Britt: The Crash of 2015

[murph]

54 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I was apparent to me that the media was scared of Buck and we all know how Angelos could be.

Angelos would get annoyed if you looked at him the wrong way.   I worked in little Italy back in the early 2000's and as I was walking to get my less than $10 lunch from a local grease pit, I saw him pull up in a private parking lot next to one of the very high end restaurants (sorry cannot remember the name of either).   When I saw him get out, I knew who it was and started walking backwards looking at him and was about to wave when he pulled on his lapels and glared at me, I mean a hard annoyed stare (he almost stopped walking to just focus his energy on the glowering).  I shook my head, smiled and turned around and headed on for my burger and crinkle cut gravy fries. 

[Number5]

25 minutes ago, murph said:

Angelos would get annoyed if you looked at him the wrong way.   I worked in little Italy back in the early 2000's and as I was walking to get my less than $10 lunch from a local grease pit, I saw him pull up in a private parking lot next to one of the very high end restaurants (sorry cannot remember the name of either).   When I saw him get out, I knew who it was and started walking backwards looking at him and was about to wave when he pulled on his lapels and glared at me, I mean a hard annoyed stare (he almost stopped walking to just focus his energy on the glowering).  I shook my head, smiled and turned around and headed on for my burger and crinkle cut gravy fries. 

He was probably angry at one of your posts!

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Although not as big a fan of Markakis as your were (I thought his defense was hurting the team), I felt the same way. I was not favor of resigning him to a 4yr contract at $11mil/yr. In retrospect, considering the disaster RF has been since, probably was not the right call, but one based on the information at hand I would have made again as well.

Heck, I remember thinking that Travis Snider might outperform Markakis for a fraction of his price. I was certainly wrong about that one.

Obviously Snider didn't work out, but in 2015 the Orioles' RFers had a .767 OPS with -2 fielding runs (by DRS).  Markakis had a .746 and -4.

[Just Regular]

3 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I'm sure it was the plan.

Just think of a world in which instead of Davis the O's had an additional first round draft pick that year.

Plus the financial flexibility to put Machado in the statue lane, and ability to negotiate a franchise record contract without the painful benchmark of, "I'm four times as good as the $23M/year guy."

[BohKnowsBmore]

5 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I will go to my grave holding fast to the idea that signing a 34-year-old DH to a four-year contract is a dumb thing to do.  And signing injured fan favorites who's OPSing .700 as an everyday right fielder might feel good, but won't do anything to help your push to the playoffs.  If I had both those choices to do over I'd make the same call.

No no, you see it's simple... were I the GM I would have done all of the things that worked, but not the things that didn't work. And the things we didn't do that would have worked had we done them? I would have done those as well.

[Moose Milligan]

I don't disagree that the Trumbo, O'Day, Hardy and Davis signings were the downfalls for this team...but looking back on it, I'm not sure this team could have stayed a winner had those guys all left.  There weren't any good prospects to replace them (not surprisingly) and the team had never been huge in FA...and when they were, they picked the wrong guys, usually.  

IMO, it was going to crash no matter what, they just had to pick a direction to do it in.  And they went the route of keeping some high priced veterans.

 

[Can_of_corn]

13 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I don't disagree that the Trumbo, O'Day, Hardy and Davis signings were the downfalls for this team...but looking back on it, I'm not sure this team could have stayed a winner had those guys all left.  There weren't any good prospects to replace them (not surprisingly) and the team had never been huge in FA...and when they were, they picked the wrong guys, usually.  

IMO, it was going to crash no matter what, they just had to pick a direction to do it in.  And they went the route of keeping some high priced veterans.

 

Not being able to sustain a playoff run and what ended up actually happening are different things.

If they had embraced the rebuild they would have had first round picks from Davis and Trumbo and wouldn't have spent a second round pick on Cobb.

[Frobby]

6 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Obviously Snider didn't work out, but in 2015 the Orioles' RFers had a .767 OPS with -2 fielding runs (by DRS).  Markakis had a .746 and -4.

True, but misleading in an odd way.    The O’s hit .767 as RF but only .640 as LF, using many of the same players in both spots:

Parra .726/.404

Snider .788/.649

De Aza .955/.530

Those 3 played 72 games in RF and 64 in LF.    Then there were other guys who only played a few games in RF but did fluky well there like Parmalee and Reimold.    And, Chris Davis played a lot of RF that year and posted an .843 OPS when doing so.

 

 

[Sports Guy]

Nothing that happened in 2015 has really hurt the team long term.  Signing Davis was always a big mistake but even his signing isn’t as crippling as the organization likes to pretend it to be.

The biggest mistake this team has made was not recognizing where the team was and where it was headed, along with the division growth, after 2016.  At that point, you had 2 MVP candidates (Britton and Manny), along with an AS reliever in Brach.  All of them should have been traded after that season.  They would have gotten a ton for those guys at that time and had they done that, they would probably be in very good shape right now.

I get that it’s tough to trade guys like that after a playoff season but I think it was necessary to do.

[SteveA]

5 minutes ago, Frobby said:

True, but misleading in an odd way.    The O’s hit .767 as RF but only .640 as LF, using many of the same players in both spots:

Parra .726/.404

Snider .788/.649

De Aza .955/.530

Those 3 played 72 games in RF and 64 in LF.    Then there were other guys who only played a few games in RF but did fluky well there like Parmalee and Reimold.    And, Chris Davis played a lot of RF that year and posted an .843 OPS when doing so.

 

 

Oooh, Drungo and Frobby flingin' the stats at each other!     Grab some popcorn!

[hoosiers]

3 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I don't disagree that the Trumbo, O'Day, Hardy and Davis signings were the downfalls for this team...but looking back on it, I'm not sure this team could have stayed a winner had those guys all left.  There weren't any good prospects to replace them (not surprisingly) and the team had never been huge in FA...and when they were, they picked the wrong guys, usually.  

IMO, it was going to crash no matter what, they just had to pick a direction to do it in.  And they went the route of keeping some high priced veterans.

 

Some of us advocated for dealing those guys at the time and not offering the last bad contract.

We see how the As and Rays deal players a year too early rather than a year too late.  Really, the only player the Os dealt "early" was Bedard and those results were spectacular, but folks didn't/don't seem to want to "rinse/repeat" those results with other players.  If one suggested dealing Wieters and others in 2013-2015, it was met with incredulity here.  

Bmore fans here want to win, but they want more to win with their guys.

[DrungoHazewood]

8 hours ago, hoosiers said:

Bmore fans here want to win, but they want more to win with their guys.

I don't think it's Baltimore fans, I think it's sports fans.  Who wants to get attached to a homegrown star, only to trade him a year too early when the team is still good and have him play for some other team?  The answer is people who are very concerned with finances.  Before free agency trading a guy in his prime was probably less common, because there was no such thing as a walk year*.  Nobody would have been happy if Brooks or Cal or Mussina or Palmer or Boog was traded five years into their careers, never mind if we'd gotten a few prospects for them.  From a fan's perspective we'd keep everyone we like until they were ready to retire, and they'd gracefully accept lesser roles as they aged. 

We understand the balance and compromise that (mostly) results from baseball's contractual paradigm, but we don't have to like it.

* Yes, there were some people like Branch Rickey who'd trade guys before they declined, regardless of contract.

[DrungoHazewood]

14 hours ago, BohKnowsBmore said:

No no, you see it's simple... were I the GM I would have done all of the things that worked, but not the things that didn't work. And the things we didn't do that would have worked had we done them? I would have done those as well.

A smart GM can tell that your guy is the one who'll be the 0.0001% outlier.  That's why he's paid the big bucks.  Take the risks, then when it doesn't work we'll just fire you.

[ShaneDawg85]

18 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Obviously Snider didn't work out, but in 2015 the Orioles' RFers had a .767 OPS with -2 fielding runs (by DRS).  Markakis had a .746 and -4.

Which I was curious about this yesterday and looked up the players in 2015 on BB-Ref because I couldn't remember them all, and I'm still struggling to figure out how that was even possible.  Snider, Parra, Snider, Lough, Young, Urrutia, Alvarez, anyone that would have played out there was sub .700 OPS.  I thought maybe Paredes skewed the numbers but he didn't play many games there.

[murph]

27 minutes ago, ShaneDawg85 said:

Which I was curious about this yesterday and looked up the players in 2015 on BB-Ref because I couldn't remember them all, and I'm still struggling to figure out how that was even possible.  Snider, Parra, Snider, Lough, Young, Urrutia, Alvarez, anyone that would have played out there was sub .700 OPS.  I thought maybe Paredes skewed the numbers but he didn't play many games there.

Frobby noted it in another post that Davis spent a decent amount of time in RF and had an .843 OPS while out there.  And those same players tended to hit better when playing RF but not when playing LF (skewing the RF numbers higher with that split).