Biggest individual disappointment of the season?

[CA-ORIOLE]

Yea, I love how Fox was directly blamed for some poor outings and yet Wieters is applauded for calling a good game..even though the Orioles are the worst staff in the AL.

Worst staff in baseball and one of the worse pitching staffs in 40 years.

[DrungoHazewood]

Worst staff in baseball and one of the worse pitching staffs in 40 years.

By what measure? I guess they're 30th in FIP, but only 29th in ERA+, ahead of Houston. Their ERA+ of 82 is bad, but that's about the league-trailing total in most years. It's by no means historic.

In WAR terms the 2003 season saw five pitching staffs with lower totals than the 2011 Orioles have already accumulated. The '98 Marlins pitchers were below replacement as a group. The '11 O's are already up around 6.0.

[CA-ORIOLE]

By what measure? I guess they're 30th in FIP, but only 29th in ERA+, ahead of Houston. Their ERA+ of 82 is bad, but that's about the league-trailing total in most years. It's by no means historic.

In WAR terms the 2003 season saw five pitching staffs with lower totals than the 2011 Orioles have already accumulated. The '98 Marlins pitchers were below replacement as a group. The '11 O's are already up around 6.0.

I made a post about it a weak ago. Used ERA+. Not sure where HOU was back then or if I just missed it. I'll see if I can pull it up.

[UnashamedRiver]

I made a post about it a weak ago. Used ERA+. Not sure where HOU was back then or if I just missed it. I'll see if I can pull it up.

It could be that it's more difficult to post a terrible ERA+ because the run scoring environment has drastically been depressed recently. I have no idea if this means anything, but back in 98 it really didn't mean anything to give up 10 ER's as team. It was high, but it happened often. Now you have to try and surrender that many runs.

[CA-ORIOLE]

It could be that it's more difficult to post a terrible ERA+ because the run scoring environment has drastically been depressed recently. I have no idea if this means anything, but back in 98 it really didn't mean anything to give up 10 ER's as team. It was high, but it happened often. Now you have to try and surrender that many runs.

Sounds reasonable. The lower the environment the less extreme variation from the norm you should have. Of course if you happen to be the one team that's exceptionally bad, I guess you have a more reasonable shot at the record in a low scoring environment.

[EddieMurrayfan]

I'm surprised that B Mat has such a high percentage. I mean, were expectations for him that high? They weren't with me. Yeah he has been a major flop but I never viewed this guy as the savior. A good reliable decent SP - yeah!!

Vlad and D. Lee were major disappointments even with realistic expectations.

Weiters is an obvious choice, but I say Brian Roberts has been the biggest disappointment. Not a bash on him personally but his absence at the top of the lineup has been devastating to this team. Yeah, yeah, Hardy has done well, but Roberts is/should have been the table setter. His absence had an impact on this entire team/

[Going Underground]

One of the most over-exaggerated pieces of nonsense ever imo. Show me a catcher with a good/decent arm, who doesn't allow pass balls and who can frame a pitch, and I'll show you a good catcher.

The only reason I brought the calling a good game was because Buck brings it up sometimes. At the beginning of the year,he said Fox did not call a good game. The game against the Yankees,when Guthrie pitched a good game,he said Wieters called a good game. The next night they gave up the most runs in one inning for the Yankees ever. I think the calling a good game is way overrated. You have the Phillies staff and you can call alot of great games.

[El Gordo]

The only reason I brought the calling a good game was because Buck brings it up sometimes. At the beginning of the year,he said Fox did not call a good game. The game against the Yankees,when Guthrie pitched a good game,he said Wieters called a good game. The next night they gave up the most runs in one inning for the Yankees ever. I think the calling a good game is way overrated. You have the Phillies staff and you can call alot of great games.

The problem is the information necessary for evaluating the impact of game calling for C 's is not accessible to people not directly involved in the game. Since we can only judge C's by their PB, CS% etc., that's what we rely on, and tend to dismiss what we can not know as irrelevant. It may or may not be so. I tend to trust people like Buck's judgement here. There is a reason guys like IRod, and Varitek stay around so long, and it's not their declining arms and pitch blocking skills.

[MrOrange82]

The problem is the information necessary for evaluating the impact of game calling for C 's is not accessible to people not directly involved in the game. Since we can only judge C's by their PB, CS% etc., that's what we rely on, and tend to dismiss what we can not know as irrelevant. It may or may not be so. I tend to trust people like Buck's judgement here. There is a reason guys like IRod, and Varitek stay around so long, and it's not their declining arms and pitch blocking skills.

To further the above, in a sense: does anyone here seriously think the problems with the Orioles' staff revolve around pitch/game calling? From what I've seen, it doesn't really matter what Wieters calls...after it leaves the hand of an O's pitcher, who the Hell knows where it's winding up?

[CA-ORIOLE]

The only reason I brought the calling a good game was because Buck brings it up sometimes. At the beginning of the year,he said Fox did not call a good game. The game against the Yankees,when Guthrie pitched a good game,he said Wieters called a good game. The next night they gave up the most runs in one inning for the Yankees ever. I think the calling a good game is way overrated. You have the Phillies staff and you can call alot of great games.

Right, I gotcha. He does call it out and I think it's overrated as well.

[BaysoxFan39]

No question it is Matusz. Who would have thought he would fall off the track this far.

[LookitsPuck]

Matusz, and it's not even close.

[foxfield]

Honestly people...this is like debating which room on the Titanic was most disappointing. We will not be successful until we have a top flight ML rotation. That is a fact and at the present time, inspite of "Growing the Arms" we do not have one. Weiters has not been what we needed or what we paid for, but he is on the field each night doing his job. That worked out pretty well for former Oriole Cal Ripken.

The most disappointing thing this season is "other" and the specific item is that we have made very little progress on being a team that can compete. Everything else debated here is symantics.

[mweb]

Matusz is the rather obvious answer imo.

Yes, Wieters has been disappointing, but some are looking at this wrong imo. ccbird made a good point in that Wieters hype from 2009 shouldn't hold that much weight here considering he had already had almost 900 plate appearances with about a 92 OPS+. So he was already a disappointment in that regard and it didn't make much sense to expect a big offensive season.

Matusz also had very big expectations prior to making the bigs and had shown a lot more promise than Wieters with his run to finish up last season. Wieters has actually improved this season with the bat and the glove while Matusz has been a complete disaster. The difference in expectations for this season and results is vastly larger for Matusz than Wieters. So Matusz is the easy choice for me.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Matusz is the rather obvious answer imo.

Yes, Wieters has been disappointing, but some are looking at this wrong imo. ccbird made a good point in that Wieter hype from 2009 shouldn't hold that much weight here considering he had already had almost 900 plate appearances with about a 92 OPS+. So he was already a disappointment in that regard and it didn't make much sense to expect a big offensive season.

Matusz also had very big expectations prior to making the bigs and had shown a lot more promise than Wieters with his run to finish up last season. Wieters has actually improved this season with the bat and the glove while Matusz has been a complete disaster. The difference in expectations for this season and results is vastly larger for Matusz than Wieters. So Matusz is the easy choice for me.

This is a very fair point, it's just really hard to get that taste out of my mouth.