Should the O's fire Jim Presley?

[DrungoHazewood]

Yeah. We are a half game out. Who are we firing?

All of them. The manager and coaches for teaching losing, Duquette for not acquiring more .400 OBP guys, and the players for not overcoming their coaches.

[El Gordo]

Yeah. We are a half game out. Who are we firing?

Every one!

[LA2]

Braves just lost Six in a row.

They must have stupid coaches.

[LA2]

In each of the last two years, which saw the O's in contention and over .500 all season, there were people who were seriously advocating for the O's being deadline sellers to prep for the inevitable collapse and multi-year rebuild. Last year they even suggested that Buck, Presley, Duquette and really most of the organization be fired.

Congrats on being the first poster to spell Presley's name correctly, 50 posts into the thread.

[The Wedge]

They must have stupid coaches.

To a man.

[Since'54]

Absolutely. Consistency with RISP and walk rate are really just things the coaching staff requests, any good MLB hitter should be malleable. Ready, willing, and able to change their approach to whatever works best. There's no reason a seemingly free-swinging team that wildly goes from great RISP to poor couldn't be a consistently high-walk team that hits .330 with RISP each and every game of the year. If only the Orioles had a coach willing to suggest they hit better.

That's really the new market inefficiency: realizing all professional hitters are simply direct reflections of their coaches. Ted Williams and Mariano Duncan could easily have swapped careers with different teachers.

This is pretty silly, not to mention condescending. Are you saying that coaches have no influence on hitters? Then why keep them around? And what does Ted Williams have to do with the seasonal refusal of Oriole batters to be patient at the plate? You've spent a lot of ink quoting stats on this site over the years. Have you decided that on base percentage is unimportant or that the Orioles benefit from giving 12-15 pitch innings to opposing starters?

[El Gordo]

This is pretty silly' date=' not to mention condescending. Are you saying that coaches have no influence on hitters? Then why keep them around? And what does Ted Williams have to do with the seasonal refusal of Oriole batters to be patient at the plate? You've spent a lot of ink quoting stats on this site over the years. Have you decided that on base percentage is unimportant or that the Orioles benefit from giving 12-15 pitch innings to opposing starters?[/quote']Why would any one think players refuse to be patient. They develop an approach that works for them, gets them to the ML and allows them some success. Why would they alter it? If it aint broke don't try to fix it. The players with the skill set to be patient are, the ones without it are better off being aggressive. They tried to reinvent Hardy in MIN and it was a bust. I much prefer the hitter we have in him than the one they had in MIN. A hitting coach at the ML level does essentially two things; he helps to develop the team's approach to a given starting pitcher, and he helps hitters to maintain their swing mechanics. Expecting him to transform a Mariano Duncan into a Ted Williams at the ML level is silly.

[Since'54]

Why would any one think players refuse to be patient. They develop an approach that works for them, gets them to the ML and allows them some success. Why would they alter it? If it aint broke don't try to fix it. The players with the skill set to be patient are, the ones without it are better off being aggressive. They tried to reinvent Hardy in MIN and it was a bust. I much prefer the hitter we have in him than the one they had in MIN. A hitting coach at the ML level does essentially two things; he helps to develop the team's approach to a given starting pitcher, and he helps hitters to maintain their swing mechanics. Expecting him to transform a Mariano Duncan into a Ted Williams at the ML level is silly.

This is pretty obvious and has nothing to do with my points. The Birds don't work the count. Other teams do. Why?

[24fps]

I suspect that there isn't much Pressley can do...

but unfortunately there is often a fall guy in a organizational shakeup.... to get the attention of the remaining players/coaches that the hideous plate discipline is not acceptable.

Ahh the old symbolic gesture, the sacrificial lamb gambit, the nuclear bomb of team motivation.

Long overdue. No place for lollygagging underachievers.

[brianod]

The most important determinant of hitting is getting a pitch you can hit. You aren't able to do that consistently until you prove you won't swing at balls. The pitching hasn't been great but, this team is .500 because they have terrible plate discipline and continually get beat by swinging at balls and scoring a pitiful amount of runs against average pitching. So, we can all be smug and sarcastic and fail to acknowledge the problem or we can acknowledge it. And, if management doesn't address it, we will spend the post-season at home

[El Gordo]

This is pretty obvious and has nothing to do with my points. The Birds don't work the count. Other teams do. Why?

That is a meaningless generalization. What do you mean by working the count? P/A? The teams with a higher average P/A are teams with more players who have those skills. The Orioles need to draft and sign those kinds of players, but it is ridiculous to think that plate discipline can be developed at the ML level.

[oriolesmagic9]

How quickly people forget 14 years of futility. Just 29 games into the season and it's time to blow this thing up. Makes sense to me....

[Frobby]

The most important determinant of hitting is getting a pitch you can hit. You aren't able to do that consistently until you prove you won't swing at balls. The pitching hasn't been great but, this team is .500 because they have terrible plate discipline and continually get beat by swinging at balls and scoring a pitiful amount of runs against average pitching. So, we can all be smug and sarcastic and fail to acknowledge the problem or we can acknowledge it. And, if management doesn't address it, we will spend the post-season at home

Life's not that simple. Our walk rate was 14th last year, and yet we were 4th in runs scored. Do you think teams just woke up in 2014 and decided they don't need to throw strikes to the Orioles, so now we're no longer able to score runs? That's bunk!

The offense will have ups and downs over the season. That's natural. I'm pretty sure Adam Jones won't have an .056 ISO when the season ends. The fact that he's prone to swinging at pitches outside the strike zone isn't a recent discovery for the pitchers around the league. He may have a down year, like anyone can, but it won't be because pitchers suddenly decided not to throw him strikes.

[CA-ORIOLE]

Well, we are trying to make Lough see more pitches and take more walks. That seems to be working out well.

[cmurter]

Ron Johnson, not to be confused with Ron Swanson

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Or Swan Ronson