A commenter ruffles Roch's feathers

[JTrea81]

Roch is a good guy, but he is a MASN employee. Did he break one story this off season? He is only allowed to say so much. He was able to critcize the players last week because they let him. I want to see him say anything about MacPhail or Angelos. I know he is not that happy in his job but the media jobs are far and few between.

Bingo. He can't critique the owner and FO because the owner is his employer.

If you want somebody to ask the tough questions of the team, Schmuck and Zrebiec are your guys...

Britt Ghiroli would be another source, but I don't think she's quite in touch with the "culture of losing" as she's only covered the team for a few months.

[Arthur_Bryant]

This is the issue.

I'm a contractor for a federal agency. My company could LOVE me, but if my customer isn't happy with me, I'm gone.

Who the media's customer is is debatable. Sure, we pay for their work. But the Orioles create the news they report.

No, it isn't debatable. Not even close. The customer is definitely you, me, and all the other consumers of news. The media's job is not to please those who create the news. Just the opposite: reporters probably aren't doing their job if they don't make their subjects uncomfortable from time to time.

There are always hidden connections, of course, but I doubt that every media outlet in the market is in some way beholden to Peter Angelos.

I think the deficiencies are just attributable to laziness, apathy, and a lack of professionalism.

[Baldimore, hon]

The guy wants the media to represent the voice of the fan, and I think that is a good point to make.

Think about the press in NY, Boston, LA, Chicago, etc... They are known to have very critical media guys and share the voice of the common fan. They ask the questions that piss off players, managers and owners.

We don't have that here. Rosenthal was that guy but everyone hated him because he was "too critical". Well he was right.

Now, the Oriole malaise has infected the media too.

This is an interesting point that you make. I think that Mike Preston is this person for the Ravens and everyone lambastes him for being so negative. I think at times that he can be too critical, but often he's dead on. It would be nice to have a writer following the Orioles who was as objective.

[Going Underground]

Bingo. He can't critique the team because the owner is his employer.

If you want somebody to ask the tough questions of the team, Schmuck and Zrebiec are your guys...

Britt Ghiroli would be another source, but I don't think she's quite in touch with the "culture of losing" as she's only covered the team for a few months.

Roch is a great guy and really the Sun would be the ones to critique. They also don't go that far because the Sun's revenue is down and the O's advertise and do media events with the Sun.

[murrayfan420]

I'd like MacPhail to answer this question:

"In 2009, the average 1B OPS in MLB was (roughly) .878

Garrett Atkins hasn't had an OPS even close to that since 2007, while playing in Coors field. His career OPS is .806. What the f*** were you thinking?"

[Going Underground]

I'd like MacPhail to answer this question:

"In 2009, the average 1B OPS in MLB was (roughly) .878

Garrett Atkins hasn't had an OPS even close to that since 2007, while playing in Coors field. His career OPS is .806. What the f*** were you thinking"

I think soon the O's for the ticket holders are having another "State of the O's with Andy". You should ask him at that time.

[Stacey]

Britt Ghiroli would be another source, but I don't think she's quite in touch with the "culture of losing" as she's only covered the team for a few months.

I don't think it has anything to do with her in touchness with some supposed culture of losing, but more the fact that she works for the MLB. They don't want any negative press.

We did an interview with Britt Ghiroli before the season. Pretty basic stuff but the most telling thing from her to me was her saying that they don't like to spotlight negative information. And why would they? MLB doesn't want anything to tarnish their reputation.

[Slappy]

Roch is a great guy and really the Sun would be the ones to critique. They also don't go that far because the Sun's revenue is down and the O's advertise and do media events with the Sun.

So do the Ravens. At least as much. And Preston at least has the cajones to call the team out when he sees something he doesn't like. Something else - he's the most read columnist at the paper, so it's not like the Sun doesn't want him writing this stuff. He gets eyeballs, and eyeballs = dollars in the media/ad world.

Look in the upper right of your web page. An O's ad, on probably the most critical site of the team on the Internet. They wouldn't stop advertising with the Sun, the #1 local source of news.

That poster was right. These kinds of questions are not getting asked. The manager, GM are not getting challenged. Batting Jones 1st makes zero sense... where's Schmuck's column on that? The offseason was way too conservative... where's Zrebiec's column on that? We're losing players to injury left and right for years now... where's the investigative reporting on why? Kevin Cowherd did good piece last year on how it was absurd to bring Trembley back. Maybe he's our guy, but he doesn't have enough team interaction to be credible.

[El Gordo]

I'd like MacPhail to answer this question:

"In 2009, the average 1B OPS in MLB was (roughly) .878

Garrett Atkins hasn't had an OPS even close to that since 2007, while playing in Coors field. His career OPS is .806. What the f*** were you thinking?"

Where are you getting this number? I think it's closer to.830-40 OPS.:scratchchinhmm:

[mikezpen]

The Sun needs another Mike Preston to cover the Orioles.

[murrayfan420]

Where are you getting this number? I think it's closer to.830-40 OPS.:scratchchinhmm:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/year/2009/position/1b/sort/OPS/minpa/400

There's probably a more accurate number on baseball reference or something, I just picked the median OPS out of guys with 400PA. I should have used the word median rather than average - my bad.

[Dipper9]

The Sun needs another Mike Preston to cover the Orioles.

The problem with that though is its just a guy opnining what he thinks. We need a REPORTER to ask the Orioles these questions.

Here would be mine. No beating around the bush. No direct questions related to strategy. Just this one simple question.

"The economy sucks and the entertainment dollar doesn't go as far as it used to. I have followed the Orioles my entire life, but here we are nearly 30 years without a World Series appearance. Tell me why I should pay one more dollar to come to OPACY to see a team that clearly does not care about winning?"

[hobbycars]

Also, I'm totally not calling out Roch here. He's a great guy and I love him. I just thought this would be a good topic for discussion.

Roch is a great guy, you are right. MASN is a joke though I must say, but what do you really expect?

[ChaosLex]

mcgill | April 30, 2010 12:40 PM | Reply

Gotta agree with Jeff about the media concerned MacPhail and the organization. I think they do a good job of asking Trembley the relevant questions. I suppose they could say “Adam Jones has a .228 OBP, why are you still leading him off?” instead of “why continue batting Adam Jones lead off?” but that's nitpicking IMO.

I think they need to ask more questions about money, bringing up specific numbers and players. Why can't they spend as much as the Twins? etc.

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So you don't think we were making almost daily calls about Chapman, Sano, MLB free agents? And inquiring how far the Orioles would likely go and why? And reporting that certain players weren't deemed worthy of larger contracts for whatever reason (talent, injury history, etc)? And how the Orioles felt, in some instances, that dumping all their money at one player didn't make sense if they had a variety of needs to fill? Agree or disagree with them, but it's been asked and reported. As for Jones, you're definitely nitpicking, but that's OK. I asked the question and prefaced it by pointing out how badly he's struggling and how frustrated he's become. Trembley knows the stats. I don't need to spew Jones' OBP or anything else. "Struggling badly" covered all of it. - Roch

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[El Gordo]

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So Roch asked DT why AJ is leading off. And DT's answer was.....? How come I don't know it? He said on XM MLB today that AJ was his best option. But why can't they follow up and get the reason behind his thinking. I'm sure it's interesting. But I would like to know why Nick our best OBP guy, isn'tt leading off instead. Or Izzi, a better base stealer, who is currently hitting much better.