this year in the bullpen as well.

I agree with you when you say, "Now, this might be the first time he's seen Santander in person, but I bet Elias has a general idea of what Santander brings to the table and how he can possibly fit." But I don't think they would be so proud as to proclaim that they "know what they have." Sure they embrace statistical analysis, but I cannot agree with you if you are saying that the discussion ends with the stats or that they don't value the "eye-test."