Thorne, Bordick, Dempsey and Tom Davis amongst those let go

[Matt Bennett]

7 minutes ago, Ruzious said:

Am I the only one who thinks Kevin Brown is better than Gary Thorne?  

I’ll always have a soft spot for Gary Thorne, growing up listening to him. But I love when Kevin Brown is in the booth. Just so much more enjoyable to listen to than Scott Garceau. 

[Frobby]

13 minutes ago, Ruzious said:

Am I the only one who thinks Kevin Brown is better than Gary Thorne?  

Kevin Brown is getting better all the time.   He’s growing into the job, which is what I would have hoped for.   Is he better than Gary?    I don’t know.   But he’s good and getting better.   Certainly he doesn’t make some of the pitch-identification and pronunciation mistakes that Gary made, but those were never that important.   

[Ruzious]

1 minute ago, Matt Bennett said:

I’ll always have a soft spot for Gary Thorne, growing up listening to him. But I love when Kevin Brown is in the booth. Just so much more enjoyable to listen to than Scott Garceau. 

Thorne was a pleasure to listen to with a great sense of humor, but I think Brown is better all-around and seems more engaged into what's happening on the field.  

[Il BuonO]

Brown has a good voice. That’s about all I can say for him. Some of his questions to JP or BM are good, but it’s the incessant chatter about all things not baseball that’s annoying. 

References to LOTR or if “Relish” will ever win come off forced as indicated by the silence of the color guys in various instances. Just call the game. 

[Moose Milligan]

27 minutes ago, Il BuonO said:

Brown has a good voice. That’s about all I can say for him. Some of his questions to JP or BM are good, but it’s the incessant chatter about all things not baseball that’s annoying. 

References to LOTR or if “Relish” will ever win come off forced as indicated by the silence of the color guys in various instances. Just call the game. 

Totally agree.  Brown has a good voice, but he just tries too hard to be witty with the pop culture references.  I don't want to call it a sarcastic tone, because sarcastic implies derision....but he's got this tone that I can't stand sometimes.  It's just, like, dude...stop trying so hard to be witty or funny.  

That said, he's way better than Garceau and I haven't thought twice about Jim Hunter this season.

Thorne, IMO, was the best, mispronounced names and all.  What a voice.  

[NCRaven]

On 7/17/2021 at 7:16 AM, Il BuonO said:

Preferable to Kevin Brown.

If it's my Australian accent Siri, I'm all in for that. 

 

[NCRaven]

You have to reach Chuck Thompson level of excellence before I care who is in the booth.  Brown and Arnold are fine with me.  Not a fan of Newman.  I like Ben and Palmer as color analysts.  Hell, I thought John Miller chattered on too much about stuff that had nothing to do with the game at hand.  Basically, unless you have a Hall of Fame talent, I don't care if the team saves a few bucks on broadcasters.

[spiritof66]

I watched pieces of this weekend's Mets games with Thorne announcing. He provided much more data and information than I remember him doing when he announce Orioles games. Maybe the Mets' backup staff fed him more information than the Orioles did. Maybe he was less comfortable bantering with Keith Hernandez than he was with Palmer. Maybe it was too small a sample to judge. And maybe I'm wrong. But that's the way it seemed to me.

And for what it's worth, I thought Thorne was terrific.

[Tony-OH]

Glad to see Thorne is back doing baseball somewhere. I certainly miss him although I do agree with those that say Kevin Brown is good and getting better. On the radio, I think Arnold and Hollander do a real good job together and Brown is good there as well.

I'm fine with Newman as long as she's not calling the game action. She understands the game as an analyst, but is basically like listening to Siri with her blandness no matter how big the event is in the game. Plus, she really struggles to define the action. If you don't think so, watch a condensed game when they show the action on the field but use the radio broadcast and she how poorly she describes the action.

In one play a ball was ripped into left field between the third baseman and shortstop on the ground to score a run. She said, "The ball is hit into the gap into left field, bringing the runner in around third..... to score and make it a 5-1 lead for the Orioles." I don't know about you, but the gap to me is between outfielders. She never even mentioned what gap she was talking about.

There were many others but there is just not enough voice inflection to get across the importance of the play and the fact that she doesn't really describe what is happening as it's happening is frustrating to listen to on the radio. She's also a bit slow like Manfra was in which you can hear the crowd reaction to know what happened before she can describe the action because she is so deliberate. 

I listen to a ton of minor league broadcasts and there are several announcers that are doing radio while the game is broadcast on MiLB TV and they do a much better job of keeping up with the action. 

Saying all that, she's smart and understands the game including proper use of statcast information. I also feel she's very good at the pregame and post game shows when she fills in for Rob Long. That's probably her sweet spot there!

[interloper]

5 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Totally agree.  Brown has a good voice, but he just tries too hard to be witty with the pop culture references.  I don't want to call it a sarcastic tone, because sarcastic implies derision....but he's got this tone that I can't stand sometimes.  It's just, like, dude...stop trying so hard to be witty or funny.  

That said, he's way better than Garceau and I haven't thought twice about Jim Hunter this season.

Thorne, IMO, was the best, mispronounced names and all.  What a voice.  

I get that people might not enjoy Kevin's tone and whatnot and that's fine, but what he does infinitely better than Garceau is actually put some juice behind the calls when something significant/interesting happens. With Garceau it's like, dude, it IS a sports match, you can feel free to inject some drama and excitement somewhere at times when the play warrants it. Or even if it doesn't really warrant it sometimes! Make me believe it does! 

[scbalt52]

I really enjoy Kevin Brown on TV

[eddie83]

5 hours ago, NCRaven said:

You have to reach Chuck Thompson level of excellence before I care who is in the booth.  Brown and Arnold are fine with me.  Not a fan of Newman.  I like Ben and Palmer as color analysts.  Hell, I thought John Miller chattered on too much about stuff that had nothing to do with the game at hand.  Basically, unless you have a Hall of Fame talent, I don't care if the team saves a few bucks on broadcasters.

Great thing about broadcasting is it’s personal taste. I think Miller was great and I thought he knew when and when not to turn on the charm. In a big game he wasn’t trying to be cute. In a blowout game on the west coast that was different. 

[NelsonCruuuuuz]

1 hour ago, scbalt52 said:

I really enjoy Kevin Brown on TV

I think it’s funny people think Kevin Brown “is getting better” lol. He’s the best we have and an absolute joy to listen to. Love him. I have zero criticisms. I am thankful I don’t have to listen to Garceau, wow was he bad. 

[Roll Tide]

13 hours ago, Ruzious said:

Thorne was a pleasure to listen to with a great sense of humor, but I think Brown is better all-around and seems more engaged into what's happening on the field.  

Really …. I thought he was the guy constantly calling guys by the wrong name. I was so annoyed I turned the sound off. No disrespect sir but I hated the broadcast.

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, NelsonCruuuuuz said:

I think it’s funny people think Kevin Brown “is getting better” lol. He’s the best we have and an absolute joy to listen to. Love him. I have zero criticisms. I am thankful I don’t have to listen to Garceau, wow was he bad. 

Don’t see why that’s funny.   He’s better now than he was when he started.   Just like most people get better at their job as they gain experience.