The 'Boy Was I Wrong!' Thread

[TommyD4207]

Yeah, both of those platoon guys ended up getting more than most of us, including me expected.

Again, what would have been the harm in giving the guy a chance in the majors? Sure, he could have failed, but considering who was playing for us at the time, and our record, I still disagree with any argument that says he shouldn't be given a chance.

A lot of the arguments on here about guys like House, Knott, Terrero are more about who we've had playing in the majors than the player we want to give a chance. When the team is putting established garbage(production wise) out on the field, and there's a younger guy in the minors who may be productive and is ML ready, what's the harm in giving him a shot?

BTW, have you admitted to being wrong on anything?

The potential harm is that since we had young pitchers up, giving a guy like Bako who's said to work well with pitchers, it was to help them as much as possible. Now, I think it's unlikely that House catching would have stunted their development, but considering Trembley and House had a personal relationship that dates back almost 10 years, I'd be surprised if there was any chance that House was ever going to stick as a back-up catcher.

Personally, I think the possibility of Bako being a better mentor to the young pitching outweighs any possible benefit of possibly getting some better hitting for the last month of the season. Yeah, I said it.

So no, there probably wasn't a ton of harm in doing it, but "pointless" is what I always thought of it to be. Apparently the Astros concur with my opinion, as they don't even have him catching in the minors anymore, much less the majors. So I'm pretty confident that it was never going to be.

Edit: And I tend to believe there's some validity to this, as Bako has a MLB back-up job and House doesn't even catch professionally anymore.

And I admitted to being wrong about Trachsel. Check my first post.

[mweb]

I don't really buy the Bako mentoring pitchers better than House part, but whatever. Wasn't your argument mostly about House's inability to throw out runners?

I'm sure you've been wrong about more than that one thing. If you're going to do a gloating post in an I was wrong thread, then maybe a little more I was wrong would balance it out.

[TommyD4207]

I don't really buy the Bako mentoring pitchers better than House part, but whatever. Wasn't your argument mostly about House's inability to throw out runners?

I'm sure you've been wrong about more than that one thing. If you're going to do a gloating post in an I was wrong thread, then maybe a little more I was wrong would balance it out.

Well, I do buy the whole mentoring pitchers thing, but it's whatever. I posted mostly about his inability to throw out runners because that was the more quantifiable measure which, when applied to math, actually came out by my calculations to his hitting putting him below Bako in terms of total run production. But we were talking in terms of "harm" not what was better.

And like I've said before, I'm sure that the Orioles and other front offices have crunched the very same numbers that I crunched and I'm guessing they came to the same conclusion, like I said, one has a back-up job, one doesn't even catch at all anymore. :scratchchinhmm:

As for the second part, you are right, although I wasn't trying to gloat so much as just giving some of the guys here that I read everyday some good-natured ribbing. The people that I gave a hard time to, many of them do not know how much I appreciate the time they spend giving more Orioles coverage than anywhere that I know of.

Well, for starters, I was wrong about only posting one thing on the Boy Was I Wrong thread, so there's that.

I did think that Chris Ray was going to be a mainstay at the closers role.

I was bullish on Larry Bigbie.

I was actually a big Matt Riley fan. I thought that him and Whiteside (when they were battery partners back in the minors) were the next Mussina/Hoiles.

[mweb]

I recall there being a debate regarding your math, but I don't care to get into this again since it has no bearing on the O's now and wasn't something that had a large upside or downside at the time it was being discussed.

BTW, it's funny that a guy who isn't catching at all somehow caught an entire game as recently as today! He's caught 35 games this year.

[TommyD4207]

I recall there being a debate regarding your math, but I don't care to get into this again since it has no bearing on the O's now and wasn't something that had a large upside or downside at the time it was being discussed.

BTW, it's funny that a guy who isn't catching at all somehow caught an entire game as recently as today! He's caught 35 games this year.

There was, and then I revised my numbers and made an entirely different thread. That thread got very little action. If you'd like, I could create the thread again, it got purged. But I've still got the data on my computer somewhere.

I remember reading when the Astros organization decided to go in another direction going with Quintero/Paul.

He started out the season catching, he doesn't do it as much anymore. They do seem to be working him into it slightly more than in the past, I'm guessing because both Paul and Quintero are gone.

In any case, pretty sad that he lost the position to those two. Humberto Quintero is with the big club right now (which is telling in and of itself IMO) while Paul was just so awful (as many mid 30's catchers are) that they released him.

So while he may be getting some reps by DEFAULT now, I don't think that lends any support to him being capable of being a MLB backup catcher. Quite the opposite, actually.

[BaltimoreGhost]

I thought Raffy was telling the truth in front of congress....

[mweb]

There was, and then I revised my numbers and made an entirely different thread. That thread got very little action. If you'd like, I could create the thread again, it got purged. But I've still got the data on my computer somewhere.

I remember reading when the Astros organization decided to go in another direction going with Quintero/Paul.

He started out the season catching, he doesn't do it as much anymore. They do seem to be working him into it slightly more than in the past, I'm guessing because both Paul and Quintero are gone.

In any case, pretty sad that he lost the position to those two. Humberto Quintero is with the big club right now (which is telling in and of itself IMO) while Paul was just so awful (as many mid 30's catchers are) that they released him.

So while he may be getting some reps by DEFAULT now, I don't think that lends any support to him being capable of being a MLB backup catcher. Quite the opposite, actually.

Considering what you initially said wasn't close to being true, I don't think there's really any new info since last year that makes much of an impact on that debate.

BTW, was it ok for House to be mentoring pitchers in AAA?

[TommyD4207]

Considering what you initially said wasn't close to being true, I don't think there's really any new info since last year that makes much of an impact on that debate.

BTW, was it ok for House to be mentoring pitchers in AAA?

What? That he lost the job? Sorry, that is true. He got it back by default, I was unaware until recently that he regained the job, but no, he did lose the job, sorry to say. It was "close to being true" because it WAS true, but then it changed recently.

As far as House mentoring pitchers in AAA, the minors are more of a if you wanna make a omelet you gotta break a few egg shells. We had Jack Cust playing the OF for us in AAA, does that mean that he's a good OF? No, it doesn't. It means that the Orioles were trying to evaluate whether he was any good in the OF. I'm guessing that the Orioles were trying to evaluate House's ability at catching.

And gotta love how you're either spinning my posts or you're having trouble understanding what I'm trying to say. If it's the latter, then I apologize, but I really don't think it's that difficult to grasp. I never said that House's mentoring is detrimental. I said that Bako was known to be good at it, there was no such evidence for House as a mentor. That's not to say that House wasn't any good. So no, you're way off base on that one.

And this is hijacking a perfectly good thread...

[mweb]

What? That he lost the job? Sorry, that is true. He got it back by default, I was unaware until recently that he regained the job, but no, he did lose the job, sorry to say. It was "close to being true" because it WAS true, but then it changed recently.

As far as House mentoring pitchers in AAA, the minors are more of a if you wanna make a omelet you gotta break a few egg shells. We had Jack Cust playing the OF for us in AAA, does that mean that he's a good OF? No, it doesn't. It means that the Orioles were trying to evaluate whether he was any good in the OF. I'm guessing that the Orioles were trying to evaluate House's ability at catching.

And gotta love how you're either spinning my posts or you're having trouble understanding what I'm trying to say. If it's the latter, then I apologize, but I really don't think it's that difficult to grasp. I never said that House's mentoring is detrimental. I said that Bako was known to be good at it, there was no such evidence for House as a mentor. That's not to say that House wasn't any good. So no, you're way off base on that one.

And this is hijacking a perfectly good thread...

Saying he isn't catching anymore at all obviously isn't close to being true.

I'm not spinning anything.

You brought the House thing up by gloating about it and saying something that wasn't true(although you believed it to be), sorry for responding to your gloating. Even though you wanted the people who advocated getting Dellucci and/or Cat and promoting House to admit they were wrong. I admitted I was wrong on one of those fronts.

[TommyD4207]

Saying he isn't catching anymore at all obviously isn't close to being true.

It is close to being true because it was true. At least that's how I see it.

I'm not spinning anything.

So...you misunderstood what I was trying to say?

You brought the House thing up by gloating about it and saying something that wasn't true(although you believed it to be), sorry for responding to your gloating. Even though you wanted the people who advocated getting Dellucci and/or Cat and promoting House to admit they were wrong. I admitted I was wrong on one of those fronts.

I wasn't gloating so much as I was having a little fun. How can I be gloating when I never said I didn't want either of them? I didn't, I was never on record on either side. I just remembered them being thought of extremely highly and then to see where they are now, it's funny to me. So no, it's not gloating.

And again, it WAS true. It's not anymore, because of extenuating circumstances, but the fact remains that he DID lose his job. That is true, whether you want to acknowledge that or not, that's your choice, but that part is true. The fact that he's now catching part-time (perhaps very temporarily) due to complete ineffectiveness from his successors isn't anything to hang your hat on IMO.

[RShack]

Considering what you initially said wasn't close to being true, I don't think there's really any new info since last year that makes much of an impact on that debate.

BTW, was it ok for House to be mentoring pitchers in AAA?

Do you always have to be belligerent and combative about every little thing? Jeez...

[mweb]

I don't care if it's close to being true at this point, it's just semantics.

House started the year as the C and has caught in every month this season, it doesn't seem like they ever made the decision to have him no longer catch at all for as long as they control him. But I obviously don't have all the info. JR Towles has also caught games for them this season, so it's not just Paul and Quiroz. And maybe it had more to due with who they had playing 1B, who switched to 3B early in the year. Regardless of that, I'm not saying he didn't stop catching at any point this year, all I'm saying is a statement that says he is not catching anymore at all is not true, and therefore it's not like there's a lot of new compelling info on this subject. Even if he wasn't catching at all this season, that wouldn't mean all that much to me.

No, not misunderstanding either.

Certainly seemed like gloating, and how would I know if you ever said anything about Dellucci or Cat?

[mweb]

Do you always have to be belligerent and combative about every little thing? Jeez...

What in the post you quoted was either of those things? And this is hilarious coming from you. I haven't attacked Tommy as a person, you attack a whole group of people on a daily basis.

[TommyD4207]

I don't care if it's close to being true at this point, it's just semantics.

Well then, if you don't care, then you probably should stop saying "It's nowhere close."

House started the year as the C and has caught in every month this season, it doesn't seem like they ever made the decision to have him no longer catch at all for as long as they control him. But I obviously don't have all the info. JR Towles has also caught games for them this season, so it's not just Paul and Quiroz. And maybe it had more to due with who they had playing 1B, who switched to 3B early in the year. Regardless of that, I'm not saying he didn't stop catching at any point this year, all I'm saying is a statement that says he is not catching anymore at all is not true, and therefore it's not like there's a lot of new compelling info on this subject. Even if he wasn't catching at all this season, that wouldn't mean all that much to me.

The fact that he lost the job is the most compelling info. Everything else is fairly irrelevant IMO.

And it wouldn't mean all that much to you? To me, that would prove that he's probably not a good catcher, but that's just me.

No, not misunderstanding either.

I'm out of guesses.

Certainly seemed like gloating, and how would I know if you ever said anything about Dellucci or Cat?

Well, what you said certainly seemed like spinning or inability to grasp a concept, so apparently we're both deceiving one another.

And you wouldn't know, which is why I was clarifying for ya.

[RShack]

I thought the Braves couldn't get much for a 2-month Tex rental... plus, I thought the Angels thought that Kotchman was worth more than a couple draft picks.

Boy, was I wrong.