Orioles Cannot be Complacent -- Look at History

[baltfan]

Chicago White Sox (2021)

• won 93 games and made it to the playoffs
• Had Crochet, Kopech, and Vaughn in the minors at the beginning of the year on the brink
• young core of Moncada, Robert, Jiminez, Cease, Giolito, Rodon
• Set a record for losses in 2024

Toronto Blue Jays (2022)

•  92 wins made the playoffs
• Gabriel Moreno in the minors
• young core of Vlad, Bichette, Manoah, Kirk
• excellent late 20's, early 30's players - Gausman, Kikuchi, Chapman, Gurriel, Berrios
• Lost 88 games this year and look to be basically cooked. 

No one would have imagined that either of the above teams wouldn't be better now.  This can absolutely happen here if the Orioles aren't careful.  Bradish might not recover from TJ to be what he was.  G-Rod may be a #3 and not a #1.  Not every young prospect will pan out. 

The Rays are getting back McLanahan, Rasmussen, and Springs to be starters next year on top of Bradley, Pepiot, and Littel.

The Sox have 4 top 25 prospects including the Baseball America MILB player of the year who wasn't even ranked in the top 100 coming into this season.

In 1996, the Yankees got rid of Buck and brought in Torre.  The Cubs brought Madden in.  The Orioles need to shake things up and not be complacent.  

 

 

[Sports Guy]

Players win titles, not managers

[JR Oriole]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Players win titles, not managers

Different sport for sure, but Mark Richt was a really nice guy, very good coach, and very good recruiter. Yet UGA lost every big game they played in. Then they got Kirby and started winning big games, including back to back championships. They still have an Alabama problem, but kudos to UGA years ago for recognizing that sometimes to get over the top you need to change the top dog.  

And if it really is a case that managers don't have much value in baseball in terms of winning in the playoffs, then maybe our players are the problem.  We need more players like the Tigers have I suppose, while Hinch is just along for the ride.

[Sports Guy]

Just now, JR Oriole said:

Different sport for sure, but Mark Richt was a really nice guy, very good coach, and very good recruiter. Yet UGA lost every big game they played in. Then they got Kirby and started winning big games, including back to back championships. They still have an Alabama problem, but kudos to UGA years ago for recognizing that sometimes to get over the top you need to change the top dog.  

And if it really is a case that managers don't have much value in baseball in terms of winning in the playoffs, then maybe our players are the problem.  We need more players like the Tigers have I suppose, while Hinch is just along for the ride.

Can’t compare football and baseball.  Completely different.

[baltfan]

16 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Players win titles, not managers

So all managers are the same?  Doesn't matter who manages this club?  That won't affect the results?

[LGOrioles]

So what do they do this offseason? SP wise, you have Eflin and Rodriguez, with Kremer anchoring the back end of the rotation. Hopefully Bradish is back mid year, but you can’t rely on him. They need to get at least a TOR arm, maybe a number 4 type too. I feel pretty good about Povich starting out in the 5th spot based on his last month or so, but if they grab another reliable arm that’s fine. 

 

TOR

Eflin

Rodriguez

Kremer

Povich/Trade/FA

 

Depth: Suarez, Young, McDermott, Rogers, Bradish (hopefully), Minor League signings

 

For the pen, Bautista should be back but they should add another backend arm. I would let Soto or Perez walk and would lean towards keeping Soto. They both have control issues but Soto has better stuff and gets more K’s. The bullpen looks like they will be decent next year. 

 

Bautista

Coulombe 

*FA Signing/Trade*

Cano

Dominguez

Webb

Soto/Perez

Akin

 

Their lineup is extremely LH heavy right now and needs more balance. They likely need to add a starting caliber RHH OF, in addition to bringing back Slater or adding another RHH OF for the bench. Big questions IMO are:

 

Who do they bring back for 1B? I doubt they keep both O’Hearn and Mounty, but do they bring back at least one? O’Hearn adds another LHH you would need to platoon, but his skill set is much more needed than Mountcastle’s.

Do they integrate both Kjerstad and Mayo or is one traded? They both showed pretty awful Chase and whiff rates. The inability to make contact and have competitive AB’s (especially in important situations) plagued the offense, and while losing Santander and maybe Mountcastle helps some of that, Kjerstad and Mayo arguably completely cancel that out. Mayo also has no position and Kjerstad is awful defensively. They should both be DH’ing primarily and having both of them on the roster hurts their defense and severely limits their roster flexibility.

Do they keep both Urias and Mateo? If not, which one do they keep? Mateo’s speed and defense are more important in a bench role, but Urias is the backup 3B and much better suited to play every day in case of injury. If you get rid of Mateo, you lose a lot of speed and defense. If you lose Urias, you lose a good bench bat and potential everyday player in case of injury. Or you bring both back, which could put both Cowser and Mullins in everyday duty against LHP’s depending on who they have as their everyday RF. 

 

Rutschman

1B:

2B: Holliday

3B: Westburg

SS: Henderson

RF:

CF: Mullins

LF: Cowser

DH: Kjerstad/Mayo

 

Bench:

Backup C (Carson Kelly?)

RHH OF 

2 of Urias/Mateo/Kjerstad/Mayo

 

The pitching seems pretty straightforward. They need a 1/2 starter, maybe another back end guy, and a back end bullpen guy. The position players is where it will get interesting. They have a lot of good pieces in place and waiting in the wings, but it doesn’t fit together that well. 

[Sports Guy]

34 minutes ago, baltfan said:

So all managers are the same?  Doesn't matter who manages this club?  That won't affect the results?

For the most part, no.

The biggest thing a manager does is the culture they set and what they do off the field. 

By all accounts, the players like Hyde, the culture is good and the team is happy with him. Now, if there is something there that we don’t know about, by all means make the change. However,  if every report is true, I see no reason to make a change. That’s making a change just to make a change. I would rather focus on the on field than assume some ceremonial change at manager is going to matter.

Its been studied and we have talked about it a lot but in game strategy is so similar that its really only a game or two in terms of “manager WAR”.

 

[baltfan]

Honestly, they need to fix the right field wall too.  It is too ridiculous and screws with the right-handed hitters.  Move it in 10 feet and lower it a bit.

[LGOrioles]

9 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

For the most part, no.

The biggest thing a manager does is the culture they set and what they do off the field. 

By all accounts, the players like Hyde, the culture is good and the team is happy with him. Now, if there is something there that we don’t know about, by all means make the change. However,  if every report is true, I see no reason to make a change. That’s making a change just to make a change. I would rather focus on the on field than assume some ceremonial change at manager is going to matter.

Its been studied and we have talked about it a lot but in game strategy is so similar that its really only a game or two in terms of “manager WAR”.

 

Just because the players like him and each other doesn’t necessarily mean the culture is good though. They definitely loved each other in that clubhouse, but does a very talented team with a strong culture go winless in their 5 most important games over the last 2 seasons? Or completely unravel in seemingly every pressure situation? I would argue no.

After calming down a bit from the disappointment of the last 3 months, I feel pretty indifferent towards Hyde. If he’s gone, I think it’s because the team just mentally broke at some point and never recovered, and bringing in someone new would likely be a kick in the ass that their play got their well liked manager fired. If he’s back, I don’t have any concerns with him. 

[Aristotelian]

What does not complacent look like? Retool like the Rays or spend $300M on Burnes? 

[Grt 2BA FL Gator]

I’ve been basing my projections on what we have internally, and we still do have resources.

But I am totally comfortable with making some trades to balance out the ML roster. I still think we’re deep in position players, but swinging some trades for more proper defense or righthandedness has my full support.

I really just hope we unclog the log jam. This year was weird with the prospects we needed to trade away or find ABs for because they were done at AAA. I’d like to see us try to get most of that done in the offseason. 

[Otter]

32 minutes ago, baltfan said:

Honestly, they need to fix the right field wall too.  It is too ridiculous and screws with the right-handed hitters.  Move it in 10 feet and lower it a bit.

Even though I know the wall affects both teams, it took away the Westburg and Urias homers that would have completely changed both games.  Elias was right to move back the wall as it was too unfair to pitchers, but he went way overboard and now it's too unfair to hitters.

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, LGOrioles said:

Just because the players like him and each other doesn’t necessarily mean the culture is good though. They definitely loved each other in that clubhouse, but does a very talented team with a strong culture go winless in their 5 most important games over the last 2 seasons? Or completely unravel in seemingly every pressure situation? I would argue no.

After calming down a bit from the disappointment of the last 3 months, I feel pretty indifferent towards Hyde. If he’s gone, I think it’s because the team just mentally broke at some point and never recovered, and bringing in someone new would likely be a kick in the ass that their play got their well liked manager fired. If he’s back, I don’t have any concerns with him. 

Showalter had a 5 game playoff losing streak..by all accounts we had good culture under him.  

So many intelligent fans on here yet at the same time, I wonder how many have actually watched baseball for more than 5 minutes. 

Stuff happens. This team was ravaged by injuries and still found a way to 91 wins a playoff berth.

Im as disappointed as anyone. I really thought we would make a run. The problem is KC was an awful matchup for us. I have no question we beat the Yankees….but I hated the matchup of KC. 
 

The Os pitching was lights out. The BP did a good job yesterday. We got a great start from Burnes and Eflin was shaky yesterday but kept us in it. 
 

The offense definitely had some bad luck but they also had dumb approaches in key situations. It happens. In a short series, anything can happen and unfortunately, the Os have been on the short end of that.

Is that Hyde fault?  Are we really going to put that on him?  I think that’s absurd.

Edited 1 hour ago by Sports Guy

[Bemorewins]

16 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

What does not complacent look like? Retool like the Rays or spend $300M on Burnes? 

It’s not an either/or proposition. Yes they need to bring talent from the outside in order to supplement what they have. But no the Rays should not be the bar or model. They have never won anything and are not relevant in their own city (like the TB Lightning). That is the last set of outcomes that I want for the Baltimore Orioles.

[Bemorewins]

7 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Showalter had a 5 game playoff losing streak..by all accounts we had good culture under him.  

So many intelligent fans on here yet at the same time, I wonder how many have actually watched baseball for more than 5 minutes. 

Stuff happens. This team was ravaged by injuries and still found a way to 91 wins a playoff birth.

Im as disappointed as anyone. I really thought we would make a run. The problem is KC was an awful matchup for us. I have no question we beat the Yankees….but I hated the matchup of KC. 
 

The Os pitching was lights out. The BP did a good job yesterday. We got a great start from Burnes and Eflin was shaky yesterday but kept us in it. 
 

The offense definitely had some bad luck but they also had dumb approaches in key situations. It happens. In a short series, anything can happen and unfortunately, the Os have been on the short end of that.

Is that Hyde fault?  Are we really going to put that on him?  I think that’s absurd.

I’m not sure if anyone other than the Yanks were a “good matchup” for us in the AL.

I don’t think we matchup very well against the Tigers, Guardians, or Astros (given the regular season results against them). 

Our problem is that we were in a team wide almost 4 month long slump. We won what 5 series in the second half of the season? There were times this year where we were bludgeoned by mediocre to bad teams.