Matusz article and chart

[Hank Scorpio]

I'd just like some specifics. What kind of support does Palmer think the Orioles don't provide that other teams do provide? He doesn't say, and he also tosses in the word "probably." If I knew exactly what he meant, and it was backed up with some specifics, I'd probably be infuriated, too. But as it is, I don't really know what to make of the statement.

Right, I get what you're saying and that's a fair statement.

[DrungoHazewood]

I'd just like some specifics. What kind of support does Palmer think the Orioles don't provide that other teams do provide? He doesn't say, and he also tosses in the word "probably." If I knew exactly what he meant, and it was backed up with some specifics, I'd probably be infuriated, too. But as it is, I don't really know what to make of the statement.

Run support, defensive support, constant losing environment, pressure to succeeed, tougher competetion and less positive reinforcement. .

Yea, that's probably a decent subset of what Palmer is referring to.

[CA-ORIOLE]

Yea, that's probably a decent subset of what Palmer is referring to.

It's typically what he comments about on the broadcasts.

[Frobby]

Yea, that's probably a decent subset of what Palmer is referring to.

It's typically what he comments about on the broadcasts.

Well, if that is all he means, then the comment doesnt worry me, in the sense that these are all defects we are well aware of. But if he is referring to lack of coaching or medical/training support, that is more worrisome, though the Duquette regime has made a lot of changes in that regard.

[allstar1579]

I can see why Buck would want to improve that be I agree that the trade off is silly. Let the guy do what got him here, tinkering is fine but when he had such issues last year I think getting back to the basics is important.

As far as working on things in ST goes, that honestly never really occured to me. I agree that later in the spring we will make much better assertions on where Matsuz is in regards to why his performance is what it is. But thanks for the advice, trying different things mechanics or whatever early in the spring went right over my head while making those observations.

No prob. I know after last season we are all so antsy to see BM get back to being successful that we are watching EVERY move. I just learned my lesson about the spring about 4 years ago, went down to Ft. Meyers and caught the O's/Twins play a couple, was watching someone throw and it just looked SO off, I thought there might be an injury or something. Then saw him again in one of the exhibition games right before the season and it was like a different guy. Dawned on me afterwards what I saw in FL was experimenting to try to improve fielding after the pitch and they scrapped it after, but they had me worried for a couple weeks.

[allstar1579]

The "time to the plate" thing absolutely reeks of old school manager talk, the kind of talk that's on the opposite end of the forward thinking management/leadership/FO that this team needs.

It's important, but I'm willing to bet it's impossible whether to tell it'll make or break a season, or what two tenths of a second faster to home plate means for a pitcher over a course of a season. And when they're struggling to win 70 games, there are much bigger things to worry about. Lastly, when they've got a guy back there like Wieters who has a rocket in his socket, who cares?

I remember reading about how when Dwight Gooden came up and how amazing he was. Then Mel Stottlemyre started tweaking and tinkering and tried to get him to stop going for so many strikeouts, or teaching him a new pitch (slider?), I don't remember the specifics. He just thought that if he coached Gooden up some more, he could be even BETTER. How could Gooden be any BETTER? His first two seasons were absolutely ridiculous. He should have just left him alone, he was great as he was. Of course the booger sugar and the alcohol ruined him but a lot of people involved with those Mets teams think Stottlemyre didn't do him any favors, either.

So why would anyone tinker with Matusz's mechanics? This also reminds me when Sherrill's relative was posting here and clued us in on the change in mechanics the Orioles made from one season to another. Very slight, yet they had a big impact on him for awhile.

Yeah I've been thinking along these lines since mid-season last year. It seems like a "I know best, and THIS is how it's going to be" kind of situation with Buck, almost seems like he doesn't care that some things don't work for some people, either you're going to do it his way or not at all. One of the reasons why I'm actually not as high on Buck as others around. I see the benefits of having that kind of coach on a young team when you are trying to instill the right way to behave in the majors, BUT when it comes to taking a guy with so much potential and ruining him just to try to make a point it just makes me mad. I mean if you try it your way and it doesn't work for that guy, don't say oh it's because he sucks, cut him, instead of hey, maybe my way isn't the best in this situation.

[Lucky Jim]

Yeah I've been thinking along these lines since mid-season last year. It seems like a "I know best, and THIS is how it's going to be" kind of situation with Buck, almost seems like he doesn't care that some things don't work for some people, either you're going to do it his way or not at all. One of the reasons why I'm actually not as high on Buck as others around. I see the benefits of having that kind of coach on a young team when you are trying to instill the right way to behave in the majors, BUT when it comes to taking a guy with so much potential and ruining him just to try to make a point it just makes me mad. I mean if you try it your way and it doesn't work for that guy, don't say oh it's because he sucks, cut him, instead of hey, maybe my way isn't the best in this situation.

The players seem to like Buck, and that's enough for now. But I have concerns along the lines expressed above (and by Moose) as well.

[DrungoHazewood]

Well, if that is all he means, then the comment doesnt worry me, in the sense that these are all defects we are well aware of. But if he is referring to lack of coaching or medical/training support, that is more worrisome, though the Duquette regime has made a lot of changes in that regard.

My assumption was coaching, training, medical support, access to data, and other things could easily be included in Palmer's generalization.

[Frobby]

I think this stuff gets blown out of proportion. I'd expect any manager to want his pitchers to be effective at holding runners. Obviously, you have to balance that against messing up a guy's mechanics, but for the most part, pitchers are able to learn to be more effective at holding runners without compromising their pitching. Some are better than others at it. I'm sure Buck realizes this, and don't read that much into his comments.

[DrungoHazewood]

I think this stuff gets blown out of proportion. I'd expect any manager to want his pitchers to be effective at holding runners. Obviously, you have to balance that against messing up a guy's mechanics, but for the most part, pitchers are able to learn to be more effective at holding runners without compromising their pitching. Some are better than others at it. I'm sure Buck realizes this, and don't read that much into his comments.

I don't think it's unusual or unexpected for MLB players, coaches, and managers to improperly weight the importance of various aspects of the game. There is a lot more information available today, so you'd hope it's not as bad as in the past. But in my lifetime we've seen crazy things like routinely batting guys leadoff with .300 OBPs and 75 steals, because there was no realization that the steals didn't come close to making up for the poor hitting.

[Lucky Jim]

I don't think it's unusual or unexpected for MLB players, coaches, and managers to improperly weight the importance of various aspects of the game. There is a lot more information available today, so you'd hope it's not as bad as in the past. But in my lifetime we've seen crazy things like routinely batting guys leadoff with .300 OBPs and 75 steals, because there was no realization that the steals didn't come close to making up for the poor hitting.

What do we make of a guy with an OBP of .310 batting leadoff...with no speed?

('cause Buck sure-as-heck did that for a while last year.)

[allstar1579]

I think this stuff gets blown out of proportion. I'd expect any manager to want his pitchers to be effective at holding runners. Obviously, you have to balance that against messing up a guy's mechanics, but for the most part, pitchers are able to learn to be more effective at holding runners without compromising their pitching. Some are better than others at it. I'm sure Buck realizes this, and don't read that much into his comments.

I do agree with you to a point, but like Drungo said I think there's kind of an old-school/new-school gap right now where some guys do things because that's just the way it was done, and some guys do thing because they don't HAVE to do things the way they were done. I understand them wanting them to hold runners, but when you have the best defensive catcher in baseball with an arm that makes up for not holding runners at all, why screw up a pitcher's mechanics for an extra .3 seconds to the plate? It just doesn't make sense, the risk far outweighed the reward, and now it's almost like well I can't look like I was wrong, I'd rather he gets sent to the minors. Just worried that ego is getting in the way.

I'd leave it completely alone if they would just let him TRY the way things were before and see if it fixes anything, if it doesn't then oh well I'm wrong it's something else. I just see too many coincidences with the mess from last year for it all to be unrelated. Like I said I see the benefit of having that no-nonsense, guy in charge with a young team, BUT he's got to be willing to admit mistakes and not blame everything on the players. "Oh well if he was really that good, he'd improve" is basically what I keep hearing, and I want to hear "we are trying a few different things to get him back to where he was".

[Moose Milligan]

Where does this quote come from, and what is the context? It's such a vague comment that I really don't know what he means when he says "[y]ou don't get as much support as you probably would on other ball clubs." What kind of support is he talking about? Coaching support? Medical support? Run support? I frankly find the comment annoying due to its lack of specificity.

Frankly, I find the quote spot on due to the lack of specificity, if you get what I mean.

[Moose Milligan]

Yeah I've been thinking along these lines since mid-season last year. It seems like a "I know best, and THIS is how it's going to be" kind of situation with Buck, almost seems like he doesn't care that some things don't work for some people, either you're going to do it his way or not at all. One of the reasons why I'm actually not as high on Buck as others around. I see the benefits of having that kind of coach on a young team when you are trying to instill the right way to behave in the majors, BUT when it comes to taking a guy with so much potential and ruining him just to try to make a point it just makes me mad. I mean if you try it your way and it doesn't work for that guy, don't say oh it's because he sucks, cut him, instead of hey, maybe my way isn't the best in this situation.

Yep. Seems like coaches feel like they have to coach all the time...that if they're not instructing, tinkering or tweaking then they're not doing their job.

Like, what's a hitting coach going to tell Albert Pujols? Just let him do his thing. A hitting coach should never have to talk to a guy like that. Matusz had good command when he got to the bigs. And on the days he didn't, maybe he just didn't trust his stuff? Maybe he was afraid to throw it over the plate? Hard to tell.

IMO, at this level a pitching coach should be teaching guys how to throw a new pitch or talking advanced tactics on how to set up hitters and stuff. Unless your a mess like Brad Pennington, there's no reason to mess around with mechanics. Matusz had better than a 2:1 k/bb ratio for his first two seasons in the majors. There was absolutely no reason to mess with him.

[Moose Milligan]

I think this stuff gets blown out of proportion. I'd expect any manager to want his pitchers to be effective at holding runners. Obviously, you have to balance that against messing up a guy's mechanics, but for the most part, pitchers are able to learn to be more effective at holding runners without compromising their pitching. Some are better than others at it. I'm sure Buck realizes this, and don't read that much into his comments.

Maddux was notoriously bad at holding runners, but it didn't matter. I was hoping Matusz would be a lefty version of Maddux...barely touches 90, but with impeccable control and movement. Fields his position well. Cerebral. Pitches to contact well but also has a ridiculous k/bb ratio.

When I pitched, I was always told to worry about the guy at the plate when I had runners on. Worry about the guy at the plate and the runners shouldn't matter too much.