How did they get this bad?

[jtschrei]

Davis juiced to get his contract and then went off the juice. Anyone who doesn’t see that has their eyes closed. 

Mancini and Schoop will get better this year. 

But yes, the pitching is still terrible and the defense not good.

There are too many holes in our adult softball league team

[tntoriole]

2 hours ago, wildcard said:

I think the pitchers would be a lot better if the O's had a good defense.

The defenders are certainly not as good, I agree.  But you also wonder that when the pitchers were better, that playing defense also became better.   Fewer balls over an entire season hit on the barrel are easier to defend and certain stats, like errors, might reflect this.     Maybe our stats experts can speak some to this question of how does one measure how a specific fielding metric, even a grossly subjective one like an error,  is affected by the intensity/nature of the struck pitch. 

[tntoriole]

1 minute ago, Going Underground said:

Buck has hinted it has bothered him at times I don't know.People did not like when I said if he plays first that he is a two year younger version of CJ Cron .Mancini maybe a better walk rate and Cron maybe a little more power.Cron was traded for a PTBNL.

Adjustments, adjustments.     When virtually the entire lineup around you is performing badly, then you are even more going to be seeing less good pitches to hit. Which is what makes Manny's performance even more remarkable  AND, all the more reason to trade yesterday, because it would seem that a bit of a regression for Manny the rest of the summer would not be unusual as teams more and more pitch around him altogether.  

[24fps]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

I almost wonder how much of it was not understanding the window was closing or willfully denying that reality because of the contract situation of the Manager and GM.

A great deal of the former IMO, although the latter played into the situation as well. This window was orchestrated years ago and, by God, Peter G. Angelos is going to see it through to the bitter end. 

A contract is a contract, but reality?  Well that’s negotiable to a good lawyer. 

[AndresMora]

7 minutes ago, jtschrei said:

Davis juiced to get his contract and then went off the juice. Anyone who doesn’t see that has their eyes closed. 

Mancini and Schoop will get better this year. 

But yes, the pitching is still terrible and the defense not good.

There are too many holes in our adult softball league team

I think you may be right, which makes Davis a fraud.  He should be embarrassed to take his salary.

[SteveA]

When a team that thinks it's a contender finds out the hard way it's not, the wheels can come off the cart pretty badly.

Look at the Giants... averaged 87 wins from 2009-16, losing less than 84 just once in that span.  When that run ended last year, they didn't just drop off a little, they want 64-98.

[Woody Held]

The strikeout is becoming king in baseball.  The Orioles Have 1977 at bats and 535 strike outs.  So about a quarter of the time they strikeout.  All over baseball teams are striking out more than in the past.  No longer do guys shorten up there swings and make contact once they get 2 strikes on them.  Their  opponents typical are giving them half the field as undefended and they can adjusted to get the ball to the opposite side.  Don’t know the cause whether it’s the reliever merry go round or what but this is the major cause of the game slowing down, not everything MLB seems to think it is.

As far as the O’s you have two to three guys playing out of position and two to three guys in the starting lineups that don’t belong in the major leagues. What do we expect.

How does an organization have three of thier best players contracts expiring the same year as their entire front office and management staff’s.  That is unfathomable to me. 

[SteveA]

16 minutes ago, Woody Held said:

The strikeout is becoming king in baseball.  The Orioles Have 1977 at bats and 535 strike outs.  So about a quarter of the time they strikeout.  All over baseball teams are striking out more than in the past.  No longer do guys shorten up there swings and make contact once they get 2 strikes on them.  Their  opponents typical are giving them half the field as undefended and they can adjusted to get the ball to the opposite side.  Don’t know the cause whether it’s the reliever merry go round or what but this is the major cause of the game slowing down, not everything MLB seems to think it is.

As far as the O’s you have two to three guys playing out of position and two to three guys in the starting lineups that don’t belong in the major leagues. What do we expect.

How does an organization have three of thier best players contracts expiring the same year as their entire front office and management staff’s.  That is unfathomable to me. 

I think the long term plan, if there is such a thing, since about 2014 has been that the window to compete went through this year, and that a rebuild would probably be needed after this season.

Obviously, the 2017-2018 portions of that plan did not work out as hoped.   While that may seem obvious in hindsight, let's not forget that plenty of people thought that we couldn't win in 2012 and we should begin a rebuild that July.   And, in fact, nearly every year since.   The success in 2012 and 2014, and making the playoffs in 2016, probably convinced them that with the right set of offseason additions to the core, we had a good chance to keep competing and maybe in one of the years we would strike gold.

That doesn't explain all the guys playing out of position.   I think part of it is due to a couple things:  too many cooks stirring the soup without one coherent decision maker with a plan; and also to the fact that for some reason (Buck? Brady?) this team has way, way too much loyalty to bringing back guys they have had.   That includes extending Davis, O'Day, Jones, Hardy, Trumbo, etc, as well as bringing back the likes of Tillman, Pearce, Valencia, Alvarez.