Anyone else slowly growing tired with Buck?

[Rene88]

29 minutes ago, ScGO's said:

Devil's advocate here.  He needs to play these guys now and figure out if they have any value before the season is in full swing.  Both these Rule V's might be gone in a week.  Why?  Because Buck threw them into pressure situations to see if they could handle it in order to get a better assessment of their current value.  We have some RP depth, and I think Buck and Dan knew this and used it to structure the Opening Day roster in a way to continue assessing the value of their players.  Without Britton, I think they knew it would take a couple of weeks for their Bullpen to materialize.  Perhaps its Cortes vs. Araujo in Round 2 right right now, and they were only ever planning on keeping one.  Maybe they keep none.  Perhaps they have done enough analysis at this point to realize the difference in a Rickard/MacFarland/Flarhety vs.  a Santander.  You can only learn from your mistakes and adjust, right?  Perhaps they will make that assessment earlier this time and cut ties soon.

Same with Davis.  Its been 2+ years.  Maybe this leadoff thing is really a "let's get this out of the way now" move.  If he bombs in April, maybe he becomes a 10th man on the bench.  Play the occasional matchup.  Take some reps in the OF and 3B and he becomes valuable as a utility player.  Hell, he'd have some value as a pinch runner in a couple of situations.  Maybe he gets "hurt" and goes and tries to figure it out in AAA on a "rehab."  Dan and Buck, in their positions, have to understand value and cut their losses if it starts to get embarrassing.  Whoever supported it, Buck, Dan, Brady, Angelos, whoever, it doesn't mean they can't recognize a bad investment after the fact.  These guys aren't blind. They now realize they made this investment right before the market began to correct itself.  Look at how many bad contracts were traded this year.  Heck, Stanton's contract is considered bad by most.  Our brass might be in the process of finding a way to minimize the damage.  I wouldn't be shocked if he's benched by May.

They might do the same thing with Trumbo when he comes back.  I could see them straight up cutting him if his OPS stays below .700.  Even though he has two seasons to go, they know he isn't part of the future.

Maybe they are doing the same with Tillman and Wright ; they might be out soon too.  There were rumors the O's were checking on Dickey.  Maybe there is more behind the scenes than we know. Feldman and Lackey are still out there.  Perhaps Dan is still out looking for depth via trade too.  Tillman could be DL'd for the year and maybe the O's have an insurance policy on his shoulder or something (stuff like that happens right?), so they might recoup the money and not feel bad about moving on at this point.  But they had to at least throw him out there and see if he had anything left.  Same with Wright, maybe he just slides into a BP role or he's traded. 

Maybe Buck, Dan, and Brady have lost patience with some of these players and they are ready to cut ties or at least take action for the benefit of the team in spite of their players' ego.  Maybe that process has already started with the recent trades of Chricton and Liranzo. I feel like Buck is due for a clubhouse blow up.  I say make the personnel moves first, THEN throw some chairs, dig deep, and challenge their male parts.

I've always felt that Buck, whether winning or losing, doesn't put as much value on the team's overall record during the season's first couple of weeks.  He more or less wants to see who is ready to go to war, and shed the fodder early, before they ride into the belly of the beast.

 

Or maybe none of this is what Buck is thinking at all.

Good post here, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I like your thinking, but I don't there is anyway Angelos eats the Davis contract or Trumbo contract. No way at all. Impossible.

[blid]

5 minutes ago, 24fps said:

To answer your rhetorical question, I'm not at all sure that Davis has the skill at this point to produce at the level he's being paid to.

At the level he's being paid to?  

"Oh my Lord, no." 

 

[nadecir]

Buck was trying to light a fire under Chris Davis.   It was worth a shot for a few games.  I imagine the experiment with Chris Davis leading off won't last too much longer, given the results.

Chris Davis is owed a lot of money for the remaining for the next 5 years.  Any rational person would try anything to get Chris Davis started again to get a reasonable return on that investment.   I am sure they will try other seemingly crazy ideas in an attempt to get him going again.

At some point, perhaps the right front office decision would be to ship Chris Davis to a team that's willing to pay off his contract.  This means we would have to ship some very good players or prospects with him in order to get teams to take that contract on, and the Orioles would get nothing in return.

That would hurt, for sure.  But sometimes you have to take your lumps in the short term, in order to get better results in the long run.  All part of a longer-term rebuilding process.

[Sessh]

1 minute ago, Moose Milligan said:

Clearly you don't remember the bang-up job Hinch did with Arizona in his first managerial stint.  

I'm sure Buck could lead a team like the Orioles to the playoffs if this team had Altuve, Correa, Springer, Keuchel, McCullers, and Verlander instead of Davis, Trumbo, Alvarez, Tillman, Cashner and whoever else.  Just a hunch.

Well, he couldn't lead the D'Backs past the ALDS with Jay Bell, Matt Williams, Luis Gonzalez and Steve Finley as well as Randy Johnson and Omar Daal who was good that year. Why would he be able to do it with the players you mentioned? Randy Johnson won the NL Cy Young that year, too.

With Hinch, apparently Arizona was wrong just like they were wrong about Max Scherzer.

[gtman55]

6 minutes ago, nadecir said:

At some point, perhaps the right front office decision would be to ship Chris Davis to a team that's willing to pay off his contract.  This means we would have to ship some very good players or prospects with him in order to get teams to take that contract on, and the Orioles would get nothing in return.

That would hurt, for sure.  But sometimes you have to take your lumps in the short term, in order to get better results in the long run.  All part of a longer-term rebuilding process.

This isn't hindsight because I said it at the time. This was the dumbbest contract in Orioles history. We clearly needed pitching and we had just signed Trumbo. Idiotically, we then go ahead and outbid ourselves for Davis. And now it's killing this team.

[Il BuonO]

11 hours ago, Three Run Homer said:

I would have left Wright pitch the 6th--his pitch count was in the low 80s and he had two straight clean innings.  Nevertheless, even if Wright had made it through the 6th, I would have brought Givens out for the 7th, so he would have eventually blown the save anyway.   Lefties are still kryptonite to Givens.  

I thought it was weird to go with Araujo and Cortes in a tie game.  Is O'Day hurt or something?  Was Bleier unavailable?

Do we know he would have had the same results? He would not have faced Reddick (assuming Wright gets through the 6th). Just saying....

Anyway, it doesn’t make sense that Wright is taken out, not with the way he was pitching.

If I could just see some passion out of Buck. You know? Maybe getting thrown out more often. This needs it’s own thread.

 

[Moose Milligan]

4 minutes ago, Sessh said:

Well, he couldn't lead the D'Backs past the ALDS with Jay Bell, Matt Williams, Luis Gonzalez and Steve Finley as well as Randy Johnson and Omar Daal who was good that year. Why would he be able to do it with the players you mentioned? Randy Johnson won the NL Cy Young that year, too.

With Hinch, apparently Arizona was wrong just like they were wrong about Max Scherzer.

Yeah, but you know as well as I do that the playoffs are a crap shoot, essentially.   I mean I am sure it was LaRussa's genius that steered the 2006 Cardinals to the World Series.  

[gtman55]

I've never been a fan of the way Buck pulls or doesn't pull a pitcher. He either leaves them in too long or pulls them too quickly. I think that's one of his weaknesses.

[foxfield]

1 hour ago, birdwatcher55 said:

Saving Bleier for Yankees. Seriously, I had it with Buck after last season. Get Farrell in here.

Only a blind person, and I mean no offense to blind people, could look at the Orioles first 5 games and go.....Yeah, Buck's gotta go.

[Frobby]

4 minutes ago, Sessh said:

Well, he couldn't lead the D'Backs past the ALDS with Jay Bell, Matt Williams, Luis Gonzalez and Steve Finley as well as Randy Johnson and Omar Daal who was good that year. 

It would have been impossible for Buck to lead Arizona past the ALDS, no matter how good their players were.

I’m very reluctant to judge a manager based on how the team did in a limited number of postseason appearances.   Just too small a sample IMO.

[Moose Milligan]

48 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

"We've got a pitching staff full of starters who are average on their best day, a bullpen that was great a few years ago but isn't that great anymore, a bad defense and a lineup full of low on base guys who would be best suited for your beer softball league.  WHY AREN'T WE WINNING?!??! BUCK WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU???? CAN'T YOU COAX 1ST PLACE RESULTS OUT OF A LAST PLACE GROUP OF TALENT!??!!? BUCK WHY AREN'T YOU PUTTING A LEFTY PLATOON HITTER IN THE LINEUP EVERY DAY!?!!? THAT WOULD DO SOOOOOOOO MUCH FOR US BUT NOOOOOOOO YOU'RE STICKING TO THE PLAYERS WE DON'T WANT YOU TO PLAY!  YOU ARE WEARING OUT YOUR WELCOME AND WE DON'T WANT YOU HERE ANYMORE!  UGH!  Your stubbornness is killing us, Buck, it's #@%^ing killing us.  You need to make flexible lineup and management decisions with a highly inflexible group of baseball players.  Don't worry about the fact that, like, half the roster is full of people that should be playing first base in that are in the lineup every day and that Mark Trumbo is coming back soon so you need to figure out a way to get him at bats, too.  BUCK YOU ARE WEARING OUT YOUR WELCOME THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!  Dammit, get creative!  Put Schoop in left field and Manny in right.  BE CREATIVE!!  JEEZ!!!  My 5 year old could do a better job with this roster.  You know what he's doing right now, Buck?  He's finger painting.  BUT HE'S FINGER PAINTING A BETTER LINEUP THAN YOU EVER COULD.  FIGURE IT OUT!!! 

-Orioleshangout.com, April 2018

I'm quoting this again because it didn't get the proper attention.  The best comedy is the comedy that highlights truth with humor.  I am giving you gold here. 

 

 

[maybenxtyr]

54 minutes ago, interloper said:

Once again, the Orioles SPs are not prepared to go more than 80 or 90 pitches while the opposition's rotation clearly is. 

I don't know why this continues to happen, and if it's the Orioles' philosophy to keep pitchers healthy, I don't agree with it. 

The first part of your statement is absolutely correct. I think almost everyone associated with the Orioles knew Wright was going to be in the rotation to begin the season and he was not ready.

I'm not going to be a party to bashing Buck for everything, but the way the starters prepare for the season has been questionable for some time.

[Sessh]

Just now, Moose Milligan said:

Yeah, but you know as well as I do that the playoffs are a crap shoot, essentially.   I mean I am sure it was LaRussa's genius that steered the 2006 Cardinals to the World Series.  

To an extent. Showalter single handedly lost the 2016 wild card game for us. That's not what I'd call a "crapshoot"; that's the result of bad decision making and the second such instance in Showalter's playoff career. Sure, maybe Britton comes in and gives up a walk off home run, but that's a lot easier to swallow because objectively, it was the right call and I wouldn't have blamed him for that outcome at all.

So, yes, there is a magnified "anything can happen" factor in the postseason, but the consequences of good and bad decision making are also magnified and Showalter always seems to be on the wrong end of that exchange. That's not a crapshoot. That is a man showing you his professional limitations.

[Sessh]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It would have been impossible for Buck to lead Arizona past the ALDS, no matter how good their players were.

I’m very reluctant to judge a manager based on how the team did in a limited number of postseason appearances.   Just too small a sample IMO.

Heh, oops. Indeed it would have been impossible, but I'm sure you knew what I meant anyways.

[foxfield]

3 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I'm quoting this again because it didn't get the proper attention.  The best comedy is the comedy that highlights truth with humor.  I am giving you gold here. 

 

 

Pure gold!!!