Would This Season Be Considered A Disappointment?

[ORIOLE33]

Was this team supposed to be THIS bad? Maybe I set my goals to high, but I really thought this team would at least compete. And when I say compete, I don’t mean for the pennant, I’m mean to get to respectability. 
 

I wasn’t expecting to be this many games under 500. 

[crowmst3k!]

The good thing about this team being this horrible is that vast majority of players who would be on a competitive team are not on the current MLB roster.  

If the Orioles were this bad a year or 2 after the prospects hit the majors, then I'd be deflated. This current squad is just not talented, and that's ok. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

1 minute ago, crowmst3k! said:

The good thing about this team being this horrible is that vast majority of players who would be on a competitive team are not on the current MLB roster.  

If the Orioles were this bad a year or 2 after the prospects hit the majors, then I'd be deflated. This current squad is just not talented, and that's ok. 

This is my take. I wish the team was better, but it's not like the prospects of the future are flaming out. Now if AR, DL Hall and Grayson Rodriguez are on the team and we get the same results, then you need to be worried. 

[SteveA]

My biggest disappointment is that the first wave of second tier pitching prospects -- Kremer, Akin, Zimmerman, Lowther, has been so bad.   No, I know these guys weren't MLB top 100 prospects.   But they were at least considered to have some ability.  I would have hoped that we would have gotten a decent performance out of a few of them.   Only Zimmerman has even been a serviceable major leaguer, and he has a 1.475 WHIP.

Combined stats for those guys:

163 IP
196 hits
65 walks
153 strikeouts
37 HRs
120 earned runs
1.60 WHIP
6.53 ERA

Coming into the season, I really believed that one thing the Astros did was develop pitchers.   I figured they used all the modern analytics and technology to perfect their mechanics and to analyze which pitches they should throw and get the most out of them.   So I thought that out of those four guys, we would get a couple who could at least stick in the majors.   

You can't find enough DL Halls and Grayson Rodriguezes to build a full healthy staff just out of can't miss guys.   You have to have some guys who aren't supposed to be that great become at least effective back of the rotation starters for you.    And these guys, to me, were candidates for that role and so far it has been a complete disaster.

[doccat]

This season is a monumental disappointment for me.   Not because the Major League Orioles are so terrible- that was expected.   But because:

No pitcher has emerged as a viable rotation candidate including: Kremer, Akin, Lowther, among others

Yusniel Diaz continues to stink.

Injuries have slowed the progress of DL Hall, Michael Baumann, among others

Heston Kjerstad may never be healthy enough to play

 

 

[interloper]

This team was an improvement on the 2020 team in as many games, so there's that. 

There is a lot to be disappointed about this year, but they are all regarding individual players IMO. Otherwise, business as usual, the rebuild continues, we're seeing who can play and who can't. We're developing guys in the minors, we're drafting high, we're seeing some success at the ML level like Mullins, Hays being decent when healthy, Mountcastle being solid, Zimmermann being a nice surprise so far, Mancini returning and being solid, Means dominating when healthy, and Tyler Wells looking like an absolute dude out of the 'pen for a AA guy. 

[Philip]

100%. 
no on second thought, learning who is bad-or not good-is probably as worthwhile as finding out who IS good.

We spent too much time with Sisco but at least he’s gone now. Stewart may not be far behind. Akin hasn’t shown well, nor has Kremer but we know more than we did.

several guys are injured so can’t gauge them, But several guys could be here but aren’t, should be here but aren’t, and a few guys are here who shouldn’t be.

And at least one guy, Lopez, is constantly being asked to do something he has shown he’s not really suited for. He might very well be an excellent four-inning reliever, but he’s definitely not a five+ inning starter.

We seem to have found a Mensch in T Wells.

So maybe not 100% failure but ~90% or so. Too many guys should be up-or away- who aren’t.

[osfan83]

Hey look at the bright side. We may have identified 3 guys who could be part of a winning team, just need 22 more!

[Orioles0615]

3 hours ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

This is my take. I wish the team was better, but it's not like the prospects of the future are flaming out. Now if AR, DL Hall and Grayson Rodriguez are on the team and we get the same results, then you need to be worried. 

We can still get similar results with them if we end up with nothing but scrubs around them. 

[spiritof66]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the on-field travesty that is the Baltimore Orioles so far in 2021, but I am, at least a little. And I am disappointed.

I'm disappointed that the team is last in the AL in both runs allowed and runs scored (tied with the Royals) -- that is, they stink on both offense and defense.

I'm disappointed that the Orioles organization, which I suppose means John Angelos and Mike Elias, don't seem to mind that their team's performance is so terrible and that the Orioles often look so bad in losing (-138 run differential), and I'm disappointed that they have done virtually nothing to try to improve the team. I understand that most (I think it's most, but certainly many) of those who post here are fine with this tactic as part of a rebuilding strategy. To me, complacently putting such a bad team on the field night after night, game after game, is an affront to Oriole fans, to MLB and to the public. 

I'm disappointed that, after 59 years as an Oriole fan and a decade or so watching lots of Orioles games on mlb.tv, I find myself skipping games I could see and often quitting by the middle innings because my favorite team is so damn bad it's difficult to keep watching what I've paid MLB to watch. It's just too predictable and, at times, too painful to see this crap night after night. 

I'm disappointed that many Oriole fans and observers believe the team's CEO and the guy he's put in charge not only aren't interested in improving this year's team, but are pleased that it's doing so badly because a lousy record in 2021 will improve the 2022 draft position. I'm really disappointed by the mere possibility that they're right -- and that the Orioles are playing through the MLB schedule, are selling tickets (not many, but some) and are promoting the team at the same time that its off-field leadership wants them to lose more games. If true, that would be more than disappointing.

I'm disappointed that some young players who I thought had some potential appear to be flaming out. Sisco, Stewart, Diaz, Santander and too many pitchers to list. Most of those who have been used as starting pitchers have fallen short of even modest expectations and seem unlikely ever to be reliable pieces of a rotation. The pleasant surprises not named Cedric Mullins have been pretty minor.

I'm disappointed that Elias appears to be building a team that's not well suited to Camden Yards (and the AL East generally) in its present, home run-friendly configuration, and that nobody seems to consider or even mention whether that's the case.

Most of all. I'm disappointed in the fact that reasonable expectations for improving the team seem to be slip-sliding ever further away into the future. At one point, I had thought that some of the best Oriole prospects would be with the big club after the All-Star break. That seems unlikely. It looks like we'll be seeing in the second half the same cast of negative rWAR or low-rWAR characters (especially after Franco and Galvis return; I refuse to think about the possibility of Chris Davis coming off the IL). If a guy who's succeeded at Bowie or Norfolk isn't ready for MLB, he's not ready. But I would think there would be some guys who might be helped rather than hurt by promoting them, and that part of Elias's job is to assess who falls in that category and act accordingly. He doesn't seem to be doing that, instead deferring to a program of managing team's control of players -- even though that control is governed by a CBA that's about to expire. Even if the top prospects and some others turn out to be productive major leaguers, by the time they get that chance, adjust to the jump from the minors, and are surrounded by some competent veterans, it looks to me like we're talking about a better-than-.500 team in 2015 or so. I hope I'm wrong.

Thanks for asking.

 

[Aristotelian]

I hoped they would be better but didn't really expect anything. They have basically gone steadily backward since 2017 which was bad enough. Lost Bundy, Givens, Bleier, and Castro last year, Cobb and Iglesias this year. Galvis isn't enough to replace that production. I hoped Akin and Kremer would be better but that's about it.

[Three Run Homer]

Among the younger players, I've been pleasantly surprised by Mullins, Means and Urias.  Every other young player who has gotten playing time in Baltimore this season has been a disappointment.  Ryan Mountcastle has been trying to become a more disciplined hitter of late, but it's been established that he is limited to 1B and DH and his offense is a far cry from what he showed last season.  Hays shows occasional flashes but overall he can't stay healthy and he has not produced.  Santander was one of the O's best hitters last season, and came into the season being talked about as a potential trade chip, but he has shown even less durability and production than Hays.  Ryan McKenna and DJ Stewart have had opportunities but have failed to establish themselves as major league caliber hitters.  The catching has been abysmal.  Akin, Kremer, Lowther, Tate, Scott and Fry have all regressed.  

There's better news on the farm, but only at the AA level and below.  The only player or pitcher currently at Norfolk who has played well enough to merit a promotion to the majors is Jahmai Jones, and that's only with the bat--he apparently doesn't field well enough at 2B or OF to be promoted to Baltimore.  Kyle Bradish and Kevin Smith are having trouble adjusting to the major league ball, although at least they are pitching better than Akin, Lowther, Wells and Kremer at Norfolk.  We can probably expect a similar period of adjustment for Grayson Rodriguez when he is promoted from Bowie to Norfolk.  For the life of me I don't understand why MLB doesn't just use the same damn ball at all levels.  

[Morgan423]

This isn't the time to be disappointed.  Like others here have pointed out, we are not hitting these results after flipping the switch to Go Mode.  Yes, it's disappointing to not see some of the secondary pieces not step up and show that they are going to be on the next good team. 

Disappointment would be if we shift gears to compete, but then fail.  We're not there.

[Can_of_corn]

5 minutes ago, Morgan423 said:

This isn't the time to be disappointed.  Like others here have pointed out, we are not hitting these results after flipping the switch to Go Mode.  Yes, it's disappointing to not see some of the secondary pieces not step up and show that they are going to be on the next good team. 

Disappointment would be if we shift gears to compete, but then fail.  We're not there.

I'm disappointed he isn't using this season to get more young players ML playing time.

I'm disappointed that this deep into the rebuild he still isn't making a pretense of trying to win games.

I'm disappointed that ownership's chief motive appears to be slashing spending.

[Frobby]

I’m pretty disappointed.    I predicted 61-65 wins, which would be slightly less than last year’s 67.5 win pace.   Instead, we’re on pace for 51 wins.   So we’re about 10 games worse than I thought.    

Probably the bigger disappointment is the poor performance of Akin and Kremer and lack of forward progress from Lowther and Baumann.   We really needed at least some modest yield from that crop.    I’m still hoping at least one of those guys pulls it together, but at this point I’m not confident that will happen.