Hang on just a little bit longer....

[NashLumber]

6 hours ago, Frobby said:

There’s plenty of reasons the record could be worse next year.  For one thing, the O’s are three games over their Pythagorean record.  Second, the bullpen is full of guys having career years.  Reverting back below the league leading save percentage will drop some wins.  Third, the team has had almost zero position player injuries.  And, we certainly have starters who could regress.  

I shared this over the weekend on OH elsewhere, but it gets into how the Giants had an even more dramatic regression, ie. 107 wins last year to sub .500 this year. It can definitely happen to the O's. I don't want it to happen, of course. 

 

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/34549809/why-san-francisco-giants-gone-107-wins-sub-500

[JR Oriole]

I consider what happened to the Giants this year to be water finding its level.  That team won 107 games last year with about 80 win talent on the roster.  The amount of guys overachieving on that team was remarkable and it seemed like every night some scrub would come up with a clutch hit to win them the game.  They beat the Dodgers out of the division by 1 game and I am not sure they would have had more than 2 players that could have started for the Dodgers.  So where they are now looks about right.  

[glenn__davis]

54 minutes ago, JR Oriole said:

I consider what happened to the Giants this year to be water finding its level.  That team won 107 games last year with about 80 win talent on the roster.  The amount of guys overachieving on that team was remarkable and it seemed like every night some scrub would come up with a clutch hit to win them the game.  They beat the Dodgers out of the division by 1 game and I am not sure they would have had more than 2 players that could have started for the Dodgers.  So where they are now looks about right.  

I would agree with this.

The positive thing for the Orioles moving forward is that offensively you don't really have anyone having a "career year", similar to Mullins last year.  I think there's a decent chance you could run back the exact same offense next year (with Adley and Gunnar) and get significantly better results.  Of course I hope they don't do that and look to supplement and improve the position players.

On the other hand I fully expect the pitching to regress at least a bit, and the bullpen in particular.

I think a lot of the bones of a very good team are there, now we'll see if Elias can complete the job.

 

[Moose Milligan]

18 hours ago, SteveA said:

We had 3 chances at Toronto... and we blew the first one.   Badly.

Since we have 6 games left with Toronto, we are technically not at the point yet where we HAVE to depend on other teams.   Win all 6 and we catch the Jays.   That's a big ask of course, and very unlikely.  But we are not yet officially at the point where we are dependent on other teams.   We probably  will be after Sunday, barring a great sequence of events in the next few days.

While Labor Day, or last Saturday, or Sunday seemed to be the last straw for most people on the Hangout, I think the Orioles braintrust is going to stay in what they consider "compete mode" through the trip to Toronto, which means through Sunday.   If we haven't significantly closed the gap by then, you might see them do things that look more to the future than to trying to win this year.   But I don't think they have made that mental leap yet like most around here have.

It’s funny to me that you have to explain…well, magic….to someone with the user handle @OriolesMagic83

[emmett16]

It would have been boring if we strolled into the playoffs 3 or 4 games ahead….

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

14 minutes ago, emmett16 said:

It would have been boring if we strolled into the playoffs 3 or 4 games ahead….

Teams that clinch playoff spots earlier can sometimes be flat once the playoffs start. Won't be any danger of that with this Orioles team. 

Plus, I'm hoping the team's secret weapon Grayson Rodriguez makes his debut before the season ends. 

Edited September 15, 2022 by OsFanSinceThe80s

[emmett16]

Just now, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

Teams that clinch playoff spots earlier can sometimes be flat once the playoffs start. Won't be any danger of that with this Orioles teams. 

Plus, I'm hoping the team's secret weapon Grayson Rodriguez makes his debut before the season ends. 

It’s been a while since we’ve “played well”.  Last 20 games would be a hell of a time to go on a run.  

[OriolesMagic83]

On 9/14/2022 at 10:12 AM, Moose Milligan said:

It’s funny to me that you have to explain…well, magic….to someone with the user handle @OriolesMagic83

How did that magic work today?

[Can_of_corn]

On 9/14/2022 at 8:45 AM, NashLumber said:

I shared this over the weekend on OH elsewhere, but it gets into how the Giants had an even more dramatic regression, ie. 107 wins last year to sub .500 this year. It can definitely happen to the O's. I don't want it to happen, of course. 

 

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/34549809/why-san-francisco-giants-gone-107-wins-sub-500

Tigers went 77-85 last year and folks were excited about their rebuild.  They bought in the offseason.

Currently 55-89.

[NashLumber]

12 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Tigers went 77-85 last year and folks were excited about their rebuild.  They bought in the offseason.

Currently 55-89.

Oops.

[Moose Milligan]

31 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

How did that magic work today?

Yikes.

[sportsfan8703]

We’re alright. Westburg should be on the OD roster. So will GR. Cowser is right behind them. Gunnar and Adley are beasts. Idk what to do with Mullins, Santander, Mountcastle, Mateo, and Hays. Gotta keep some of them. 

[Uli2001]

On 9/12/2022 at 2:51 PM, Gurgi said:

Its over.   Elias probably did the right thing by dumping Mancini and Lopez but it hurt.  But what really hurt is he did nothing to improve the team after the trades.   Not bringing up propects just for clock reasons.  We way over played ourselves and looked for a moment like we could get a wild card spot.  But Elias never had that in the plans.  If we were going to get in it would be in spite of the front office.  

It was a fun ride but its over.   Funny thing is next year we could be worse than this year.  Much like the 90 Orioles were a big empty compared to 89.  All it would take is for several of our shock over performing starters to have a crap year.  Throw in some bullpen problems and its quite possible next year the Orioles will be worse.   You never know.  

Definitely. That's why they should have gone for it this year. You never know.

[Chaka Garcia]

It seems we are ok with position players. The pitching is a deep concern - don’t see who we could sign or trade for that’s better than Lyles. As I see it - pitching is a scarcity and we are fighting every other team to find that resource.

[tntoriole]

1 hour ago, Chaka Garcia said:

It seems we are ok with position players. The pitching is a deep concern - don’t see who we could sign or trade for that’s better than Lyles. As I see it - pitching is a scarcity and we are fighting every other team to find that resource.

We can but may not. Grayson will likely be better than Lyles even as a rookie. The real question is whether Hall, Bradish, Kremer, Wells, Voth can progress a bit more .. or regress.. i obviously think DL can be much better than he showed and the next three  can likely  be even better than this year .. Voth i think is likely to regress

A productive veteran bat is really most important to me.. a 2014 Nelson Cruz realllly sent that team smoking.