Underrated: 2016

[scOtt]

5 minutes ago, scOtt said:

Mike Mussina warming on his own in the bullpen in the All-Star Game. In OUR house!

 

And Cito still sux!

It's amazing how much that still pisses me off, 26 years later.

[O's84]

Imagine if humanity destroys ourselves and the only thing left was the message "Cito Sucks".  What could that mean, the aliens would wonder upon visiting our life barren planet.  

[ScGO's]

I appreciate this thread and remembering those great moments.  But to be honest, on the whole, I don't like thinking about 2016. After Jeffrey Mayer, that was the most disappointing moment I've ever experienced as an O's fan.  

I still can't reason with it.  I've fallen down the rabbit hole thinking about Buck's decision.  At one point, I so badly couldn't make peace with how a MLB manager could make the decision's Buck did that night, that I convinced myself it was a league conspiracy "guiding" the outcome of the game.  Britton should have been in the game 2 innings earlier.  Just his presence in the game could have provided the motivation our guys needed to win that game....see now you got me going again, its like a baseball fan version of PTSD

[DrungoHazewood]

52 minutes ago, ScGO's said:

I appreciate this thread and remembering those great moments.  But to be honest, on the whole, I don't like thinking about 2016. After Jeffrey Mayer, that was the most disappointing moment I've ever experienced as an O's fan.  

I still can't reason with it.  I've fallen down the rabbit hole thinking about Buck's decision.  At one point, I so badly couldn't make peace with how a MLB manager could make the decision's Buck did that night, that I convinced myself it was a league conspiracy "guiding" the outcome of the game.  Britton should have been in the game 2 innings earlier.  Just his presence in the game could have provided the motivation our guys needed to win that game....see now you got me going again, its like a baseball fan version of PTSD

We should all be lucky enough to not be judged by our failures.  We all have plenty.

[DrungoHazewood]

9 hours ago, now said:

Which brings us back to 1989...

Career wins by the top five starters on the '89 Blue Jays: 716

'89 Orioles: 267, and almost half of that from Pete Harnisch

I tend to forget that Mike Flanagan made 30 starts for the '89 Jays.  And was pretty much Jeff Ballard with a 3.93 ERA and 47 Ks in 171 innings.

[Orioles0615]

10 hours ago, OFFNY said:

o

 

I believe that the 2013 team was mildly underrated, also.

They had a solid season at 85-77 overall, and I believe that that team was vital because it showed that the 2012 Orioles were not a fluke/one-hit-wonder that was going away anytime soon ........ it proved that we had a bonafide contender on our hands.

 

 

 

o

That year was more fun the 2016 IMO even though we didnt make the playoffs. We were coming off 2012, Davis and the rest of the offense went crazy, and we were in it until Machado blew out his knee in the last week. I just looked up the standings the AL was pretty stacked that year, only 3 teams finished with less than 70 wins .

[Frobby]

5 minutes ago, andrewochs615 said:

That year was more fun the 2016 IMO even though we didnt make the playoffs. We were coming off 2012, Davis and the rest of the offense went crazy, and we were in it until Machado blew out his knee in the last week. I just looked up the standings the AL was pretty stacked that year, only 3 teams finished with less than 70 wins .

That team disappointed me.   Contrary to what you recalled, the O’s falling out of it had nothing to do with Manny injuring his knee.   That happened in Game 156, a game in which Tampa completed a 4-game sweep of the O’s.   We went into that series two games behind Tampa and one game behind the second WC spot, with 10 games to play.   When the series was over, Tampa was 6 games in front of us with 6 to play, and we were 5 games out of the second wild card.   We lost the final game of that series when Tommy Hunter allowed a walk-off homer in the bottom of the 9th.   

What I remember most about that season is that we hit great in the first half and were in first wild card position despite a terrible starting rotation.  Duquette tried to address that by trading for Feldman in June and Norris in July.   Feldman held his own while Norris was mildly disappointing.   But the big problem was the team stopped hitting, scoring 3.76 runs/game in

July and 4.00 runs/game in September, this after averaging 4.94 runs/game in the first three months of the season.    

Overall, it was an entertaining season but the team ran out of gas at a critical time.   The 2016 team had a better finishing kick.    

[Aristotelian]

Kim's HR, with Bautista looking up helplessly as the ball sailed over him, was one of my top moments from the whole 2012-16 run.

Up there with Delmon's double, and Hardy's base hit (followed by Matusz striking out Hamilton) in the 2012 Wild Card. Can't think of any more memorable moments, except for the bad ones.

https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/korean-announcers-go-nuts-over-hyun-soo-kim-s-game-winning-home-run-video-092916

[Moose Milligan]

5 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Career wins by the top five starters on the '89 Blue Jays: 716

'89 Orioles: 267, and almost half of that from Pete Harnisch

I tend to forget that Mike Flanagan made 30 starts for the '89 Jays.  And was pretty much Jeff Ballard with a 3.93 ERA and 47 Ks in 171 innings.

I was 7, turning 8 in September in 1989.  I have some faint memories from it, but nothing really super clear.  

So was Ballard viewed as a guy during 1989 and into the offseason as "OMG, we got a stud!" or were people back then even saying, "yeahhh....that's just not gonna last."

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I was 7, turning 8 in September in 1989.  I have some faint memories from it, but nothing really super clear.  

So was Ballard viewed as a guy during 1989 and into the offseason as "OMG, we got a stud!" or were people back then even saying, "yeahhh....that's just not gonna last."

Somewhere in between.  Not many saw him leading a rotation but folks also didn't think it was a complete fluke.

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, Moose Milligan said:

I was 7, turning 8 in September in 1989.  I have some faint memories from it, but nothing really super clear.  

So was Ballard viewed as a guy during 1989 and into the offseason as "OMG, we got a stud!" or were people back then even saying, "yeahhh....that's just not gonna last."

I don’t think people were as scientific about it then.    Strikeouts were always a good thing but the relationship between strikeout rate and year to year consistency wasn’t common knowledge like it is today.    There were no stats like FIP and the like. So, if a pitcher had a good ERA one year, you just hoped they could do it again the next year.    Everyone knew who the consistently great pitchers were, but it was much harder to guess whether a younger guy who had a good season would be able to sustain that success.    

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Frobby said:

I don’t think people were as scientific about it then.    Strikeouts were always a good thing but the relationship between strikeout rate and year to year consistency wasn’t common knowledge like it is today.    There were no stats like FIP and the like. So, if a pitcher had a good ERA one year, you just hoped they could do it again the next year.    Everyone knew who the consistently great pitchers were, but it was much harder to guess whether a younger guy who had a good season would be able to sustain that success.    

A lot more folks believed in pitching to contact and pitchers being able to routinely induce weak contact.

[Frobby]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

A lot more folks believed in pitching to contact and pitchers being able to routinely induce weak contact.

Me included.   And I’m still not completely over it.    But baseball is a lot different today with strikeout rates that are 50%+ higher than when I was growing up.

[Grt 2BA FL Gator]

22 hours ago, Frobby said:

Seems like whenever I see nostalgic posts about the 2012-16 era, there’s all this good feeling about 2012 and 2014, but with 2016 all anybody ever brings up is Buck not using Zach Britton in the playoff game.    But to me, 2016 was a really fun year that’s now very underrated.   

- We were coming off an 81-81 campaign in which we had to win our final six games just to reach .500, and those wins came against teams that had clinched playoff spots and didn’t really care.   

- We had lost Wei-Yin Chen in the offseason, and replaced him with Yovanni Gallardo, a move that was questioned by many.

- We seemingly had signed Dexter Fowler to a very favorable deal, only to have the Cubs woo him away at the last minute.  

So, the mood that spring was pretty mixed.    I wouldn’t say expectations were very high, despite having extended Davis and O’Day, traded for Trumbo and brought over the mysterious Hyun Soo Kim from Korea.     But here’s what happened:

- The team started off red hot, winning its first 7 games.    Every time the team would sink towards .500 in the first half, the Birds would rip off another winning streak.    In the first 77 games, the O’s had three 7-game win streaks and another stretch where they won 8 of 9.

- The team was bipolar in July, suffering losing streaks of 5, 4 and 5 games sandwiching winning streaks of 4 and 5.   

- It looked like the team was fading away in August.    It fell from a season high 18 games over .500 on July 25 to only 11 over by August 31.

- But the team pulled it together in September, going 17-12 and finishing 7-2 and closing the year with series wins against Toronto and New York.    It took until the final day to guarantee our spot in the Wild Card game and to learn whether we would play at home or on the road.    

Some of the individual highlights:

- Zach Britton was unhittable, and went 47 for 47 in save opportunities.   We needed every one to secure our playoff spot.  

- Mark Trumbo led the league with 47 dingers.

- Matt Wieters, who ticked off a lot of fans by accepting his QO, had a bunch of very crucial, high leverage hits, including a game winning single on Opening Day, two homers in the regular season finale, and several other key hits in between.  

JJ Hardy got hurt on May 1, and Manny filled in very ably at SS for 43 games.    Hardy returned and played very well the rest of the year, his last productive season as an Oriole.   Manny was a stud all year no matter where he played, and had a great year at the plate.

- Hyun Soo Kim was an on-base machine all year, and had a really critical pinch-homer in the 9th inning of Game 158 that turned a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead that Britton held onto in the bottom of the 9th.   That homer arguably saved our season.  

- Dylan Bundy was forced into the roster and pitched very credibly despite his minimal MiL experience.    He had a jaw dropping relief appearance where he struck out 7 in 2.1 innings and topped out at 98.5.    He was inserted into the rotation eventually and highlights included a 7 inning one hit shutout.

- Trey Mancini got a late  September call-up and hit a homer in his debut with his mom watching, and two more in the next three games with his family in the stands.  

- Chris Tillman had an outstanding year but got hurt down the stretch. Improbably, Ubaldo Jimenez, who had been banished to the bullpen, was reinserted into the rotation and   the team went 5-2 in his 7 starts, posting a 2.45 ERA and finishing with a masterful 6.2 inning one-hit shutout in critical game 159 against the Blue Jays.

- Kevin Gausman was masterful over the last two months, posting a 2.83 ERA in his final 12 starts.   He won the playoff-clinching season finale, allowing only 2 runs in 7.2 IP.   

For me, it was a thrilling, roller coaster season with many team and individual highlights I’ll always remember.   

That Kim HR is one of my favorite Oriole memories. I shouted, leapt over my couch, and ran around the room. So satisfying to quiet that Blue Jays crowd too during Bautista era. Man. 

[DrungoHazewood]

23 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I was 7, turning 8 in September in 1989.  I have some faint memories from it, but nothing really super clear.  

So was Ballard viewed as a guy during 1989 and into the offseason as "OMG, we got a stud!" or were people back then even saying, "yeahhh....that's just not gonna last."

I was 18.  I'd read Bill James' 1986 and 1987 Baseball Abstracts, I knew of James' statement that strikeout pitchers usually had dramatically longer careers than finesse pitchers.  But I don't think I'd digested it or believed it because I was raised on 1980s Orioles staffs, which were overwhelmingly finesse pitchers who'd probably look comically out of place today.  So I think personally I thought Ballard was going to be good for a while.  It would be a few years until I realized that 50 strikeouts and 18 wins was a massively unsustainable combination in modern baseball.