Sessh

It's been made pretty clear by the recent moves that Elias doesn't want to improve the starting rotation. He wants the Orioles to be the worst team in baseball for at least one more year. "Improving" the starting rotation would probably equate to making it worse. Means came out of nowhere last year and it remains to be seen if he can continue that in 2020. Blach, Eshelman, Ortiz and whoever else will likely be seeing significant time on the mound next season. We're not trying to win, but maybe someone surprises us out of the bunch we'll be trotting out there. I don't expect Cobb will last the season without hurting himself (he never does) and Wojciechowski is far from a certainty to perform well himself. Even between Means and these two, there's no good reason to believe any of them will be effective in 2020. Means has to prove to me that he can do it again though I am encouraged and Wojo is, IMO, a long shot. So, expect Blach, Eshelman and Ortiz et al to be pitching for the Orioles. Blach and Eshelman did at least show the ability to be effective, but were both prone to sudden meltdowns. Blach showed the ability to be a serviceable major league starter in the past and Eshelman hasn't even thrown 40 innings yet. We got some pleasant surprises last season and will almost certainly get some in 2020 as well whoever they are.

I voted no, but only because there wasn't an "I don't know" option. I'm not happy with how the whole situation was handled or that it seems we basically got an org guy for him and nothing else. I'm to the point that I don't care anymore, but it is a bungle on Elias' part in my book. Still plenty to be happy about as far as the direction he's taking the organization, though.

I chose Meh.. because spreading a return for Bundy over four players is probably stretching the talent pretty thin. Hard to make a pea-sized glob of peanut butter spread across a whole piece of bread. I would have rather had more quality in two players personally, but we'll see how these guys do.

Well, I don't think Elias is incompetent, but I do think he bungled the Villar situation and I believe it to be a correct assessment that he did publicly show too many of his cards with regards to his intentions. I have been in agreement with almost everything else he's done since taking the job, but I still don't like the move, how it was handled and how it ultimately concluded, but oh well. I'm willing to give him a pass on it, though. See, I don't get this. As an everyday player the last four years, his WARs are 3.9, 0.1, 2.7 and 4.0. How is it that you or anyone can project him at a WAR that is lower than three of those four years? Why is it "likely" that he will be worse? With a total of 10.7 WAR, that averages out to almost 2.7, but his projection is lower than that? I'm not saying it's not possible that he will fall in the range you suggest, but I take issue with saying it's "likely" to happen. Based on what is it likely?

Made you want to? You've been carrying this huge, irrational grudge against Villar for most of last season. I doubt atomic has anything to do with it. You just want desperately to be right about him. You want him to fail so you can be right. ? ..and the more our rookie GM and the FO he assembled would (hopefully) learn. I'm all for that.

I can see both sides of this, but I ultimately don't like the idea of trying to improve our pitching staff by making the park bigger. I'd rather have better pitching. When this team is competitive again, we're going to shred teams that come and play in our park. Our offense will out-benefit our opponents more time than not. "Our pitching sucks" is not a good reason to alter the ballpark any more than "our offense sucks" is a good reason to bring the walls in and lower them. Also, as pointed out by someone else, we still don't know what ball we will be using. Until MLB stops changing the balls every year and even mid-season or for the postseason, it's hard to even get an idea about anything. How good are these offensive players and how much is the ball? How bad are these pitchers and how much is the ball? MLB is stupid for continuing to change the ball every damn year. They didn't even wait until the end of the year last year to change them again. This needs to stop. I don't care which ball they use even if it's last year's ball. Just pick one and stop changing it because it's NOT good for the game and it makes analytics less useful. The ball has to be constant to get accurate numbers on anything.

He didn't do himself any favors going to San Diego which may make it even tougher. He had a pretty bad year last year by his standards. Didn't even OPS .800.

I don't think we make it without Kim either. I'm still disappointed with how he was handled.

I think I'm pretty hazardous to my own reputation though I'm not sure I have much of one anyway. Sure, if Elias' asking price was 2 DSL players. Maybe he wanted more. Perhaps 2/14 or 2/15 is seen as preferable to 1/10 + prospects. Either way, it probably wasn't a good plan to tip his hand to the extent that he did. I do see your points, though.

I think that pretty much sums up why no one wanted to give up anything for him in a trade. If they know Elias isn't going to pay him in arbitration and is just going to waive him, what reason is there to give up prospects in a trade when you can compete for his services in the offseason when he becomes a free agent? That makes more sense than claiming that every GM in the league thinks Villar is a bad player.

I know, right? It's peculiar how much of this kind of stuff surrounds VIllar. You know it's gone to ridiculous lengths when people start saying that stuff not to mention some lost credibility for even trying to make such a case. He is the most misjudged player I've seen on here since I've been here. His mistakes are overly exaggerated and his strengths and career accomplishments are diminished in favor of amplifying his low points to the point of caricature or even just saying things that aren't true which can be easily verified as such. I don't get it. I think Villar is destined to achieve Lew Ford status at some point.

This is simply not true. As previously stated, he played 156 games in 2016. He played 122 games in 2017, but missed a month due to a back injury. He played 141 games in 2018, but missed 10 games due to a thumb injury. He has been a full time player for four years during which time he has accumulated a 10.7 WAR with one bad year of the four. I'm not sure where you're getting the "not an everyday player" thing from. It's simply false.

I do like Villar. I think he brings a lot of excitement to our team and was one of the only guys supplying that last year and thought we should have bought out his arb year last season with perhaps an extra year. However, I can understand how 10M might be a little steep. On the other hand, any little things you can do to keep at least some excitement and try to keep some players fans enjoy watching on the team even at a little extra expense seems like a worthwhile exception to make. It's not that Villar is going to make us win significantly more games or bring us out of the doldrums faster. It's more that it's not really a good look IMO. What bothers me is allowing him to get away for nothing. I would rather sign him and see if an opportunity presents itself to trade him this season. Sure, it's risky, but considering our current situation, the risk is minimal. If he doesn't perform well, so what? We're not going anywhere anyway. If he does, maybe we can get something for him in a trade down the line or maybe we decide to keep him around after next year. Regardless, I don't think letting a guy coming off a 4 WAR season after a 2.7 the year before go for nothing is a good look or a good move. This is really the first time I've felt loud and clear that we're actively racing to the bottom. It's one thing to be ok with not having a good team during a rebuild while avoiding the course of action that got us 1998-2012, but it's quite another to allow your best player to go for nothing over a few million dollars. It just feels so blatant and I'm not sure how I feel about it really. It's 5M and we've already shed a great deal of salary, so not like it would hurt and it would at least show the fans that they care a little bit about a player that has become a fan favorite to some degree. I still think it's worth it. If it backfires, so what? How much harm will really be done to the rebuild? My guess is none. Also, I disagree with any sort of name calling or personal attacks against Elias or anyone at this point. It's too early to make such judgments. This is Elias' first go in this position, so I'm willing to cut him some slack. That doesn't change my feelings that it's a bad move to make right now.

You're not the only one. Yeah. I went there.

That's great news, Tony. Enjoy your vacation and you don't need to apologize for anything. I appreciate your honesty and candor. Hopefully, the PR department stuff will get sorted out soon. Take care and enjoy yourself!

If only that were true. The thing is any website that has ads on their site has little to no control over which ads get displayed on their site. That is entirely up to the advertiser, so an ad choice one day may be acceptable, but the next it may not be. Porn links are the least of anyone's concern and any ad that is malicious does not need to be clicked on to infect a computer or device. It only needs to be allowed to load in the browser. There's also the aspect that some of these ads use up so much memory and run so many scripts that it negatively affects the ability of the browser to load a functionally acceptable page. So, I've been burned by this stuff one too many times (though it's been a long time now) by this stuff. Sites I considered to be safe ended up putting something on my computer through advertisements that I didn't click on at all and cost me time and stress having to fix it again. In addition to ad blockers, I have a custom DNS server set up here with blacklists that update nightly, a hosts file and soon to be a Pi-Hole device that blocks all this stuff. So, my security layers are multiple and it's not so easy to just allow ads anywhere at this point. If advertisers could be trusted to not be malicious and unethical, ad blockers wouldn't be necessary. Unfortunately, they are and that has only become more necessary as the years have gone on. Another aspect is for those who aren't so tech savvy and don't keep regular system backups, who pays to get that PC fixed when it breaks? The victim does. These advertisers have zero liability when it comes to damaging people's property and any losses that may be incurred as a result. Being on the web without any such protections in place is downright reckless and dangerous in today's internet era. This is why other means of revenue generation are necessary. The days of being able to rely almost exclusively on advertising revenue are gone and it's the fault of the advertisers, not folks who choose to use ad blockers to protect their data and property. I believe so. Tony said he has been treated well by ME, so maybe Mike can help him out with that. I know he's a very busy man these days, but maybe he understands the importance involved with this and can help. This does seem to be the main issue here, so it's just a matter of getting through to them. Hopefully, Mike can help.

I've thought about it off and on. I do seem to remember a thread a year or two ago where revenue concerns and ad blockers came up here and there were several suggestions made for alternative payment methods to be incorporated such as affiliate links, a patreon account for the site, tip jars and so on. I would get the most use from an Amazon affiliate link which would send commission your way every month maybe even multiple times a month. It's also a great way for lurkers to support the site without even signing up for an account. It was disappointing to see that not a single one of those suggestions was implemented here and now, here we are again. The site needs to move into this age as far as using more of the available options to generate revenue and the fact that no apparent effort has been made towards this end is... well, disappointing. I seem to recall allowing ads here to adversely affect the performance of the site in my browser which I did multiple times. Maybe I'll try again, but I do not trust online advertisers and there's every reason not to. I do hope that whatever happens, the site stays around even if the reigns are passed on. My interest in baseball has been waning a little more each year which is probably a main reason I don't commit to a membership. Manfred seems intent on killing my interest entirely. Aside from that, I also like the perks of not having one such as not knowing who gives thumbs up/down to my posts. I'd rather NOT know to be honest! I also understand feeling worn out, though. Nothing can be done about that except doing what you need to do. Passing the reigns on to someone else is hopefully a possibility here. Whatever the case, Tony, do what you have to do for you.

As the sport welcomes more and more technology into the game, I would expect to see more and more of this kind of stuff. Using tech to gain unfair advantages and if you're really good at it, no one would find out for years perhaps many years. Technology is a double edged sword. However, considering that many teams in the league are probably already doing this in some way, I don't think it's that big a deal. If everyone is doing it, it's hard to see it as cheating really. Same as steroids. If the whole league is using PEDs for several decades, then the playing field is pretty level. I don't know... once cats like these are out of the bag, it may be impossible to put them back in.

Exactly my thoughts. I wouldn't be surprised if this rule actually increased the length of games due to more offense as well as a few more injuries and no doubt teams trying to get around the rule faking injuries or removing pitchers based on suspicion of injury. This will not speed up the game at all IMO. Just grasping for straws with this change. I don't think you can "force" games to be shorter in these kinds of ways without doing more damage to the game than the thing you're trying to fix. I personally don't care about game time much, but it wouldn't hurt if the games were more exciting. No one was complaining about game length when there was more going on than the three true outcomes most of the time.

I don't really see how this is going to shorten games and it may actually make them longer due to more offense and scoring. I could see an increase in injuries to pitchers as it seems inevitable that they will all have to throw more pitches/innings than they are accustomed to. When you see a pitcher just doesn't have it that day, there's now no recourse except to fake an injury. Otherwise, the manager must sit back helplessly and watch that pitcher set the field on fire and potentially give away the game. I don't imagine this will go over well. The fact that this is being done to shorten games is laughable IMO. I find it highly unlikely that this will have that effect. I find it far more likely it will make games longer, but even if it does, the change will be marginal. At least make changes that are likely to achieve the goal you set out to achieve. This feels like wild flailing in the dark to me which is par for the course with Mad Fred. (Also not a typo)

It's a valid criticism, but the thing is Hinch did not immediately signal to the bullpen when he came out to the mound. He talked with Greinke for a few seconds, Greinke nodded and it was only at that point did Hinch make the call to the bullpen. So, the change seemed to be, in part, the result of whatever discussion took place between Hinch and Greinke. Maybe those details will come out eventually, but it certainly proved to be the case that Greinke was the only thing holding the Nationals down. Once he was out, Washington just took over the game.

I would also add that we've seen plays just like that overturned on a regular basis in the regular season. Runner slides into the base, foot pops up off the base and is tagged before he can re-initiate contact with the bag. Called safe, but overturned on replay. Same play we've seen overturned time and time again and it should have been again.

There absolutely was irrefutable evidence. Maybe we weren't looking at the same four HD, high speed camera views. His foot hit the bag, came up off the bag completely and was tagged before the trailing leg hit the bag. They didn't overturn the obvious bad call on the interference play either which there was also clear, irrefutable evidence to overturn. No way that was interference. I don't think they wanted to overturn anything considering how bad the umpiring was in general in this series. These were two terrible calls. He could have.. but we don't know what the situation was (if any) with Cole. Maybe we will in the coming days. It doesn't seem like using him was ever in the plans, but the bottom line is the Astros bullpen didn't get the job done. Oh well.. the Nationals deserved it IMO.

Wow, they did it. Peter must be thrilled. Not a huge Nats fan or anything, but glad they won.

In Hinch's defense, he did not immediately make the call to the bullpen when he went out to Greinke. They had a little exchange, Greinke nodded his head and then Hinch made the point to the pen while standing on the mound with him, so it looked to me like Greinke was ok with the move. However, that was one of those situations where the only thing holding the Nats offense back was Greinke and pulling him for anyone would be a bad move. Sometimes, you don't have a choice though.