ESPN mag says orioles will....

[Goober Noodles]

This is almost as awesome as last year's "Dream Team" crap. ESPN jinxes are the best.

I wonder why it didn't work the previous however many seasons we've been bad at baseball?

[MrOrange82]

Well, the thread is a joke - I mean, I quoted myself, too, as being wrong.

That said, I don't think you're particularly right - the starting pitching has been good enough (and far better than last year). We'll see if it's enough. Or if it holds up.

Bump this thread again in October.

I sincerely hope my predictions for this year's team prove to be as wrong as predictions can possibly BE wrong. We're not there yet, though.

[OFFNY]

This is almost as awesome as last year's "Dream Team" crap. ESPN jinxes are the best.

I wonder why it didn't work the previous however many seasons we've been bad at baseball?

You answered your own question. Because jinxes don't exist.

[Floater]

I read this on my FB today, some fans are getting greedy...

Orioles suck! Yeah they won but they were up 10-0 at the fourth, to allow six runs from the pirates is horrible. How do you expect to win a playoff series that will probably be another al east team when you allow six runs in five innings.

[crissfan172]

I still don't see how we're worse than last year, but no reason to worry about preseason predictions.

I stand by my opinion.

[byrdz]

ESPN mag will be lucky to report a smattering of fair, unbiased, and informed sports news this season.

[luismatos4prez]

I found that statement absolutely ridiculous at the time, and the team is proving me right. Not that I needed them to.

To say that the BEST CASE SCENARIO for this team was a horrible season is to not understand how sports work.

They seriously didn't have the imagination to come up with a single scenario in which the Orioles could field a mediocre team. They should be embarrassed by that. Sports fans will tell you that anomalies happen, and statisticians will tell you outliers happen. Yet according to ESPN magazine, there was no chance that the Orioles would even be good enough to be bad. They would be horrible at best.

It was extremely unlikely that the team would start off as hot as they have, but it isn't even like everything has gone right. Reynolds, Markakis, and Reimold have all missed significant time. What's happening now isn't even the best case scenario.

[SteveO]

Openly admit I was wrong i figured this to be a better team than last year but still 70 to 75 wins. I think the best managers know how to construct a team that will produce better results than it would appear they are capable of. They still need talented guys like Weiters, Hardy, Markakis, Jones etc or your gonna lose period. If you have enough of those guys though, surrounding them with the right supporting cast can make a huge difference. I think Buck has a keen eye for guys who have the right approach to the game and he has a good eye for guys who can be "coached up" . Every organization has guys who given the right circumstances can contribute more than they do. Buck and Dan seem to have a good eye for picking those guys out who can come to this organization and do more than they did were they came from. This more than anything makes me very optimistic

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[Tx Oriole]

Be lucky to win 69 games. In their best case scenario they have the Orioles winning less than 70 games. Worst case scenario is breaking the team record of 107 losses.

Thoughts?

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I think ESPN and their Mag is full of crap. But then what else should i expect from a Yankees bed mate?

[DrungoHazewood]

It's been good enough to be far from a 60 win team, which was your "over/under," and it's been good enough to put us .5 games back in the AL East having played the toughest schedule in the league. At the current pace, it's going to save us something like 100 runs over last year.

Given what we knew coming in, it's been "okay" - with room for improvement and room for regression.

The Orioles currently, arguably, are within a game or two of the best record in baseball. At least if you discount the NL as being the .450 league as it has been for about five years. So obviously the starting pitching has been good enough, at least given the performance of the rest of the team.

Now, you could argue it's not good enough to win the AL East if the pen stops pitching like a collective group of Hall of Famers. But that's another hypothetical situation.

[DrungoHazewood]

It was extremely unlikely that the team would start off as hot as they have, but it isn't even like everything has gone right. Reynolds, Markakis, and Reimold have all missed significant time. What's happening now isn't even the best case scenario.

I keep going back to the Why Team. In retrospect people tend to say that was a team where everything went right. But it wasn't. Half the outfield had .630 OPSes. Cal had one of his down years. Bill Ripken hit like Bill Ripken. Their opening day starter, Dave Schmidt, ended up with a 5.69 ERA and 12 relief appearances.

It's possible for a team to jump forward without even having a crazy, charmed season, or a bunch of kids breaking out. So the idea that almost any major league team could have a ceiling of 65 wins is pretty ridiculous.

[Trackmaster]

But it wouldn't really be an article if every team's break out season was above .500, and every team's nightmare season was below .500. This adds fuel to the media frenzy when team's like this do break-out and emerge as pretenders.

[OFFNY]

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It's the 2nd video down, after "Cubs Blank Red Sox, 3-0." :smile11:

FLYING HIGH: http://scores.espn.go.com/mlb/scoreboard