Dempsey is helping Austin Wynns

[JimGinSP]

2 hours ago, interloper said:

You can really tell just how little Roch is in the loop. I mean, there was no indication whatsoever that he (or any of the beat reporters, to be fair) knew about Koby Perez before the Orioles tweeted it. His posts have had just a faintest hint of salt regarding the new regime and it's kind of funny.

To me fair, I’ve always read & enjoyed Roch even when some of his attempts at comedy have made me cringe.  His qualities reflect true Baltimore provincialism, he’s “our guy” on the beat.  He graduated Old Mill High (Millersville), UMD College Park, wrote for The Sun, and moved on to MASN.   I can only imagine him in the press box asking Britt..... so what was it like to grow up in Connecticut,  go to college in Michigan, cover the Rays, then move to Baltimore?   

That being said, IMO, he is way out of his comfort zone right now with “strangers” having taken over.   In addition he’s going through that generational change of covering individuals older than him (Buck & Dan) to individuals younger than him (Elias & Hyde).    Hopefully spring training will re-establish his comfort zone.

I’m not on first name basis with the new regime either!

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, OrioleDog said:

1985 Wayne Gross's 11 HR's and 18 RBI's want to throw down.

Not to derail this thread, but this made me look up Gross' year.

Gross came up to the plate 14 times with a runner on 3rd, including four times with less than two out that year and went 0-for-14 with no RBIs.

He slashed:
.175/.347/.275/.622 with 9 RBI in 80 PAs with men on base
.111/.304/.167/.471 with 2 RBI in 24 PAs with 2outs/RISP
.103/.255/.103/.358 with 0 RBI in 47 High Leverage PAs

That's pretty unclutch. I can only imagine the vitriol that would have been thrown at him here if the Hangout existed then.

Funny, I was fan of Gross back then because I still remember him from being a Topps rookie all star with the A's. He was one of those guys who was a bit of a conundrum at the plate. He hit for a low average, but didn't strike out much, drew a decent amount of walks (which helped him to a decent career .337 OBP despite a career .233 AVG) and provided some pop, especially against right-handers who he slashed for .239/.343/.419/.762.

Here's him after his 1985 season. You can almost see the disappointment in his face.

[DrungoHazewood]

2 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

I think defense was valid more than offense in that day.

Wins are always valued.  I think the 36 better-hitting catchers of Dempsey's era won a fair number of games.

[Legend_Of_Joey]

Interesting note: All 3 catchers on the Orioles roster are from California.

Wynns - San Diego

Susac - Roseville

Sisco - Corona

I wonder if the offer to help was also extended to Sisco?

[Redskins Rick]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Wins are always valued.  I think the 36 better-hitting catchers of Dempsey's era won a fair number of games.

How many World Series and Division Series did Dempsey's team visit? Quite a few.

He also got 10 different 20 game winners.

Yes, he was normally weak hitting, but his defense was excellent.

[Redskins Rick]

1 minute ago, Legend_Of_Joey said:

Interesting note: All 3 catchers on the Orioles roster are from California.

Wynns - San Diego

Susac - Roseville

Sisco - Corona

I wonder if the offer to help was also extended to Sisco?

Baseball players are from the South or California, where they play year around, thanks to nicer weather.

[atomic]

16 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Not to derail this thread, but this made me look up Gross' year.

Gross came up to the plate 14 times with a runner on 3rd, including four times with less than two out that year and went 0-for-14 with no RBIs.

He slashed:
.175/.347/.275/.622 with 9 RBI in 80 PAs with men on base
.111/.304/.167/.471 with 2 RBI in 24 PAs with 2outs/RISP
.103/.255/.103/.358 with 0 RBI in 47 High Leverage PAs

That's pretty unclutch. I can only imagine the vitriol that would have been thrown at him here if the Hangout existed then.

Funny, I was fan of Gross back then because I still remember him from being a Topps rookie all star with the A's. He was one of those guys who was a bit of a conundrum at the plate. He hit for a low average, but didn't strike out much, drew a decent amount of walks (which helped him to a decent career .337 OBP despite a career .233 AVG) and provided some pop, especially against right-handers who he slashed for .239/.343/.419/.762.

Here's him after his 1985 season. You can almost see the disappointment in his face.

Stan the Fan used to blast him on his radio show nightly.  

[DrungoHazewood]

31 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Not to derail this thread, but this made me look up Gross' year.

Gross came up to the plate 14 times with a runner on 3rd, including four times with less than two out that year and went 0-for-14 with no RBIs.

He slashed:
.175/.347/.275/.622 with 9 RBI in 80 PAs with men on base
.111/.304/.167/.471 with 2 RBI in 24 PAs with 2outs/RISP
.103/.255/.103/.358 with 0 RBI in 47 High Leverage PAs

That's pretty unclutch. I can only imagine the vitriol that would have been thrown at him here if the Hangout existed then.

Funny, I was fan of Gross back then because I still remember him from being a Topps rookie all star with the A's. He was one of those guys who was a bit of a conundrum at the plate. He hit for a low average, but didn't strike out much, drew a decent amount of walks (which helped him to a decent career .337 OBP despite a career .233 AVG) and provided some pop, especially against right-handers who he slashed for .239/.343/.419/.762.

Here's him after his 1985 season. You can almost see the disappointment in his face.

In his career Gross OPS'd .724 with the bases empty, .739 with runners in scoring position, and .741 with runners on base.  He also OPS'd .745 in high leverage situations, and .753 in low-leverage.  I think he just had a weird season.  He was a very Earl Weaver-y player - lots of strengths and weaknesses that could be leveraged by a smart manager.

[Bradysburns]

5 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I know we all tolerate Dempsey and he's kind of annoying but maybe he's got something to offer.  He was a good defender.

Say if Elrod Hendricks was still alive and helping Wynns would we all be like "OMFG ELIAS HAS TO STEP IN HERE AND STOP THE MADNESS!" or would we all be like, "I LOOOOOVE Elrod!  What a great guy, Wynns is definitely gonna learn something here."

 

 

This is where I am with Demper. And hey... the dude was a very good catcher for the Orioles! And MIGHT he actually have some great advice to offer? And he's offering this defensive advice to... Austin Wynns? Not exactly like he's messing with Manny Machado's swing mechanics here. 

This makes so much more sense than Brady, an employee, jumping all kinds of organizational boundaries to contradict a player's position coaches! 

Demper is just a private citizen. He doesn't report to Elias. And I suspect Elias is the type to take whatever good can come from Demper's desire to help, and maximize it. 

Man, I'm such a sucker for the new administration. I need to regain some of my former skepticism. 

[Tony-OH]

9 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

In his career Gross OPS'd .724 with the bases empty, .739 with runners in scoring position, and .741 with runners on base.  He also OPS'd .745 in high leverage situations, and .753 in low-leverage.  I think he just had a weird season.  He was a very Earl Weaver-y player - lots of strengths and weaknesses that could be leveraged by a smart manager.

Yeah, I looked them up to see if it was a career thing, but it was more of a very weird, unclutch season for him. I have a strange obsession with the 1980 Oakland A's due to Billy Martin's decision to basically run his starter's into the ground. They were a really interesting offensive club as well with an amazing outfield of Rickey Henderson, Dwayne Murphy and Tony Armas with Mitchel Page is the 4th outfielder DH. They had several good role players like Gross and Dave Revernig who were pretty strict platoon players.

Each of those guys were decent to really good, but the team had offensive holes at catcher, shortstop and second base and the platoon of Revernig, Jeff Newman was an absolute out machine (.273 OBP).

This was one of my favorite teams to play in OOTP where I would try to acquire a decent 2B, SS or C and then use my bullpen in a more modern way to see if I can take this Cinderella team that went 83-79 and finished 2nd into a playoff team. 

I did manage to win over 90 games one time with them but my game got corrupted (this was an old OOTP, maybe 14) and I lost the season and never continued.

 

[El Gordo]

Just curious, has any one explbned why Dempsey's notion of catchers sitting back too far is wrong?

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

In his career Gross OPS'd .724 with the bases empty, .739 with runners in scoring position, and .741 with runners on base.  He also OPS'd .745 in high leverage situations, and .753 in low-leverage.  I think he just had a weird season.  He was a very Earl Weaver-y player - lots of strengths and weaknesses that could be leveraged by a smart manager.

The split I remember about Gross as an Oriole was that he was a fantastic day game hitter.    I had a Sunday-only plan in those years, and he was like Babe Ruth on Sundays.    He hit 15 of his 33 Oriole home runs on Sundays, including two Sundays in 1985 where he homered twice.    

1984: .672 OPS at night (11 HR in 232 PA), 1.035 OPS during the day (11 HR in 110 PA).

1985: .679 OPS at night (5 homers in 183 PA), 1.063 during the day (6 homers in 81 PA).

 

[Redskins Rick]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

The split I remember about Gross as an Oriole was that he was a fantastic day game hitter.    I had a Sunday-only plan in those years, and he was like Babe Ruth on Sundays.    He hit 15 of his 33 Oriole home runs on Sundays, including two Sundays in 1985 where he homered twice.    Unfortunately, BB-ref doesn’t have day/night splits, but they were drastic.   

My daytime vision is 10x better than my night vision.

[drdelaware]

Enough.  I get the thing with Dempsey but if you think a person who played 24 years in the big leagues doesn't know anything and might be able to help is wrong -  I really just do not know what to say.

[SteveA]

6 hours ago, interloper said:

Way to put words in my mouth. Not at all my dude. If the guy is older and has coaching experience and some good ideas and mixes old school with new school, great. Sign me up! 

If the guy is Rick Dempsey spouting nonsense backed up by no actual facts? No. Take a walk, guy. He was a good defensive catcher, sure. In the nearly 40 years since, he has learned precisely nothing about coaching or the modern game of baseball, nor has he seemingly made any effort to. He has offered bad and wrong opinions on what he thinks the Orioles should do, as evidenced by his post game "analysis", his multiple failed attempts at interviewing for manager, and his willingness to give Roch quotes about why he's good. 

Rick is not a coach. He's a TV personality. He was pretty decent at one time, and he of course thinks that is the best time. 

When we had the "cavalry" coming up (Matusz, Bergeson, etc) Dempsey offered the opinion that Jake Arrieta was the best of them all.

That drew a lot of laughter on here.