drjohnnyfeva

Nope.

Not all that surprising, really. When a beloved team exits a market, the fan base - thru voting, etc. - is likely to settle for getting affirmation/confirmation of a team staying by giving into (somewhat) unreasonable demands. It's akin to the abused child syndrome... always trying to do more to make the parent happy. So fans give in, in efforts to keep their teams. What I'm most upset in this whole thing is the competitive balance issue. I would much rather see teams from all over the league playing more rather than a full half season or more of games strictly from the Eastern Division teams. I know the logistics of travel must be horrendous, but it seems the towel has been thrown in on that issue.

This whole thing continues to go nowhere fast...

Could not for the life of me remember who played 3b in 1983. Todd Cruz was a total black hole in my memory banks. We didn't start the year with him, so who was supposed to be the starter there before he arrived. Loved Disco Dan. Hated his damn basket catches in the OF that occasionally, if not predictably, went wrong. It was a thing on my LL team for about a minute until the coach yelled, "Don't catch like Disco or you'll be riding the pine!" to the cheering of fathers in the peanut gallery.

Well, they weren't booing the team, they were booing Turg. But what would you expect a "friend" to say? It was long overdue. He had a knack of enjoying the ride into the top 25 (when they made it) but then when the team couldn't keep up with the adjustments other teams were making to overcome the improvements, Turg's response was consistently to criticize the players not following the game plan or simply under-performing athletes. The players had to love that coaching approach. Good riddance.

He was a poor coach. It didn't matter the recruiting he did, once he got them he was not good at preparing the players or making adjustments. He always seemed like a guy who enjoyed taking bows when things went well, but when things weren't going well he deflected that, "...well the kids have to implement and perform the game plan." I can't imagine those explanations went over very well with the players. Good riddance. Long overdue. And it was a firing not an amicable split. The University played nice by copping to that, but if he had sought to resign or whatever, there's no way he gets the full measure of his last $5M salary. MD clearly wanted him just gone.

This is what I think is gonna happen too. There are a lot of fans who look at him as a hometown guy, especially after his cancer battle and sort of because of it too. I hope he has a year that he can parlay that value into a nice contract where he can play with a contender for a while. But I think little attention is going to be paid to the likely exit by most.

Trey is the man. You never know what evil lurks behind the scenes in the life of a cancer patient or survivor. 10 years out from prostate cancer for me... at 52, now, with no complications after surgery, it's a lot easier. But those, "Let's do that test again..." moments that have occurred, suck the proverbial eggs! They never amounted to anything with me, but they're damn scary not only for you, but also for those you trust around you to talk about it with. Get your PSA tests yearly gentlemen. Early diagnosis leads to better outcomes.

This is all still fascinating to me. Isn't it MLB that is the cause of all of this? As much as I dislike the Angelosi, the Nationals, in moving from Montreal, agreed to move into an established media area and to have "their share of that media" that was already in existence here. We all knew that that small slice they agreed to and that was endorsed - and maybe even partially negotiated - by MLB to get the deal done was probably something the Nationals ownership group never intended to really submit to. For me, it's proof that no agreement is truly binding if there are bottomless pits of money to argue with. For me, the bigger question is how this case is going to screw up real arbitration cases. And more specifically, if deep pockets can stall arbitration judgements on grounds of "unfairness" just to get another judgement.

I have a friend from another Orioles board, the old Scout Boards, who lives up there. I think he might have been a Covid casualty, as I have been unable to contact him, either thru email or a FB page of his since just before last year's season. He is a really great guy. Name is Ted. I know he was an insurance adjuster and a long time Red Wings fan. Was super knowledgeable about the Orioles and had seen all of our star players of the late 1960's thru the early 80's. He was beside himself when either name Syd Thrift or Don Buford was mentioned. He was very upset when the O's necessitated a shift to the Twins being affiliated with Rochester. I know from him that there is still a devoted Oriole presence up there. I met him for a few beers as the family passed thru Upstate NY in 2018. We had a blast talking about the Orioles of the 70's and 80's and about the many games he attended, including many games that big leaguers played in rehabs up there.

I don't disagree with the OP. I think the idea of doing what you're best at should be a pretty universal goal... The jury is still out with the Elias regime, tho. Unlike others, I'm still willing to give him a couple years. I think we were a total mess when he was brought in... far worse off than others gave credence to. I don't think there is anything wrong with the philosophy of developing bats and buying or trading for arms. My fear is that we are not good at identifying why a pitcher is successful on other teams and that we'll throw away good money on boom or bust prospects like Ubaldo Jimenez. He was identified by everyone outside of our organization as a boom or bust - with VERY high bust potential and we know that history. Frankly, I think signing P's in FA or getting them in trades is a very risky proposition. Even in our last successful stretch, while having many busts, like Arrieta etc, we still managed to have some nice middle releivers and even a couple great closers who were developed in the system. Some of our trades have done well after leaving. Of course that's all from the old regime and I wouldn't say they excelled at doing it. One of my biggest concerns with drafting pitchers is their age. Drafting HS pitching talent is not something I like. I prefer college players who have displayed some durability. Those young arms are so fragile and if misused or overused early never seem to overcome bigger problems as they get older.

Jim Palmer... for a good pitch or two.

I agree! This has been a pet peeve of mine for decades. Speed and spin rate are valued over command and movement. That is not acceptable. But that's a league-wide thing and not just the O's. Just a question, maybe stupid, but I'll throw it out there... Is there data that shows the time of progression to the majors of position players and pitchers. If it takes a shorter time to develop that sort of "natural ability" of pitchers, could that be an explanation of why we've been drafting fewer of them in earlier rounds? If it takes longer to develop position players and batters, the theory could be to draft them higher to field the team and then begin to concentrate on pitching as the window of contention begins to near.

...maybe we'll run the table.?

As nice as it is that the story of his continued failure won't be hashed up every year, the knowledge that he is being paid for another 16 years is simply mind boggling to me. It's unimaginable how anyone in the organization could have thought this was a good contract. When are the guys who orchestrated the contract going to retire? The lady is still warming up in the wings until 2037.

I'd disagree that player movement is killing the game. I agree that fiscal responsibility makes it difficult/impossible for teams to keep some of their stars and I don't dispute Drungo's point that players have the right to choose where they play eventually. What's "killing the game" to me is poorly managed operations. You can have fan interest with a team that is marginal. You will clearly have interest when your club is a contender - as we've proved here over the years. But when you have an operation that can only seem to go thru cyclical extremes - over 15-20 year cycles - like we have, the down years and slow climbing years are brutal. And with ALL of the other diversions in life and in media, the exodus is swift. Some stars you are going to keep and are worth the expenditure. Teams who spend exorbitant money competing with themselves in negotiations for stars are going to fail; particularly when the money used in bad contracts could have been used to keep a "star!" Being responsible with the money you have is the way to go. We proved that thru the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Players that are stars who are identified as unlikely to want or able to be re-signed need to be moved before they ever reach FA. As Drungo points out, if a player has a desire to go somewhere specific, the selling club would be smart to try to deal with those clubs, yet if no deal can be worked, there is a club that will deal and hopefully the capital of that trade will lead to players that make it to the bigs and become the next players on a competitive team the fans come out to see... or watch on TV.

The pool toys! I will say, that when they were into the O's, my kids were as interested in what the announcers were saying. They used to love introducing JJ Hardy and some of the other guys like Jim Thorn and the stadium announcer. "Playing SS, batting 7th, Jaaayy Jaaaayy Haaaaardyyyyy!" lol. So I'll add that to the list. We've been very lucky that even when our teams haven't been stellar, we've had voices that have described the game and improvements and needs to make the bad years interesting enough. I don't find that this year at all. As much as I like Scott Garceau and some of the others, I find the call of the games, whether on TV or Radio - which I listen to more frequently, are just terrible. The days of listening to a game on a transistor radio with grandparents are long gone, but so is the ability of most announcers to paint a picture of the game and entertain at the same time. Sadly, sometimes, announcers have neither of those skills.

Speaking from the perspective of my kids, who enjoyed going to games a few years ago - which coincidentally coincided with an exciting, winning team, they lost interest as we began losing. And now that there are no players from back then, they are almost completely disinterested in baseball. I'll be watching and they'll come into the room, "Oh, the Orioles are on? Where's the key to the shed?" I really do think a huge component is that there are just not the number of young fans of sport in general. There are soooo many programs available that sitting thru a game on tv without flipping is almost impossible and for kids that suffer from a lack of attention to one thing in the first place, baseball viewing is a difficult task. Playing a sport is one thing, but even my own kids - who play soccer and lacrosse, exclusively - don't watch those sports on TV at all. Watching sports used to be a luxury. A day at the park. Not so much anymore. Altho there are holdouts like a lot of us.

Fun to watch our guy do so well. Trey is a good guy. You can tell. Congrats to him!

Those pitches are so fast, one of those kids in the OF are gonna doinked. They haven't even turned around before the next ball is in the air and then the next. lol.

Decreases by a couple dozen per game...

One can dream tho! A Steve Biscuiti team with Kevin Plank or vice-a-versa... would be difficult to do better than that.

He has earned the right to have some fun. Crush it, Trey!

Great, but we have no idea what they are going to do at the MLB level and even whether that's the plan. We have indications, but we had those this year with players and some were shockingly flat compared to the expectations. That's why I continue to say that the trade of Means and Mullins would signal that we're still not there yet.