The Royals

[MacAdoo]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I do find Elias' reticence when it comes to long term contracts most vexing.

I can’t fault Elias for not signing any free agents long term or giving out any off-season extensions given that JA owned the team essentially until the season began. And other than Gunnar, who would you be comfortable giving an in-season long term extension to?  
 

Will be very new and interesting to watch Elias’ approach with the new ownership. Personally, my priority one would be extending Gunnar. Give this team an identity for next decade. 

[clapdiddy]

I honestly think this team is passing it's "window".  I thought Burnes was the right move for this team and the time was ripe for a solid playoff/WS run.  

I still think there's a solid core with Henderson/Westburg/Cowser and hopefully Adley.   But, where is that ace going to come from?   Will the money be available to make the appropriate moves?   

 

[LookitsPuck]

8 hours ago, Baseball fandom said:

The Royals lost 106 games and 97 games in 2023 and 22 meanwhile those same years the Orioles have found success  but here we are the  Royals are already celebrating more playoff success then Baltimore has. It's  frustrating, pathetic and sad how bad this team has been in the playoffs. 10 straight loses is choking at its finest especially when you can make a case the Orioles were the more talented team during this stretch. Well maybe the Blue Jays were better the year they beat the Orioles. Maybe

I said it before, and I'll say it again. This Royals team is entirely a function of their starting pitching (Ragans, Lugo, Wacha, Singer) and their recent BP arm pickups/conversions (Erceg, Bubic, Lynch, etc.).

Their offense is basically Witt, Pasq, and Perez. I was pretty confident that the O's could shut them down going into this series, and they did. They only scored 3 runs. And none of their run scoring hits were all that amazing...if at all.

The issue, of course, was the offense. Was that because of the pitching? Personally I thought Ragans looked hittable. He pitched better than Lugo, but the O's came up tiny in RISP situations. Same as yesterday. Ragans and Lugo mostly pitched out of the zone, and the O's just were aggressive. So, in this regard, give the credit to the Royals scouts and analytics teams. They knew exactly how to pitch to Santander: up, up, up. They knew exactly how to pitch to Cowser: low changeups. They knew exactly how to pitch to everybody not named Cedric Mullins.

This Royals club is half decent, and if this O's club was the 2023 team, they shellack them. Alas, here we are.

Think the Yankees are going to railroad these guys if they aren't rusty. 

[glenn__davis]

Great SI article here:

https://www.si.com/mlb/baltimore-orioles-golden-generation-loses-luster-loss-kansas-city-royals

Quote

When it was over and the Baltimore Orioles were swept out of the playoffs for the second year in a row, their unofficial captain was not interested in litigating how it had happened. 

In the fifth inning of Wednesday’s Game 2 of the American League wild-card series, with the bases loaded, two outs and the score tied, the Orioles sent their franchise catcher to the plate. Adley Rutschman took two sinkers for balls. He watched a third down the middle. The next pitch was almost identical, and he swung, but late. Finally he bounced a meatball of a slider to shortstop to end the inning. 

Sums it up for me.  Royals didn't even pitch all that well.  We just royally (pardon the pun) sucked.

[Emory Eagle]

Another annoying piece is that most of these games vs the Royals in the postseason going back to 2014 were essentially coin flips. And they just keep winning the coin flip.

[Otter]

1 hour ago, MacAdoo said:

I can’t fault Elias for not signing any free agents long term or giving out any off-season extensions given that JA owned the team essentially until the season began. And other than Gunnar, who would you be comfortable giving an in-season long term extension to?  
 

Will be very new and interesting to watch Elias’ approach with the new ownership. Personally, my priority one would be extending Gunnar. Give this team an identity for next decade. 

I wonder if the ability to sign Gunnar to an extension has passed by this point.  Personally, I'd love them to sign Westburg to an extension.  I think his injury was the most impactful to team, and we can see he's one of the few players (if not the only one) who puts together professional at bats, cuts down his swing with two strikes, and appears to be cognizant of situational hitting.  He's a good athlete who should age well, and can play multiple positions competently.  He's a guy with a high floor but a high ceiling as well.  

[MacAdoo]

7 minutes ago, Otter said:

I wonder if the ability to sign Gunnar to an extension has passed by this point.  Personally, I'd love them to sign Westburg to an extension.  I think his injury was the most impactful to team, and we can see he's one of the few players (if not the only one) who puts together professional at bats, cuts down his swing with two strikes, and appears to be cognizant of situational hitting.  He's a good athlete who should age well, and can play multiple positions competently.  He's a guy with a high floor but a high ceiling as well.  

Totally agree. I’d have zero issue with signing Westburg long term. 

[MacAdoo]

10 minutes ago, Emory Eagle said:

Another annoying piece is that most of these games vs the Royals in the postseason going back to 2014 were essentially coin flips. And they just keep winning the coin flip.

Because little things like advancing runners and simply making contact with the baseball are way more often than not the difference between winning and losing in playoff baseball. So little separates the teams when you typically have elite and TOR starters on the mound along with high-leverage relievers for all 27 outs. There typically are few chances to score runs. The 2024 Orioles were simply abysmal at this. 

[Baseball fandom]

8 hours ago, Yossarian said:

I can no longer say the Orioles are more talented.   There is enough of a sample size out there to show who the Orioles are, and that is largely mediocre major league players with OPS within 10% od league average,  with Henderson being the exception.   They are an average team that rode a hot two months to a playoff spot and then scored 1 run in 18 innings.  

I can buy this. That is why I think it's important to see if a new manager and coaching staff can get more out of these guys.  This hitting was a colossal disappointment and I was preaching way back when how overrated they were so yes I can certainly see your perspective on this 

[Baseball fandom]

2 hours ago, MacAdoo said:

And don’t forget they have a bonafide superstar and annual MVP candidate that is signed for the next decade plus, too. 

I know oh the pain knowing he could of been an Oriole. I would trade Adley and Henderson straight up for Witt knowing how great a player he is and the added addition to him being signed for the next decade. 

[eddie83]

8 hours ago, Yossarian said:

I can no longer say the Orioles are more talented.   There is enough of a sample size out there to show who the Orioles are, and that is largely mediocre major league players with OPS within 10% od league average,  with Henderson being the exception.   They are an average team that rode a hot two months to a playoff spot and then scored 1 run in 18 innings.  

They are clearly more talented. That’s why they won more games with more significant injuries. Plenty of players over OPS+100 and that’s with slumps. 
 

This series was about the Orioles, not the Royals. 

[Uli2001]

9 hours ago, Baseball fandom said:

The Royals lost 106 games and 97 games in 2023 and 22 meanwhile those same years the Orioles have found success  but here we are the  Royals are already celebrating more playoff success then Baltimore has. It's  frustrating, pathetic and sad how bad this team has been in the playoffs. 10 straight loses is choking at its finest especially when you can make a case the Orioles were the more talented team during this stretch. Well maybe the Blue Jays were better the year they beat the Orioles. Maybe

To be fair, for this team it's a 5-game playoff loss streak. They had nothing to do with the previous 5 losses.

In 2014 they ran into a very talented and hot team in the ALCS. Last year, they lost to the eventual WS champions. In 2016 it was the Britton non-usage fiasco. Each one has their own set of circumstances.

We will see how far KC goes this year, but who's to say they aren't last year's Rangers? If they are, then I will say that the Orioles have been unlucky in whom they have drawn in the playoffs.

[glenn__davis]

1 minute ago, Uli2001 said:

To be fair, for this team it's a 5-game playoff loss streak. They had nothing to do with the previous 5 losses.

In 2014 they ran into a very talented and hot team in the ALCS. Last year, they lost to the eventual WS champions. In 2016 it was the Britton non-usage fiasco. Each one has their own set of circumstances.

We will see how far KC goes this year, but who's to say they aren't last year's Rangers? If they are, then I will say that the Orioles have been unlucky in whom they have drawn in the playoffs.

They aren't.  I'm confident in that.  I think that's why this one stings so much for me.  Sometimes you just run into hot teams in the playoffs, and it is what it is, but that wasn't the case here.

Again no sour grapes.  In 2014 I tipped my cap to the Royals.  Last year to the Rangers.

eddie83 said it perfectly, this series was all about us, not them.

[Emory Eagle]

24 minutes ago, MacAdoo said:

Because little things like advancing runners and simply making contact with the baseball are way more often than not the difference between winning and losing in playoff baseball. So little separates the teams when you typically have elite and TOR starters on the mound along with high-leverage relievers for all 27 outs. There typically are few chances to score runs. The 2024 Orioles were simply abysmal at this. 

I'm not sure that a high contact rate / low K rate offense is necessarily a recipe for success in the playoffs.  It can be I guess if you come out on the fortunate end of the BABIP random walk.  

[Baseball fandom]

1 minute ago, Uli2001 said:

To be fair, for this team it's a 5-game playoff loss streak. They had nothing to do with the previous 5 losses.

In 2014 they ran into a very talented and hot team in the ALCS. Last year, they lost to the eventual WS champions. In 2016 it was the Britton non-usage fiasco. Each one has their own set of circumstances.

We will see how far KC goes this year, but who's to say they aren't last year's Rangers? If they are, then I will say that the Orioles have been unlucky in whom they have drawn in the playoffs.

The thing is KC came into thing slumping badly as well.  It wasn't like they came into this rolling. I think the Orioles need to find another manager to see if he can get more out of this team than what Hyde has shown.