Why do I feel crazy for actually believing the O's can win the East?

[Nite]

Last year Ubaldo had 25 starts, 11 he was recorded for the loss. Lets face reality, of the 25 he put the team in a position to lose about 18 of them. Miley had 32 starts, lost 15 and probably put the team in position to lose 20. So that's 26 actual losses pinned to these two starters, but 38 theoretical losses. 

Assuming Cobb and Cashner are just career norms, we can actually expect both of those numbers to be halved. Even worse case I'm looking at both of them combining to lose 20-25, that's a 6-1 game swing. Then in the theoretical cut in half, that's 19 more games the O's should be in on. So best case we are talking a grand total of 25 more wins. Just sheer should happen assuming no disaster is 10 more. This is just from TWO player upgrades. This is factoring Tillman can't be worse than last year, and Bundy and Gausman at worse repeat last year. 

I'm excited!!

[Aglets]

Well, the Yankees are still clearly the superior team on paper.  So it's probably crazy to predict that we will win the East.

But lots of things can happen during the season that shift luck one way or the other and I think the gap will be a lot more narrow than it was last year............so if fate smiles on us it's certainly possible.

[oriole]

It's not impossible...just highly unlikely. The Yankees and Red Sox are really good and I bet they make aggressive moves if they need to to add to the club. I don't see the O's trading any prospects this year considering we are entering some transitional years. Realistically im hoping for a WC but that's even hard to fathom considering all it takes is a couple of injuries to key players to throw this team into a tail spin. We've got lucky the only significant injury this spring was to a player that makes the team better when he's not on the active roster. Just wait till Schoop misses a couple months and we have to watch Vielma at the plate or Gausman goes down and its up to Aquino to save the day.

[Bonecrusher52]

I give O's 5% of chance to win AL East.

[NCRaven]

Why do you feel crazy?

Well, maybe because you're...crazy?  

[clapdiddy]

19 minutes ago, oriole said:

It's not impossible...just highly unlikely. The Yankees and Red Sox are really good and I bet they make aggressive moves if they need to to add to the club. I don't see the O's trading any prospects this year considering we are entering some transitional years. Realistically im hoping for a WC but that's even hard to fathom considering all it takes is a couple of injuries to key players to throw this team into a tail spin. We've got lucky the only significant injury this spring was to a player that makes the team better when he's not on the active roster. Just wait till Schoop misses a couple months and we have to watch Vielma at the plate or Gausman goes down and its up to Aquino to save the day.

The lack of starting pitching depth at the higher levels of the minors is this team's biggest weakness.   

I definitely think we can compete in the AL East if the top 4 pitchers make most of their starts.  

[ArtVanDelay]

Cobb and Cashner certainly will not be 10 games better than Ubaldo and Miley.  5 at most. 

[foxfield]

7 minutes ago, ArtVanDelay said:

Cobb and Cashner certainly will not be 10 games better than Ubaldo and Miley.  5 at most. 

I think you and I could be 5 games better than Ubaldo and Miley...and Ive never seen you throw!

[Yossarian]

Why do you feel crazy for thinking the O's could win the AL East?

Because it's March and they are tied for first right now.  Wait until June, that dementia will subside considerably. 

[Nite]

13 minutes ago, ArtVanDelay said:

Cobb and Cashner certainly will not be 10 games better than Ubaldo and Miley.  5 at most. 

You're saying Cobb can't single handedly be 10 games better than Ubaldo? 

[Es4M11]

14 minutes ago, ArtVanDelay said:

Cobb and Cashner certainly will not be 10 games better than Ubaldo and Miley.  5 at most. 

If the over/under was a 9.5 game improvement, I'll take the over all day.

[Enjoy Terror]

I’ll have what he’s having.

[Es4M11]

I think this is about an 85 win team. It can compete for a wild card with mild luck.

 

[Il BuonO]

I don’t know you, so can’t I make a statement to your mental faculties. Are you taking any prescription medication?

[Nite]

15 minutes ago, Il BuonO said:

I don’t know you, so can’t I make a statement to your mental faculties. Are you taking any prescription medication?

Just decided to do the math on the starting pitching, and getting ride of two of the worst starters in the league and replacing them with at worse average starters made me happy. Then seeing where the team finished WITH that anchor weighing them down, made me excited! I can honestly see a 93 win campaign. I'm also thinking the Yankees are over rated and the Sox are the same team as last year. I'm not buying the media hype train on them.