Buck, Dan and ownership need to deal with the Davis issue first

[Can_of_corn]

14 minutes ago, weams said:

 

After a certain period of time don't you have to stop calling it a slump?

[atomic]

3 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

If you were so concerned about batting average you more got lucky than saw it coming.  There were numerous red and yellow flags and BA was only one of them.

If you hit below .200 for a year in the prime of your career you dont' field like Ozzie Smith or Mark Belanger you probably shouldn't be signed to a multi year contract.  He also had only a .704 OPS as  a first baseman. I  said at the time you can throw his positive WAR out for that season because however that calculation occurred it was wrong.  And I remember a bunch of people arguing with me.  

Really any player that strikes out 200 times a year I would pass on.  Even during his best season he struck out 199 times.  Really have no desire to see such a player play. 

[tntoriole]

3 hours ago, spiritof66 said:

Here's what I would do. I'm not saying it's a good idea, but I think it's better than anything else. And I would look at this differently if I thought that keeping Chris Davis on the ML roster was depriving the Orioles of a chance for a successful season. 

Keep Davis on the roster but take him out of the starting lineup. Don't let him bat against lefthanders. Give him an occasional start and use him as a late-inning defensive replacement. That should keep Trumbo, and for the most part Mancini, out of the OF, and give us a better chance to see how Mancini performs at 1B. Davis would get maybe 75 to 100 ABs over the course of the  rest of the year if his performance level remains about what it is now. 

I assume that most of Davis's efforts to improve have involved, and most of the coaching he's received has come from, Coolbaugh. Maybe Brady. Whoever has been involved in that coaching and those efforts should be deemed to have failed -- though maybe it's not his or their fault. Find someone who thinks he can help Davis and hire him or her for a month or two, with the sole objective of trying to make Davis a better hitter in a stated period of time. If that means Davis spends some days or weeks away from the team in Florida or California or Tibet, requiring the Orioles to play with a 24-man roster, that's OK. If that doesn't work, repeat the process with someone else through September, or beyond if that makes sense.

During the off-season, involve the team''s (presumably new) GM and manager in the decision about what to do with Davis. But the presumption would be that he should not be back next year if there's been no improvement or good reason to expect improvement.

By the way, while I haven't gone back to look at the posts at the time of Davis's free agency, I don't think there were many, if any, posters who said they didn't think Davis could contribute to the Orioles for a few years. The debated issues that I recall were the length of the contract and how to weigh the very strong possibility that Davis would be in decline, possibly steep decline, by its last few years, and the apparent overpayment -- given the apparent lack of serious competitors to sign Chris -- by a team that had limited resources and would soon have other key players reaching free agency.

I am increasingly thinking that Chris's problems may be related to his psychological condition and that perhaps the stressors involved with pressure of the big contract, having new babies- twins, changing his treatment medications, new medications perhaps not working as well etc.  have combined together to make him a shell of his former performer self.  But that is all idle speculation.   Either way, I think unfortunately he is effectively finished as a high level  major league performer.    

[weams]

 

[Teddy OBP]

1 hour ago, tntoriole said:

I am increasingly thinking that Chris's problems may be related to his psychological condition and that perhaps the stressors involved with pressure of the big contract, having new babies- twins, changing his treatment medications, new medications perhaps not working as well etc.  have combined together to make him a shell of his former performer self.  But that is all idle speculation.   Either way, I think unfortunately he is effectively finished as a high level  major league performer.    

I think his bat has definitely slowed but I agree that a lot of it is between his ears.  We saw what it did to Reimold early in his career and likely to Matusz.  The brain is a heck of a thing.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, pdiddy said:

I think his bat has definitely slowed but I agree that a lot of it is between his ears.  We saw what it did to Reimold early in his career and likely to Matusz.  The brain is a heck of a thing.

I think Reimold's main problems were bad defense and a broken neck.

[Teddy OBP]

1 minute ago, Can_of_corn said:

I think Reimold's main problems were bad defense and a broken neck.

Sure, eventually. But he also completely lost his mind for a season over (suspected) girlfriend issues.  Lots of rumors on that that shouldn't be rehashed.

[bird watcher]

How “guaranteed” are MLB contracts?  

If a player dies is his estate owed the money?  

If he is paralyzed in a horse riding accident is he owed the money?

 If they tell him to pitch and he refuses then what?

No I am not wishing those thing for Chris Davis!  (Well maybe the pitching part) 

 I am just curious. 

[spiritof66]

6 hours ago, Frobby said:

The Orioles don’t seem to understand that there’s no use chasing after a sunk cost.   It’s really hard to admit you’ve thrown $100 mm+ down the drain.   But playing a guy who is worse than replacement level, and likely to continue getting worse, only hurts the team.    Better to admit you made a franchise-screwing mistake and move on, lest the screwing be extended to the max.

The Orioles' reluctance to change Davis's role confirms two things to me. First, that Peter Angelos was heavily involved in the Davis contract. Angelos, to the best of my knowledge, has never admitted he was wrong about anything. He (or his sons in his name) might block any attempt to change Davis's role. Sercond, Buck manages the team as if he is answerable to no one and cannot be fired. He makes bad decisions, shows loyalty to players that hurts the team, and like Angelos cannot admit that he's made a mistake. He needs to be fired for this team to change direction. Waiting until his contract is up atb the end of the season won't set things back muvh, but I see no reason to wait; fire him, make Russell or someone else interim manager and tell him to play guys who can contribute going forward, not those who' have contributed in the past.

I'm not ready to say that the Davis money is a complete loss. I would get him out of the regular lineup, spend a little more taking the best available shot at making him a useful player, and then say good-bye if it doesn't work by the time the World Series ends (or some other date if that makes more sense).  In 2019 this team should have a useful Chris Davis or no Davis at all.

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, bird watcher said:

How “guaranteed” are MLB contracts?  

If a player dies is his estate owed the money?  

If he is paralyzed in a horse riding accident is he owed the money?

 If they tell him to pitch and he refuses then what?

No I am not wishing those thing for Chris Davis!  (Well maybe the pitching part) 

 I am just curious. 

No

Is horseback riding a prohibited activity?

You could theoretically put him on the suspended list.

[TINSTAAPP]

9 minutes ago, bird watcher said:

How “guaranteed” are MLB contracts?  

If a player dies is his estate owed the money?  

If he is paralyzed in a horse riding accident is he owed the money?

 If they tell him to pitch and he refuses then what?

No I am not wishing those thing for Chris Davis!  (Well maybe the pitching part) 

 I am just curious. 

I'm pretty sure contracts are guaranteed only if the player is active and/or suffers a career ending injury. I remember Gil Meche retiring about a decade ago and it was pretty well publicized that he was leaving $30+ million on the table when he made that decision. If a player dies, I don't think his estate gets any money. If he gets paralyzed, that's a different story because it's a career ending injury. They probably end up getting the money owed to them for the duration of their contract.

[Rich Mac]

7 hours ago, maybenxtyr said:

There is literally no reason for Davis to do that. He's going to get paid every cent of his deal just by waking up each morning. This isn't J.G. Wentworth.

I believe that he has $110 million left on his contract with a good deal of cash being deferred for several years. There's a chance that you can convince him to take $50 or $60 million upfront and go spend the next 4 years in the Caribbean or on the golf course instead of 6 months out of the year travelling/practicing and making a fool of himself at the plate. 

It never hurts to ask.

[Sessh]

15 minutes ago, bird watcher said:

How “guaranteed” are MLB contracts?  

If a player dies is his estate owed the money?  

If he is paralyzed in a horse riding accident is he owed the money?

 If they tell him to pitch and he refuses then what?

No I am not wishing those thing for Chris Davis!  (Well maybe the pitching part) 

 I am just curious. 

Well, Yordano Ventura's estate was owed the remaining $20M or whatever it was, but there was a provision in his contract that voided all payment if he suffered an injury or death as a result of drunk driving. Ventura's toxicology report was never released to the public and I'm not sure what happened with that, though.

[bird watcher]

20 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

No

Is horseback riding a prohibited activity?

You could theoretically put him on the suspended list.

What is the suspended list?  

If Davis can’t hit  then what would it hurt to put him in the bullpen?

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, bird watcher said:

What is the suspended list?  

If Davis can’t hit  then what would it hurt to put him in the bullpen?

It's the list you are on if you say, throw a bat at another player.  Mostly it is the league that assigns players to the list but teams do have the ability to.

Now if the O's actually tried to put Davis on the list for not being willing to pitch the Union would of course get involved and some form of arbitration would probably follow.