What a bunch of sad-sack losers

[TommyD4207]

If you had started this same thread, it would be apocalypse now on the board…

If SG ever started a thread that was as eloquent as Frobby's usual threads, that would be true hysteria.

[mikezpen]

Winning a couple of meaningless games at Yankee Stadium is-well-meaningless.Worse, it drops you down a couple of spots in the draft.Frankly, I hope they lose the rest of their games this season.They're better off.

[TonySoprano]

You can only reach one conclusion based on Frobby's analysis of the late season play of the Orioles: the Orioles,as an organization, at the end of a their losing seasons just don't have what it takes to compete anymore.

Take a look at the OPS by player in September in 2008, compared to their season long OPS:

               Year  SeptAubrey Huff     .928  .789Nick Markakis   .891  .757Brian Roberts   .834  .752Luke Scott      .831  .608Melvin Mora     .823  .607Kevin Millar    .725  .543R. Hernandez    .714  .645Jay Payton      .650  .437

I'll go back to the point I made earlier, the team didn't exactly set the world on fire in April & May. (Games played listed under month name.)

NAME	APRMAY	OPS	SEP	OPS	DIFFHernan.	45	0.606	16	0.645	0.039Huff	53	0.760	16	0.788	0.028Jones	54	0.643	17	0.695	0.052Markak.	53	0.816	17	0.757	-0.059Millar	54	0.720	12	0.543	-0.177Mora	51	0.702	8	0.606	-0.096Payton	47	0.651	8	0.437	-0.214Roberts	53	0.792	17	0.753	-0.039Scott	50	0.785	16	0.608	-0.177

[fansince71]

Winning a couple of meaningless games at Yankee Stadium is-well-meaningless.Worse, it drops you down a couple of spots in the draft.Frankly, I hope they lose the rest of their games this season.They're better off.

Sadly this is what us fans have stooped to:o

[geschinger]

Funny, Tampa is doing pretty well without Tex. Maybe that whole "development of drafted talent" might have something to do with winning after all.

It does indeed... And they haven't just done the development of drafted talent right, they've made some good moves to pair with that. Instead of saying we don't have someone in the system to play 1b and our only hope is to sign a mega FA they went out and found a solution (Carlos Pena). They've pulled the trigger by trading some really solid prospects to get pieces they've needed. They even signed some FAs to help round out their team. They have been about as well run an organization as one can be since turning things over to Andrew Friedman.

[Mike B]

And this is why the Orioles can't afford to blow everything up. They have to make a splash this offseason because everyone in the division is competitive except them. Otherwise they'll lose the entire fanbase. MacPhail is not going to be able to sell "stay the course" to this fanbase anymore...

I do not disagree with you which is why the hordes of people who screamed for the total rebuild were kidding themselves. People want to rebuild but do not want to understand losing. We have Brian Bass, Brian Burres, Liz, Olson etc in the rotation. We have a hurt George Sherrill, Jim Miller, Bierd, Cherry Mickolio, Walker etc in the BP. On offense they are playing Salazar, Lou ( who is dropping) and others have slumped. It is September and we stink. We will buy some pitching but until some of these kids come through, we are going to stink.

[blueberryale77]

About a week ago Jay Payton ended a game with a baserunning blunder because he couldn't be bothered to remember how many outs there were (then had the audacity to try to blame the scoreboard). Tonight we end a scoring threat in the bottom of the sixth because Huff AND Salazar are asleep on the basepaths. Something must be done about the baserunning!

[osfan83]

About a week ago Jay Payton ended a game with a baserunning blunder because he couldn't be bothered to remember how many outs there were (then had the audacity to try to blame the scoreboard). Tonight we end a scoring threat in the bottom of the sixth because Huff AND Salazar are asleep on the basepaths. Something must be done about the baserunning!

Nothing will be done. There is no accountability on this team, and we have a manager with little interest in making sure the teams does the fundamentals.

[Mike B]

Nothing will be done. There is no accountability on this team, and we have a manager with little interest in making sure the teams does the fundamentals.

I think you are right. We should fire the manager. It is Trembley's fault as it was Perlozzo's, Mazzilli, Hargrove, and Miller before them. DT spends more time on infield, fundamentals etc, but we obviously have a ton of talent so out the door.

[osfan83]

I think you are right. We should fire the manager. It is Trembley's fault as it was Perlozzo's, Mazzilli, Hargrove, and Miller before them. DT spends more time on infield, fundamentals etc, but we obviously have a ton of talent so out the door.

Im not talking about talent...I know we have less talent, but these less talented players also lack the fundementals. I've heard a ton of talk from DT about respecting the game, but now we have two straight seasons that his team hasn't respected the game enough to play hard in September.

I really have little interest in anything a manager, GM or player has to say...all Im interested in is what they actually do.

[Sports Guy]

I have the discussed the effect that horrible pitching has on the mental resiliency of a team, but my thoughts were dismissed as poppycock by some on here because, if it can't be measured, it doesn't exist to many of us.

I still stand by my earlier assertions that it ruins morale and concentration when a team doesn't think the pitchers are going to keep the team in the game. When it happens over and over and over, it can just ruin a team. If anybody doesn't think that is what has happened over the last 45 games, I don't know what to tell you.

This can also happen to a pitching staff if the defense is awful over and over again.

It is really easy to say that a player shouldn't have a slip in mental concentration regardless of what happens after playing 130 games in a 145 days, but it just isn't true. When Bradford was traded, Sherrill went down, JJ went down, and Guthrie went down, this team just couldn't mentally battle through the crap anymore.

Keep in mind that this "wimpy" team has come back a ton of times this year. Most of the comebacks over the second half of the season ended up with us losing the game anyway because we gave up more runs late in the game. This team has also played a RIDICULOUS number of one run games and lost almost all of them over the last 45 days. There is only so much battle any person or organization has. I'm surprised that so many of you are surprised that Markakis, Roberts, Huff, Mora, Millar, AJ, and Ramon might be mentally fried at this point. Have you watched the same season I've watched?

Anyway, this sucks and I've hated watching it too. And, even though SG likes to act like most of us don't feel this way, I've been disappointed that we didn't see Wieters and Reimold this year. I'm not disappointed that we didn't call up pitchers because I firmly believe rushing pitchers is why we've got guys like DCab, Penn, Hoey, etc... who have never reached their potential.

Finally, things weren't nearly as good as some thought when we were going well this year and things aren't nearly as bad as they seem right now. This team is going in the right direction. Next year will be much better than this year. We do have lots of things that still need to be addressed, but we're answering more questions than are arising. The pace just needs to be increased.

I would be willing to bet that these 2 statements have been said by you the last several years.

Now, mind you, i am not saying I disagree with you but all this talk is getting really old, don't you think? I mean, at some point, it is time to see actual results and enough of all this talk.

[osfan83]

I have the discussed the effect that horrible pitching has on the mental resiliency of a team, but my thoughts were dismissed as poppycock by some on here because, if it can't be measured, it doesn't exist to many of us.

I still stand by my earlier assertions that it ruins morale and concentration when a team doesn't think the pitchers are going to keep the team in the game. When it happens over and over and over, it can just ruin a team. If anybody doesn't think that is what has happened over the last 45 games, I don't know what to tell you.

This can also happen to a pitching staff if the defense is awful over and over again.

It is really easy to say that a player shouldn't have a slip in mental concentration regardless of what happens after playing 130 games in a 145 days, but it just isn't true. When Bradford was traded, Sherrill went down, JJ went down, and Guthrie went down, this team just couldn't mentally battle through the crap anymore.

Keep in mind that this "wimpy" team has come back a ton of times this year. Most of the comebacks over the second half of the season ended up with us losing the game anyway because we gave up more runs late in the game. This team has also played a RIDICULOUS number of one run games and lost almost all of them over the last 45 days. There is only so much battle any person or organization has. I'm surprised that so many of you are surprised that Markakis, Roberts, Huff, Mora, Millar, AJ, and Ramon might be mentally fried at this point. Have you watched the same season I've watched?

Anyway, this sucks and I've hated watching it too. And, even though SG likes to act like most of us don't feel this way, I've been disappointed that we didn't see Wieters and Reimold this year. I'm not disappointed that we didn't call up pitchers because I firmly believe rushing pitchers is why we've got guys like DCab, Penn, Hoey, etc... who have never reached their potential.

Finally, things weren't nearly as good as some thought when we were going well this year and things aren't nearly as bad as they seem right now. This team is going in the right direction. Next year will be much better than this year. We do have lots of things that still need to be addressed, but we're answering more questions than are arising. The pace just needs to be increased.

Do you really think if D-Cab had another season and a half in the minors, he would now be a top of the rotation starter? Do you really think he has never been able to over come his early call up?

[Sports Guy]

Do you really think if D-Cab had another season and a half in the minors, he would now be a top of the rotation starter? Do you really think he has never been able to over come his early call up?

Yea, especially since DCab was decent in his first year up here and his first full year was arguably his best season.

[Sports Guy]

I didn't say this last year about 2008 PRIOR to the trades. Once the trades were made and many on the board were predicting 100+ losses, I disagreed and said that I thought we'd win as many or slightly more this year. I was a 70ish win guy this year. We've played about where I expected although it hasn't happened as I'd expected (thought better pitching, less hitting, getting better as the year went on, LOL).

I was pretty bullish on our prospects heading into 2007. I thought 500 was a realistic goal. I was sadly mistaken because our pitching was just amazingly bad and unbelievably crushed by injuries.

I wasn't very high on our chances heading into 2006 at all because I couldn't believe how little effort we spent on putting together a good bullpen. The bullpen was just awful.

Look, this isn't hard and you know the answer as well as I do. If the next batch of Loewen's, DCab's, Hoey's, Penn's and Bedard's yield ONE good pitcher (Bedard) and one decent pitcher who hasn't stayed healthy (Chris Ray), we'll continue to tread water. If Liz, Olson, Mickolio, McCrory, Bergeson, Hernandez, Tillman, etc.... actually pan out with a 50%+ yield that hits their projections, we'll be ok. We aren't going to be able to compete in this division unless we grow a pitching staff that can compete with the big boys. We aren't going to be able to sign the biggest and best in the pitching dept so we've got to grow them and suppliment with strategic signings.

Its also why we need to make trades...Why we have to get rid of guys like BRob and Huff(assuming we can get quality back) and not just wait on the draft and put all of our hopes on the shoulders of Tillman, Arrieta and Matusz.

We have to get rid of the older players with high value to fill in the needs we have.

It is essential we do this.

[Miller192]

I would be willing to bet that these 2 statements have been said by you the last several years.

Now, mind you, i am not saying I disagree with you but all this talk is getting really old, don't you think? I mean, at some point, it is time to see actual results and enough of all this talk.

I've been saying this for about two years now.

Everyone wants to jump at the latest potential shread of hope and ignore what has been a hard reality for quite sometime.

I too am optimistic that things are going to change but when do we actually say "prove it, we've heard enough talk?"

I'm really not talking about the casual fans because they lost interest a long time ago. I'm talking mainly about those who populate this board and the like.

Any concerns or hard questioning of strategy in May gets torn apart by those who dissapear from this board in September, only to return again in April with more "Why Not?" season talk.