TT: The other shoe has dropped

[SteveA]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

This year maybe.  But do you think the current system is sustainable going forward?

Probably not.

Of course many people thought that we couldn't win in 2012 and felt we should start a rebuild then.  They were wrong.

For several years, many people thought the "window" would close by 2015.   It didn't.

Obviously we have made things worse with the long term deal for Davis.  It won't be easy.   And trading Manny in this offseason -- especially if we make a truly realistic extension offer and are met with silence as I expect we would be -- is probably something worth exploring.

I don't think a total dumpoff would be the panacea a lot of people expect either. 

But this losing streak has the cockroaches coming out of the holes in the wall rooting against a 25-20 team, hoping they lose enough so that they don't try to win this year.   That is pathetic as far as I am concerned. 

 

[Norfolk orioles]

Buck's managing is in fact worrisome.

 

He continually refuses to utilize the players he has properly, pushes starters too far in certain situations and has a terrible track record of using pinch hitters correctly.

 

This Years team is struggling because the manager is not doing everything within his power to put them in a position to win.

 

His stubbornness and old school mentality are costing us some winnable games.

In the AL East, we can't afford to give ANYTHING away.

[Tony-OH]

13 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Let's see if Tony still has the magic Firestone touch.    Last year he started two different threads, one saying we were a playoff team and then another saying that the O's weren't good enough.   Each time, the team almost immediately did the opposite.    

I'm as down on the team as anyone but they are still 5 games above .500 and most of the losses have been close games.   You live by the sword and you die by the sword.    The rotation is looking rather shaky but what else is knew over the last 5 years?   The bullpen with Asher taking on a more prominent role and O'Day and Brach settling back in, looks to be normalizing.    The offense is what it's been for the last 5 years.   It lives by the home run but also goes through dry spells.   It's good enough to win.   The bullpen is good enough to win if the starting pitching can keep it close.   

For anyone who really thought this was a 22-10 team and a juggernaut, you are probably taking this worse than you should.   Really, we gave away 3 games we should have won.   Without those three we would be 28-19 which is pretty darn good.   25-20 isn't so bad either.    You can make a case for this team going into the toilet.   Mainly that would be Britton not coming back or not coming back 100%.   Tillman not getting any better.   Bundy breaking down.  Etc.    However, you can also make a case the other way.      Gausman gets it together and Bundy stays healthy all year and they form a decent 1-2 punch.   Miley is decent.    One of Ynoa/Asher/Kipper/insert anyone  comes through as a nice surprise to fill Ubaldo's spot, and Tillman either maintains being mediocre or better.

The recipe for this team over the last 5 years has been mediocre pitching, lots of home runs, error free defense, and a superb bullpen.     This team still has the same ingredients for that recipe.

The Orioles have hit 62 home runs which is 6th in the AL. The bullpen without Britton has certainly not be superb and I would say we don't have one sure fire shutdown reliever right now. Brach, O'day and Givens can be at times, but they've all been inconsistent this year. Asher is the only reliever with an ERA under 3 and I still think he's better out of the rotation than the pen.

As for the defense, 25 errors is 6th in the AL, and with Hardy's lack of range and arm in the middle, Schoops lack of range suddenly becoming worrisome at 2B, and Manny looking either brilliant or indifferent from play to play, along with our slow outfield, and I'm not sure the defense is a plus at this point. Add in that we have two starters with ERAs over 6 and Miley's 4.41 FIP and Bundy's 3.95 FIP suggests some regression from those two and mediocre pitching might be kind.

The team is better than a .265 (3-10) winning %, so obviously they are not as bad as they are playing, but I'm trying to see why I should expect this team to be a contender this September? Manny is pretty much the only offensive player playing below his career norms though we should expect Trumbo to hit for more power soon. 

I really couldn't explain why the Orioles were winning earlier in the year besides saying "they just find ways to win." Some of that was luck factor, but let's be clear, this team even when it was winning was winning a lot of close games because they just never really dominated games. It was part of the reason the team burnt through it's bullpen because they weren't able to really have a laugher where they could just rest their high leverage guys. 

I hope I'm the reverse jinx, I really do, but this team is going to have to find that smoke and mirrors again to win because it's a flawwed team with a very by the book veterans at all cost manager who rather have JJ Hardy bat int he 9th in one run games over much better matchups because of his veternosity. That and his penchant to leave his starters in too long and rush his relievers into games without warming them up long enough costs us games on a team that doesn't have a lot of room for error.

Any team that is still starting Ubaldo in late May with the way he's pitched is not one to be taken too seriously. It's almost laughable that they would give him another start.

[webbrick2010]

and now is not the time to start a rebuild

With a competent FO we would have been re-tooling each year

Selling high on Jim Johnson, Darren O'day, Chris Davis and Mark Trumbo

No easy way back now. Of course they should trade Manny but it won't happen and I think we are all going to be surprised how little will be offered for him with only 1 year to FA

Can we get competent leadership past DD/Buck

Not likely

[Can_of_corn]

7 minutes ago, webbrick2010 said:

and now is not the time to start a rebuild

With a competent FO we would have been re-tooling each year

Selling high on Jim Johnson, Darren O'day, Chris Davis and Mark Trumbo

No easy way back now. Of course they should trade Manny but it won't happen and I think we are all going to be surprised how little will be offered for him with only 1 year to FA

Can we get competent leadership past DD/Buck

Not likely

What do you mean by selling high on Trumbo?  Hope someone blows a pick to sign him as a free agent? Myou were never going to do better than a first round pick for him.

[LA2]

1 hour ago, SteveA said:

I'd rather do what we have done since 2012 than imediately tear down and rebuild.

We are 25-20, and I believe we have more players underperforming expectations than overperforming.

I see no reason this team can't be a contender, the two week slump notwithstanding.

Two cornerstones of that were (i) reaping the benefits of MacPhail's great trades (Jones, Tillman, Hardy, Davis, Hunter) and (ii) the maturing of high picks we got when we were losers (Wieters, Machado, Matusz). Those trades and draft picks were absolutely necessary, although they needed Duquette's much better FA signings and mixed bag of roster-management tricks and Buck's new regime to make the O's an overperforming contender.

Don't know if we can simulate (i) and (ii) without crashing and burning first.

[Sessh]

38 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Brach, O'day and Givens can be at times, but they've all been inconsistent this year. Asher is the only reliever with an ERA under 3 and I still think he's better out of the rotation than the pen.

... though we should expect Trumbo to hit for more power soon. 

Any team that is still starting Ubaldo in late May with the way he's pitched is not one to be taken too seriously. It's almost laughable that they would give him another start.

I honestly don't think Givens is as good as people think he is. His ERA was at or above 3.00 and his WHIP above 1.30 most of last season which is not good at all for a reliever. His FiP is 5.13 so far this year, his HR/9 is up and his K/9 is way down. O'Day is, well, O'Day and Brach had a career year last season, so regression for him would not be surprising either.

Why should we expect more power from Trumbo? The power he is showing now is pretty much in line with his power rate the two years before we acquired him and is why he was a salary dump in the first place.

Starting guys like Ubaldo is what this team did in the dark ages. Why? Same reason as now; we don't have a choice. We're already having to rely on pitchers who shouldn't be in the majors because it's all we've got. I'm sure Mike Wright will come back eventually too along with Wilson and Aquino is already back. Asher is the only one I think could be legitimately good with Bleier being an average bullpen arm potentially.. We're already starting to look "dark" around here.

[ORIOLE33]

Speaking of Trumbo. Is it me or does he look smaller this year?

[Norfolk orioles]

58 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

The Orioles have hit 62 home runs which is 6th in the AL. The bullpen without Britton has certainly not be superb and I would say we don't have one sure fire shutdown reliever right now. Brach, O'day and Givens can be at times, but they've all been inconsistent this year. Asher is the only reliever with an ERA under 3 and I still think he's better out of the rotation than the pen.

As for the defense, 25 errors is 6th in the AL, and with Hardy's lack of range and arm in the middle, Schoops lack of range suddenly becoming worrisome at 2B, and Manny looking either brilliant or indifferent from play to play, along with our slow outfield, and I'm not sure the defense is a plus at this point. Add in that we have two starters with ERAs over 6 and Miley's 4.41 FIP and Bundy's 3.95 FIP suggests some regression from those two and mediocre pitching might be kind.

The team is better than a .265 (3-10) winning %, so obviously they are not as bad as they are playing, but I'm trying to see why I should expect this team to be a contender this September? Manny is pretty much the only offensive player playing below his career norms though we should expect Trumbo to hit for more power soon. 

I really couldn't explain why the Orioles were winning earlier in the year besides saying "they just find ways to win." Some of that was luck factor, but let's be clear, this team even when it was winning was winning a lot of close games because they just never really dominated games. It was part of the reason the team burnt through it's bullpen because they weren't able to really have a laugher where they could just rest their high leverage guys. 

I hope I'm the reverse jinx, I really do, but this team is going to have to find that smoke and mirrors again to win because it's a flawwed team with a very by the book veterans at all cost manager who rather have JJ Hardy bat int he 9th in one run games over much better matchups because of his veternosity. That and his penchant to leave his starters in too long and rush his relievers into games without warming them up long enough costs us games on a team that doesn't have a lot of room for error.

Any team that is still starting Ubaldo in late May with the way he's pitched is not one to be taken too seriously. It's almost laughable that they would give him another start.

 

This is pretty much exactly where I am as well.

Ubaldo continually being run back out there kills us in more ways than one.

[O's84]

2 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Any team that is still starting Ubaldo in late May with the way he's pitched is not one to be taken too seriously. It's almost laughable that they would give him another start.

Speaking on that note, did they really not kick Ubaldo from the rotation??!

[Satyr3206]

I didn't think the Orioles were as good as their start and  don't think they are as bad as the last few weeks. I'll wait a month or so and see where they are then. But I agree the possibility exists that a lot of hard decisions might be coming.

[SeaBird]

11 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

I don't want players running as hard as they can on every routine grounder.  They will literally run themselves into the ground over the course of a 162 game season.  Players know when to pick their spots.  Especially considering Manny hurt his knee while running out a play in a meaningless game in TB and then we didn't have him for the playoffs.  

You stay jogging Manny.  I want to watch you play 160 and into the playoff.  

Hustle is part of the game.  Jogging down the line is just bad attitude.  Machado must think he's above busting it.

[SeaBird]

Davis never took the bat off his shoulder in the 8th inning looking at 6 pitches.  Maybe he's afraid of going down swinging again and by taking a third strike he can argue the quality of the pitch.

For the just concluded 6 game home stand he was 2-for-24 with 12 strikeouts!  Pathetic.

[Going Underground]

Jones looks banged up. he might need a day or two off. He was limping around after two swings in the later innings,

 

The other teams in the division all have issues. Yankees starting pitching is not good. Tampa is an average team. Jays have had a ton of injuries. Red Sox have been mediocre so far. Maybe price comes back and they go on a roll. The Orioles can stay in the race all year,at least for the wild card. If they start getting injuries and pitching still is bad perhaps not.

[Going Underground]

12 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Arterial

Is he one of the players we claimed on waivers? He can play all infield positions and can cut a mean swing.