Tillman

[Hooded Viper]

Nobody is asking you to proclaim anything. What you did do was go out of your way to pop into the thread to say, despite not seeing the game, you're still not buying it. What exactly is the point? There is a huge difference between not getting on the bandwagon and intentionally stating you doubt something.

MM, we're friends and I think a ton of you so I hope I can be honest with you. You're taking this acerbic, doubting Thomas thing pretty far at this point. It seems like you want to fit everything regardless of how grey it is into some black or white bucket. It is almost as if you want to ruin the party at times these days.

To each their own, but you're missing a pretty fun season. We're almost 100 games in and the Orioles are tied for the Wild Card. This team won't make the play-offs. There are too many flaws, but they are also signficantly improved and possibly on the way to contending in the near future. I'd love for you to quell the cynicism for your own good. Who knows you may actually enjoy yourself. Take everything at face value and stop trying to "guard" against being disappointed. Guarded and cynical is no way to go through life IMHO. I'll step off the soap box now and wish you a great day.

This is how I feel! Enjoy it, as aurora shows us, sports are for leisure as there are far more serious things in life to be cynical about!

[Hooded Viper]

He has a lot to prove and needs to be consistent but this is not the same pitcher we've seen in previous years. The fastball has made his (IMO) average changeup play up, and his curve is better too. He just needs to do what he was doing at Norfolk, and string 5-6 good starts together.

I thought his change up was considered above average...no?

[Hooded Viper]

He telegraphs it on occasion and doesn't ever have quite the same arm speed, but it is close. The best thing I saw about the change last night was that for the first time I saw significant fade and drop on it. I haven't check FG yet to see if my eyes were telling the truth, but that would be HUGE for his change up because he'll get swings and misses from lefties when they read FB outside corner and the ball runs off the outside corner. That pitch is almost impossible to hit and could be a game changer for him.

FYI, I was actually not real happy with the curve last night. He had better command for sure, but the break was too long. It is really hard to get a called strike on a pitch with that much break. It was sharper/smaller in Seattle, but still a good pitch for him yesterday. The problem is that a really disciplined team would just exclude the pitch by the 3rd due to the huge break making called strikes almost impossible.

BTW, did anyone pick up on the swinging strike three to Choo? It was a high pitch about 83 mph that moved slightly in and down around the letters on the inside corner. I'm pretty sure that was a cutter/slider and it was the only one of the game. Despite it being in a pretty awful spot, he got a really weak swing-and-miss on it. I think Choo read "curveball" out of his hand and thought it was going to break down into the zone. If the hitters are struggling to tell the difference between those two pitches and he can actually throw both for strikes, that is also huge for him.

Somebody rep this man for me! I must spread it round before giving it to him again!

[OFFNY]

Somebody rep this man for me! I must spread it round before giving it to him again!

OOODone.

[weams]

Nobody is asking you to proclaim anything. What you did do was go out of your way to pop into the thread to say, despite not seeing the game, you're still not buying it. What exactly is the point? There is a huge difference between not getting on the bandwagon and intentionally stating you doubt something.

MM, we're friends and I think a ton of you so I hope I can be honest with you. You're taking this acerbic, doubting Thomas thing pretty far at this point. It seems like you want to fit everything regardless of how grey it is into some black or white bucket. It is almost as if you want to ruin the party at times these days.

To each their own, but you're missing a pretty fun season. We're almost 100 games in and the Orioles are tied for the Wild Card. This team won't make the play-offs. There are too many flaws, but they are also signficantly improved and possibly on the way to contending in the near future. I'd love for you to quell the cynicism for your own good. Who knows you may actually enjoy yourself. Take everything at face value and stop trying to "guard" against being disappointed. Guarded and cynical is no way to go through life IMHO. I'll step off the soap box now and wish you a great day.

When you reach deep down, you sure can post a winner.

[Flash- bd]

He telegraphs it on occasion and doesn't ever have quite the same arm speed, but it is close. The best thing I saw about the change last night was that for the first time I saw significant fade and drop on it. I haven't check FG yet to see if my eyes were telling the truth, but that would be HUGE for his change up because he'll get swings and misses from lefties when they read FB outside corner and the ball runs off the outside corner. That pitch is almost impossible to hit and could be a game changer for him.

FYI, I was actually not real happy with the curve last night. He had better command for sure, but the break was too long. It is really hard to get a called strike on a pitch with that much break. It was sharper/smaller in Seattle, but still a good pitch for him yesterday. The problem is that a really disciplined team would just exclude the pitch by the 3rd due to the huge break making called strikes almost impossible.

BTW, did anyone pick up on the swinging strike three to Choo? It was a high pitch about 83 mph that moved slightly in and down around the letters on the inside corner. I'm pretty sure that was a cutter/slider and it was the only one of the game. Despite it being in a pretty awful spot, he got a really weak swing-and-miss on it. I think Choo read "curveball" out of his hand and thought it was going to break down into the zone. If the hitters are struggling to tell the difference between those two pitches and he can actually throw both for strikes, that is also huge for him.

Agree with most of this but I think his change-up showed pretty good drop and fade against Seattle. I haven't check the fangraphs on it yet but I think to call Tillman's change "average" is a bit tough on him at this point. It's a very effective pitch, and as some have already noted it plays up a lot because of the big differential between it and his FB (~12 MPH).

As for the pitch to Choo, I'm relatively certain it wasn't a cutter. I'm pretty sure it was a curve that he didn't finish on which came out of his hand with more velocity and much less break. It was basically a mistake pitch that turned out well.

[Lucky Jim]

Tillman's curve against Seattle had roughly 10+ of break/drop. (His full PitchFX are available in this thread I think.) It's a big curve and it's only effective if he uses it both ways: as a change of speed and eye-level (i.e., up a little) AND burying it as an out pitch.

[Lucky Jim]

As for the change - I agree that this isn't the first time we've seen drop/fade. The differential does make it play up. I didn't get to see the game but my guess is that anything you saw with break in the mid-80s was the cutter. He used it about 4-5x a game his minor league starts. It's in my "scouting" reports.

[Il BuonO]

Nobody is asking you to proclaim anything. What you did do was go out of your way to pop into the thread to say, despite not seeing the game, you're still not buying it. What exactly is the point? There is a huge difference between not getting on the bandwagon and intentionally stating you doubt something.

MM, we're friends and I think a ton of you so I hope I can be honest with you. You're taking this acerbic, doubting Thomas thing pretty far at this point. It seems like you want to fit everything regardless of how grey it is into some black or white bucket. It is almost as if you want to ruin the party at times these days.

To each their own, but you're missing a pretty fun season. We're almost 100 games in and the Orioles are tied for the Wild Card. This team won't make the play-offs. There are too many flaws, but they are also signficantly improved and possibly on the way to contending in the near future. I'd love for you to quell the cynicism for your own good. Who knows you may actually enjoy yourself. Take everything at face value and stop trying to "guard" against being disappointed. Guarded and cynical is no way to go through life IMHO. I'll step off the soap box now and wish you a great day.

I was headed into an entirely more frothy version of what some would say was confrontational, but my discretion kicked in. Yours is the even handed delivery that I'm sure is needed in this instance. Good luck with it having any impact.

Excellent post nonetheless.

[Frobby]

To each their own, but you're missing a pretty fun season. We're almost 100 games in and the Orioles are tied for the Wild Card. This team won't make the play-offs. There are too many flaws...

I won't definitively say the Orioles won't make the playoffs. I would be surprised if they did, but this has been a surprising season. I'm starting to feel like none of the other teams is going to grab this thing by the jugular, and that the O's have a chance to be in it until the end.

[Moose Milligan]

Nobody is asking you to proclaim anything. What you did do was go out of your way to pop into the thread to say, despite not seeing the game, you're still not buying it. What exactly is the point? There is a huge difference between not getting on the bandwagon and intentionally stating you doubt something.

MM, we're friends and I think a ton of you so I hope I can be honest with you. You're taking this acerbic, doubting Thomas thing pretty far at this point. It seems like you want to fit everything regardless of how grey it is into some black or white bucket. It is almost as if you want to ruin the party at times these days.

To each their own, but you're missing a pretty fun season. We're almost 100 games in and the Orioles are tied for the Wild Card. This team won't make the play-offs. There are too many flaws, but they are also signficantly improved and possibly on the way to contending in the near future. I'd love for you to quell the cynicism for your own good. Who knows you may actually enjoy yourself. Take everything at face value and stop trying to "guard" against being disappointed. Guarded and cynical is no way to go through life IMHO. I'll step off the soap box now and wish you a great day.

Considering I've been posting a lot in this thread since awhile back, I didn't really feel like I went out of my way. I can read a box score and figure out mostly of what I missed by not watching.

IMO, doubting something doesn't fit into black or white. It's a grey area since I'm not firmly saying he's going to be great or awful. It's more of wait and see than anything. But I'm not the one in this thread proclaiming that he's all of a sudden different or turned a corner.

It's been a fun season but I also don't think this team has significantly improved. I still doubt we finish over .500. If we somehow finish over .500 I'll still probably consider it a fluke until this time next year..and if it's July 2013 and we're playing over .500...well, that'll mean it's for real and that'd be reason to celebrate. Think about how the 1990 and 1991 team followed up after that magical 1989 season.

I generally don't go through life as guarded and cynical, I'm usually a pretty positive guy. But then again, nothing in life has let me down as much as the Orioles (not even the Redskins!) have, so it should be understandable.

[weams]

I generally don't go through life as guarded and cynical, I'm usually a pretty positive guy. But then again, nothing in life has let me down as much as the Orioles

Absolutely understandable. Glad you are enjoying this fun opportunity. We know they are not a great team. But we are winning more than we lose.

[Frobby]

It's been a fun season but I also don't think this team has significantly improved. I still doubt we finish over .500.

When the year is over, I think most of us will feel this team has improved pretty significantly whether we finish over .500 or not. Maybe not as much as the W-L record indicates. But last year's team won 69 games, and I expect the O's to beat that total by a significant margin. They have two starters who are better than we had last year, and a better bullpen. That's significant improvement to me.

[AgentOrange]

Considering I've been posting a lot in this thread since awhile back, I didn't really feel like I went out of my way. I can read a box score and figure out mostly of what I missed by not watching.

IMO, doubting something doesn't fit into black or white. It's a grey area since I'm not firmly saying he's going to be great or awful. It's more of wait and see than anything. But I'm not the one in this thread proclaiming that he's all of a sudden different or turned a corner.

It's been a fun season but I also don't think this team has significantly improved. I still doubt we finish over .500. If we somehow finish over .500 I'll still probably consider it a fluke until this time next year..and if it's July 2013 and we're playing over .500...well, that'll mean it's for real and that'd be reason to celebrate. Think about how the 1990 and 1991 team followed up after that magical 1989 season.

I generally don't go through life as guarded and cynical, I'm usually a pretty positive guy. But then again, nothing in life has let me down as much as the Orioles (not even the Redskins!) have, so it should be understandable.

Go hit up some more Gnats games!!!!

[Lucky Jim]

I thought this thread was about Tillman, not Moose being a miserable curmudgeon.