Opportunity for strategy

[DrungoHazewood]

28 minutes ago, Mr. Chewbacca Jr. said:

Yeah, but back in 1876 five year olds used to work in the coal mines. That's the type of hard work that makes you strong and lets you throw 400 innings in a week.

That's why I have my middle school aged boys spending their COVID time in the salt mines.  Too much book learnin' ain't good for you.  Plus they'll sometimes stumble on a mercury deposit, and you haven't seen a happy boy until you've seen one playing with quicksilver.

[Can_of_corn]

18 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

That's why I have my middle school aged boys spending their COVID time in the salt mines.  Too much book learnin' ain't good for you.  Plus they'll sometimes stumble on a mercury deposit, and you haven't seen a happy boy until you've seen one playing with quicksilver.

Good idea considering their slight builds.

[DrungoHazewood]

15 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Good idea considering their slight builds.

Can't tell you how many times they've come home from a long day in the mines with ribald tales of the large boys getting the death of themselves stuck in some crevice.

[ScGO's]

Anyway the Orioles could actually be competitive in a shortened season with expanded rosters?

If they go with a 4 man of Means/Cobb/Wojo/(best of the rest or opener combos) and can take advantage of a deep bullpen they will be better off than they would have been going with a 5 man and playing 162 games. Maybe a Lowther, Kremer, Zimmerman, or Bauman shows they are ready.  Less games means keeping the rookies innings down anyway, so why not.

Losing Mancini sucks but it could open up time for Mountcastle, especially if Mountcastle and Nunez continue to make it hard to justify playing Davis (if he's bad again).

Without Mancini, the lineup could get a little wonky

C- Severino/Sisco/Holaday

1B-Nunez/Mountcastle/Davis

2B - Alberto/Valaika

SS - Iglesias

3B - Ruiz/Nunez/Valaika/Alberto

LF - Mountcastle/Smith Jr/Diaz

CF - Hays

RF - Santander

DH - Nunez/Mountcastle/Davis

 

 

[survivedc]

27 minutes ago, ScGO's said:

Anyway the Orioles could actually be competitive in a shortened season with expanded rosters?

If they go with a 4 man of Means/Cobb/Wojo/(best of the rest or opener combos) and can take advantage of a deep bullpen they will be better off than they would have been going with a 5 man and playing 162 games. Maybe a Lowther, Kremer, Zimmerman, or Bauman shows they are ready.  Less games means keeping the rookies innings down anyway, so why not.

Losing Mancini sucks but it could open up time for Mountcastle, especially if Mountcastle and Nunez continue to make it hard to justify playing Davis (if he's bad again).

Without Mancini, the lineup could get a little wonky

C- Severino/Sisco/Holaday

1B-Nunez/Mountcastle/Davis

2B - Alberto/Valaika

SS - Iglesias

3B - Ruiz/Nunez/Valaika/Alberto

LF - Mountcastle/Smith Jr/Diaz

CF - Hays

RF - Santander

DH - Nunez/Mountcastle/Davis

 

 

If this season is gonna be really wacky I’m all for just bringing Rutchman up sooner than later.

[DrungoHazewood]

14 hours ago, ScGO's said:

Anyway the Orioles could actually be competitive in a shortened season with expanded rosters?

Probably not.  The Orioles were probably going to finish 40 games out.  If not more.  In half a season you could make that 20.  How often does a bad team end up in first place in June? Not often. 

Let say expanded rosters and creative use of expanded rosters means the O's close the gap to 15.  How often does a pretty bad team end up in first place in June?  Not much more often.

My guess is that a short season with expanded rosters increases the O's chances of making a standard playoff from well below 1% to about 3%.  Just guessing.

[osfan83]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Probably not.  The Orioles were probably going to finish 40 games out.  If not more.  In half a season you could make that 20.  How often does a bad team end up in first place in June? Not often. 

Let say expanded rosters and creative use of expanded rosters means the O's close the gap to 15.  How often does a pretty bad team end up in first place in June?  Not much more often.

My guess is that a short season with expanded rosters increases the O's chances of making a standard playoff from well below 1% to about 3%.  Just guessing.

So you are saying there's a chance?!

[Orioles0615]

On 4/28/2020 at 9:44 AM, DrungoHazewood said:

So they're talking about schemes to restart baseball eventually, and most of them involve expanded rosters.  This being 2020, the mind of a manager immediately goes to "wow, now I can finally have my dream of a 23-man pitching staff!!"

But I think we can do better than that.  What kind of strategies could an innovative team use if given a 30 or 35-man roster all year?  It'll be a little like September roster expansion, but for presumably a longer period.  We could have teams platoon the heck out of six positions.  Teams that are short on talent and just don't care... like your 2020 Baltimore Orioles.  Also, we could see a return on pinch hitting, pinch running, defensive replacements.  What else?

What would be interesting is if expanded roster this year will effect service time. If not, then we will see a lot of top prospects in baseball this year.