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Opinions that didn't age well: 2023


Greg Pappas

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  • Greg Pappas changed the title to Opinions that didn't age well: 2023

Three of my favorite ones this past year (but they weren't mine):

  1. Gunnar Henderson must be sent back to Norfolk
  2. Colton Cowser must be promoted to kickstart the offense, because we weren't winning enough games and Elias wasn't "trying to win"
  3. We'd go from ice cold at the end of the season and get hot during the one week break leading to the playoff series with Texas.

My big misses.....I didn't think Mateo could be so bad for so long hitting after his April performance, and I thought Jack Flaherty would actually help us.

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17 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think that more than a few people might want to check the opinion they expressed when we acquired Ryan O’Hearn.  Here’s mine:

 

I think we should all get a mulligan on O'Hearn.

That's a once a season type story there.

I'm pretty sure no one in the O's FO expected that level of performance.

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15 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I think we should all get a mulligan on O'Hearn.

That's a once a season type story there.

I'm pretty sure no one in the O's FO expected that level of performance.

That thread is hilarious.  I hated the move but saw it as depth.   I do think with his batted ball profiles they had a pretty good idea he’d produce.  Maybe not as much as he did, but I’m sure he didn’t outperform all their potential scenarios.  
 

2023 improvement definitely opened some eyes and created a lot of believers in the process.  Me included, I was on the fence.  
 

 

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Knowing all I know about JA and the Angelos family I defended JA's controlled interview and his characterized his actions as "sincere".   I continue to be schocked that someone in his position would be so inept in dealing with the media, to the extent ME has to publicaly rationalize his lack of media training.  

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1 hour ago, spleen1015 said:

I thought the team as a whole would regress from '22. I didn't think they improved much over the offseason and thought for sure they would end up under .500. I was about 25-30 games off. :D

I believe I had them around 85 wins give or take a few wins. Happy to be very wrong.

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49 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think that more than a few people might want to check the opinion they expressed when we acquired Ryan O’Hearn.  Here’s mine:

 

I will say it came on the heels of the Frazier signing so most were already riled up. I believe I noted that his EV and the lack of shift could help him, but I felt he was unneeded and too expensive to sit in AAA. 

Congrats on O'Hearn for proving us all wrong and Elias and crew right on this one. Not that this is what this thread is about, but his second half numbers last year do give me some pause moving forward this year with him. Still, he's pretty cheap depth to have.

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  • Posts

    • It's fine, but I would personally prefer having Cowser and Adley taking tons of pitches back-to-back before Gunnar further punishes the opposing starting pitcher with high exit velo barrels. 
    • I was going to say pretty much the same thing about Cowser in my post, but left out my thoughts to keep the post more Gunnar-centric. But I totally agree that Cowser fits the best as this team's leadoff hitter, especially since Holliday doesn't look like he's going to make an impact offensively as early as most of us thought heading into the season.  Going back to last season, I've said Cowser has the best mix of patience, hit tool, power, and speed to be a great leadoff hitter. The strikeouts are most likely always going to be high with him, but he has .380-.400+ OBP makeup, and having someone like that hitting leadoff with Adley and Gunnar hitting directly behind Cowser is going to set things up for an elite offense which is much more dynamic and less one-dimensional than the what we've seen up until this point. Cowser Adley Gunnar Westburg O'Hearn Santander Mountcastle Is an ideal top 7 against RHP for right now, with Kjerstad (replacing Hays) and Mayo (essentially replacing Mateo and bumping Westburg to 2B) making the lineup legitimately scary within the next couple months. Mullins and Hays need to be phased out, with Santander and Mountcastle not far behind if those two continue struggling and not reaching base enough to justify hitting in the middle of the order.
    • A lot of teams (likely driven by analytics) are putting their best overall hitter at 2 (like the Yankees batting Soto 2, and the Dodgers batting Shohei 2) to maximize ABs while guaranteeing that a high-OBP guy is batting in front of him to give him opportunities with men on base.  That's probably what we want.  It seems logical considering how thoroughly debunked small-ball in the first inning has been.  Rutschman at 3 is fine.
    • Realistically I think Adley as the leadoff guy is the best lineup for us but if he has trouble batting leadoff in half the games because he can't get his catcher's gear off fast enough then I get it.   Cowser has continued to be incredibly patient, and if Adley can't be our leadoff guy then Cowser is probably our next best option.  Of course Cowser also hits a lot of bombs, so it'd be interesting if he goes on another heater.   If Cowser gets off the schneid then Cowser leadoff and Gunnar at 2 could be incredibly potent.  I don't think Cowser is actually playing that badly, he's just been running into some bad luck.  And he's starting to wake up a little bit anyway.
    • Agreed, appreciate the stats. Gunnar isn't a leadoff hitter - he's a prototypical #3 hitter or cleanup hitter. Hyde writes poor lineups, and Gunnar hitting leadoff has been one of the consistent problems with the offense this season. Gunnar hitting mostly solo shots is both a consequence and reflection of this offense's flaws - the O's have too many low-OBP hitters in the lineup (hitting in less-than-optimal spots for the most part) and are too reliant on solo homers to generate runs. At least Hyde has started hitting Westburg leadoff against LHP, which is progress, but Hyde is way too stubborn and too slow to make the correct adjustments. He's very similar to Buck Showalter in that respect.  Anyway, I look forward to Hyde waking up and moving Gunnar down to #3/#4 against RHP.  
    • While the return on the Tettleton trade wasn't ideal, 1: I don't think you can really expect a 30 year old catcher to put up a career year and then follow it up with another one, and 2: we had Chris Hoiles who played quite well for us following Tettleton's departure.  If we had forward thinking GMs we probably would split them at C and give them DH/1B/OF games on their non catching days, which is what Detroit did with Tettleton to prolong his career after 1992.  (He was basically the same hitter from 1993-1995 but he stopped catching with regularity so his WAR was much lower.)   The Davis trade was so completely undefensible on every level, not the least of which because we already had a player who was at least as good as Davis was on the team, but he didn't fit the stereotypical batting profile of a 1B.  At least today teams wouldn't be so quick to dismiss a 10 HR first baseman if he's got an OBP of .400.
    • The Glenn Davis trade was so bad it overshadowed another really bad trade in team history. The Orioles traded Mickey Tettleton that same offseason for Jeff Robinson in part because Tettleton had an off year in 1990 with a .223 batting average and a .381 slugging percentage. Except Tettleton drew 116 walks making his OBP .376 and his OPS+ was 116. Jeff Robinson was coming off a 5.96 ERA in 145 innings pitched. I have no idea what the team was thinking with this trade. Robinson did manage to lower his ERA in 1991 to 5.18 his only Orioles season. There's no way this trade is made today in the age of analytics. Tettleton meanwhile put up 171 home runs and an .859 OPS for the remainder of his career. 😬 Just a bad trade that doesn't get talked about enough thanks to Glenn Davis.
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