The current 1-14 stretch is far worse than the prior 0-14

[SteveA]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

During the 0-14 stretch, the team was outscored 80-48.   We lost them alL, but many were close: 3 one-run losses, four two-run losses, three three-run losses.  Only two losses were by more than 5 runs.

In the current 1-14 streak, we’ve been outscored 112-44.    Six of the losses were by more than 5 runs, including 14-1, 13-0, 9-0, 10-2, 10-3 and 7-1.    In addition to those six, the team has allowed 7 runs or more four other times    The pitching and defense have just been brutal.    

 

 

It doesn't help that the Astros are in the middle of an opposite stretch and we just played them 3 times.   They set some kind of record in this 11 game winning streak last night, first team to score 90+ and allow <25 in a 11 game stretch.

Now you can argue that we helped them to that record, but they also helped us to part of our horrible streak too.

What makes it really bad for me is that I was in Pittsburgh last weekend watching a couple Pirate games, that were being played at the same time as the O's Friday night and Saturday afternoon.   So I missed the one win in the stretch (7-1 Friday night) and the almost win Friday, where we led 7-4 into the 9th.   For 17 innings we outscore our opponents 14-5, take those 17 innings away and we've been outscored 107-30!   And I missed the good part.

[SteveA]

3 minutes ago, LTO&#x27;s said:

I mean most scouts seriously doubted any of those guys would be anything more than a 5 and dive/swingman piece. It's not exactly surprising to see them get lit up against great offenses like they have. The current wisdom on this board is that any prospect close to the big leagues should be up and learning here. Well....here you go. All of those guys besides maybe Akin should be in AAA getting starts on a regular basis. They are not ready yet and I don't see the purpose of having them get shelled every start. 

Akin and Zimmermann are 26, Lowther and Kremer are 25.  These aren't raw young kids.

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, LTO&#x27;s said:

I mean most scouts seriously doubted any of those guys would be anything more than a 5 and dive/swingman piece. It's not exactly surprising to see them get lit up against great offenses like they have. The current wisdom on this board is that any prospect close to the big leagues should be up and learning here. Well....here you go. All of those guys besides maybe Akin should be in AAA getting starts on a regular basis. They are not ready yet and I don't see the purpose of having them get shelled every start. 

If they aren’t ready now, they likely never will be.  We aren’t talking about 21 year old kids who were draft out of HS.

The other conventional wisdom on this site is that more MiL time is always needed and that if you give it to them, suddenly they will be ready.  
 

There is no definitive plan on how to do it.  Everyone is different.  

[Oriole1940]

25 minutes ago, SteveA said:

That may be to Elias's defense in one way, but what does it say about our pitcher development?

I felt under previous regimes that we didn't always develop pitchers very well.   Seeing Arrieta and others leave our organization and have success.   Hearing Britton talk about how different the information and data he got from the Yankees was than with the Orioles.  Seeing guys with big arms that never "got it" (Cabrera, Riley, Matusz, etc).

One thing I felt for sure was that with Elias/Holt, THAT would improve.   All the most modern techniques, tools, analysis, and teaching would be put in place.   Spin rates and angles of delivery and release points would all be scientifically analyzed and it would help pitchers get the maximum out of whatever talent they had.   There were plenty of examples of pitchers going to Houston in the recent seasons and improving.   If nothing else, I felt that poor pitcher development was something the Orioles put in the rear view mirror in November 2018 when they hired Elias.

So when this batch of young pitchers comes up and falls completely flat on their face, it concerns me VERY much.   

I was never sure Elias would succeed.  I worried we wouldn't spend the money.   I worried that it would take years for the international changes to take effect.   I worried that the Astros didn't have a good record of drafting pitching talent.   But the one thing I didn't worry about was getting the most out of our pitchers.   If Kremer or Akin had an upside as a 4th/5th starter, or a Petit-style long man, I was really confident that we'd get that much out of them.   The track record and pedigree of the guys we brought in made me pretty confident that at least pitcher development wasn't a problem anymore.

Seeing these guys fail so miserably is a huge disappointment and casts a big shadow over the future to me.

Just wanted to say that these are my thoughts completely.  I could not have enumerated them as well.  I trusted Elias too,  as was said,  to correct some of the old sins, at the very least. Hopefully, in addition to correcting them, move on from them and really have the franchise going forward on the right track.  So far, no dice.    

[Yardball85]

This thread title... the fact that the Orioles have had an 0-14 stretch and a separate 1-14 stretch.... this season has been beyond brutal. 

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, Yardball85 said:

This thread title... the fact that the Orioles have had an 0-14 stretch and a separate 1-14 stretch.... this season has been beyond brutal. 

They could win 28 games in a row and still be under 500.

[LTO's]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

If they aren’t ready now, they likely never will be.  We aren’t talking about 21 year old kids who were draft out of HS.

The other conventional wisdom on this site is that more MiL time is always needed and that if you give it to them, suddenly they will be ready.  
 

There is no definitive plan on how to do it.  Everyone is different.  

Zimmerman and Akin are similar profiles to Kremer and Lowther. Mediocre-ish prospects with a chance to be a big league starter if a lot of things click. They both have had more time in AAA and are both pitching better than Kremer and Lowther. These guys more than likely aren't going to be starters on a playoff team and never were.  What is the big rush? Who cares if they are 25/26 in AAA working on things? That does NOT mean they won't ever figure things out at the big league level. You just admitted that everyone is different. Is it that surprising that guys with mediocre stuff need more time against higher competition below the big league level to learn how to get batters out with said mediocre stuff? This notion that if guys don't succeed right away when they reach the ML level then they will never be anything is bizarre. I mean our best player this year is a fantastic example of why that makes NO sense. 

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, LTO&#x27;s said:

Zimmerman and Akin are similar profiles to Kremer and Lowther. Mediocre-ish prospects with a chance to be a big league starter if a lot of things click. They both have had more time in AAA and are both pitching better than Kremer and Lowther. These guys more than likely aren't going to be starters on a playoff team and never were.  What is the big rush? Who cares if they are 25/26 in AAA working on things? That does NOT mean they won't ever figure things out at the big league level. You just admitted that everyone is different. Is it that surprising that guys with mediocre stuff need more time against higher competition below the big league level to learn how to get batters out with said mediocre stuff? This notion that if guys don't succeed right away when they reach the ML level then they will never be anything is bizarre. I mean our best player this year is a fantastic example of why that makes NO sense. 

They can develop up here.  They gain experience up here. They can develop with (seemingly) better coaches up here.

It doesn’t have to happen in AAA because the service time gods say it does.

[SteveA]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

They can develop up here.  They gain experience up here. They can develop with (seemingly) better coaches up here.

It doesn’t have to happen in AAA because the service time gods say it does.

You can't honestly believe anyone wants to play service time games with 25/26 year old low grade prospects.

[LTO's]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

They can develop up here.  They gain experience up here. They can develop with (seemingly) better coaches up here.

It doesn’t have to happen in AAA because the service time gods say it does.

My man, these are 45 FV level prospects we're talking about here. Most of them had hardly any AAA experience and have pitched in the majors this year. They 100% are not gaming their service time. They just aren't very good right now. Maybe they will be after some time in AAA. Maybe they won't. But what they are doing now isn't working. 

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, SteveA said:

You can't honestly believe anyone wants to play service time games with 25/26 year old low grade prospects.

More of a general statement that drives peoples thoughts on how they feel players should be developed.

[TonySoprano]

12 hours ago, Frobby said:

During the 0-14 stretch, the team was outscored 80-48.   We lost them alL, but many were close: 3 one-run losses, four two-run losses, three three-run losses.  Only two losses were by more than 5 runs.

In the current 1-14 streak, we’ve been outscored 112-44.    Six of the losses were by more than 5 runs, including 14-1, 13-0, 9-0, 10-2, 10-3 and 7-1.    In addition to those six, the team has allowed 7 runs or more four other times    The pitching and defense have just been brutal.    

Keep in mind, the 0-14 in May was part of a 2-21 run to end the month, being outscored 144-82.  There may have been less lopsided games, but there was 13-6 and 10-1.   BTW, the 0-14 stretch was worse than you thought, 93-48.

The O's are currently on a pace to go 50-112.  In the horror show that was 2018, the Orioles were 23-52, same as this year.

I don't see much point in constantly tracking this month after month.   It's likely to get worse.

[Sports Guy]

This win tonight cancels out the 9th inning loss last week.

[Frobby]

17 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

This win tonight cancels out the 9th inning loss last week.

No it doesn’t, because I personally attended the game last week and only saw the final pitch of the game tonight (which I enjoyed thoroughly, but still…).

[Moose Milligan]

11 hours ago, interloper said:

To Elias' defense, I certainly didn't expect ALL of Kremer, Akin, and Lowther to be THIS bad. Even Harvey, who I expected to go south, I didn't expect him to go south that quickly and that hard. 

Like we're at the point of just hoping for mid-5 ERAs out of these guys and they aren't really even managing that. I don't think anyone really predicted this level of futility from this group of starting pitchers. 

 

10 hours ago, SteveA said:

That may be to Elias's defense in one way, but what does it say about our pitcher development?

I felt under previous regimes that we didn't always develop pitchers very well.   Seeing Arrieta and others leave our organization and have success.   Hearing Britton talk about how different the information and data he got from the Yankees was than with the Orioles.  Seeing guys with big arms that never "got it" (Cabrera, Riley, Matusz, etc).

One thing I felt for sure was that with Elias/Holt, THAT would improve.   All the most modern techniques, tools, analysis, and teaching would be put in place.   Spin rates and angles of delivery and release points would all be scientifically analyzed and it would help pitchers get the maximum out of whatever talent they had.   There were plenty of examples of pitchers going to Houston in the recent seasons and improving.   If nothing else, I felt that poor pitcher development was something the Orioles put in the rear view mirror in November 2018 when they hired Elias.

So when this batch of young pitchers comes up and falls completely flat on their face, it concerns me VERY much.   

I was never sure Elias would succeed.  I worried we wouldn't spend the money.   I worried that it would take years for the international changes to take effect.   I worried that the Astros didn't have a good record of drafting pitching talent.   But the one thing I didn't worry about was getting the most out of our pitchers.   If Kremer or Akin had an upside as a 4th/5th starter, or a Petit-style long man, I was really confident that we'd get that much out of them.   The track record and pedigree of the guys we brought in made me pretty confident that at least pitcher development wasn't a problem anymore.

Seeing these guys fail so miserably is a huge disappointment and casts a big shadow over the future to me.

 

I'm not sure why anyone thought that these guys would amount to anything.  I thought Kremer might have had a chance but he's proven to be arguably the most worthless one of the group.

I'll freely admit, I thought Means was just another guy, too.  His stuff wasn't impressive when he came up.  But for every Means you get, there are a bunch of other guys who have middling stuff and don't do any one particular thing well.  Means, at the very least, has his changeup.  And pretty damn good command.

A guy like Lowther or Akin...they don't do anything exceedingly well.  And just because they're somewhere between 10th and 15th on whatever prospect list we have doesn't mean anything.  Lowther can barely hit 90 mph, and like it or not that probably won't play well in the majors right now unless he brings something else to the table that sets him apart.  But I haven't figured out what that is.  Akin, same difference.  Throws a little harder but the stuff is pretty below average to average (on his best day) to begin with.

I think the Elias/Holt stuff, the modern techniques, tools, etc, it's nice to think and fantasize about but I think you've gotta have some good raw talent to begin with. Look at Arrieta.  Look at Gausman...and then look at guys like Akin, Lowther, Kremer.  There's a giant delta there.  I'll freely admit too, I was really critical of Gausman while he was here, but if I had to ride or die with a guy like Gausman or Akin/Lowther, give me Gausman every day.  

You can't get mad at water for being wet.  And you can't expect guys who have middling stuff to suddenly turn into Greg Maddux.  It just doesn't happen...or else every rotation would feature 5 guys like Greg Maddux who top out at 93 but have ridiculous secondary offerings and incredible movement on their pitches.  If Elias/Holt could tease that out of any old Akin/Kremer/Lowther type, trust me...they wouldn't be stuck in Baltimore.

And I realize I'm exaggerating with the Maddux thing, I'd take those 3 guys at a 4.25-.4.50 ERA and be happy with it.  But that's most likely not going to happen.

10 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

They could win 28 games in a row and still be under 500.

Yeah, but they probably won't.