Cafardo: Showalter losing the clubhouse

[Can_of_corn]

I don't think it is fair to say Bundy unperformed.  He went from 109.2 to 169.2 IP.

Of course some of the poor pitching is the decline in defense, another part is bringing Beef aboard, yet another part is offense as a whole being up.

[Frobby]

I wouldn't put Bundy in the "underperformed" category, because he had a 4.52 ERA as a starter before this year.    However, I think he can do better than 4.24 next season.  

[Enjoy Terror]

My point is that "talent" is not what the pitching has done, but what it's capable of doing. They didn't do it this year.

[Frobby]

4 minutes ago, Enjoy Terror said:

My point is that "talent" is not what the pitching has done, but what it's capable of doing. They didn't do it this year.

Hard to argue with that, though in some cases talent may have diminished with age or injury.    Some guys may not be capable of doing what they once did.   

[tntoriole]

11 minutes ago, Enjoy Terror said:

Here are some 2014-2016 Stats for you compared to 2017:

Chris Tillman:  3.99 ERA has  7.84 ERA this year. Underperformed.
Wade Miley:  4.68 ERA has a 5.61 ERA this year. Underperformed.
Ubaldo Jimenez: 4.72 ERA has a has a 6.81 ERA this year. Underperformed.
Kevin Gausman: 3.77 ERA has a 4.68 ERA this year. Underperformed.
Dylan Bundy: 4.02 ERA has a 4.24 ERA. Underperformed.
Jeremy Hellickson: 4.18 ERA had a 5:43 ERA this year. Underperformed.
Brad Brach: 2.61 ERA has a 3.18 ERA this year. Underperformed.
Zach Britton: 1.38 ERA has a 2.89 ERA this year. Underperformed.
Darren O'Day: 2.02 ERA has a 3.43 ERA this year. Underperformed.

This is 73% of the innings pitched this season. This squad had a combined 3.84 ERA spanning 2014-2016 just over 3000 innings.

They pitched to a 5.19 ERA in a little over 1000 innings this year.

Don't even begin to tell me this team isn't "talented". Don't even go there. This is an incredibly talented team making a ton of money and you had 73% of your innings this year combining for more than five earned runs a game. This is the meat of the team and they are capable of much better than this.

 

 

 

"Capable of much better than this"  or "declining from previous career achievements never to be matched again?"     If you think Ubaldo is going to be 4.72 ERA again or O'Day is going to just get better as he ages or Jeremy Hellickson just had "an off year"  or even Zach is going to have 60 saves in a row again....well, I have some oceanfront property.   And either way, even if I accept your idea that all of these were just "underperformance"....the original premise still doesn't fit that somehow Buck is to blame for these guys "underperforming".   I just don't think so.

 

And if we think that all of these were just "underperforming" in 2017 rather than "declining" , then we should just re-sign Ubaldo and Miley and Hellickson and Tillman right?   No need to go shopping this winter. 

[Enjoy Terror]

25 minutes ago, tntoriole said:

"Capable of much better than this"  or "declining from previous career achievements never to be matched again?"     If you think Ubaldo is going to be 4.72 ERA again or O'Day is going to just get better as he ages or Jeremy Hellickson just had "an off year"  or even Zach is going to have 60 saves in a row again....well, I have some oceanfront property.   And either way, even if I accept your idea that all of these were just "underperformance"....the original premise still doesn't fit that somehow Buck is to blame for these guys "underperforming".   I just don't think so.

 

And if we think that all of these were just "underperforming" in 2017 rather than "declining" , then we should just re-sign Ubaldo and Miley and Hellickson and Tillman right?   No need to go shopping this winter. 

If you think 4.72 ERA is worth having on the team, then yeah.

[ArtVanDelay]

4 hours ago, OFFNY said:

 

 

o

 

That supposition of that possibility is extremely flawed.

You are suggesting that the players could have turned on Showalter after his bad decision in last year's Wildcard game in October, and then you are dismissing the 22-10 start in April and early May as having nothing to do with that turning on him ...... but somehow, the Orioles' eventual demise later in the 2017 season could have been the result of a snowballing effect of negative thought which originated with the Wildcard game loss from the previous season.

There is no continuity/logic to your suggestion of that being a possibility.

 

o

32 games is a SSS.  Anything can happen in 32 games.  I never said the team’s demise was because of the clubhouse turning on Showalter.  We’re having two different arguments here. 

[tntoriole]

43 minutes ago, Enjoy Terror said:

If you think 4.72 ERA is worth having on the team, then yeah.

I disagree that re-signing any of the trio of Hellickson, Ubaldo, Miley would be a winning strategy for 2018. 

[SteveA]

4 hours ago, tntoriole said:

I agree.   By "core" you mean Machado, Schoop and ?....Jones is getting older every year, Davis and Trumbo have very narrow talents which vary from year to year...Mancini is a beast,  right field has not been good since Markakis was young (maybe Hays is the answer which would be good, but we shall see)...Cisco is unproven, Caleb is a backup catcher.....I am not sold on Beckham as the 162 game shortstop of the future......so,  the pitching was awful, and the core to me has a lot of variability in it though it is much better than the starting pitching in quality...the position players as a whole could be very good, or they could be mediocre too, but either way, this team will not compete without a major improvement in the starting pitching rotation.    And a hunk of that position core, i.e. named Manny, is gone after 2018.      

It's not just Jones.   ALL of the players are getting older every year, believe it or not.

[ORIOLE33]

22 minutes ago, SteveA said:

It's not just Jones.   ALL of the players are getting older every year, believe it or not.

People on this site are just too damn smart. You know what he meant. 

[sportsfan8703]

23 hours ago, 24fps said:

Buck made a very, very bad decision during the post season last year.  No question.

So what do you suggest happened?  Did the team collectively decide to punish Buck for the entirety of the 2017 season?  Did some general malaise decend on the team on opening day and from then on it was a brave but doomed struggle to overcome the overwhelming and ultimately fatal psychic pain inflicted by Buck Showalter?

I think the problem with this column and every other lazy, speculative column vomited out by guys like Cafardo (and often Rosenthal when the subject is the Orioles) is nobody takes the trouble to imagine what would need to happen to effect what's being suggested.   Forget about holding the columnist accountable to what is usually patent nonsense.

 

Please describe to me what "losing a clubhouse" looks like and how it happened to the Orioles in 2017.

Yup. Machado decided he was going to hit all of those hard hit balls right at people to spite Buck. 

[OFFNY]

2 hours ago, ArtVanDelay said:

 

32 games is a SSS.  Anything can happen in 32 games.  I never said the team’s demise was because of the clubhouse turning on Showalter.  We’re having two different arguments here. 

 

 

 

This was your first quote of the thread:

 

On 10/8/2017 at 10:53 PM, ArtVanDelay said:

 

It seems legit to me.  Buck made the worst managerial decision I’ve ever seen in the WC game last year. It makes sense that the clubhouse would turn on him after that. Not sure why this is so unbelievable to you.

 

o

 

You're saying that the club could have turned on him after the loss in the 2016 Wildcard game, but you're also saying that that was not the reason for the team's demise. Then essentially you weren't saying anything at all in the first place, because if the team turning on him was not the reason for the team's demise (or at least a major reason for its demise), then what exactly is/was your point in the 1st place? Why does it matter if the team turned on him if it had little or no effect on their play on the field? As you stated, they are professionals that don't pout and/or drag their feet (of which I agree with), so what exactly is the point of even suggesting that Showalter may have lost the clubhouse in the first place if it hardly effected the team's play on the field?

 

Also, if you want to disregard the team's 22-10 start in the first 32 games of the season as being too small of a sample size to draw any conclusions from in regard to the possibility of them turning on their manager, 139 games is not a small sample size. The Orioles were 71-68 after 139 games this season in spite of historically bad starting pitching, and an overworked bullpen that was missing its best pitcher (Zach Britton) for half of the season due to injury. To me, that (the suggestion that the team may have turned on Showalter after last year's Wildcard game loss) sounds like a near impossibility ...... unless of course, if their turning on him had little or no effect on their play on the field.

 

o

[tntoriole]

47 minutes ago, SteveA said:

It's not just Jones.   ALL of the players are getting older every year, believe it or not.

True...I guess that is why I don't consider Jones part of the "core" really anymore...."core" to me is younger and under control for longer.  

[OFFNY]

6 hours ago, tntoriole said:

 

This is pretty amusing. "Talented" except for the worst starting pitching rotation in Orioles history. I just have a different definition of "talented."  I reckon.  

 

o

 

When I first read this, I thought this it was at least a mild exaggeration. Certainly ( I thought), the 1988 Orioles had worse starting pitching than the 2017 Orioles did.

They didn't. In virtually every major category, the 1988 Orioles had better starting pitching than did the 2017 Orioles. The 1987 Orioles (who went 67-95) actually had worse starting pitching than did the 1988 Orioles, but they too had better starting pitching than did this year's Orioles team.

 

Granted that the Orioles' current stadium is more of a hitter's park than was their 1987 and 1988 home-field (Memorial Stadium), but still ........ taking that into consideration, I think that it's a minor phenomenon that this year's team went 75-87.

 

o

[ArtVanDelay]

1 hour ago, OFFNY said:

You're saying that the club could have turned on him after the loss in the 2016 Wildcard game, but you're also saying that that was not the reason for the team's demise.o

I haven’t said anything about the team’s demise.  That was you putting words in my mouth.  Does Buck losing the clubhouse automatically equal poor team performance?  The clubhouse couldn’t have been lost until the 140th game because we were 71-68?  That seems very simplistic.  

Are players just going to mope around and mail it in if the manager has lost the clubhouse?  Again, very simplistic.  These guys are playing for their next contract or trying to prove they belong in the majors.  I doubt any of them just stopped trying because of their feelings about Buck.  

So why bring this up in the first place?  Well....I didn’t.   I didn’t write the article or start the thread.  I just put my 2 cents in.  Isn’t that what a message board is for?