Offense, not pitching is going to be the key to 2011

[JTrea81]

Most teams are like this. I'm not going to deny that teams spending $200 mm or $160 mm have more ability to compensate for a key injury than a team that doesn't. That should be relatively obvious.

Or they have minor league depth that is ready to step in.

The Rays have proven you can have depth without spending 200-160 million.

The Orioles have neither spent $ nor have acquired enough minor league depth and are banking their offensive season on inconsistent young players, a bunch of injury prone stopgaps and recovery projects and have zero depth if any of them falter.

All they can do is hope and pray everybody stays healthy and overachieves to provide the offense to win.

There aren't many teams that are taking that approach.

[Camden_yardbird]

Or they have minor league depth that is ready to step in.

The Rays have proven you can have depth without spending 200-160 million.

The Orioles have neither spent $ nor have acquired enough minor league depth and are banking their offensive season on inconsistent young players, a bunch of injury prone stopgaps and recovery projects and have zero depth if any of them falter.

All they can do is hope and pray everybody stays healthy and overachieves to provide the offense to win.

There aren't many teams that are taking that approach.

Isn't that what the Giants did last year? Lets see, didn't they, oh yea....won the World Series.

Now I realize its the NL, and their pitching is better, but until you take 10 years to follow the path of consistent building through the draft, you are never going to compete unless you are doing just that.

[Can_of_corn]

Vlad looked pretty healthy last year.

It's adding a failsafe when we don't have one.

Where's the harm in doing that? But as I said, that's for another thread.

Did you watch Vlad stumble around in the outfield during the world series? That was not a "pretty healthy" professional athlete.

That is all I have to say in this thread.

[JTrea81]

Did you watch Vlad stumble around in the outfield during the world series? That was not a "pretty healthy" professional athlete.

That is all I have to say in this thread.

Vlad wouldn't be playing the OF, he'd be swinging a bat and running the bases, hopefully jogging around them most of the time.

[SilentJames]

So, we need to get younger and add depth and answer questions.

But also we should add Vlad, which accomplishes none of the above. And if you think Vlad is any less of an injury risk at his age than Lee you are kidding yourself.

I guess we are just going to ignore the fact that Vlad struggled in the second half and away from Arlington. Yeah, we are just going to ignore that.

[JTrea81]

So, we need to get younger and add depth and answer questions.

But also we should add Vlad, which accomplishes none of the above. And if you think Vlad is any less of an injury risk at his age than Lee you are kidding yourself.

I guess we are just going to ignore the fact that Vlad struggled in the second half and away from Arlington. Yeah, we are just going to ignore that.

Luke Scott was horrible away from OPACY but nobody seems concerned about that. Vlad actually had much better away stats than Scott did.

And everybody ignores Vlad's .842 OPS in September and stellar first half.

I bet I could find plenty of good ML players that had two poor months - like this guy or this guy.

But this thread isn't about Vlad, it's about the Orioles offense being the most crucial part to having success in 2011.

[Stotle]

Isn't that what the Giants did last year? Lets see, didn't they, oh yea....won the World Series.

Now I realize its the NL, and their pitching is better, but until you take 10 years to follow the path of consistent building through the draft, you are never going to compete unless you are doing just that.

It doesn't take ten years to build a farm system. TOR did it in just about 18 months. BAL had an excellent start with Matusz/Wieters/Tillman/Arrieta at the top and simply dropped the ball.

[SilentJames]

Luke Scott was horrible away from OPACY but nobody seems concerned about that. Vlad actually had much better away stats than Scott did.

And everybody ignores Vlad's .842 OPS in September and stellar first half.

I bet I could find plenty of good ML players that had two poor months - like this guy or this guy.

But this thread isn't about Vlad, it's about the Orioles offense being the most crucial part to having success in 2011.

So the fact that he vanished in the playoffs and his best 2nd half month was worse than his worse first half month means nothing? got it.

Who cares if Scott hit poorly away from Camden Yards? Vlad hit poorly away from Texas, Camden Yards is not Texas. None of those guys are 36 years-old.

This thread is about another one of your completely hair-brained theories.

Yes, the Orioles offense needs to improve, but to legitimately say that the Orioles pitching could be as BAD as the Pirates pitching, so long as they had a strong offense is just ludicrous. Seriously Trea, seriously.

The Orioles turned things around at the end of the season due largely to their pitching. Teams live and die by pitching. the Giants got to the World Series because of their pitching.

The Rangers beat the Yankees because of their pitching.

The Jays went nowhere because of their hitting may have been elite, but their pitching was not.

The Sox went nowhere because Lackey,et al, greatly underperformed.

This isn't rocket science, I really don't get how you simply refuse to understand this. I mean, it is very simple.

[Frobby]

The Rays have proven you can have depth without spending 200-160 million.

The Rays have a lot of minor league talent, but they've also been very lucky with injuries the two years they won the division. Last year Ray players spent 300 days on the DL. Oriole players spent 651 days on the DL. The Rays lost nobody of importance for a significant length of time (unless you consider Matt Joyce important).

[Crazysilver03]

Vlad looked pretty healthy last year.

It's adding a failsafe when we don't have one.

Where's the harm in doing that? But as I said, that's for another thread.

One you don't address now that the evidence has been put in their against you.

Vlad seemed healthy last year but he has had injuries in the past.

[Crazysilver03]

Wait, now you're worried about depth? Aren't you the guy who wanted the O's to bundle 4 or 5 players for Fielder? Why didn't lack of depth bother you then?

Fielder has a better chance of playing a full season than Lee does.

Depth at 1B isn't as important when you have a reliable option there.

We wouldn't have traded any 1B depth for Fielder. We would be taking away from all the other areas.

[Crazysilver03]

And everybody ignores Vlad's .842 OPS in September and stellar first half.

.

Of all the crap you keep saying, I wish you would stop this the most. People aren't writing him off completely, just trying to show you that he is still a question mark which you don't seem to believe.

[JTrea81]

So the fact that he vanished in the playoffs and his best 2nd half month was worse than his worse first half month means nothing? got it.

Why are you talking playoffs when we have to get there first? I'll worry about Vlad in the playoffs when we actually get there. You make it seem like his playoff production is a concern when we aren't likely going to them this year even if he's on the team.

Who cares if Scott hit poorly away from Camden Yards? Vlad hit poorly away from Texas, Camden Yards is not Texas. None of those guys are 36 years-old.

Vlad had a .794 OPS away from Texas, Luke Scott had a .705 OPS away from Baltimore. So which one is truly poor? And last time I checked the Orioles had to win games on the road as well and to do that they are going to need offense.

This thread is about another one of your completely hair-brained theories.

Yes, the Orioles offense needs to improve, but to legitimately say that the Orioles pitching could be as BAD as the Pirates pitching, so long as they had a strong offense is just ludicrous. Seriously Trea, seriously.

For one month, I said one month the Pirates had a 6.62 ERA and still managed a 10-13 record while the Orioles were 2 runs better and went 5-18. It was an example that they didn't have to have stellar pitching to at least be respectable all the time which is the truth, as you don't if your offense picks you up. 10-13 would have been a respectable record for the Orioles at the end of April. They'd be 3 games under .500 instead of 13, a much easier obstacle to overcome to a winning season. And it's that start that buried the Orioles to begin with. They never came back from that until Buck arrived.

The Orioles turned things around at the end of the season due largely to their pitching. Teams live and die by pitching. the Giants got to the World Series because of their pitching.

Our team died with the offensive ineptitude last season. The pitching was mediocre in April and May, dreadful in June and July and stellar in August and September.

The offense was horrible for the entire season and was the constant in the losing.

Yes, only when the team pitched above their heads did the team start to win. But you simply can't count on that to happen again. For one, Millwood is gone, and the pitchers are still young and likely to still go through growing pains, especially when you introduce a starter like Britton into the rotation this year.

The Rangers beat the Yankees because of their pitching.

In the playoffs. Again we've got to get there first before we worry about that.

The Jays went nowhere because of their hitting may have been elite, but their pitching was not.

Their hitting wasn't exactly elite. They had a huge season from Bautista and a bounceback season from Wells, but the rest of their offense wasn't anything to write home about despite all the dingers. They were very one dimensional. And their pitching while only mediocre, was better than the Red Sox.

The Sox went nowhere because Lackey,et al, greatly underperformed.

No they had major injury problems to key players. Lackey was actually a 4.0 fWAR pitcher and was just unlucky. Lackey's FIP was 3.85 compared to his ERA of 4.40.

This isn't rocket science, I really don't get how you simply refuse to understand this. I mean, it is very simple.

Pitching is not the end all-be all that people want to make it seem. It's something that people fixate on, but the offense is actually more important as they provide the run support for the pitcher and decide how well the pitchers have to pitch to win games. Run support is completely out of the pitcher's control for a team in the AL. While if a pitcher gives up 6 runs, it's the offense's job to go get 7, and they can control that.

Which is why the offense is the most important factor, and will be for the Orioles in 2011. It will dictate how well the Orioles pitching has to perform to win.

[maybenxtyr]

It doesn't take ten years to build a farm system. TOR did it in just about 18 months. BAL had an excellent start with Matusz/Wieters/Tillman/Arrieta at the top and simply dropped the ball.

I am not trying too hi-jack this thread, but if this team falters this year, would you then look to break it up next off-season, or would you go after Prince, or another vet at a position of need?

I just wonder if they should have tried to trade Roberts, Scott, Nick, and Guthrie this off-season.

I like the moves they have made, but what if this core is just not good enough?

[JTrea81]

I am not trying too hi-jack this thread, but if this team falters this year, would you then look to break it up next off-season, or would you go after Prince, or another vet at a position of need?

I just wonder if they should have tried to trade Roberts, Scott, Nick, and Guthrie this off-season.

I like the moves they have made, but what if this core is just not good enough?

Then you blow everything up.