Ok, we need to talk about Keith Law...

[OFFNY]

Not sure it would do much good. I don't think anyone in baseball take Law seriously. I've talked with many scouts and executives and I've never heard one, not one say anything nice about Law or his analysis. He's got a schtick and he's sticking to it. He's become Skip Bayless. I don't care what he has to say anymore because he's lost his objectivity.

That's assuming that he had any objectivity to begin with.

[byrdz]

Injuries happen, it's part of the game, deal with it! You should have enough depth to recover or be like the Orioles of old and not.

[Frobby]

Law is clearly someone who has trouble admitting when he was wrong about something. I also think he has trouble grasping that evaluating a team is not the same thing as evaluating a player. I think Law's opinions about individual players are usually pretty solid, but he doesn't seem to understand the dynamics of team baseball. However the Orioles got here, it is unlikely that a team that is 16 games over .500 and playing its best baseball of the year is going to just wake up and say "wait, we're not that talented!" and stop playing well.

[byrdz]

He seemed pretty annoyed that the O's and Nats were the topics of conversation. Karabell's argument that the vast majority of emails addressed those two teams meant nothing to KLaw.

That's because he's on the Red Sox and Yankees payroll as long as he works for ESPN.

[NewMarketSean]

Law is clearly someone who has trouble admitting when he was wrong about something. I also think he has trouble grasping that evaluating a team is not the same thing as evaluating a player. I think Law's opinions about individual players are usually pretty solid, but he doesn't seem to understand the dynamics of team baseball. However the Orioles got here, it is unlikely that a team that is 16 games over .500 and playing its best baseball of the year is going to just wake up and say "wait, we're not that talented!" and stop playing well.

I find it hard to believe that a guy who was so into stats, and probably still is, can't take 5 mins to look at some freaking splits and see the pitching and defense has been great for the last month or so and the offense while spotty, hits timely HR's -- and has been all season.

But whatever. He's entitled to his opinion no matter how idiotic it is.

[Can_of_corn]

Also the 2010 Padres:

Won 90 games

Underperformed their Pythag.

[Floater]

The sucky thing is, if we get 90 wins this year but fall short of the playoffs and come back next year and win 75-80 games, he is going to be tooting his own horn next year.

[TonySoprano]

We take 2 of 3 from Detroit in their park, 3 of 4 from Chicago and we're not better than them? If the Orioles make the playoffs they're not better than a team that didn't make it? "Team quality and who makes the playoffs are two different things."

Can we dismiss talking about him already?

[crawjo]

I actually basically agree with most of what he said there. He said that the Orioles are about the eighth best team in the league. I'd put them behind New York, Tampa Bay, Texas, Oakland and Detroit. Chicago and LA are debatable.

The Orioles are having a great season, but I don't think they are a great team. I think it's pretty much guaranteed that next year they won't do as well in one-run games, and that if they want to have a winning record next year they will need to improve upon this year's performance. That said, obviously the club deserves a lot of credit for winning those close games and for playing the way they have to this point. But if the Orioles were any other team, would you really disagree with what he's saying? What would you be saying about the Yankees right now if they had our record with our run differential?

[Say O!]

Law is clearly someone who has trouble admitting when he was wrong about something. I also think he has trouble grasping that evaluating a team is not the same thing as evaluating a player. I think Law's opinions about individual players are usually pretty solid, but he doesn't seem to understand the dynamics of team baseball. However the Orioles got here, it is unlikely that a team that is 16 games over .500 and playing its best baseball of the year is going to just wake up and say "wait, we're not that talented!" and stop playing well.

I concur.

It's disappointing that someone like Law does not acknowledge that right tail events do occur, even if unlikely. Yeah it may be 2 std deviations away from the mean, but it is still within the realm of probability.

[NIGHTHAWK]

...ok, no, we don't, but still.

Listen to the first, say, 7 minutes.

Now, note that I really, really, really like Keith Law...when he isn't talking about the Orioles. Seriously, did someone go #1 in his Corn Flakes? He just talks about them with so much...rage. Absolute rage.

I just don't understand how he can be so defiant.

I'm listening to this crap right now and he is such a freakin hater. He's giving us credit for being better than the Blue Jays because we have stayed healthy really we are being punished because we are healthy? I'm so pissed right now ugh I hate ESPN more and more now. Then you look at this and this makes me sick as well http://espn.go.com/mlb/huntforoctober This guy also says oh the Yankees aren't healthy and oh they have more depth and if they have their roster healthy they would beat the Orioles. You can't be serious and tell me that A Rod is that big of a difference and that Tex is even remotely that big of a difference.

[WEAVERMAN]

He is coming off really bitter and uninformed.

I can see people saying before August...but we've played a month of excellent baseball and we're getting hot at the right time.

Exactly, it sounds personal to me. I don't know much about this guy, but he sounds ridiculously arrogant and with a despicable attitude toward the Orioles.

[smooth]

He kept acknowledging that Joe Girardi and Ron Washington caused their teams to lose against inferior opposition. Aren't managers included as a part of the team? I'm not going to remark on manager quality for each of the competing teams, but wouldn't that play a role in creating a quality team that plays "over their head."

[Frobby]

Just listened to this. It's not so much what Law says, it's how he says it. He comes off like a grumpy old man. Does he actually enjoy baseball?

[howboutthoseos]

Does he actually enjoy baseball?

I had the same reaction.