Scott Coolbaugh

[LarryBigbie]

I know pointing fingers is the thing to do after an emotional loss, and naturally Buck takes the blame after some questionable decisions down the stretch - especially after no Britton. I'm just as upset, but the last thing I want is Buck out.

One guy I'd love to see gone though is Coolbaugh. What impact has this guy made on our offense. Our hitters have ZERO approach. If you have told us in June that our staff would allow 2 runs through 10 innings, we'd have all jumped for joy. What gives?

[JR Oriole]

He should have been fired before the team plane landed at BWI. Maybe we should hire David Ortiz to be our hitting coach. It would be nice for our guys to be around someone who actually comes up with clutch hits in October. Can you imagine what Jones, Schoop, Davis, Machado, and Hardy were thinking as Edwin hit that homer? Wow, people actually can hit strikes a long way when it counts.

[McLovin]

So long as they continue to let Jones "grind" and set the swing-at-everything tone, this team will continue to flail. Schoop is fully on board. Manny regressed massively in the walk department 2nd half. The free swinging mentality has spread like an infection.

[Camden_yardbird]

Barry Bonds is available. He knew how to take some pitches in his day.

[notyourbuddy]

Want quality at-bats? Sign quality hitters.

These playoff outages are more Duquette's doing than anything else. Offensive lineups, so flawed, that you know as early as December they are going to struggle should they make it to the postseason.

[auzzy98]

Totally agree Coolbaugh should be fired immediately. He has obviously done NOTHING to help our hitters. Why not look to some good past Oriole hitters? Maybe Brady could help. Brian Roberts? Both of those guys are Oriole guys thru and thru and were good patient hitters in their day. I keep hearing that the Orioles "are who they are" as far as their hitting approach...and i completely disagree with that mentality. Players CAN learn new approaches!

[MDK02]

Im sorry to break it to everyone but a hitting coach isn't going to change these player's approach. They need to commit to changing at the beginning of the season themselves. The younger guys, Manny and Schoop need to find a way to adjust while they're still young. Chris and Adam are what they are, they're not changing now. DD has to go find a couple guys who play for singles and double, much like Kim. It's not like Kim is the only one listening to coach, that is just his style of play.

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[auzzy98]

Im sorry to break it to everyone but a hitting coach isn't going to change these player's approach. They need to commit to changing at the beginning of the season themselves. The younger guys, Manny and Schoop need to find a way to adjust while they're still young. Chris and Adam are what they are, they're not changing now. DD has to go find a couple guys who play for singles and double, much like Kim. It's not like Kim is the only one listening to coach, that is just his style of play.

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Since you're a professional baseball player, I guess I'll agree with you that a player like Adam and Chris cant change their approach. They CAN change their approach. Start at the beginning of the year and MAKE them change. I don't know how to tell them to do it, but I know there is a way. We have seen flashes of Davis hitting opposite field, he just needs to do it with more consistency. We've seen flashes of Adam laying off low and away sliders, he just needs to learn to do it more consistently. They've done it, so it is possible.

[Here!]

It's not Coolbaugh. The problem is that we have some hardheaded, self-assured players who think that they know more than the accumulated wisdom of 150 years of baseball. It starts with our captain who is proud of the undisciplined way that he approaches at bats. He feels that the first pitch may be the best, why waste it? That may be true for the rest of the league but every AL pitcher knows that AJ is going to swing at the first pitch so, in his case, it's not going to be a good one. The younger hitters (Manny, Schoop) have fallen under his spell. It's Buck's job to fix this and he has been unwilling or unable to do so. I seriously doubt that Buck thinks that "grinding" is a good thing. He has been around too long. But he has done nothing to fix the problem and it got progressively worse as the season wore on to its predictable conclusion.

So, is there any reason to believe that 2017 is going to be any different? Without a change of attitude, or personnel, it's going to be a repeat. Frankly, I think that it is AJ who has to go. Why is this guy batting lead off? His OBP (.310) is barely better than the Reimhold's (.300) and it's .206 in post season play. Of our regular players, his OPS exceeds only Hardy and Wieters. He has apparently been a great leader in the club house, something every team needs. He's also an excellent centerfield. But, in my opinion, he is taking a lot of people down the wrong path at the plate. The Wild Card game is only the most recent example of the fruits of that approach. If Buck can't straighten him out, one of them has to go. Coolbaugh can do nothing if Buck doesn't reenforce what he's teaching.

[DrungoHazewood]

Three recurring themes throughout the history of Orioles Hangout:

1) Every Oriole manager is a complete idiot when it comes to running a bullpen, even the one (Buck) who's consistently managed the pen to league-leading and even historic WPAs.

2) All Oriole third base coaches are the dumbest third base coaches in the history of third base coaches, except Cal Sr. who never had anyone thrown out at the plate ever.

3) Every hitting coach is an idiot, and needs to be replaced with someone who uses coercion/violence/waterboarding/hypnosis to convince established major league hitters to alter their basic approaches and become patient high-average hitters with power, great two-strike contact skills, and the ability to lay down a beautiful bunt at any moment.

[fansince79]

You can say all the right things but the most important aspect of a hitting coach's job is preparing the team for the opposing pitchers based on scouting. Something certainly seems to be amiss in that regard.

[Frobby]

I don't really care if they change the hitting coach or not. I didn't really see major changes in approach or results when we switched from Crowley to Presley, or when we switched from Presley to Coolbaugh, or when we added an assistant hitting coach this year. Dan has built this team around a certain type of hitter, and I don't think the coaches can change that much except at the margins.

That said, probably my biggest disappointment this year was how Manny and Schoop backslid over the second half of the year. Both looked like they had taken a major step forward in the first half of the season, but got impatient and pull-happy during the second half.

[Justinlstn]

Three recurring themes throughout the history of Orioles Hangout:

1) Every Oriole manager is a complete idiot when it comes to running a bullpen, even the one (Buck) who's consistently managed the pen to league-leading and even historic WPAs.

2) All Oriole third base coaches are the dumbest third base coaches in the history of third base coaches, except Cal Sr. who never had anyone thrown out at the plate ever.

3) Every hitting coach is an idiot, and needs to be replaced with someone who uses coercion/violence/waterboarding/hypnosis to convince established major league hitters to alter their basic approaches and become patient high-average hitters with power, great two-strike contact skills, and the ability to lay down a beautiful bunt at any moment.

Don't forget to blame the GM for all the dumb signings and more important we would be 10 times better if had an owner who would sign every big free agent during the off season.

[clapdiddy]

You can say all the right things but the most important aspect of a hitting coach's job is preparing the team for the opposing pitchers based on scouting. Something certainly seems to be amiss in that regard.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that you can pretty much get Jones, Schoop, Trumbo, and Machado out with sliders in the dirt. Exchanging Scott Coolbaugh for Ted Williams' frozen head attached to Scott Coolbaugh isn't going to change the approach of these players.

We need to get a better mix of players. We could really use a Kim equivalent in right field, but with a better glove.

[Bradysburns]

Want quality at-bats? Sign quality hitters.

These playoff outages are more Duquette's doing than anything else. Offensive lineups, so flawed, that you know as early as December they are going to struggle should they make it to the postseason.

Completely agree. Look at Moneyball. That's not a player-development philosophy so much as a player-acquisition philosophy. And it changed the game to emphasize OBP (or OPS). Look at Kim. He has reasonable at-bats despite "Scott Coolbaugh".