Glenn Davis or Chris Davis?

[Redskins Rick]

2 minutes ago, Beef Supreme said:

...everything except for the balls that clanged off Devo's leaden glove.

To be fair.

I dont think anybody expected Schilling to end up being a hall of fame talent level pitcher, based on his performances in Baltimore.

[Beef Supreme]

Just now, Redskins Rick said:

To be fair.

I dont think anybody expected Schilling to end up being a hall of fame talent level pitcher, based on his performances in Baltimore.

I expected that Schilling would be TOR. Not HOF -- hard to predict that. But better than any starter they had in the organization at the time.

[Redskins Rick]

Just now, Beef Supreme said:

I expected that Schilling would be TOR. Not HOF -- hard to predict that. But better than any starter they had in the organization at the time.

Schilling was not a TOR here, not in the slightest.

 

[Beef Supreme]

2 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

Schilling was not a TOR here, not in the slightest.

 

I never claimed he was. I said "I expected that Schilling would be TOR." I used that conditional to fact verb construction (would) to indicate that I expected Schilling to be a top of the rotation starter for the Orioles; however, he was traded before he achieved that for this team. I thought I was being clear.

[Redskins Rick]

Just now, Beef Supreme said:

I never claimed he was. I said "I expected that Schilling would be TOR." I used that conditional to fact verb construction (would) to indicate that I expected Schilling to be a top of the rotation starter for the Orioles; however, he was traded before he achieved that for this team. I thought I was being clear.

My apologies.

But, as he was almost always a reliever here, and even with the astros, before being converted into a SP.

How could you make that determination?

Brach has great stuff as a reliever, but is ill-suited for a SP role.

 

[Moose Milligan]

17 minutes ago, Beef Supreme said:

...everything except for the balls that clanged off Devo's leaden glove.

I don't really remember Devo having stone hands.  I remember a game where Ben McDonald gave up a fly ball that he could have caught at the wall but it hit off his glove and went over for a homer.  

 

Edit:  yep

 

Love that early 90s look of shorts and spandex, Big Ben.

[Beef Supreme]

Just now, Redskins Rick said:

My apologies.

But, as he was almost always a reliever here, and even with the astros, before being converted into a SP.

How could you make that determination?

Brach has great stuff as a reliever, but is ill-suited for a SP role.

 

I believed the hype and I believed my eyes.I also believed Schilling's minor league stats, where he dominated as a starter. Schilling was converted to a reliever -- which has been common with rookie starters, e.g. Nolan Ryan -- before he was went back to being a rotation-piece.

Brach has never started a professional baseball game. And by "professional," I am including the lowest levels of the minors. I wouldn't say Brach has "great" stuff as a reliever, though he has flourished in Baltimore as compared to his days in San Diego. It's surprising that he turned into a valuable relief pitcher. Why would anyone have expected him to become a starter of any quality?

[Beef Supreme]

15 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I don't really remember Devo having stone hands.  I remember a game where Ben McDonald gave up a fly ball that he could have caught at the wall but it hit off his glove and went over for a homer.  

 

Edit:  yep

 

Love that early 90s look of shorts and spandex, Big Ben.

We are both working off of memory. My memory has balls hitting him on the palm of the glove and bouncing out on more than a few occasions.

[MurphDogg]

23 minutes ago, Beef Supreme said:

I expected that Schilling would be TOR. Not HOF -- hard to predict that. But better than any starter they had in the organization at the time.

He was a middling AAA starter with a strikeout rate around 7. He was behind Harnisch and Jose Bautista in the Rochester pecking order. To say you thought he was better than any starter they had in the organization is a major outlier of an opinion, if true. Ben McDonald was clearly higher thought of at the time, one of the most hyped prospects of the decade, not to mention Harnisch who many preferred to Schilling. It isn't even accurate with hindsight as Mussina was in the organization (and outperforming Schilling) as well.

[MurphDogg]

3 minutes ago, Beef Supreme said:

I believed the hype and I believed my eyes.I also believed Schilling's minor league stats, where he dominated as a starter.

He had a mediocre AAA ERA. Fourth best ERA in the Rochester rotation in 1989. ERA of nearly 4 at AAA in 1990. There was no hype and certainly no domination. His performance was consistently worse than Harnisch, at all levels.

[Beef Supreme]

The problem with Glenn trade was philosophical. After certain members of local sports media ran Eddie out of town -- you know who you are -- employing some thinly-veiled racist attacks, the Orioles of 1989 shocked the baseball world by nearly winning the AL East. Predictably, the 1990 team regressed. As a result, the FO decided that all they needed to compete for the division title again was to add a bopper at 1B. Worse, the Astros were about to be sold and were dumping payroll. Glenn was going somewhere, anywhere, to facilitate the sale of the team. Not only did the Orioles overpay, they were not ready to compete with Glenn because their pitching was suspect and they had holes other places on the diamond.

The Orioles were absolutely wrong in not continuing to grow their youngsters and invest in their future. They were a few years away from being a perennial contender with the young talent they were promoting to the bigs. But if things had been a little different, the trade wouldn't have been cataclysmically devastating. If only the Orioles had traded Devo, Harnisch and Jay Tibbs things wouldn't look so horrendous in the rear view mirror.

[Redskins Rick]

9 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

He was a middling AAA starter with a strikeout rate around 7. He was behind Harnisch and Jose Bautista in the Rochester pecking order. To say you thought he was better than any starter they had in the organization is a major outlier of an opinion, if true. Ben McDonald was clearly higher thought of at the time, one of the most hyped prospects of the decade, not to mention Harnisch who many preferred to Schilling. It isn't even accurate with hindsight as Mussina was in the organization (and outperforming Schilling) as well.

McDonald was a legend in college, pitching CGs and then closing out games when he wasn't starting, so they could win the college world series.

It had a major impact on his major league career.

Can you image, what would have been when a strong McDonald in the number two slot, behind Mussina. What a pair that would have been.

[Frobby]

58 minutes ago, Beef Supreme said:

I expected that Schilling would be TOR. Not HOF -- hard to predict that. But better than any starter they had in the organization at the time.

Interesting.    Schilling was used as a reliever most of his time in Baltimore:

1988: 4 starts, 0 relief appearances, 9.82 ERA.

1989: 1 start, 4 relief appearances, 6.23 ERA

1990: 0 starts, 35 relief appearances, 2.54 ERA.

If you saw him as a likely TOR starter, you were quite prescient.  That’s impressive.   

[Redskins Rick]

31 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

He was a middling AAA starter with a strikeout rate around 7. He was behind Harnisch and Jose Bautista in the Rochester pecking order. To say you thought he was better than any starter they had in the organization is a major outlier of an opinion, if true. Ben McDonald was clearly higher thought of at the time, one of the most hyped prospects of the decade, not to mention Harnisch who many preferred to Schilling. It isn't even accurate with hindsight as Mussina was in the organization (and outperforming Schilling) as well.

I was thinking more about this.

middling starter behind others in the pecking order.

You could describe Davis and Ed-Rod as that, because they was at the time.

[Beef Supreme]

19 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

He was a middling AAA starter with a strikeout rate around 7. He was behind Harnisch and Jose Bautista in the Rochester pecking order. To say you thought he was better than any starter they had in the organization is a major outlier of an opinion, if true. Ben McDonald was clearly higher thought of at the time, one of the most hyped prospects of the decade, not to mention Harnisch who many preferred to Schilling. It isn't even accurate with hindsight as Mussina was in the organization (and outperforming Schilling) as well.

The revisionist history of claiming 7K/9 was middling 30 years ago is misleading; K rates were lower at all levels of professional baseball than they are now. 7K/9 was very, very good. But if you insist on using Ks to judge, then Jose Bautista would have been far behind Schilling in the pecking order with his best season in the minors, 1989, resulting in a K/9 of 4.3. In total, Bautista pitched as poorly in AA and AAA as he did in MLB.

While McDonald certainly was expected to be great -- some probably did predict HOF for him -- nothing that the barrel-chested Harnisch did on the hill in Baltimore led me to believe he would ever find success as a starter. His stuff looked hittable and his results were terrible. At least Schilling looked tough to hit while he was putting up strong numbers out of the Orioles pen in 1990.

Schilling showed his dominance in the high minors with low WHIPs and very low HR/9 rates.