A few nuggets....

[Fairfax Bird]

I think Bergesen has plenty of confidence seeing he's now 12-4 on the season combined.

Why is Bergeson all of the sudden a lock to pitch 7 innings in the majors? He hasn't even been in Bowie the entire season. Let him finish the season in Bowie and come to ST next year. He is not the answer this year.

[Lucky Jim]

"I think we're going to look to get Ramon a lot more days off because he gives every appearance that he's tired out there. His reactions behind the plate have slowed and he's not getting down the line well at all."

I'd have no problem at all with this statement though I wouldn't say it quite this way. First of all, I'd say it in response to a question when Ramon has sat and someone specifically asks me why he didn't play. My response would be:

"Ramon appears tired to me so I'm going to give him more days off. Specifically, his reactions behind the plate have slowed and he's not getting down the line well at all."

BTW, I don't think the Vasquez or Ramon statements above are OK. They are too broad and get too close to personal commentary IMO. I do think this is marginal though and could be open to interpretation.

I do think that some of us have actually written they should be personally attacked, but I'm not going back to find examples. I'm sure that intent was clear though.

I have heard things from DT about Ramon's play, just not recently. Again, I think it is clear he is being moved right now so don't tarnish the merchandise any more than necessary. Palmer's comments don't go too far IMO, but they skate up to the edge at times. I can understand though because he is having to react to things instantly as they happen. He doesn't get the option of reflection to instill restraint.

Fair enough. I think - in the end - if an actual comment were made, our determination of whether it was right or not would probably align fairly neatly. I think we just have a different idea of adulthood - these guys get all the glory in the world when they succeed. When they make mistakes discussing those mistakes is what adults do. Talking with the press/public about our shortfalls is something a professional should be able to handle. It's not about embarrassment, necessarily. It's about the failure of one measure of accountability and its replacement with another.

[Lucky Jim]

Of course it doesn't. If a guy's getting talked to, everybody knows it. Nothing wrong with that. That doesn't mean the conversation isn't private, and it doesn't mean that it's not done in a respectful way.

Players need to know things are being addressed, and they also need to know that, whenever it might be their turn, the door will be shut and the conversation will be private.

I don't see why people wanna turn this into some black and white thing, as if either the manager punches out a player or else he's being a wimp. Jeez...

I haven't made anything black & white. Should a manager never yell at a player?

[amateurfan]

"That game last night, it wasn't the baserunning," Trembley said. "Did anybody say anything about the pitch selection that Olson made? Goodness sakes. How about some of the pitches that he was throwing to the guys hitting eight and nine? You're going to beat Detroit, you better not give up home runs."

Just as a nuance, to me, this statement is a personal attack, or could be taken as such, against Olson's intelligence. "selection" is a choice, and DT is criticizing his decision making ability. He has done this all year long to Olson, though, so maybe he feels it's appropriate. I can't stand it, and like I said earlier, I've think DT's comments about the young pitchers are overly critical, and have been all year.

Regardless, from a teaching perspective, no matter how old one is, public humiliation accomplishes nothing. I don't think I read it in any post up to this point, but the only way to rectify the base running is to practice it. Yelling at the players in private will accomplish nothing. They already know they made mistakes. The yelling is nothing more than yelling, and yet it makes the person who's doing it feel in control. If I yell and scream in a classroom and embarrass a student who's particularly troublesome, or not accomplishing what he needs to, or isn't succeeding up to his capabilities, all I'm going to do is alienate him. Nevertheless, I don't know how much practice MLB teams do, but the base running isn't improving, and I don't know who else to hold accountable for this but the guy who's in charge of training and managing the team. If this is a constant problem, then DT needs to figure out a different way to practice base running, because clearly whatever methods used now are not working - that is on him. That said, all I'm discussing here is the base running. I have no intention of criticizing DT as a whole. I think he's done a good job overall.

[bluedog]

Let me get this straight. Criticizing Olson's pitch selection and saying thats the reason the team lost, is constructive criticism but critcizing a veteran player for bad baserunning is public embarassment and inhumane.

Yes you have it exactly. Additionally, openly criticizing a young player by name who is just learning at the major league level and is potentially an important part of this team's future is A-OKAY.

Criticizing an honored veteran who is on his last legs and won't even be with the team next year is TABOO!

Them young ones need to have thick skins, but the old guys need coddling to protect their delicate sensibilities...

[BaltimoreTerp]

So, to use my earlier analogy, you'd be fine if your manager said "BT is doing an awful job meeting shipments and we need to make a change" in a meeting with the customer rather than "Our company sincerely apologizes for missing these shipments and we're addressing the issue. Once we've made the appropriate changes, I'd be happy to discuss the root causes and our adjustments with you one on one." I completely disagree.

You keep going back to the "embarrassment" idea that we worked past a couple pages ago.

Try again without that part, then we'll talk.

[Lucky Jim]

By publically discussing your failings and resulting discipline? The hell they would. They'd meet in private with a high ranking member of the client team and explain what happened. Very few people would know anything. They'd just see that you left the account after the fact.

I don't think so. This is just a guess, because I never foul up, but if I foul up and my identity is known to the client as the root of the foul-up, it will likely be presented in four components:

1. That the firm is primarily accountable.

2. That the firm notes that I deviated from our standard of performance.

3. That the firm has made sure that I know I deviated from out standard of performance.

4. That I will no longer be working on their account, if that's what they wish.

I just realized the issue: you keep treating the Orioles as if they're a private company. We really ARE the client of the Orioles. They Orioles are accountable to us (which we forget, because they haven't acted that way). The media are the high-ranking client representative who'll bring back word that our displeasure is noted and relay what actions the client has taken to satisfy.

Client = Fan Base

Client Rep = Media

Firm = Orioles

Firm Rep = Trembley

Employee = Player

[JTrea81]

Why is Bergeson all of the sudden a lock to pitch 7 innings in the majors? He hasn't even been in Bowie the entire season. Let him finish the season in Bowie and come to ST next year. He is not the answer this year.

He may not be, but at least give the guy a shot. Liz and Burres aren't getting it done and Olson is struggling. Might as well try Bergesen, we have to protect him on the 40 man anyway after this season. He could be another Josh Towers, and that would be an improvement over anything we've got in spots 3-5 in the rotation right now...

[amateurfan]

I agree that this statement is borderline. My guess is that DT didn't intend to say it in exactly this fashion.

I'm willing to chalk it up to a less than perfect expression of what DT was trying to convey since he almost never does stuff like this. I hope Olson feels the same way.

Everyone gets frustrated and deserves some latitude.

[Eight]

I'm stunned there are people who think that frank and honest discussion with the press by a manager of a professional baseball team in relation to the perceived shortcomings of their players are out of line. Especially as we're not talking about guys not playing well, but more generally making a series of poor decisions or showing a lack of hustle, neither of which are acceptable in organized baseball past the age of 10.

[blueberryale77]

Let me get this straight. Criticizing Olson's pitch selection and saying thats the reason the team lost, is constructive criticism but critcizing a veteran player for bad baserunning is public embarassment and inhumane.

What I want to know is why he's calling out the rookie pitcher on the pitch selection and not the veteran catcher who was also involved in other poor plays in the game? I don't have a real strong opinion about calling Hernandez out publicly... I do kind of think that in his case some of the issues have risen to the level where it might need to be escalated to public humiliation, but on the other hand at times I think Trembley has made a bit too much of a public thing about it when what he really needs to do is quietly play Quiroz more... but I can't for the life of me understand why he frequently tears down young pitchers for throwing the wrong pitches and doesn't mention their veteran catcher who is calling them.

[BaltimoreTerp]

I have no idea what you're talking about here.

All I do know is you think you have the right to hear all about the tongue lashings that happen to anybody you consider a "supplier". Apparently, you're entitled to see someone's dignity stripped because you bought a product. I completely disagree with you and I think you'd change your tune quickly if it happened to you. I've seen it happen more times than I care to remember and it is an awful thing.

Regardless, I think we've beaten this to death. We just fundamentally disagree.

No.

As a customer I am entitled to know what is being done to correct mistakes made by the business I am patronizing.

I can't believe you would disagree with that, but if so, good luck with that.

[Lucky Jim]

I agree that this is what would happen, but I disagree that it would happen in an open meeting attended by everyone/most people working on the account at your firm and all the customers. It would likely be presented to a representative in a very small meeting behind closed doors. As a matter of fact, I think they would go out of their way not to make this public. Most of the people involved would only see you no longer working on the account after it happened.

It accomplishes nothing additional to publicly make these pronouncements AND introduces unnecessary risk which isn't very smart. Most partners in law firms are VERY smart.

Eh. (I kid.)

But it seems to me that you're failing to make the distinction between a public relationship (fans/team) and a relationship between two private bodies.

Widespread dispersion of negative information is the flip side to life in the public sphere (and its attendant power/pay).

Do you not see this (very important) distinction? The framework to look at this isn't that the MEDIA is the client - the media is only the public's CLIENT REPRESENTATIVE and they're going to bring the word back to us (the fans) that the problems are being addressed.

You're right, in a private contract, the client wouldn't want the information leaked because it would be unnecessary and - perhaps - harmful to the business. Here, the client cannot get the information unless it's public.

And every last one of us is a boardmember, essentially. That's how important we are.

One more time on my diagram of the metaphor:

Client = Fan Base

Client Rep = Media

Firm = Orioles

Firm Rep = Trembley

Employee = Player

[Roll Tide]

What I want to know is why he's calling out the rookie pitcher on the pitch selection and not the veteran catcher who was also involved in other poor plays in the game? I don't have a real strong opinion about calling Hernandez out publicly... I do kind of think that in his case some of the issues have risen to the level where it might need to be escalated to public humiliation, but on the other hand at times I think Trembley has made a bit too much of a public thing about it when what he really needs to do is quietly play Quiroz more... but I can't for the life of me understand why he frequently tears down young pitchers for throwing the wrong pitches and doesn't mention their veteran catcher who is calling them.

Good Point !!! (Rep Added)

Isn't Hernandez calling the game? Otherwise we should be blaming the coaches if they are calling pitches from the dugout.

[RShack]

You'll have to enlighten me again, RShack. Please try to keep it under 500 words.

I'll try... although, since you're a lawyer, and since one factor that helped shape standard legal language is that lawyers used to charge by the word, I'm not so sure why you care about the word count ;-)

Since I know you're a lawyer, and since you used words like "client" and "firm" (rather than "John" and "prostitution ring ;-), I assumed you were referring trying to equate our relationship to the Orioles with a client's relationship with a law firm. Now, the latter relationship is a matter of somebody paying fees for professional legal representation and related work that the client has a lot of stuff riding on. So, if a lawyer screws up, it can cost the client years in jail, or a zillion bucks, or the loss of access to his kids, or whatever might be at risk.

Being a baseball fan is nothing like that. Most folks here were watching the game on TV. So, it's kinda like saying we're "clients" of The Daily Show, or Letterman or Leno, or whatever. So, let's just say we're "clients" of Seinfeld. You wanna draw comparisons between whether or not Kramer's being funny and whether you screw up a contract you're writing for a client and thereby leave him open to God knows what? I don't think so...

As for this whole idea of "being accountable", I think that's just used around here as a code word for "punish the bastards". If we take "accountability" at face value, then I think DT is all about accountability. I don't know any other manager who seems more about that than him. But punishment? Not so much.

ps: 275