Pessimism

[Moose Milligan]

This is where the Good Ship Lollypop goes to die. I feel like I'm NMS on crack....you might want to start calling me New Market Milligan.

I'm sorry, but I do not have a shred of hope that the Orioles will crack .500 this year, or come anywhere close. As I said to Tony the other day, I'm not ready to start getting all Trea on DD as some of his infrastructure and organizational changes might have a long term effect. I also thought pissing off the Koreans was hysterical.

But I will bash his offseason. This offseason has been absolutely pathetic and it reeks of an offseason that someone who was out of the game for 10 years would put together.

For starters....who is the Opening Day starter? Britton has potential but he hasn't even pitched a full season in the bigs yet. Still, he's thrown more innings in a season than Arrieta has, and is about 20 innings less than Matusz's season from 2009. Wada and Chen are unprovens and Dana Eveland hasn't even come close to throwing over 100 innings since 2008. Tillman and Matusz, once viewed as saviors of our franchise were downright awful last year and cannot be counted on to even crack the OD rotation. And I'm just merely speculating who can give us innings this year, I'm not even talking about the quality of innings which is another conversation altogether and probably one not worth having.

People are talking about depth, but what depth exactly? Bodies? Arms that haven't pathetically underperformed or broken down yet? There's more question marks in our rotation than answers, thats for sure. We just traded our most proven starter (who wasn't an ace by any stretch of the imagination) for two clowns from Colorado in a head scratching move that even the most trade happy OHers couldn't get behind. I don't even feel like looking up their baseball reference pages, but I remember Jason Hammel's career ERA hovering around 5. Matt Lindstrom could be a good reliever for us, which makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

The bullpen still has Kevin Gregg, though it looks like we're trying to trade him which is nice. It might actually be a good bullpen but who cares when it'll be blown out by June like it always is?

As far as the offense, whatever. Jones is going to swing and miss at low and outside sliders all summer long. People are expecting big things from Wieters as he finished last season strong but I remember having that feeling after his finish to 2009. Hopefully Nick can get some semblance of power back. Our two big offensive pickups are Wilson Betemit and Endy Chavez. The rest of the AL East is trembling.

Assuming Roberts is practically finished, we have no leadoff hitter in a lineup that is already pathetic when it comes to an OBP perspective. And even if Roberts somehow plays in the majority of the games this year, what will his production be?

I don't even feel like talking about the rest of the lineup or our defense, I'm too depressed about the rotation. Look at the rotations of the rest of the AL East teams, hell, look at the rotations of some of the teams around baseball that expected to finish around .500 and then compare those to ours.

Then remind yourself that this is the Baltimore Orioles and nothing ever goes our way. Look at our roster and count how many times you have to look at a player and say to yourself, "Well, if (insert name here) plays like they did three years ago..." or "Well, if (insert name here) lives up to potential..." and remind yourself that you've been looking at the same roster for the past 15 years and how horrible it's been. Remind yourself that you've been looking at this roster every winter for the past 15 years and saying "Well, if..." and remind yourself how often it's worked out for the best.

I realize this is more of a rant than anything with very little statistical analysis....but IMO I don't need statistical analysis when most of us are talking about players living up to potential in order to be somewhat competitive.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2012 Baltimore Orioles. You can put lipstick on this pig all you want, it doesn't matter. You think last year was bottoming out? You ain't seen nothing yet.

Final predicition: A mad dash to the finish line to win 65 games.

[HankGChuck]

Agreed.

There's nothing else that can be said about the 2012 Orioles. There's no data to suggest that we're going make a turn-around and become a competitive team. There's too many "would-be" players who are expected to reach career performance levels while they are in Bmore or fulfill their potential this year. It would take a miracle for this team to make noise in 2012.

[wildcard]

Moose, does this mean you haven't been to sleep yet or that you couldn't sleep. Believe me, I know the feeling.

[Moose Milligan]

Moose, does this mean you haven't been to sleep yet or that you couldn't sleep. Believe me, I know the feeling.

I woke up in the middle of the night, been back to bed since.

[BrunoCherrytown]

Moose I'm tired of you not getting excited about all this "DEPTH" and "PAYROLL FLEXIBILITY!"

Let the Marlins spend $35 million on Cespedes. And the Cubs spend $25 million on Soler after spending $7 million on Concepcion.

Those foolish teams will be caught off guard in 2020 when Peter Angelos' ghost decides to spend all of the money he's been hoarding on actual impact talent and not a collection of "Lord let's please catch lightning in a bottle" players!

[ChaosLex]

One day the Orioles will rise like the phoenix from the ashes. I'm not foolhardy enough to say it'll be this year, but it will happen eventually. And it will be glorious.

[Moose Milligan]

Moose I'm tired of you not getting excited about all this "DEPTH" and "PAYROLL FLEXIBILITY!"

Let the Marlins spend $35 million on Cespedes. And the Cubs spend $25 million on Soler after spending $7 million on Concepcion.

Those foolish teams will be caught off guard in 2020 when Peter Angelos' ghost decides to spend all of the money he's been hoarding on actual impact talent and not a collection of "Lord let's please catch lightning in a bottle" players!

It's not even about spending money, it's about setting this team up for the future. If you're gonna trade Guthrie, do it right. If you're gonna do that, might as well trade Jones, too. I'd be singing a different song if we had traded those two for quality prospects.

This is still MacPhail's team with the hope that the pitching will still come around.

[Dipper9]

I feel much better about this roster than I did a few years ago (I forget the year) with the 6-headed shortstop and the rotation made up of has been's and never were's.

And....yup....that's about the only positive thoughts I can muster right now.

[Brendan25]

Around this time every year I usually get excited about the Orioles. I find reasons to think they can win and start to believe. This year I have no hope.

[DrungoHazewood]

Moose's original post is a little over-the-top, but nothing he said was just a complete fabrication. This team could win 65 games. But it was never really about 2012 anyway. If Duquette is good crazy instead of bad crazy we'll only see hints of that this year, most of the positive impacts will be down the road.

[Dr. FLK]

Do we really need to call it pessimism anymore? Can't it just be "realism"? This team is dreadful every year...and every year they try the same mediocre things to save it. We've seen this story before, and we know how it ends.

[osfan83]

The goal this year should be to avoid 100 losses. That really is the only thing to watch for...can we keep on pace to avoid 100. To me that should be the Vegas over/under line.

[Gurgi]

This has to be the most negative the board has ever been at the start of a season.

I think it is because all the hope we put into the calvary and the calvary got "Little Big Horned".

Now all we can see is doom.

I wish for a miracle like 89.

[.500_OR_BETTER]

Take a deep breath buddy, this ain't gonna pretty....

Just remember... this is all part of the 3 year plan :mwahaha:

[waroriole]

One day the Orioles will rise like the phoenix from the ashes. I'm not foolhardy enough to say it'll be this year, but it will happen eventually. And it will be glorious.

You got that right. Oh what a season it will be.......but not this year;)