Schmuck: O's need a middle of the order bat

[TiredofLosing20]

Please, please, please don't let this thread turn into a Tex debate.:eektf:

I was thinking the same thing!!! lol

I am sure that wasn't Mweb's intention.

[mweb]

Please, please, please don't let this thread turn into a Tex debate.:eektf:

While I expect that to be one of the names mentioned, there surely has to be many more given how he's talking.

[DrungoHazewood]

Am I the only one who is frustrated by the Orioles' lack of positive movement in the baseball world?

No, of course not. I think nearly 100% of the people on Orioles Hangout are very upset that they've had to endure more than a decade of some of the most inept management in baseball.

But I think a lot of us also are ok, or more than ok, with the direction the team is heading right now, if not the exact details or schedule.

I am also concerned with the popular perception of the team in Baltimore. Whenever I talk with my friends back home about the Orioles, they either:

1) Don't care because we haven't won anything in over 10 years.

2) Hate Angelos.

3) Don't believe that the team is trying to do anything to improve.

I know that this will take time and we can't force the rebuild, but it feels like the overly-conservative AM will continue to be super deliberate to the point of stagnation.

I am fearful that we will be so careful that we will miss important once-in-a-lifetime opportunities when they come along.

I'm concerned some of those things, too. But I think that the best way to fix that is something like the way MacPhail is approaching the rebuild. When they finally start winning a little, be that this year, next, or even the year after, the fans will come back and they will start to care again. Not 4 million immediately, but after a while. And that's why they need to make damn sure they do things right, so that after 2-3 years of winning they might be back to selling out OPACY again.

I'm not at all fearful of MacPhail missing out on once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to improve the team, mainly because I don't think once-in-a-lifetime players exist. Even ARod at his peak was only good enough to make a 85-win team a 95-win team. No one player is ever so important as to make or break a franchise.

[Hank Scorpio]

Let's stick with the reality of our times, this off season is awful in terms of free agents. I feel that we have constantly missed the boat with free agents time and time again regardless of the brain trust.

Am I the only one who is frustrated by the Orioles' lack of positive movement in the baseball world?

I am also concerned with the popular perception of the team in Baltimore. Whenever I talk with my friends back home about the Orioles, they either:

1) Don't care because we haven't won anything in over 10 years.

2) Hate Angelos.

3) Don't believe that the team is trying to do anything to improve.

I know that this will take time and we can't force the rebuild, but it feels like the overly-conservative AM will continue to be super deliberate to the point of stagnation.

I am fearful that we will be so careful that we will miss important once-in-a-lifetime opportunities when they come along.

MSK

I would contend that your friends back home don't really pay that much attention anymore (which is understandable given what we've all been through), and that numbers 2 & 3 are more of a result of 1 than anything else.

Don't be fearful this offseason, because there's nothing that's "once in a lifetime." You know what might have been once in a lifetime? Signing Matt Wieters, and getting that sort of return in a 5 for 1 trade. The latter was definitely a "once in a lifetime" thing... Wieters remains to be seen.

There are three sides to signing free agents, really. There's you, there's the agent, and there's the player. If you are coming off a season where you lost 90+ games and it's a good player, your chances are already slim. It certainly helps if you have a young, talented team who is likely to improve in short order... but you still lost 98 games last year.

Free agent deals are generally bad ones in general. You don't get near enough bang for your buck. You're paying for peaking players who will really cost you a lot of money when they're no longer any good, plus they'll be PLAYING for your team and giving you crappy production.

MacPhail is laying the foundation the right way, it's just not fast enough for some. I understand that. It's been a long, long, long time since this franchise has been respectable. People are tired of losing. MacPhail has been running this for 2 years and he has significantly changed the position of the ML team going forward. He has done it much quicker than should have been expected. He's built a good young team that will get better on it's own, and there is lots of room to make it better monetarily over the next few years.

[ChesterPeake]

So they should spend $100M now to prove to you that PA will do it, rather than deal with major FA's who the FO actually wants when the FO thinks it is appropriate? Do I have that more-or-less right?

Not exactly. That's how I feel. The more rational part of my brain says that AM knows what he's doing and that he'll make the appropriate moves at he right times. But then my memory talks to my emotional side which overrules my rationality and convinces me that Angelos will find a way to screw it up.

[TiredofLosing20]

Not exactly. That's how I feel. The more rational part of my brain says that AM knows what he's doing and that he'll make the appropriate moves at he right times. But then my memory talks to my emotional side which overrules my rationality and convinces me that Angelos will find a way to screw it up.

Hey at least you admit that your fandom is currently in control of your state of mind. Others here can't seem to make that revelation:laughlol::laughlol:

Your skepticism of Angelos is certainly warranted but it appears he is making progress. Obviously we have a lot of evidence that he will ultimately get in the way but at this point you really have no other choice but to hope that his recent style is going to continue.

[ChesterPeake]

There is a correlation between him switching teams. He goes from a full season on team with little protection and few guys on base when he is hitting and a longer left field wall, to spending part of the season the park and part of it in an offense that has great protection and guys hitting in front of him and the small left field fence. Then he plays a full season for the Red Sox in Fenway. Don't you think the change in teams has something to do with upward swing.

First, isn't Orioles Park a hitter's park, like Fenway? I'd say so.

Second, wouldn't he have guys like BRob, Nick, and Jones hitting in front of him and guys like Wieters, Luke, and Reimold protecting him? People around here keep telling me these guys are very good players (and I think so, too).

So playing here would be a lot like playing in Boston for Bay, IMO.

Lastly, I don't care what team you play for and what park you play in, 36 HR, 119 RBI, and a .921 OPS are outstanding numbers.

[RShack]

Not exactly. That's how I feel. The more rational part of my brain says that AM knows what he's doing and that he'll make the appropriate moves at he right times. But then my memory talks to my emotional side which overrules my rationality and convinces me that Angelos will find a way to screw it up.

Well, at least you can distinguish between those 2 things, which is more than some folks around here can do ;-)

[Lucky Jim]

To be honest, the reason I didn't do it is because I didn't feel like it. I have been having this same discussion for months now and it gets silly after a while.

Mind you, its going to take me a few hours to go back through all the posts because this stuff goes back to the day when Tex announced that he was signing with the Yankees. I won't be able to get onto this project until later tonight, but rest assured that I will get back to you on this over weekend just so you see I wasn't making this up.

I am not changing the parameters of anything. You will read it with your own eyes man.

And I WILL put the strawmen thing in my sig if I don't do this.

MSK

Bump. Letters.

[VTmook213]

Oooooh, the thrilling showdown of I <3 Strawmen vs. MSK Blew Me Out of the Water!!!!

[MemorialStadKid]

Oooooh, the thrilling showdown of I <3 Strawmen vs. MSK Blew Me Out of the Water!!!!

I am half-done with my search. Copying and pasting onto a word document.

Sorry, I have a life guys. I will be finishing this soon.

MSK

[TommyD4207]

Let me just point out the obvious here:

If the posts that MSK presents don't exactly say the Orioles don't need to make any moves (which I suspect they won't, but I've been wrong before) then it will be a matter of interpretation as to whether they are saying that or not.

MSK will obviously (because he's posting them) say that they are, but I can easily envision a scenario in which Lucky Jim (and others) will think that that's not at all the intention of the post.

So...

How are we (well, not we, because I'm not a part of this, Lucky Jim and MSK) to decide who "wins" this argument? A poll? Maybe we could get ChaosLex to post said poll?

[Aloe]

Last year the O's didn't spend any money(even though there were good free agents) because the team wasn't ready to win. This year they won't spend any money because the free agents aren't that good or so they say.

What will the excuse be next season?

[TinCup]

Well, at least you can distinguish between those 2 things, which is more than some folks around here can do ;-)

I wish I had a dollar for every time you typed "some folks".

[Lucky Jim]

Let me just point out the obvious here:

If the posts that MSK presents don't exactly say the Orioles don't need to make any moves (which I suspect they won't, but I've been wrong before) then it will be a matter of interpretation as to whether they are saying that or not.

MSK will obviously (because he's posting them) say that they are, but I can easily envision a scenario in which Lucky Jim (and others) will think that that's not at all the intention of the post.

So...

How are we (well, not we, because I'm not a part of this, Lucky Jim and MSK) to decide who "wins" this argument? A poll? Maybe we could get ChaosLex to post said poll?

He said "many people think we don't need to make any improvements."

I'm not sure why it's so difficult to tell if a post says we don't need to make "any improvements" or not.