Is the 2019 Season a Blatant Tank Job?

[DrungoHazewood]

8 minutes ago, atomic said:

Is anyone worried about the Orioles not signing any of their top draft picks yet?  The Diamondbacks had 5 guys in the top 60 and all of them have already been signed.

No, not in any way.

[Can_of_corn]

5 hours ago, maybenxtyr said:

A different league all together. I'm not saying it's the only way. 

Do you consider what is going on in baseball to be entertaining?

I'd rather watch three years of this than 14 of the other.

[DrungoHazewood]

11 hours ago, tntoriole said:

 

I disagree with the idea of not having the worst teams get the first pick...in fact, I would give the worst teams extra high round picks to further the rebuilding faster.

Doing it your way would only guarantee the behemoths, MFYs, Boston, LA, etc win even more than they do now by removing one of the few but key tools for quickly rebuilding smaller market teams.    Otherwise, just go like the English football leagues and create two divisions with the worst team of the Upper and the best team of the Lower moving up and down to Upper and Lower divisions. 

Truly fixing revenue imbalances is exceptionally unlikely.  But changing divisions (or maybe just schedules) so that half the league plays an easy schedule and half the league plays a hard schedule is something I could see MLB consider.  For example, the O's would play the Reds, Royals, Pirates, White Sox 20 times each, and the Yanks and Sox six.  Either promotion/relegation between divisions annually, or a new set of schedules every year.

I used to like the purity of a completely balanced schedule, and still do in the abstract.  But now I understand the true impact of $650M+ in annual revenues vs. under $200M in annual revenues.

[DrungoHazewood]

42 minutes ago, tntoriole said:

I am not disappointed with ownership. They hired Mike Elias and Sig Mejdal.  I am proud of the new ownership and plan to give them time before I just complain that they are not “putting out a ML caliber team”   I would be more upset if they did like Peter used to do and got useless mediocre free agents to win 70 games rather than actually rebuilding.

You can blame ownership.  I applaud them.  Just different views. 

For once the Orioles are taking advantages of loopholes before they're closed.  They missed unrestricted draft pick collecting.  They mostly missed overslots and unrestricted draft spending.  They missed the wild west days of signing international players.  I suspect tanking will soon be eliminated, but they used it while they could.

[Frobby]

21 minutes ago, atomic said:

Is anyone worried about the Orioles not signing any of their top draft picks yet?  The Diamondbacks had 5 guys in the top 60 and all of them have already been signed.

I will worry about it until they sign. Last year Casey Mize didn’t sign until June 25.    So, I’m anxious but not panicked.   

[maybenxtyr]

1 hour ago, tntoriole said:

I am not disappointed with ownership. They hired Mike Elias and Sig Mejdal.  I am proud of the new ownership and plan to give them time before I just complain that they are not “putting out a ML caliber team”   I would be more upset if they did like Peter used to do and got useless mediocre free agents to win 70 games rather than actually rebuilding.

You can blame ownership.  I applaud them.  Just different views. 

I'm just frustrated at the moment. It'll be alright. 

I really will be excited/happy once some of the prospects start making their way up.

[maybenxtyr]

27 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I'd rather watch three years of this than 14 of the other.

I agree. I'm just a little frustrated at the moment.

I usually don't engage in the mob mentality of complaining but they are embarrassing right now.

[DrungoHazewood]

I think the Orioles do have a legitimate shot at the worst run differential for a team since 1900.  There are a number of teams like the 1915-16 A's who were outscored by 330 runs or so.  But the O's are on pace for about 375. Even the '62 Mets and '03 Tigers were only in that 330 range.  Pythag can break down at the margins, so that doesn't necessarily mean the O's will end up in the low-40s in wins, it can be thrown off by a large number of huge blowouts.

The all-time record appears to be the 1890 Pittsburgh Alleghenies, who went 28-108 and were outscored by 638 runs in a 136 game schedule.  That was the year of the Players League, and lots of things were thrown into chaos. In an era where rosters were often 15-18 players Pittsburgh had 20 different pitchers make starts.

[FanSince88]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Truly fixing revenue imbalances is exceptionally unlikely.  But changing divisions (or maybe just schedules) so that half the league plays an easy schedule and half the league plays a hard schedule is something I could see MLB consider.  For example, the O's would play the Reds, Royals, Pirates, White Sox 20 times each, and the Yanks and Sox six.  Either promotion/relegation between divisions annually, or a new set of schedules every year.

I used to like the purity of a completely balanced schedule, and still do in the abstract.  But now I understand the true impact of $650M+ in annual revenues vs. under $200M in annual revenues.

Yeah this makes sense.  It should be similar to what the NFL does.  

MLB has teams playing roughly 46-47% of their regular season games against division opponents.  In the NFL it's only 37.5%.  MLB needs to reduce number of divisional games and then give bad teams an easier schedule in the non-division games and good teams a harder schedule.  

[FanSince88]

If you're going to be mad about teams that tank, look at some of the teams in the incredibly soft AL Central (minus the Twins).  Nobody except the Twins seemed to show any interest in making the playoffs out of that division the past offseason, even though it was right there for the taking.  The Orioles are one of the few teams in the MLB that has a legitimate excuse for being bad -- in general, their players across the entire high minors and the MLB roster are awful, with a handful of exceptions.  There's not much you can do to fix that situation in the short term.  Even if they broke the bank on FA signings last offseason you're still looking at a ceiling of 70-72 wins.  

[eddie83]

16 minutes ago, FanSince88 said:

If you're going to be mad about teams that tank, look at some of the teams in the incredibly soft AL Central (minus the Twins).  Nobody except the Twins seemed to show any interest in making the playoffs out of that division the past offseason, even though it was right there for the taking.  The Orioles are one of the few teams in the MLB that has a legitimate excuse for being bad -- in general, their players across the entire high minors and the MLB roster are awful, with a handful of exceptions.  There's not much you can do to fix that situation in the short term.  Even if they broke the bank on FA signings last offseason you're still looking at a ceiling of 70-72 wins.  

Tigers and Royals had already started their rebuilding efforts and were in the early stages. No need for them to rush that. White Sox are getting closer to the other side. 

Twins to their credit saw an opening and took advantage of it.  

[Ripken]

Nobody good wants to play here and we'd need several such players.  Our high level minors are full of guys who are not prospects.  After Mancini, Means, and a couple others, the guys in Baltimore are not real major league players.  How in the hell was this team supposed to win more than 50 games?  What was that plan - spend $800M on Harper, Machado, Keuchel, and Kimbrel?  This is how a total rebuild works.  Learn it.  Know it.  Live it.

[survivedc]

I just hope that next year the team can fight for near 70 wins or that we can at least see improvement in one aspect of the team, most likely bullpen. Just not sure where the help will be coming from.

Ive watched fewer games this year than ever since being back in the area and miss it being a part of my summer.

[sportsfan8703]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I think the Orioles do have a legitimate shot at the worst run differential for a team since 1900.  There are a number of teams like the 1915-16 A's who were outscored by 330 runs or so.  But the O's are on pace for about 375. Even the '62 Mets and '03 Tigers were only in that 330 range.  Pythag can break down at the margins, so that doesn't necessarily mean the O's will end up in the low-40s in wins, it can be thrown off by a large number of huge blowouts.

The all-time record appears to be the 1890 Pittsburgh Alleghenies, who went 28-108 and were outscored by 638 runs in a 136 game schedule.  That was the year of the Players League, and lots of things were thrown into chaos. In an era where rosters were often 15-18 players Pittsburgh had 20 different pitchers make starts.

Our pitching is so terrible that this will likely happen.  We better find somebody to be this year's version of Chris Waters, or Jose Mercedes.  Somebody that just comes out of nowhere.  

We need a knuckleballer, but you know, spin rate and all.  

[Il BuonO]

13 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Our pitching is so terrible that this will likely happen.  We better find somebody to be this year's version of Chris Waters, or Jose Mercedes.  Somebody that just comes out of nowhere.  

We need a knuckleballer, but you know, spin rate and all.  

They already did. His name is Means.