Moves I would like to see between now and July 31

[Ruzious]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

Yes, someone who is showing that your suggestion is pretty foolish.  You can't really dispute it because its factual, so you want to play some childish, woe is me game.

 

Sports Guy, you are just way too aggressive for my tastes.  I'm here to relax and don't appreciate being labelled - whether you're right or not.  Let's agree not to respond to each other again.  Fair enough?  That's a rhetorical question, btw.  

[Sports Guy]

LOL...Im good.  If you want to come on here and share over the top thoughts, I will be glad to respond to you.  You presented a claim that I basically showed to be false and yet you are upset by it.  

You don't like that I said you overrate Braves players.  Not sure why that bothers you. Fans overrate their teams players all the time.

[Ruzious]

I'm pretty sure I said this:  "Let's agree not to respond to each other again.  Fair enough?  That's a rhetorical question, btw."    

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, Ruzious said:

I'm pretty sure I said this:  "Let's agree not to respond to each other again.  Fair enough?  That's a rhetorical question, btw."    

Takes 2 people to agree on something.

[Frobby]

52 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

One question. From what little I know, Trey is the unquestioned veteran leader of this team. The only other guy I've seen mentioned is Galvis, and his future with the Orioles is pretty limited. (The other veterans are Matt Harvey, Severino, Franco, Plutko and The Crusher. No leadership potential there.)

Is the loss of Trey's leadership something that you -- plural you, those who are calling for Trey to be traded this season -- take into account in calling for is trade? Do you think the whole leadership/clubhouse morale thing is a fiction? That it's overrated? 

Put it this way - the team has been terrible pretty much the whole time Trey has been here.  The one year he missed was the best season, winning percentage wise, of the last four seasons.  So, how important could his leadership possibly be?   I’m certainly not saying he isn’t a good leader, or that his presence doesn’t help morale, but it’s pretty obvious that his leadership is not a huge factor in anything.  

[HowAboutThat]

Define “leadership.”

I am a man of faith, but not in empty descriptors such as “leadership”

A leader is one who can make the men around him not make stupid mistakes, and we don’t have anybody like that, so whatever Trey has is not indispensable.

[spiritof66]

21 minutes ago, Philip said:

Define “leadership.”

I am a man of faith, but not in empty descriptors such as “leadership”

A leader is one who can make the men around him not make stupid mistakes, and we don’t have anybody like that, so whatever Trey has is not indispensable.

That's an odd definition of a "leader," but OK. Maybe it applies to a team's manager, who is in charge of preparing the team to play, from spring training on, and then makes the decisions for who plays where and who and pitches when. 

I had thought the concept of a veteran player who is said, by managers or teammates or the media, to be a valuable guy to have in the clubhouse would be familiar to readers of this site. It's something that gets talked about and written about a lot, and years (maybe decades by now) ago there a lot of discussion among sabermetricians as to whether clubhouse chemistry and the presence of veterans who had this reputation were helpful in winning ballgames. Before that, the A's' dynasty of the early 1970s had led to a lot of discussion about the conventional wisdom that positive chemistry among teammates was important to winning. I guess I should have better explained what I was asking, and I probably shouldn't have used the word "leader," although it's often used in this context ("leader in the clubhouse"). 

Many, many baseball people think that certain veteran players bring value to a team by their words and conduct during the eight months or so that an MLB team is together but not on the field. I have read and heard, and have the impression -- though I  certainly don't know -- that Trey is viewed as having those qualities. The only other current Orioles players I have heard that about are Chris Davis (years ago) and Galvis. There's nothing indispensable about someone with those qualities, and that wasn't my point. My point was that there may be some value that Trey brings and would bring to an improved team down the line, and there's a lack of other veterans on the current roster who might play that role. That means that trading Trey potentially would leave a gap, and I was curious what people strongly advocating that he be traded thought: that the value isn't there in the first place, that losing a little value won't matter (either generally or for the Orioles because they're so bad), or that any gap left by Trey's departure could readily be filled with a veteran signing or two. 

 

[Moose Milligan]

5 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Fans overrate their teams players all the time.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

13 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

[HowAboutThat]

1 hour ago, spiritof66 said:

That's an odd definition of a "leader," but OK. Maybe it applies to a team's manager, who is in charge of preparing the team to play, from spring training on, and then makes the decisions for who plays where and who and pitches when. 

I had thought the concept of a veteran player who is said, by managers or teammates or the media, to be a valuable guy to have in the clubhouse would be familiar to readers of this site. It's something that gets talked about and written about a lot, and years (maybe decades by now) ago there a lot of discussion among sabermetricians as to whether clubhouse chemistry and the presence of veterans who had this reputation were helpful in winning ballgames. Before that, the A's' dynasty of the early 1970s had led to a lot of discussion about the conventional wisdom that positive chemistry among teammates was important to winning. I guess I should have better explained what I was asking, and I probably shouldn't have used the word "leader," although it's often used in this context ("leader in the clubhouse"). 

Many, many baseball people think that certain veteran players bring value to a team by their words and conduct during the eight months or so that an MLB team is together but not on the field. I have read and heard, and have the impression -- though I  certainly don't know -- that Trey is viewed as having those qualities. The only other current Orioles players I have heard that about are Chris Davis (years ago) and Galvis. There's nothing indispensable about someone with those qualities, and that wasn't my point. My point was that there may be some value that Trey brings and would bring to an improved team down the line, and there's a lack of other veterans on the current roster who might play that role. That means that trading Trey potentially would leave a gap, and I was curious what people strongly advocating that he be traded thought: that the value isn't there in the first place, that losing a little value won't matter (either generally or for the Orioles because they're so bad), or that any gap left by Trey's departure could readily be filled with a veteran signing or two. 

 

I think there are genuine qualities of leadership that can help a group. You can watch a group of children on a playground and pick out the leaders within 30 seconds. But that doesn’t mean that Trey or anyone on the team has those qualities. 
Being older means nothing. Being more experienced means nothing unless you are want to share your experience, and are capable of sharing it in a meaningful way. As a musician, I’ve learned lots of valuable tidbits over the years, and I’m happy to share if asked, but experience isn’t leadership. I remember Ian Kinsler specifically saying he wasn’t going to “mentor” anyone, and he was neither apologetic nor vague about it, too(he appears to be an ass.) I remember Caleb Joseph talking about how to receive a ball when you see the runner break for second. His description was clear and excellent. He’s going to be a valuable coach for someone. But that’s experience, and not leadership.

Leadership is when you’re able to inspire the men around you to do more than they would without you. This team is a bunch of bumblers; not just limited in ability, that’s human, and no flaw. But limited in effort. I saw Severino jogging towards first during the game Saturday(?) when the shortstop bobbled the ball rather badly, and STILL threw him out by two steps. I was furious that Severino didn’t seem to make any effort to beat out such a poorly played ball. If that’s REALLY as fast as he can run, he has no business being in professional sports. A leader isn’t someone who yells at you after you make a slacking play, a leader is one who inspires you to never slack at all. Think Captain Waskow. His men loved him and would March through hell for him. But love isn’t necessary.

Ive been fortunate to work with leaders in my orchestra who were inspirations even if they themselves weren’t excellent players, or were arrogant asses. You don’t need to be nice. Leaders inspire you to go home and practice every difficult passage because you feel some mysterious obligation, not just to your daily duty, but to some ideal which you want to reach because he expects you to, and you don’t want to be the guy who missed any notes. Hard to explain, but I know you’ve met people like that in your own Walk. But not too many. The qualities of leadership are very rare. 
 

Chemistry is a wonderful thing, but it is overrated. How many happy ships get sunk anyway?

In short, Trey is a fine player, a great draft choice at 408, but he hasn’t demonstrated any intangible qualities that we would long for were he traded.

Sorry for the length. Thanks for reading this far, if you did.

 

[Camden_yardbird]

14 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

If you want Arcia, it probably doesn’t take much to acquire him.  

I'm fine if he is part of a deal for Mancini.  He can't be the only part of the deal due mancini.

[Sports Guy]

15 minutes ago, Camden_yardbird said:

I'm fine if he is part of a deal for Mancini.  He can't be the only part of the deal due mancini.

Right..he is, at best, a second piece if the first piece is a very good one (very good being subjective I guess).

Or you could trade a guy like Sulser for him.

[LookinUp]

I'm not trading Mancini unless there's real talent coming back. A legit future starter (position or P) needs to be part of that deal. Anything less underestimates the value Mancini would have this year to a contender and through the rest of his contract. He may not be Mike Trout, but he's a legit hitter. That has value to a contender.

If Arcia closes the deal, fine, but that's all I care about him for. He's not that legit future starter that I'm looking for. He's a stop gap or an 8-9 hitting starter on a good team.

My biggest takeaway from this thread is just how bad this team really is. We are terrible almost everywhere, particularly with Hays always injured.

[connja]

Last night we started Valeka, Urias and Lebya in the infield.   Yikes.  That was our starting infield in AAA a couple weeks ago.  We have to do better than that.  

[jamalshw]

1 minute ago, connja said:

Last night we started Valeka, Urias and Lebya in the infield.   Yikes.  That was our starting infield in AAA a couple weeks ago.  We have to do better than that.  

Honestly, I wouldn't mind a Jones, Urias, Lebya infield the rest of the way. See if any of them can be anything. You may find a utility player or two for the future in there. Maybe we can see enough offense from Jones and reason to hope for defensive improvement. Honestly, it doesn't change our season's outlook.