The O’s at the 60-game mark, 2018 - 2021

[Sports Guy]

7 minutes ago, foxfield said:

Well, it most certainly has been a terrible organization and that has been true since Angelos fired his Manager of the year in 1997.  But the records of the ML franchise 2018-2021 don't really reflect that one way or the other.

You can disagree on the need for a total rebuild or the method even, but when the Org says we are going to acquire talent and we are not going to be focused on the ML record...you should not be surprised to see the numbers above.

Frobby's post shows us how far we have come.  In 2018 the roster was fully in competitive mode.   Bundy, Cashner, Cobb, Gausman, were in the rotation.  Machado, Schoop, Jones, Nunez were all still here.  And yes those guys are all gone.  But they were all there through 60 Games in 2018 as were Buck and Duquette.  

What has ensued is a total rebuild where everything has been turned over and the focus has totally been on acquiring young talent at the Minor League level.  And during that painful time, even during a pandemic...The Baltimore Orioles...with a rookie manager and a rookie GM and the Son's of the owner, have never been worse than the 2018 team was while it was fully intact.

Now, we can talk about how '19, '20 and '21 have sucked being one of the worst teams in baseball.  And nothing that has occurred during this time guarantees anything.  But surely you must think the Orioles are in a better spot today and have been better run as an organization since 2019.  47...That is how many games the 2018 team won.  While trying to win.

 

I’m not surprised by the records..but they are still an embarrassment 

[Just Regular]

We have the same .311 wOBA and .309 xwOBA as Tampa after the two big nights.   The two teams are also the Top Two in wOBA-xwOBA difference, such that the Orioles team is 13th in wOBA MLB-wide today.

[survivedc]

59 minutes ago, foxfield said:

Well, it most certainly has been a terrible organization and that has been true since Angelos fired his Manager of the year in 1997.  But the records of the ML franchise 2018-2021 don't really reflect that one way or the other.

You can disagree on the need for a total rebuild or the method even, but when the Org says we are going to acquire talent and we are not going to be focused on the ML record...you should not be surprised to see the numbers above.

Frobby's post shows us how far we have come.  In 2018 the roster was fully in competitive mode.   Bundy, Cashner, Cobb, Gausman, were in the rotation.  Machado, Schoop, Jones, Nunez were all still here.  And yes those guys are all gone.  But they were all there through 60 Games in 2018 as were Buck and Duquette.  

What has ensued is a total rebuild where everything has been turned over and the focus has totally been on acquiring young talent at the Minor League level.  And during that painful time, even during a pandemic...The Baltimore Orioles...with a rookie manager and a rookie GM and the Son's of the owner, have never been worse than the 2018 team was while it was fully intact.

Now, we can talk about how '19, '20 and '21 have sucked being one of the worst teams in baseball.  And nothing that has occurred during this time guarantees anything.  But surely you must think the Orioles are in a better spot today and have been better run as an organization since 2019.  47...That is how many games the 2018 team won.  While trying to win.

 

I don’t follow. Why would the fact that the team is rebuilding make the abysmal records any more acceptable? The organization put itself in this position by poor signings, missing trade windows etc. 

I’m embarrassed. The organization should be embarrassed, even if this rebuild is followed up by a WS Title in 2024 or something. From best record in the AL to I would imagine worst in the AL over a multi year period is embarrassing.

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, Philip said:

I forgot to mention exactly this. We have already played an extremely difficult schedule against meaningful contenders. We played the Mariners, the Rangers, and I don’t think we’ve played any other non-contenders, unless you include the Twins, who were expected by many to take the division. 
The schedule is going to get easier, so I think we will be able to do pretty well. I do not expect a single digit draft pick next year

The schedule doesn’t get materially better.   Don’t forget we still have 16 games with Tampa and 19 with Toronto.   We have the second toughest remaining schedule according to the current winning percentages of the teams we will be playing the rest of the season.   http://www.tankathon.com/mlb/remaining_schedule_strength

[interloper]

51 minutes ago, survivedc said:

I don’t follow. Why would the fact that the team is rebuilding make the abysmal records any more acceptable? The organization put itself in this position by poor signings, missing trade windows etc. 

I’m embarrassed. The organization should be embarrassed, even if this rebuild is followed up by a WS Title in 2024 or something. From best record in the AL to I would imagine worst in the AL over a multi year period is embarrassing.

The previous regime and perhaps the owners should be embarrassed they got themselves in this mess. The current regime and owners have made the necessary moves to correct some glaring past mistakes (i.e.: not investing in the international market, not investing in analytics and modern coaching techniques, waiting far too long to trade pieces, making terrible and expensive FA signings, not having a unified development structure throughout the minor leagues, etc.). So I think the current organization should feel very good about what they've done so far. These are enormous, organization-wide problems that needed significant effort and resources to address, and Elias and Co. have done that in less than 3 years. The next step is to field a winning team, but honestly I just want them to get it right organizationally first. Run the thing right - it hadn't been for decades. 

[foxfield]

53 minutes ago, survivedc said:

I don’t follow. Why would the fact that the team is rebuilding make the abysmal records any more acceptable? The organization put itself in this position by poor signings, missing trade windows etc. 

I’m embarrassed. The organization should be embarrassed, even if this rebuild is followed up by a WS Title in 2024 or something. From best record in the AL to I would imagine worst in the AL over a multi year period is embarrassing.

I get that.  I do.  Look I have been an Oriole fan since 1968.  When I was a kid it wasn't the Yankees that everyone wanted to be...it was the Orioles!  They were regarded as the best team and one of the best run franchises in all of sports.  That hasn't been true since even before the last World Series win in 1983.  And yes the losing has been hard.  Embarrassing even.

But in 2018 we started the season and we were supposed to be going for it.  Manny, Schoop, Davis.  47 games while supposedly trying to win a championship.  THAT was an embarrassment.  And that kind of stink doesn't just go away.  You have to throw stuff out and start over.  That is what we...well, the Orioles, are doing.  Is it working?  Well, in small snippets I think it is.  Taking 3 from the Red Sox to open the season felt great.  These last 5-7 days have felt good.  What is happening in the minors feels good.

But yes, when the Athletic does their MLB Power Ranking...the O's are at # 30.  And that sucks and yes it IS embarrassing.

And I still think that this is the best chance we have had in some time to reset and regain a level of success that can hopefully be sustained.  I don't want to be cliche and say trust the process, but the process better work here or we are right back to a 14 year nightmare.  Look, as fans, if someone with unlimited resources doesn't buy the team, the only way we, I did it again, the Orioles, can stop being an embarrassment is to build a franchise the right way.  From the ground up.

I won't knock you or anyone else for being impatient or judgmental for where we are or what it feels like now. I just don't think signing someone for $5 Million to play shortstop for two years works and winning 73 games won't make me feel better than say winning 65.  The Orioles have a great park and some of the best players in history have been Orioles.  I am greedy and I want to compete every year and I want to win a World Championship.  I am not certain that can happen with the Angelos Family at the helm, but if it were going to happen, it would require much of what you have seen since the abysmal embarrassment of 2018.  

Finally, I do believe that we are watching the dawn of that next era.  I don't mean we are going to turn it around and win in 2021.  But I do believe that in 2022, the GM will say that it is time to begin the climb and that winning at the Major League level is now a measuring criteria for success.  

If watching players who want to play scrapping and losing, but giving their best and beating the results of the crewe from 2018 is the cost?  Well, I aint the smartest guy in the world, but I remember 14 losing seasons in a row and 2019, 2020 and 2021 are three years, not 14 years.  On any given day right now...when the going gets tough and someone is beating the Orioles brains in...just look at the Minor League stuff.  Ok...I am sure I've bored you enough.  In short, being terrible is not acceptable.  Losing is always worse than winning.  But winning requires sacrifice and it requires doing the work that others will not do.  That work is not always pretty, but if kept in perspective, it can be appreciated.  I do and I hope, as things improve that you and others will as well.  But just to be safe, let's plan on the WS party in 2025 and not 2024.  

Thanks for asking.

[Philip]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

The schedule doesn’t get materially better.   Don’t forget we still have 16 games with Tampa and 19 with Toronto.   We have the second toughest remaining schedule according to the current winning percentages of the teams we will be playing the rest of the season.   http://www.tankathon.com/mlb/remaining_schedule_strength

Well that sux…

I usually express my gratitude by “thanking” You for your information… You will, of course, forgive me for not doing so in this instance…

Edited June 9, 2021 by Philip

[survivedc]

1 hour ago, foxfield said:

I get that.  I do.  Look I have been an Oriole fan since 1968.  When I was a kid it wasn't the Yankees that everyone wanted to be...it was the Orioles!  They were regarded as the best team and one of the best run franchises in all of sports.  That hasn't been true since even before the last World Series win in 1983.  And yes the losing has been hard.  Embarrassing even.

But in 2018 we started the season and we were supposed to be going for it.  Manny, Schoop, Davis.  47 games while supposedly trying to win a championship.  THAT was an embarrassment.  And that kind of stink doesn't just go away.  You have to throw stuff out and start over.  That is what we...well, the Orioles, are doing.  Is it working?  Well, in small snippets I think it is.  Taking 3 from the Red Sox to open the season felt great.  These last 5-7 days have felt good.  What is happening in the minors feels good.

But yes, when the Athletic does their MLB Power Ranking...the O's are at # 30.  And that sucks and yes it IS embarrassing.

And I still think that this is the best chance we have had in some time to reset and regain a level of success that can hopefully be sustained.  I don't want to be cliche and say trust the process, but the process better work here or we are right back to a 14 year nightmare.  Look, as fans, if someone with unlimited resources doesn't buy the team, the only way we, I did it again, the Orioles, can stop being an embarrassment is to build a franchise the right way.  From the ground up.

I won't knock you or anyone else for being impatient or judgmental for where we are or what it feels like now. I just don't think signing someone for $5 Million to play shortstop for two years works and winning 73 games won't make me feel better than say winning 65.  The Orioles have a great park and some of the best players in history have been Orioles.  I am greedy and I want to compete every year and I want to win a World Championship.  I am not certain that can happen with the Angelos Family at the helm, but if it were going to happen, it would require much of what you have seen since the abysmal embarrassment of 2018.  

Finally, I do believe that we are watching the dawn of that next era.  I don't mean we are going to turn it around and win in 2021.  But I do believe that in 2022, the GM will say that it is time to begin the climb and that winning at the Major League level is now a measuring criteria for success.  

If watching players who want to play scrapping and losing, but giving their best and beating the results of the crewe from 2018 is the cost?  Well, I aint the smartest guy in the world, but I remember 14 losing seasons in a row and 2019, 2020 and 2021 are three years, not 14 years.  On any given day right now...when the going gets tough and someone is beating the Orioles brains in...just look at the Minor League stuff.  Ok...I am sure I've bored you enough.  In short, being terrible is not acceptable.  Losing is always worse than winning.  But winning requires sacrifice and it requires doing the work that others will not do.  That work is not always pretty, but if kept in perspective, it can be appreciated.  I do and I hope, as things improve that you and others will as well.  But just to be safe, let's plan on the WS party in 2025 and not 2024.  

Thanks for asking.

For the record, I don’t think ME should be signing stop gap players. I DO think that any team that has the major league assets the Orioles had between 2016-2018 shouldn’t become the worst team in the league. That’s partly on DD and partly on ownership, but it’s all the same organization.

[SteveA]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

The schedule doesn’t get materially better.   Don’t forget we still have 16 games with Tampa and 19 with Toronto.   We have the second toughest remaining schedule according to the current winning percentages of the teams we will be playing the rest of the season.   http://www.tankathon.com/mlb/remaining_schedule_strength

Just to clarify, since I was the first person to mention schedule:  I wasn't talking about this year at all.   I was talking about last year, when we played the entire season vs the AL East and NL East.  To somewhat mitigate the argument that we would have seen our winning % drop if we had played more than 60 last year, I pointed out that if we had played 162 last year, the remaining 102 games would have been weaker on average than the 60 we did play.   Because we had already played more than half of the AL East games we would normally play in 38% of the schedule, and we would have spent more than 2/3 of the remainder of the season vs ALW and ALC teams.  So yeah, our record might have gotten worse, but maybe not as much as you think as we would had a bunch of easier games.

Seems like people thought I was talking about this year's schedule and the whole discussion went in that direction.

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, SteveA said:

Just to clarify, since I was the first person to mention schedule:  I wasn't talking about this year at all.   I was talking about last year, when we played the entire season vs the AL East and NL East.  To somewhat mitigate the argument that we would have seen our winning % drop if we had played more than 60 last year, I pointed out that if we had played 162 last year, the remaining 102 games would have been weaker on average than the 60 we did play.   Because we had already played more than half of the AL East games we would normally play in 38% of the schedule, and we would have spent more than 2/3 of the remainder of the season vs ALW and ALC teams.  So yeah, our record might have gotten worse, but maybe not as much as you think as we would had a bunch of easier games.

Seems like people thought I was talking about this year's schedule and the whole discussion went in that direction.

I understood what you were talking about.   In fact, I repped you for pointing it out.   My later response was to Philip’s post about the schedule so far this year.