USA Today Panel picks Orioles last in AL East

[Frobby]

13 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

You'd be incorrect.  If you give up as many runs as you score you should lose as many games as you win.  Also the run differential wasn't +1 even if you remove the game in question.

Let’s be clear.   The standard deviation on actual record/Pythagorean record is about 6 wins.  So, winning 4 more games than your Pythag isn’t a crazy wild result.  You just can’t expect it to be repeated.  

[Can_of_corn]

24 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Let’s be clear.   The standard deviation on actual record/Pythagorean record is about 6 wins.  So, winning 4 more games than your Pythag isn’t a crazy wild result.  You just can’t expect it to be repeated.  

Didn't say crazy wild.

I said is wasn't right in line.   I don't think right in line and within standard deviation mean the same thing.

[Jagwar]

If that scenario unfolds, I hope Santander and Mullins have great years so the O's get back some good prospects them at the trading deadline.

[Frobby]

29 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Didn't say crazy wild.

I said is wasn't right in line.   I don't think right in line and within standard deviation mean the same thing.

Just adding some context. 

[Moose Milligan]

I can see this team winning anywhere between 75 games and 88 games.  There's just so much unknown and that's what, I think, plays a part into people ranking them last...because it's easy to ding the unknown factor.  

If they won 75-78 games, how mad I am at the end of the season would revolve around how they got there.  I mean if Adley puts up an MVP level season and Gunnar wins ROY or finishes 2nd, am I going to be that mad?  If the bullpen regresses and blows leads but Kremer and Bradish turn into legit #2 pitchers, I don't know how upset I will be.  

It all depends on a lot of things, I suppose.  

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

12 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I can see this team winning anywhere between 75 games and 88 games.  There's just so much unknown and that's what, I think, plays a part into people ranking them last...because it's easy to ding the unknown factor.  

If they won 75-78 games, how mad I am at the end of the season would revolve around how they got there.  I mean if Adley puts up an MVP level season and Gunnar wins ROY or finishes 2nd, am I going to be that mad?  If the bullpen regresses and blows leads but Kremer and Bradish turn into legit #2 pitchers, I don't know how upset I will be.  

It all depends on a lot of things, I suppose.  

I don't think many of us were expecting an above .500 finish last season so minor fallback this season to a slightly below .500 record isn't out of the question  (especially with the lackluster off-season moves).

Like you mentioned of Adley does a Buster Posey MVP imitation, Grayson and Gunnar finish top three for AL ROY and let's say Mountcastle has a breakout season then I see this team being pretty damn good. Obviously there's a lot of moving parts to a baseball team that could end up bringing the O's off course in 2023.

The key things for me are the young players keep improving, more prospects get called up and a player like Mountcastle has a career year. I don't want to watch a 77 win team, but the most important thing for me is seeing the O's continue to trend in  the right direction for sustained success.

My biggest concern right now (besides ownership) is the bullpen and seeing if they end up losing winnable games this year.

Edited March 29, 2023 by OsFanSinceThe80s

[HakunaSakata]

I think the win / loss projection is pretty realistic, but at the same time it would be absolutely unforgivable if the O's finished behind the Red Sox this season. And in hindsight it's even more annoying that we didn't push more of our chips in during free agency given the fact that even the Yankees (due to pitching injuries) seem somewhat human. 

[Frobby]

11 minutes ago, HakunaSakata said:

I think the win / loss projection is pretty realistic, but at the same time it would be absolutely unforgivable if the O's finished behind the Red Sox this season. 

Why?  We don’t control how many games the Red Sox win.   They could surprise everyone and win 95+ (see 2013).   I just concern myself with how the O’s play.

[JR Oriole]

I don't mind the prediction.  Everyone is entitled to their opinion.  My expectation for the Os is they will make the playoffs.  I am not interested in excuses, free passes, mulligans, the MASN dispute, the disruption from COVID, the competitiveness of the division, our small market, the budgets, profits, moving the goalposts, predicting regression, or following the path of Houston (who actually made the playoffs in their "comparison" year of 2015 to our 2022). 

I love everything that we have done to date in terms of the farm system. But I am ready to see us in the playoffs and I expect us to be there....this year.  If it doesn't happen, so be it.  But I am done with having low expectations.  

[HakunaSakata]

12 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Why?  We don’t control how many games the Red Sox win.   They could surprise everyone and win 95+ (see 2013).   I just concern myself with how the O’s play.

So you don't look at the standings? Like ever? The point that I was making is that I think the O's are a significantly better team than the Red Sox, and to finish behind them would be less about what the Red Sox did and more about what the O's didn't do. 

[Billy F-Face3]

Let them hate. They picked the Orioles to lose over 100 games last season, and the Orioles nearly made the playoffs. Let it be a chip on the shoulder of players to prove them wrong again. Opinions are meaningless. You still have to play the games.

[emmett16]

I think these guys are so confident/bat S crazy/stubborn/awesome that they think they can beat the house.  Sig has been quoted before saying he doesn’t want to bring in any outside talent and wants to build everything.  Looks like that is the plan.  We will soon find out if they are crazy or not.  

[Ohfan67]

4 hours ago, deward said:

One year does not a rebuild make. And, like I said, last year was basically an accident; Elias did not go into 2022 with any intention of having a winning team. Let's wait and see how it looks when he's making a good faith effort to make the playoffs.

You said you wanted him to putting a winning team on the field. He did. And of course Elias deserves a ton of the credit for last year. The bullpen was the strongest part of the club and Elias built most of the bullpen with a series of low key moves involving players that almost none of us knew.  One of the players that Elias drafted was runner up in the AL Rookie of the Year voting. Another player from the same draft came up late in the year and injected more life and talent into the club. Elias and his staff did a lot of things right last year. They made mistakes, but I don't think we should let those mistakes and the boring offseason ruin the enjoyment of last year and ignore the real progress that the team and especially the organization has made. It is not all gloom and doom. Heck, they won 83 games without even trying. Just think what Elias will do when he is "making a good faith effort to make the playoffs."

 

One year does not a rebuild make? I think that is exactly what Elias would tell us. And of course the Orioles rebuild is very much built for the long-term, not the short-term. They apparently barely have two nickels to rub together, so the team that we really want to see is going to primarily come from within. That's going to take a lot longer than you, me, and most of the fans want, but that's the way it is. 

 

Hopefully the team gets off to a hot start and we can all go back to day dreaming about better times for the Os...and especially for us fans. 

[sevastras]

No chance the Orioles finish behind the Redsox. But…. National media never believe in the Orioles. 

[24fps]

At 76.5 I'll take the over on the O's and pass on betting their place in the standings.  While I'm pretty upset with this past off season, I'm not quite ready to grab a pitchfork.  Given that Westburg and Cowser and several others could all be ready to contribute soon, Elias should have a fair amount of flexibility at the trade deadline.  Was that his strategy all along?  Beats the heck out of me, but if that's the case and we sit and watch another failure to launch (liftoff v2.0 anyone?) then most of the goodwill I have toward him evaporates overnight. 

Bottom line?  The 2022 O's earned a bigger investment than they've received so far but it's not too late to fix it.

Edited March 30, 2023 by 24fps