McKenna has himself a day

[HowAboutThat]

7 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Funny, I was trying to recall Endy Chavez’s name earlier today when thinking about McKenna.  Thing is, Chavez was a .672 OPS hitter.   That’s subpar, but not ridiculous for a really good defender.   McKenna is presently at .536.    That’s abysmal.   And yes, there will be times where his defense and baserunning will win you a game, but lack of offense loses a lot of games.    You really can’t carry a .536 OPS outfielder.   You just have to hope they are able to get their bat up to a non-embarrassing level.  That’s my hope for McKenna.   

Well I don’t disagree with anything you said. My feeling about McKenna is Similar to how I feel about Jonathan Villar. He’s a good player on a bad team. He was on the Astros, and when the Astros got better they sent him to the Brewers, and when the Brewers got better they sent him to the oriole, and we send him to wherever.

That’s why I never claimed that McKenna would be any kind of a centerpiece. He’s good for us now,, he may be good for us later,And if he’s not, we’ll send him where he is.

I will admit that I might be overvaluing Defense and speed, perhaps because it is so rare on this team.

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, Philip said:

Well I don’t disagree with anything you said. My feeling about McKenna is Similar to how I feel about Jonathan Villar. He’s a good player on a bad team. He was on the Astros, and when the Astros got better they sent him to the Brewers, and when the Brewers got better they sent him to the oriole, and we send him to wherever.

That’s why I never claimed that McKenna would be any kind of a centerpiece. He’s good for us now,, he may be good for us later,And if he’s not, we’ll send him where he is.

I will admit that I might be overvaluing Defense and speed, perhaps because it is so rare on this team.

It’s not the slowest Orioles team I can remember, by a long shot.   For whatever reason, team speed has rarely been an Orioles feature, except for 1973-74.  I guess the BRob/Patterson teams.

[Brian88]

3 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Ohhhh RZNJ, resident tough guy.  I’m shaking in my boots. 

Pretty funny how he used a small sample size to write off others negative opinion of McKenna and then used a small sample size to support his argument. 

[Can_of_corn]

4 hours ago, RZNJ said:

Hopefully, more objective posters can just look at the original posts when all I said that it's too soon to call McKenna only a 4th outfielder and that he had put up a .940 OPS at Norfolk.   I didn't try to mislead anyone.     Now that your Corn's butt boy I guess this is your new schtick.   LOL

WTH you bringing me into this for?

You might have a problem you need to get looked at.

[RZNJ]

33 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

WTH you bringing me into this for?

You might have a problem you need to get looked at.

How ironic.

 

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

WTH you bringing me into this for?

You might have a problem you need to get looked at.

 

1 hour ago, RZNJ said:

How ironic.

 

Seriously, stop.. 

[HowAboutThat]

7 hours ago, Frobby said:

Philip brought up David Lough.  2014 Lough was pretty valuable (1.5 rWAR) with a .694 OPS; 2015 Lough was useless (-0.2 rWAR) at .555 OPS.   If McKenna is going to have long term value he needs to be more like the former than the latter.   He’s managed to have positive value (0.6 rWAR) despite an OPS below Lough’s 2015 so far, but I wouldn’t expect that to be sustained if he doesn’t hit better.   

 

[canonfaz]

40 minutes ago, Philip said:

 

I never understood what people saw in Lough. He always seemed like a really good athlete that just didn't have very good baseball instincts.

 

Even on that play you posted, he takes a bad route/read at the beginning of it and makes up for it with his speed. Those 2014/2015 teams were one or 2 key players away from really competing for a World Series.

[HowAboutThat]

1 hour ago, canonfaz said:

I never understood what people saw in Lough. He always seemed like a really good athlete that just didn't have very good baseball instincts.

 

Even on that play you posted, he takes a bad route/read at the beginning of it and makes up for it with his speed. Those 2014/2015 teams were one or 2 key players away from really competing for a World Series.

On the contrary, I thought he was an outstanding defender. The only problem we had in 2014 was we ran into the Royals when they were on a hot streak. I really don’t think we did anything wrong against the Royals, they just were getting all the breaks.

[canonfaz]

2 minutes ago, Philip said:

On the contrary, I thought he was an outstanding defender. The only problem we had in 2014 was we ran into the Royals when they were on a hot streak. I really don’t think we did anything wrong against the Royals, they just were getting all the breaks.

You may be right, I'm just going from my memory on what I thought of Lough. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

3 minutes ago, Philip said:

On the contrary, I thought he was an outstanding defender. The only problem we had in 2014 was we ran into the Royals when they were on a hot streak. I really don’t think we did anything wrong against the Royals, they just were getting all the breaks.

The Royals were the worst possible matchup for the Orioles that year in the American League playoffs. The Royals had a very good defense, an offense that could grind out runs and a lights out bullpen. That's a recipe for success in October. 

I badly wanted the Angels to win in the ALDS against the Royals. There are no guarantees, but I'm confident the Orioles would have beaten the Angels in six games. 

 

[HowAboutThat]

50 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

The Royals were the worst possible matchup for the Orioles that year in the American League playoffs. The Royals had a very good defense, an offense that could grind out runs and a lights out bullpen. That's a recipe for success in October. 

I badly wanted the Angels to win in the ALDS against the Royals. There are no guarantees, but I'm confident the Orioles would have beaten the Angels in six games. 

 

The Royals were just on a roll, I fully expected them to win it all, I don’t think God and his angels could’ve beaten them that week

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, Philip said:

On the contrary, I thought he was an outstanding defender. The only problem we had in 2014 was we ran into the Royals when they were on a hot streak. I really don’t think we did anything wrong against the Royals, they just were getting all the breaks.

Lough was an outstanding defender.   He had two big issues.  First, he wasn’t a good hitter and hie hitting style didn’t utilize his speed at all.  I feel like he was forever hitting lazy fly balls to medium depth OF, never slashing it around or hitting grounders that he might beat out with his speed.    Second, for a guy who was very fast, he was a poor base stealer, swiping 10 bases while being thrown out 9 times as an Oriole.   He was worth -2 runs as a baserunner for the Orioles.   

As to the 2014 playoffs, he only had one AB in the ALDS and one more in the ALCS.   We lost that series because the guys who played and pitched regularly didn’t play as well as the Royals.   Simple as that.  
 

[Aristotelian]

Game winning slide on Sunday, walkoff base on balls on Wednesday. Solid week for McKenna!

[Ruzious]

10 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

Game winning slide on Sunday, walkoff base on balls on Wednesday. Solid week for McKenna!

And he came in the game as a pinch-hitter in the 8th - walked and scored the 6th run pulling us within a run.  Then comes in to play defense and gets the walkoff walk.  Doing just what you want from a 4th OFer.