Elias: It's on me

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, Orioles West said:

All the unhappiness expressed by O’s fans here over the last few days — that’s from unmet expectations. I think the 101 wins from the year before made most Baltimore fans expect more this season. 

I definitely didn’t anticipate another winless, quick departure from the post-season. 

As for the Elias post-mortem, I thought it was some industry speak and yet, I do believe him when he says they are going to take a hard look at the things not going well (and hopefully that means adding pitchers and better pitcher development and finding an old school playbook on small ball to move runners once in a while).

Mind you I don't live in Maryland so I don't have a pulse on the State or the city of Baltimore.

Is what I see at the OH actually representational of the average fan?  My inclination is to think it isn't. 

 

As to your other point, I'm sure they have an AAR at the conclusion of every season.

My guess is the underlying numbers that they base things off of don't change much and they just tweak a few things.

Edited 4 hours ago by Can_of_corn

[waroriole]

Refsnyder is another guy to look at as a RH OF. He mashed LHP last year too. 

[Orioles West]

10 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Mind you I don't live in Maryland so I don't have a pulse on the State or the city of Baltimore.

Is what I see at the OH actually representational of the average fan?  My inclination is to think it isn't. 

 

As to your other point, I'm sure they have an AAR at the conclusion of every season.

My guess is the underlying numbers that they base things off of don't change much and they just tweak a few things.

I don’t live in Maryland either, but I still have family that are there and most of them are more into the Ravens, yet they send me O’s stuff all the time — which really isn’t a great pulse for O’s fan expectations. I think from the time I lived there until now (which is a few decades), Baltimore is definitely more of a football town. Maybe my family does reflect the times?

As for OH and representation, that’s a fascinating question.

To me, the OH feels like the place is generally a group of the hardcore of the hardcore baseball fans, with some part timers mixed in. The differences tend to break on personality types (cynics, optimists, realists — and a handful of comedians).

If Elias only tweaks a couple things and doesn’t make any fundamental changes (like maybe drafting more pitchers) or pretending nothing can be done about RISP — then any glow about the rebuild will truly fade, at least in my house. 

[DirtyBird]

All the talk about facing LH pitchers and needing RH bats to match up - I think it’s a bit overblown.

Our approach was terrible and our guys failed to play team baseball just as much against RHP w/ platoon advantage.

Guys just consistently failed to do their job.

[JR Oriole]

15 minutes ago, DirtyBird said:

All the talk about facing LH pitchers and needing RH bats to match up - I think it’s a bit overblown.

Our approach was terrible and our guys failed to play team baseball just as much against RHP w/ platoon advantage.

Guys just consistently failed to do their job.

This.  Baseball is a game of failure, but my goodness these guys went above and beyond in that department. Productive outs shouldn't be that hard.  Watch Witt in the first inning of Game 2. 

And while the two playoff games perfectly told the story of the 2024 Orioles offense, I am hopeful that national stage embarrassment provides a real learning experience and motivation for fixing what is wrong with them.  As much as I am sure it hurts to watch your own hand being broken, Cowser should be watching that AB every single day from now until next October. Same thing with Adley channeling his inner Chris Davis and staring at that 2-0 meatball like he has never seen a major league pitch before.  

[Grt 2BA FL Gator]

31 minutes ago, JR Oriole said:

This.  Baseball is a game of failure, but my goodness these guys went above and beyond in that department. Productive outs shouldn't be that hard.  Watch Witt in the first inning of Game 2. 

And while the two playoff games perfectly told the story of the 2024 Orioles offense, I am hopeful that national stage embarrassment provides a real learning experience and motivation for fixing what is wrong with them.  As much as I am sure it hurts to watch your own hand being broken, Cowser should be watching that AB every single day from now until next October. Same thing with Adley channeling his inner Chris Davis and staring at that 2-0 meatball like he has never seen a major league pitch before.  

I agree here that the spectacular failure should be cause for a hard look in the mirror.

It couldn’t be explained away or deflected from. And that may help us in the long term.

[Say O!]

17 hours ago, spiritof66 said:

Elias has said that he and his staff are (or will be) making an exhaustive inquiry to identify the sources of this team's underperformance -- which I take to mean not just the playoff defeats, but also the underperformance during the second half of the sentence. Sounds good. 

But at the same time, before that investigation has gotten underway, Elias has announced that Hyde will be back next year. I believe many of the criticisms of Hyde's in-game decisions, lack of fire, failure to take action in response to boneheaded baserunning, etc., etc. -- including my own -- have been exaggerated. But Hyde does seem, to me anyway, to have shortcomings as a manager. I really don't know whether any of this team's problems could be alleviated by bringing in a new manager with qualities that Hyde lacks. But if Elias is serious about a top-to-bottom review of the team's weaknesses and ways that those weaknesses might be improved on, shouldn't the manager's stewardship  be among the subjects considered? It appears that Elias intends to scrutinize and look for constructive changes throughout the organization. Except the manager. I don't get it.

Hyde is extension of front office and it’s analytics based decisions.  In-game maneuvers (BP matchups, pinch hitters, steals, baserunning sends) and daily lineups are evaluated every day and are reflection of probabilities/decision science informed by analytics dept.  If Hyde acted independently or went counter to those influences he would not be here.  The manager hunch or expertise is legacy artifact in todays game (at least for the Orioles).

Now ongoing player development (or shortfalls) is where the other coaches/assts come into play both at major and minor league level.  These guys are also selected by the front office and I would expect some potential changes here that would be healthy as a result of Elias & team year-end review. 

[Aristotelian]

1 hour ago, Orioles West said:

I don’t live in Maryland either, but I still have family that are there and most of them are more into the Ravens, yet they send me O’s stuff all the time — which really isn’t a great pulse for O’s fan expectations. I think from the time I lived there until now (which is a few decades), Baltimore is definitely more of a football town. Maybe my family does reflect the times?

As for OH and representation, that’s a fascinating question.

To me, the OH feels like the place is generally a group of the hardcore of the hardcore baseball fans, with some part timers mixed in. The differences tend to break on personality types (cynics, optimists, realists — and a handful of comedians).

If Elias only tweaks a couple things and doesn’t make any fundamental changes (like maybe drafting more pitchers) or pretending nothing can be done about RISP — then any glow about the rebuild will truly fade, at least in my house. 

Drafting more pitchers and working on RISP situations seems like tweaking a few things which is fine by me. I don't see you saying anything different. Fundamental change would mean firing all the coaches and trading off everyone except Gunnar and Westburg. I hope we don't do that.

[Pickles]

1 hour ago, Orioles West said:

I don’t live in Maryland either, but I still have family that are there and most of them are more into the Ravens, yet they send me O’s stuff all the time — which really isn’t a great pulse for O’s fan expectations. I think from the time I lived there until now (which is a few decades), Baltimore is definitely more of a football town. Maybe my family does reflect the times?

As for OH and representation, that’s a fascinating question.

To me, the OH feels like the place is generally a group of the hardcore of the hardcore baseball fans, with some part timers mixed in. The differences tend to break on personality types (cynics, optimists, realists — and a handful of comedians).

If Elias only tweaks a couple things and doesn’t make any fundamental changes (like maybe drafting more pitchers) or pretending nothing can be done about RISP — then any glow about the rebuild will truly fade, at least in my house. 

Do you expect him to draft more pitchers in January, or guys to hit better with RISP in December?

[Orioles West]

32 minutes ago, Pickles said:

Do you expect him to draft more pitchers in January, or guys to hit better with RISP in December?

If that’s humor, it needs work.

If you’re actually asking for clarification:

The next MLB draft is July 2025. I hope the O’s add more arms than they have previously via the amateur draft. RISP, for me, is more about small ball than a particular hitter. I don’t think that the all or nothing swings the O’s relied on against KC worked out very well.

Free agency opens up soon enough, Elias could very well add a bat to help the offense in December.

[Orioles West]

48 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Drafting more pitchers and working on RISP situations seems like tweaking a few things which is fine by me. I don't see you saying anything different. Fundamental change would mean firing all the coaches and trading off everyone except Gunnar and Westburg. I hope we don't do that.

Fundemental change for me isn’t wholesale firings.

I think we’re short on pitchers in the system, I think we’re not developing pitchers as well we could. However, drafting more arms early in the draft isn’t going to win us a playoff game next year, so free agency is the short term answer.

I loved the Earl Weaver era and the three run homer, yet, our youthful foundation could think about a couple more bunts and being more aggressive on the base paths (without looking at the numbers, it felt like the O’s took a step back from 2023 on the bases) may be something to look at going forward.

[Roll Tide]

3 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Mind you I don't live in Maryland so I don't have a pulse on the State or the city of Baltimore.

Is what I see at the OH actually representational of the average fan?  My inclination is to think it isn't. 

 

As to your other point, I'm sure they have an AAR at the conclusion of every season.

My guess is the underlying numbers that they base things off of don't change much and they just tweak a few things.

I don’t think the OH brother ship can be categorized as the “average fan”. 
 

I think posters here are quite a bit beyond. I don’t think the average fan is regularly posting on a fan site 

[Pickles]

16 minutes ago, Orioles West said:

If that’s humor, it needs work.

If you’re actually asking for clarification:

The next MLB draft is July 2025. I hope the O’s add more arms than they have previously via the amateur draft. RISP, for me, is more about small ball than a particular hitter. I don’t think that the all or nothing swings the O’s relied on against KC worked out very well.

Free agency opens up soon enough, Elias could very well add a bat to help the offense in December.

I was just asking for clarification.  So it seems you're asking for changes that aren't able to be implemented in the off-season and can't be evaluated well into next season.

That's fine so long as you're ready to be disappointed this off-season.

[Orioles West]

11 minutes ago, Pickles said:

I was just asking for clarification.  So it seems you're asking for changes that aren't able to be implemented in the off-season and can't be evaluated well into next season.

That's fine so long as you're ready to be disappointed this off-season.

I survived the decade plus losing years, I’m fairly hard to disappoint at this age.

That said, I think they can change some things up in spring training - small ball stuff isn’t hard to add to the arsenal. I think they O’s may add a FA or two or resign one or two of our own guys in the winter. I don’t think we will ever throw money around like the Yanks or Dodgers, but I do believe ownership will invest more than the previous crew.

All I was saying is I hope Elias starts to tackle some of the changes he talked about to push the rebuild to the next level.

I do agree I’ll not be able to evaluate any potential changes until this time next year.