I’ve pretty much stopped watching

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, Gurgi said:

The rise of free internet porn coincides with the waining of Baseball popularity.  Coincidence?  I dont think so.  

I can have more than one tab open at a time.

[Orioles1954]

There was a time where I lived, breathed, ate, slept Orioles baseball. Hell, I stayed up for the 19 inning game in Seattle back in the day and bragged about it. 2018 through 2021 has killed it for me. My basic sentiment is "If Elias doesn't care about winning then why should I?" MLB is a stacked deck and I just don't feel like playing along anymore.

[Moose Milligan]

I don’t know why you guys are saying you’re done or this season is killing it for you, etc. 
 

First, that’s not true. If you’re on here, you’re paying attention in some way, shape or form. 
 

Second, most of us survived ‘98-2011. If you can survive that, this is a cakewalk so far. 
 

Third, some of us survived ‘86-‘91. ‘89 is in there but it’s offset by ‘88. Anyway, that stretch of team history was a quick fall from grace after the ‘83 title. 
 

For most of my life this team has been complete crap. But I figure I’ve got enough time, energy, emotion and money invested, I deserve to see it through. 

[Beysbol]

32 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I don’t know why you guys are saying you’re done or this season is killing it for you, etc. 
 

First, that’s not true. If you’re on here, you’re paying attention in some way, shape or form. 
 

Second, most of us survived ‘98-2011. If you can survive that, this is a cakewalk so far. 
 

Third, some of us survived ‘86-‘91. ‘89 is in there but it’s offset by ‘88. Anyway, that stretch of team history was a quick fall from grace after the ‘83 title. 
 

For most of my life this team has been complete crap. But I figure I’ve got enough time, energy, emotion and money invested, I deserve to see it through. 

Totally agree!!

[Tbone83]

Don't mind being bad- as stated, we are used to it- but this is embarrassment-level bad. My sister and I were going to attempt to go to one of these games in Buffalo, but to get jeered in my own town by a bunch of bandwagon Jays fans...not my idea of a good time. 

[orioles119]

All these "fans" jumping ship are hilarious.  Elias was very clear from the start that there would be a few lean years to shake out the dead weight.  He's earned the right to see this through.

[Jammer7]

I am onboard with the rebuild, absolutely. This team is absolutely terrible, aside from Means, Mullins, Mancini, Mountcastle, Fry and Galvis. Santander and Hays need to be on the DL. Everyone can see it. With young pitchers, there are ups and downs, but yikes! This is not a major league team, not even a bad major league team. 

We knew they were not good, but they played hard and things were looking up as improvement seemed evident. There was a major change, about six or seven weeks ago, when Chris Holt went on a mysterious leave of absence. It has been a nosedive ever since. I get the feeling that this team has basically been lost by Hyde. And I think he may be done at, or before, the end of the year. His frustration has been mounting. It is a shame, because I like him. 

Frobby, I am at the same stage. I tuned in for four innings last night. I could not take any more. Kremer looked like he had no command. I immediately thought of the sticky substance rule. I will look at his metrics today. But even worse, he wilted out there. 

Someone else said it in this thread, but after not having baseball for a time in 2020, I will continue to follow. I may not watch as much for now, but I love this game. I always will. And I love the culture of the game.

As for the prosperity of the game, I am turned off by the marketing and politics of MLB. I am quite obviously not the audience they are trying to attract. They continue to turn off the most traditionally loyal fans. Attendance in Baltimore may never come back to the sellouts of Camden Yards in the 90’s. The Nats arrival seems to make that a pipe dream.

 I am also turned off by the constant meddling with our great game by Manfred and his band of merry idiots from Harvard and Yale. Can we just get back to playing the game the way it was for more than a hundred years, please? Every time I see the bases loaded with one out, and a RH batter hits a tailer-made double play grounder to 2B…but the 2B man was not playing there because of some shift. Or a hard ground ball up the middle and an infielder is standing there to make an easy play. I miss the great diving plays up the middle, and the well earned base hits that were customary throughout the history of the game. Billy Bean was right, he is partly to blame for what MLB has become. 

For me, the last time I went to a game, we parked three blocks away. We walked by the federal courthouse and were approached twice to buy any drug we wanted on the steps of the federal courthouse. That is just the experience I want for my family…what a hole. But that is not the Orioles’ fault. Society politics of the City of Baltimore is killing any desires I once had to attend games while in town. 

I prefer minor league baseball these days. And college baseball. Hell, I prefer high school and Little League/Babe Ruth baseball to MLB. The purity of the game is lost on MLB. That is sad. 

 

[Sports Guy]

This year has surprised me.  The lack of development from the arms, Santander being this bad, Franco’s production way down, Mountcastle being terrible early, Hays not staying healthy and not much being brought up from the minors has really bothered me.

It’s basically a situation of everything that can go wrong is, with the exception of Mullins and Means (although he is hurt and this terrible stretch coincided with that).

Losing is one thing.  I thought they would win 68 games, so that means there would have been a sh** ton of losses.  But not being competitive?  That’s where I have an issue.

I place this at the feet of ownership for  not allowing Elias to field a more competitive team.  I also blame Elias because on some level, I think this is still what he wants and that is just wrong.

But, by far, the biggest issue the lack of development.  I don’t get that.  I understand that some of these guys just aren’t going to be very good.  I can accept that.  But the level of regression we are seeing is tough to watch.

[DrungoHazewood]

On 6/23/2021 at 10:12 PM, Can_of_corn said:

Elias has to know he's going to lose the casual fan with this style of rebuild.

He has to know that most people, casual or die hard, aren't watching.  But he also strongly suspects that they'll come back when they're winning.  He also knows that signing some Kevin Millars to make things a little more respectable has a negative ROI.

Because they're awful, an average game is over three hours, and they make it difficult to stream I've only watched a handful this year.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

He has to know that most people, casual or die hard, aren't watching.  But he also strongly suspects that they'll come back when they're winning.  He also knows that signing some Kevin Millars to make things a little more respectable has a negative ROI.

Because they're awful, an average game is over three hours, and they make it difficult to stream I've only watched a handful this year.

Once again, since folks don't seem to get it, I'm not advocating for free agent acquisitions.

 

[DrungoHazewood]

18 minutes ago, Jammer7 said:

I am onboard with the rebuild, absolutely. This team is absolutely terrible, aside from Means, Mullins, Mancini, Mountcastle, Fry and Galvis. Santander and Hays need to be on the DL. Everyone can see it. With young pitchers, there are ups and downs, but yikes! This is not a major league team, not even a bad major league team. 

We knew they were not good, but they played hard and things were looking up as improvement seemed evident. There was a major change, about six or seven weeks ago, when Chris Holt went on a mysterious leave of absence. It has been a nosedive ever since. I get the feeling that this team has basically been lost by Hyde. And I think he may be done at, or before, the end of the year. His frustration has been mounting. It is a shame, because I like him. 

Frobby, I am at the same stage. I tuned in for four innings last night. I could not take any more. Kremer looked like he had no command. I immediately thought of the sticky substance rule. I will look at his metrics today. But even worse, he wilted out there. 

Someone else said it in this thread, but after not having baseball for a time in 2020, I will continue to follow. I may not watch as much for now, but I love this game. I always will. And I love the culture of the game.

As for the prosperity of the game, I am turned off by the marketing and politics of MLB. I am quite obviously not the audience they are trying to attract. They continue to turn off the most traditionally loyal fans. Attendance in Baltimore may never come back to the sellouts of Camden Yards in the 90’s. The Nats arrival seems to make that a pipe dream.

 I am also turned off by the constant meddling with our great game by Manfred and his band of merry idiots from Harvard and Yale. Can we just get back to playing the game the way it was for more than a hundred years, please? Every time I see the bases loaded with one out, and a RH batter hits a tailer-made double play grounder to 2B…but the 2B man was not playing there because of some shift. Or a hard ground ball up the middle and an infielder is standing there to make an easy play. I miss the great diving plays up the middle, and the well earned base hits that were customary throughout the history of the game. Billy Bean was right, he is partly to blame for what MLB has become. 

For me, the last time I went to a game, we parked three blocks away. We walked by the federal courthouse and were approached twice to buy any drug we wanted on the steps of the federal courthouse. That is just the experience I want for my family…what a hole. But that is not the Orioles’ fault. Society politics of the City of Baltimore is killing any desires I once had to attend games while in town. 

I prefer minor league baseball these days. And college baseball. Hell, I prefer high school and Little League/Babe Ruth baseball to MLB. The purity of the game is lost on MLB. That is sad. 

 

Baseball cannot continue to tailor and market the game to people who want it to be exactly like it's 1930 or 1960 or whatever.  Those people either aren't around anymore, or soon won't be.  Also, standing pat on rules and changes for a century has resulted in a game that looks nothing like it did 50 or 100 years ago.  You can drive the changes, or you can let them just kind of happen.  And when you let things go you end up with 3-4 hour games of mostly strikeouts and home runs.

Manfred's major flaw is that he changes things around the margins that have little effect.  But he almost has to because every change is judged on how different it is from when Mickey and Willie were playing.  Runner-on-second-in-extras and seven-inning doubleheaders are deeply loathed by the traditionalists, imagine if he tried some changes that would actually result in lower Ks and faster-paced games.  Well... the sticky stuff ban should lead to fewer Ks, and the Twitterverse thinks checking pitchers for the banned substances is ridiculous and insane.

[DrungoHazewood]

8 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I don’t know why you guys are saying you’re done or this season is killing it for you, etc. 
 

First, that’s not true. If you’re on here, you’re paying attention in some way, shape or form. 
 

Second, most of us survived ‘98-2011. If you can survive that, this is a cakewalk so far. 
 

Third, some of us survived ‘86-‘91. ‘89 is in there but it’s offset by ‘88. Anyway, that stretch of team history was a quick fall from grace after the ‘83 title. 
 

For most of my life this team has been complete crap. But I figure I’ve got enough time, energy, emotion and money invested, I deserve to see it through. 

I'll see it through, but it doesn't mean I'm going to invest 3-4 hours a night to watching it. 

Yes, this time around there's a plan and there are players on the farm who are going in the right direction.  Unlike 1998-2011 where they'd occasionally get a Markakis or a Bedard but there was no coherent plan, no end goal besides let's keep drafting guys and paying them slot and eventually we'll pass the Yanks!

[eddie83]

47 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

This year has surprised me.  The lack of development from the arms, Santander being this bad, Franco’s production way down, Mountcastle being terrible early, Hays not staying healthy and not much being brought up from the minors has really bothered me.

It’s basically a situation of everything that can go wrong is, with the exception of Mullins and Means (although he is hurt and this terrible stretch coincided with that).

Losing is one thing.  I thought they would win 68 games, so that means there would have been a sh** ton of losses.  But not being competitive?  That’s where I have an issue.

I place this at the feet of ownership for  not allowing Elias to field a more competitive team.  I also blame Elias because on some level, I think this is still what he wants and that is just wrong.

But, by far, the biggest issue the lack of development.  I don’t get that.  I understand that some of these guys just aren’t going to be very good.  I can accept that.  But the level of regression we are seeing is tough to watch.

I thought last place around 95-98 losses. They have underachieved to an extent. That said Elias took a heck of a risk with the pitching staff coming off of a year like last year. If last year is normal you get a full season to judge the AAA arms. Just because Kremer and Akin didn’t embarrass themselves in a SSS last year doesn’t mean much. 
 

Now some are up here and some will be soon. Collectively it’s a massive mess. Also has a hole at 2nd base he didn’t fill. At 3rd they at least tried with Franco. 
 

I’m not surprised individually with any of the bad things that have happened. I would have thought though they would be a little more lucky in general. 

[Ruzious]

What they're losing out on is making new fans.  And those people likely won't be the fans of the future - even if they start to win at some point in the future.  There are so many options for entertainment - they will find something else - for the long haul.  

[Il BuonO]

On 6/23/2021 at 9:08 PM, Frobby said:

This team has pretty much become unwatchable.   I check the score on my phone when I’m done with dinner, generally around 8:00.   Inevitably they’re already losing.   I keep an eye on the game every 15 minutes or so in between checking the minor league box scores.   Most nights, it’s just never worth it to turn on the game.   It’s sad.

Have to say I’m a little surprised. Not with the sentiment, but that it’s coming from you. I get it, though. 

For me, the only way I can justify watching is that usually at least one guy is doing/has done something that was positive. 

For much of the season it was Mullins, Means, or Mancini and lately it’s been Mountcastle. A little with Harvey, too. 

My strongest criticism would be get more of the young guys up. Even if it’s just Lowther or Wells. At least that way they know what they have. 

You can keep even the casual fan interested w/ the hope of the future. That doesn’t include Matt Harvey or Tom Eshelman.