Surprise! Eaton getting rocked

[JTrea81]

That's not what i asked...What do you think the difference in team wins will be with Wolf vs whatever else we out out there in his place?

I know you don't think it is 8 wins because that is beyond absurd.

So, what do you think our record is going to be this year and what do you think it would be with Wolf?

Beyond absurd? Wolf won at least 10 games per season when healthy like he appears to be now. Eaton has been pitching batting practice for the last three seasons and now he's in the AL East.

As I said, I don't want Wolf to contend necessarily, I want him as a decent starter that will save the bullpen. That is what is important to me. For example, if we lose Walker and Sherrill to injuries before the deadline, we won't be able to trade them now will we?

Right now with our craptacular rotation, I see a repeat of 2008 only worse as Trembley will have the bullpen pitch 4-5 innings a game...

[LookitsPuck]

In the AL, I think Wolf might win 10 games. Eaton I think will pick up 6-8 wins this season. The difference is negligible, IMHO, especially taking into account the money and possible contract. No thanks. Eaton is a placeholder for the younger fellas.

[Sports Guy]

Beyond absurd? Wolf won at least 10 games per season when healthy like he appears to be now. Eaton has been pitching batting practice for the last three seasons.

As I said, I don't want Wolf to contend necessarily, I want him as a decent starter that will save the bullpen. That is what is important to me. For example, if we lose Walker and Sherrill to injuries for example before the deadline, we won't be able to trade them now will we?

Right now with our craptacular rotation, I see a repeat of 2008 only worse as Trembley will have the bullpen pitch 4-5 innings a game...

Yes, beyond absurd...Who cares how many games he has won...You just don't understand it.

The difference between Pujols and a replacement level first baseman is like 8 or 9 wins.

Are you telling me you think Wolf is on the same level of Pujols?

[Frobby]

Yes, beyond absurd...Who cares how many games he has won...You just don't understand it.

The difference between Pujols and a replacement level first baseman is like 8 or 9 wins.

Are you telling me you think Wolf is on the same level of Pujols?

Obviously nobody thinks that. But it is also true that the sabermetric attempts to convert hitting or fielding or pitching statistics into "wins" has little to do with whether a team would win more games with one pitcher than another. In real life, not all runs or all plays are created equal. So it's entirely possible that a player worth , say 5 "wins" from a sabermetric point of view, compared to a player worth 2 wins, might end up being worth more than 3 extra wins on a particular team in a particular situation. (Or, he could end up being worth less.)

[Sports Guy]

Obviously nobody thinks that. But it is also true that the sabermetric attempts to convert hitting or fielding or pitching statistics into "wins" has little to do with whether a team would win more games with one pitcher than another. In real life, not all runs or all plays are created equal. So it's entirely possible that a player worth , say 5 "wins" from a sabermetric point of view, compared to a player worth 2 wins, might end up being worth more than 3 extra wins on a particular team in a particular situation. (Or, he could end up being worth less.)

I think Jtrea does.

[SilentJames]

Lord...a retraction here.

"Derek Lowe has more ability in his pinkie than any of those veteran re-treads..." blah, blah, blah.

Sheesh.

If Garland is DECLINING, what on earth are Eaton and Hendrickson doing?

Garland has made 32 or more starts every since '02. His career ERA remains under the league average. He's a decent, proven major league pitcher. He's not Greg Maddux. But he sure as hell ain't Eaton or Hendrickson either. Not by a longshot.

I wouldn't have paid Derek Lowe $60 million either. Evidently, according to Andy - on the one occasion this off-season that he talked to me before a team PR lackey reminded him that was against club policy - he never even mentioned money. He mentioned "age demographic", remember.

Putting Omar Daal in the same sentence as Derek Lowe and Jon Garland is further proof you'll write anything to support your position that the team is selling everyone a horse***t product and expecting you to buy into it because - ta da - "it's part of the plan..."

Omar Daal...please.

So, what's the answer?

What's the answer to the question: "What is the fan base supposed to do for the next two years while we all wait for the team to get good?"

Spend money and go to the games anyway?

Or, like the team is doing, should we all just wait until the team gets good again and then start spending money?

What's the answer?

Not my rules, those are board rules that ask us to keep it relatively clean around here. I know that my be hard for you, trust me I wish it were relaxed more as well.

Just saying, you find the classiest way to state your opinion.

As for the "declining" guys. Eaton and Hendrickson are certainly declining, but they are guys that can be DUMPED AT A MOMENTS NOTICE. While the declining guys you want us to bring in we would be stuck with for the next two - three years.

Why can't you understand why that is bad. Omar Daal was a bad contract, giving Lowe the deal he got would have been a BAD contract. It doesn't matter how good the middling talent is, and Derek Lowe is middling talent when you consider the division he plays in, a bad contract is a bad contract.

What this situation gives us is flexibility, when Hendrickson and Eaton stink it up we can dump them without having to find a trade partner and bring up whomever we want be it Patton, Tillman, Arrieta, Bergesen, Hernandez - whoever.

Plus, there is no guarantee that Eaton makes the team. The fact that Penn is still here means that it will probably be he and Hendrickson in the rotation then hill in the middle of April and Bergesen replaces the first one of those three to flame out.

Why is this beyond you? How is giving Jon Garland, a guy who is declining and has been for the last three seasons a three-four year deal help us now or in the future?

Yes "age demographic" for Lowe is a Problem, he will be 36 this year! And he wanted a four year deal! That means at the end of it he will be 40. You think Derek Lowe is a Maddox, Johnson, Schilling-esqu pitcher? Do you get that he was declining then ran to the worst division in baseball and extended his career by pitching in VERY friendly conditions against some of the worst offenses in the league?

The fact that last year, away from Chavez Ravine, Lowe's ERA was more than two runs HIGHER than at home (pitcher friendly park)

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/psplit.cgi?n1=lowede01&year=2008

Out of Chavez Ravine Lowe's opponents were batting almost .300 against him (.292)!

If you genuinely think giving Lowe the type of contract he wanted to play in Camden Yards (which gave up more homeruns than any park in the majors last year) you fall into one of the following three categories:

1) You have no idea what you are talking about

2) Have not done any research other than a cursory glance at ESPN.com

3) Are grasping at straws to make a point that has no basis in reality

[Hank Scorpio]

Eaton's gonna make this team.

I think it's a given at this point.

[Nigel Tufnel]

This thread reminds me of something I read in the new Bill James Goldmine.

He was talking about the difference between a sabermatrician and a sportswriter, and his theory is that they do the exact same thing, except for one important difference. The sportswriter tends to start with a position, while the sabermatrician starts with a question.

That ends up being an important distinction, because if you start with a position, you have to defend it. So you emphasize the facts that support your argument, and ignore or minimize anything that opposes it. On the other hand, if you start with a question, you have to give equal consideration to all facts. Over time, starting with a question will add to your knowledge; if you're only trying to defend a position, you just go around in circles.

I'd like to think that the Hangout is here for us to examine questions, and add to each other's knowledge. And that's exactly what most of the best posters here do. It's the posters like Drew and a few others, who so obviously have an inflexible mindset (Drew: the O's stink; others: should have signed Tex and/or vet pitching, the O's of my youth were the best ever) from which all of their posts seem to originate, who end up frustrating everyone.

And the funny thing is, they might actually be right. It's just their insistance on defending, rather than considering, that I think is the problem.

I know I'm new around here, so I didn't mean to offend anyone with this post. If I did, I definitely apologize.

[DrungoHazewood]

This thread reminds me of something I read in the new Bill James Goldmine.

He was talking about the difference between a sabermatrician and a sportswriter, and his theory is that they do the exact same thing, except for one important difference. The sportswriter tends to start with a position, while the sabermatrician starts with a question.

That ends up being an important distinction, because if you start with a position, you have to defend it. So you emphasize the facts that support your argument, and ignore or minimize anything that opposes it. On the other hand, if you start with a question, you have to give equal consideration to all facts. Over time, starting with a question will add to your knowledge; if you're only trying to defend a position, you just go around in circles.

I'd like to think that the Hangout is here for us to examine questions, and add to each other's knowledge. And that's exactly what most of the best posters here do. It's the posters like Drew and a few others, who so obviously have an inflexible mindset (Drew: the O's stink; others: should have signed Tex and/or vet pitching, the O's of my youth were the best ever) from which all of their posts seem to originate, who end up frustrating everyone.

And the funny thing is, they might actually be right. It's just their insistance on defending, rather than considering, that I think is the problem.

I know I'm new around here, so I didn't mean to offend anyone with this post. If I did, I definitely apologize.

I think almost all of us are partly in both camps. Even the best sabermatrician can't help but have his gut make an instant judgment, and sometimes it's hard or inconvienent to have your brain scrutinize your gut's opinion.

[RShack]

This thread reminds me of something I read in the new Bill James Goldmine.

He was talking about the difference between a sabermatrician and a sportswriter, and his theory is that they do the exact same thing, except for one important difference. The sportswriter tends to start with a position, while the sabermatrician starts with a question.

That's what *good* saber guys do. And IMO that's the single best thing about Bill James: it's exactly what he does. However, not all folks who delve into stats do that. IMO, the main reason is that it's just a very hard thing to do. It's not as simple as having numbers and using a PC to slice-and-dice them. Rather, it requires a special research kind of mind to be able to ask the interesting question and then figure out how stats can help illuminate it. It's a non-trivial ability, and is far from normal. As with any field of research, good saber researchers are rare. In any field, most researchers mainly "re-search" data by formula, which is way different than doing research that answers significant questions. This is true in every field, not just re: saber stuff.

[SrMeowMeow]

Obviously nobody thinks that. But it is also true that the sabermetric attempts to convert hitting or fielding or pitching statistics into "wins" has little to do with whether a team would win more games with one pitcher than another. In real life, not all runs or all plays are created equal. So it's entirely possible that a player worth , say 5 "wins" from a sabermetric point of view, compared to a player worth 2 wins, might end up being worth more than 3 extra wins on a particular team in a particular situation. (Or, he could end up being worth less.)

I actually disagree pretty thoroughly, considering the context of the argument. While whatever sabermetric win calculation you look at may not be accurate, and while obviously in practice not every hit/play/at-bat is equal in terms of actual individual wins, looking at wins added in terms of wins in the context of win/loss records as JTrea is doing is incredibly ignorant.

[JTrea81]

I actually disagree pretty thoroughly, considering the context of the argument. While whatever sabermetric win calculation you look at may not be accurate, and while obviously in practice not every hit/play/at-bat is equal in terms of actual individual wins, looking at wins added in terms of wins in the context of win/loss records as JTrea is doing is incredibly ignorant.

It's not just wins, but QS as well. Wolf had 18 QS last season out of 33. That's 18 games when he pitched 6 innngs or more and gave up 3 runs or less.

Had we signed Moyer, we would have had another 19 QS performer on our team.

And Braden Looper had 15 QS last season out of 33. So if we had signed two of those players there's 33-37 games and then you add Jeremy Guthrie's 19 out of 30 and you have 52-56 good chances for the Orioles to win by the first three members of their rotation.

Last year Baltimore only got 60 QS out of their entire pitching staff only better than Texas' 54. The Rays and Red Sox got 82 each so around 80-85 should be our goal...

As for our retreads, Adam Eaton had 10 out of 19 last season and Hendrickson had 4 out of 19.

Now the Eaton figure shocked me a little, so maybe there is some hope there... But Hendrickson is just a horrible choice for the rotation no matter how you look at it. Had we signed Wolf I think we could have got 15 QS out of him at least and possibly more considering he got better as his arm strength returned. Uehara and Hill hopefully could provide 12-15 each.

So I guess as long as Uehara and Hill are productive, this won't be a terrible rotation even if Eaton is in it. But if Hendrickson has to be put in at all for whatever reason, look out. Still a pitcher like Wolf or Moyer could have got 15-17 QS or more in most likely with less question marks unlike Hill and Uehara who could realistically only combine for 20 depending on health/performance.

Right now we are looking at about 70 QS for our rotation as it consists now if everyone performs to potential and like last season...

[df1570]

Not my rules, those are board rules that ask us to keep it relatively clean around here. I know that my be hard for you, trust me I wish it were relaxed more as well.

Just saying, you find the classiest way to state your opinion.

As for the "declining" guys. Eaton and Hendrickson are certainly declining, but they are guys that can be DUMPED AT A MOMENTS NOTICE. While the declining guys you want us to bring in we would be stuck with for the next two - three years.

Why can't you understand why that is bad. Omar Daal was a bad contract, giving Lowe the deal he got would have been a BAD contract. It doesn't matter how good the middling talent is, and Derek Lowe is middling talent when you consider the division he plays in, a bad contract is a bad contract.

What this situation gives us is flexibility, when Hendrickson and Eaton stink it up we can dump them without having to find a trade partner and bring up whomever we want be it Patton, Tillman, Arrieta, Bergesen, Hernandez - whoever.

Plus, there is no guarantee that Eaton makes the team. The fact that Penn is still here means that it will probably be he and Hendrickson in the rotation then hill in the middle of April and Bergesen replaces the first one of those three to flame out.

Why is this beyond you? How is giving Jon Garland, a guy who is declining and has been for the last three seasons a three-four year deal help us now or in the future?

Yes "age demographic" for Lowe is a Problem, he will be 36 this year! And he wanted a four year deal! That means at the end of it he will be 40. You think Derek Lowe is a Maddox, Johnson, Schilling-esqu pitcher? Do you get that he was declining then ran to the worst division in baseball and extended his career by pitching in VERY friendly conditions against some of the worst offenses in the league?

The fact that last year, away from Chavez Ravine, Lowe's ERA was more than two runs HIGHER than at home (pitcher friendly park)

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/psplit.cgi?n1=lowede01&year=2008

Out of Chavez Ravine Lowe's opponents were batting almost .300 against him (.292)!

If you genuinely think giving Lowe the type of contract he wanted to play in Camden Yards (which gave up more homeruns than any park in the majors last year) you fall into one of the following three categories:

1) You have no idea what you are talking about

2) Have not done any research other than a cursory glance at ESPN.com

3) Are grasping at straws to make a point that has no basis in reality

You don't read very well. Or else, you're just combative to be combative.

I wrote - today, in fact - that I wouldn't have given Lowe $60 million. So going on and on about that is kind of senseless because I wouldn't have given him $60 million. That said, I don't run the Orioles. MacPhail does. Someone in Atlanta felt him worthy of $60 million. As you all like to say, "they're the baseball people -- they must know what they're doing."

I never even got to discuss Lowe's situation with Andy when I brought it up in person. His face turned gray when he realized it was me and he mumbled the "age demographic" line and scurried over to the soda table where he remained under the protective eye of one of the team's PR folks.

I would have pressed him though for the REAL answer. "Did you want Lowe but was he too expensive?" Or, "Did you have no interest in him at all...think he doesn't have it any longer no matter what the cost?" Or, "Did you contact him but the combination of age and price was too much?"

Obviously, I didn't get to ask that because he's under an order from the higher-ups to not speak with me. That does the fans a lot of good -- those seeking to hear the club explain how and why they make decisions about personnel that the fans bankroll by going to the games.

Who knows, if on day one of free agency the O's would have courted Lowe and offered him 3 yrs for $32 mm, he might have taken it. I have no idea. No one does. He may have wanted to go to Atlanta all along.

We'll never know the answers because the team doesn't field any tough questions and certainly won't answer them.

The same questions apply for Garland, essentially. "Why not?" in other words.

Further proof you don't read: I never said give Garland 3-4 years...for a "declining pitcher". He got ONE year from Arizona. Did Andy offer him 2 years and $15mm for his services? That's what I suggested. I think that would have been fair. He'll have a better resume and record in 20 starts with the D'Backs than Hendrickson, Hill and Eaton combined. That is, if Hill ever gets to pitch.

Ultimately, this isn't really even about Lowe and Garland -- those are just two names I threw out there because they do have quality. Far, far more quality than anyone we're trotting out there this year with the possible of 17-career-wins Guthrie. Throw out any other two names you want and bring them in, as long as they can get people out and aren't giving up three home runs in one inning or have an ERA of 6.59 by mid June.

You can bet your (rear end) Derek Lowe and/or Jon Garland wouldn't have a 6.59 ERA after 12 starts this year, I don't care if they pitch in Ripken Stadium.

So, it's not about names of pitchers.

It's about the team's decision to put the entire franchise and the fan base on hold for one, two or three years -- or however long it takes for these rock star young pitchers to come up, get acclimated and start getting people out on a regular basis in games that matter.

What's everyone supposed to do until 2011 when these kids come up and become Steven Tyler, Robert Plant and Steve Perry? Is everyone just supposed to flock out to the ballpark to watch the team go 60-102? And enjoy it...because they get a free t-shirt or a bobblehead or a free ticket on their birthday?

They could have signed a couple of pitchers in the off-season - of quality (yes, they would have cost money...they have PLENTY of it...that's why they started the TV network, remember?) - to bridge the gap between now and rock-star-arrival just so the team is semi-competitive and the fans somewhat get their money's worth.

Instead, this COULD be a train wreck if the starting pitching collapses and it didn't have to be this way. The fans deserve better. That's probably my whole point. The fans deserve better. MUCH better, in fact.

So the real issue remains THIS: What should the fans do this season? SJ, you - despite some of your reading issues - strike me as a very smart guy. Explain to me why the fans should go out and support the team with their money when you take into consideration the following: not bringing your best 25 guys to the majors in April -- signing these turd re-treads -- giving your left field job away to a guy without as much as a try-out and, most importantly, essentially admitting you've been jaking it throughout the last couple of off-seasons as it relates to improving the team, instead leaning on this gem: "When the team starts to get good, then we'll improve it by spending the people's money we've been taking for the last few years."

If your answer is, simply, "yes, the fans should go to the games and support the team" -- then just say that. It's an acceptable answer.

[McNulty]

Is three hours a day not enough of a platform to grind your ax?

[BaltimoreTerp]

What's everyone supposed to do until 2011 ...

Epic fail in comprehension.