Sanity check...

[blid]

I think at some point you can wave away that 2-16 start, if after a large proportion of their games the Orioles prove that start wasn't representative of the team they are. But they're 2-8 in their last 10... they just got swept by the Jays now, just like they did then.

I'm not sure if what the DT side of Shack's argument is. I think it's just that he doesn't deserve the blame for the terrible record but who cares? When a team is performing this bad, you need to make a change.

[RShack]

Why has Shack left this thread? Doesn't he get on Trea for doing that very same thing?

Oh, good grief... 14 hours and you're saying that? SG, you know better than that. (I don't keep a timer, I'm trusting TGO about the 14 hours ;-)

While you did respond the the part quoted below, I'm quoting it again... because I want to...

It's not like taking a look at the record from Date-X is some foreign idea. If they fire DT, people are gonna start the W-L counter fresh for whoever might replace him. People do the same thing with the same manager for the 2 halves of the season. Breaking the season down into two chunks is completely normal, people do it all the time, and they do it from arbitrary dates too. People do it for teams, and people do it for individual players. People talk about how AJ did great last year for the first chunk, and then did lousy for the second chunk. People talk about how Bergy wasn't so hot for the first chunk of last year, and then came on great in the second chunk. People did the same thing with Breezy when he was here. Whenever Wieters starts hitting, people are gonna pick an arbitrary date and divide his season into 2 chunks too, you know they will. It's a completely normal thing to do, it happens all the time. So, I don't see why it's so crazy to say that we had an absolutely horrible first 18 days to the season, that's the first chunk, and now let's look at how that compares to the chunk since then. People are acting like I'm committing some crime against baseball for breaking things into two chunks when, in reality, people subdivide the season into two arbitrary chunks all the time. All I'm asking is, once that 2-16 happened and was in the books, once we got that far into the season with that record in the books, what were reasonable expectations between then and now with 6 of our good players not even playing? People are acting like it's a crazy question to ask, but it's not, it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask. Asking a first-chunk vs. a second-chunk question is a completely normal thing to do. I think people are freaking out about it mainly because it doesn't fit with all the blame-it-on-DT hysteria that says everything is getting worse and it's his fault.

People divide seasons into two chunks all the time, and they do it in whatever way suits them. I did it to make what I believe is a valid point, and people have had a fit about it, as if it's some unfair thing to do. I think that's largely because it's easier to have a fit than it is to respond to the substance that actually is in the OP. Why don't people have a fit when somebody picks a time-chunk to make a point that is more popular? For example, how many folks have carefully chosen the last 15 games because it's a custom time-frame to arrive at the lowest possible recent winning percentage? It would be just as accurate to say 3-9 or 6-12, but people say 3-12. Now, all 3 of those choices show numbers that suck, they are all equally accurate, so why do people pick 3-12? Here's why: because the purpose is to pick a chunk that makes things look as bad as they possibly can, so that can say DT should be canned. But nobody complains about that, because the tribal drum is keeping beat for a firing, and picking that particular chunk best fits that drumbeat.

Beyond that, I'm gonna give the recent posts a glance, to separate the ane(?) from the inane and see if there is anything substantive to respond to. In the meantime, let me summarize what I think is true about the team:

• I don't care who the manager is, or who the coaches are, just so it works for the team. If DT is fired anytime soon, I think that will be sad for him, but the man will land on his feet. He's been a big league manager, which is more than anybody here can say, and he'll have a good job in baseball for as long as he wants, which is also more than anybody here can say. So, for anyone who is unable to distinguish my questioning the recent fire-DT hysteria around here with some imagined desire on my part to see the O's have a certain somebody be the manager, well, that's just wrong.

  .

• I do not believe that DT is in any way significantly responsible for what has occurred so far this season. I do think he's made a small number of bad decisions, but I don't think they loom large in the losing-ness.

  .

• I think people are way, way, way underestimating the impact of not having 6 key guys playing. People say they're factoring it in, but I don't think they're factoring it in adequately. Seems to me that people are reaching conclusions that make sense if it was just a couple guys MIA, but it's not just a couple, it's way more than that. I think the team's ability to perform has been severely compromised by the MIA guys, and that means it has been compromised significantly downward from ~.500. I was hoping that we'd see some substantive discussion of "how much downward from ~.500", but very little of that kind of discussion has occurred.

  .

• I think people are unfairly and inaccurately characterizing the trade-offs between under-performers and over-performers. I'm not saying it's a wash, but I am saying people tend to make loud statements about the under-performing guys and mostly ignore the over-performances. I can see how this happens, since the 3 most obvious guys who have performed worse than we expected are part of the young core. However, I would also expect people to be able to distinguish between future horizons and current impact, and I see very little of that.

  .

• I think many folks are dismissing, or not considering, the fact that the nature of baseball is that many things are interrelated in fuzzy ways that cannot be broken down into clearly dependent components. It's not like football where you can fairly easily see relationships between, for example, missing O-line guys and decreased RB performance to that side of the line. I think it is plausible, and perhaps likely, that roster depletion has caused added negative pressure to how Wieters and AJ do at the plate. However, because of how baseball works, this kind of interrelationship is untestable and unprovable. I don't think it gets sufficient weight in the minds of many.

  .

• I also think that people underestimate not only the magnitude, but also the downright freako-weirdness of all that has happened to the roster. Now, I'm sure somebody will find a way to pin it on the manager and coaches, but I don't think that is reasonable.

So, bottom line: If you guys think firing somebody is gonna somehow cause improvement, I think you're dreaming. As I have already said, I think the general tenor around here is to underestimate both the depth and breadth of the roster calamity and its downstream effects, and to overestimate the role of the manager and coaches in causing/permitting/repairing it. What's gonna matter is having a less-decimated roster, not firing somebody. Firing somebody is just making a human sacrifice to no real purpose. IMO, it boils down to the idea I saw in another thread title: "Do something! Anything!" Unless/until the roster gets better, you might as well sacrifice some live chickens for all the difference it's gonna make beyond a game or two. I think the team as its roster is currently comprised is a .400 team at best over any non-small sample of games... unless DH comes thru bigtime, Ohman keeps pitching over his head, and Wieters and/or AJ abruptly start knocking the cover off the ball. If you think it's better than that, I think you're dreaming. If we don't get some players back in good enough shape to actually contribute, then it's gonna be no better than a ~.400 team, give or take a little (and that's not counting the crappy start), no matter who you fire. And if that's what happens, don't say I didn't warn you. (I hope we get some guys back who can and will contribute, so I hope I never-ever get a chance to say "I told you so.")

[Sports Guy]

Who cares? Maybe he's decided that arguing further about it isn't going to advance matters.

Oh ok, i get it...Its ok to point that out about Trea but not others.

Thanks for pointing out the OH double standard...Its always there, isn't it?

[RShack]

So, based on SG's taunts that implied that I was somehow avoiding Good Points of Substance that somebody directed towards my posts during my apparently-suspicious 14-hour absence, I went hunting through recent posts that might fit that description. I found exactly one, so I will respond to it in kind...

Without contributions from BRob, Pie, Nolan, JJ, Koji, and Gonzo, and given who has replaced them on the roster, what level of winning percentage do you think the team should have had over the last 33 games?

a) same as they do plus a few extra wins for better bullpen management

b) same as above plus a few extra wins if players were meeting expectations

c) same as above plus a few extra wins if players weren't depressed over embarking ever deeper in a historically bad season.

Seeing as c) would contribute to b), I would guess 2 extra wins for a) and 3 more for b)/c). Instead of 13-20 (.394), I'd say 18-15 (.545). Sounds optimistic, but it was the easier part of the schedule.

Well, first off, I appreciate you answering the question. (Really.)

If I read your response correctly, you think that over the last 33 games, the diff between the actiual performance (.394) and the performance you expect (.545) is due to a combination of 3 factors: bad BP mgt, under-performing by the guys who are left on the roster, and team depression due to the suckitude. In other words, not only do you think the team's capability is not harmed by losing all the guys I listed, but you actually think the team should be *better* than a .500 team after losing all those guys. And the reason you think the team should be *better* than a .500 team over the last 33 games is because it faced a weak schedule. If I have twisted your words, please let me know, but I certainly have not intended to do that.

Once I satisfied myself that you said what I think you said, I stopped and thought about it for a minute, trying to make sense of it. I really did. And there is only one way in which it kinda-sorta almost made sense: it fits with the tenor of DT-firing outrage around here. After all, if you think the team should have been winning at a .545 clip, and instead it performed at a .394 clip, and if you think that is due to managerial incompetence and/or failure to get what is reasonable out of his players, well, of course you'd want the guy fired. So, on that level, it certainly fits the mood around here, I'll grant you that.

However, in every other respect, I don't see how what you've said makes any sense at all. This alone gave me pause, simply because I think of you as being a reasonable person. If certain other people said things that seemed bizarre or biased, it wouldn't phase me, I'd just say that it's typical of them, etc., but that does not apply to you. So, I decided to investigate 2 things: my own sense that it's a .400 team, more or less, and your sense that it should have been playing .545 for the 33 games in question. I had to double-check my own opinion because it was based on a general perception of the roster, my own theory that it's a 6- or 7-Player Team, and so forth. I never really looked at the schedule to see what difference that might make, I was just saying it was no better than a .400 team in general. So, I went and looked at who we played during those 33 games, just to see if it weakened my opinion and gave credence to your .545 expectation. Here's what I found out:

• First off, the baseline is .500 in at least 2 respects.
  • It is what many people expected of the team, more or less, before the roster calamity. The question I've been interested in is how much less than a .500 team it is, due to that roster calamity.
    
  • It is also how a league performs overall. Every year, the overall record of MLB as a whole is exactly .500, simply because every win for one team is a loss for another team.

  So, if you're a .500 team playing a bunch of other teams that total a .500 record, you'd expect to win half your games. If the overall level of competition is very much over- or under-.500, then it skews how you can expect to do. But if you play against .500 opposition, that's a good test of your team.

  [*] Over the last 33 games, we played teams whose combined record was 262-258, or .508. But some of those W's and L's were vs. the O's during that time window, so I took those out. When you subtract their games vs. the O's during the 33 game stretch, the opposition's total record is 240-239, or .501. For an odd number of games, that's as close to .500 as you can get.

  [*] Unless you wanna get too crazy about strength of schedule, and interleague play, and other complicated things, this would seem to be a perfectly neutral test. Duriing the 33 game stretch, we played some good teams and some weak teams but, taken as a whole, we were not playing opposition that was either strong or weak. We were playing opposition whose record was about as neutral as you can get.

I think all this just supports the idea I had anyway, the idea what what we've got is basically a .400 team (more or less: maybe 30 points either way, depending on how the ball bounces). Like I said, the way I arrived at that opinion was not by some fancy calculation, it's just the result of seeing this as a 6- or 7-Player Team, that's all. As for your perception that the team was not weakened at all by the guys who have been MIA from the roster, well, I just don't see how anybody can think that. And the idea that they should have played .545 ball against .500 opposition seems to me to be completely ill-founded. Maybe you saw a list that included some weak teams and jumped to the wrong conclusion. But I think it's pretty safe to say it was indeed a wrong conclusion. If you think the O's were a .500 team to begin with, before guys started dropping like flies, and then you subtract those guys from the team and replace them with the fodder they've been replaced with, then you're can't expect to do better than .500, you gotta expect to do worse. Maybe we don't like it, but that's just how it is.

If the team was performing at the level most expected of it before the season, then we'd expect 16 or 17 W's out of that stretch. Instead, we lost a bunch of players, and won 13 games. So, we were 3 or 4 games off the pace we'd expect of a team that was both healthy and performing up to snuff. That's a pretty small diff, and I think is perfectly in keeping with having lost all the guys we lost, and having some of those who we didn't lose not hitting like we hoped. So, all in all, all this DT-stuff is a symptom, not a cause. It might end up being a symptom that gets him fired, but the idea that this team's record over that 33 game stretch is somehow way worse than it should be, given the guys on hand and the guys who have *not* been on hand, just doesn't add up. However, I realize folks want somebody to blame.

[Frobby]

Oh ok, i get it...Its ok to point that out about Trea but not others.

Thanks for pointing out the OH double standard...Its always there, isn't it?

I've never pointed it out about Trea. Frankly, I wish more people around here would walk way from an argument once every point has already been made several times. I'm sick of 20-page threads that could have been ended on page 5.

[Going Underground]

What about last year? Since July 1, 2009 to present we are 54-93. We were 29-56 from July 1 to the end of last year. I think this year is just a continuation of last year. Blame injuries,trading away players,get rid of the manager. The Orioles are bad and have been for awhile.

[PaulFolk]

If the team was performing at the level most expected of it before the season, then we'd expect 16 or 17 W's out of that stretch. Instead, we lost a bunch of players, and won 13 games. So, we were 3 or 4 games off the pace we'd expect of a team that was both healthy and performing up to snuff. That's a pretty small diff, and I think is perfectly in keeping with having lost all the guys we lost, and having some of those who we didn't lose not hitting like we hoped. So, all in all, all this DT-stuff is a symptom, not a cause. It might end up being a symptom that gets him fired, but the idea that this team's record over that 33 game stretch is somehow way worse than it should be, given the guys on hand and the guys who have *not* been on hand, just doesn't add up. However, I realize folks want somebody to blame.

You need to get over this illogical 33-game nonsense-- or at least explain why the first 18 games shouldn't count. There have been 52 games this year, and they all count equally.

And yes, the Orioles have been underachieving. Fifteen wins out of 52 is not an acceptable total for any team, injuries or not.

[Sports Guy]

You need to get over this illogical 33-game nonsense-- or at least explain why the first 18 games shouldn't count. There have been 52 games this year, and they all count equally.

And yes, the Orioles have been underachieving. Fifteen wins out of 52 is not an acceptable total for any team, injuries or not.

And even if he wants to continue with his illogical 33 game nonsense, the Orioles still should have been better in that span than they have been.

7-9 against Boston, Minn and NY...Then you win 3 out of 4 against Seattle and Cle....then Simon blows the save in the 9th on OH night and it was downhill from there.

This isn't just about injuries...EVERYONE IS TO BLAME!

Rshack doesn't want to do that though....DT and AM are mistake free, brilliant baseball men who should be showered with praise, money and woman. They should not be called on mistakes and should be given every beneift of the doubt that exists.

[DuffMan]

And yes, the Orioles have been underachieving. Fifteen wins out of 52 is not an acceptable total for any team, injuries or not.

Or put another way the Orioles have 5 more wins than Ubaldo Jiménez.

[RShack]

You need to get over this illogical 33-game nonsense-- or at least explain why the first 18 games shouldn't count. There have been 52 games this year, and they all count equally.

Oh, stop. I never said they shouldn't count. Of course they count, they're in the record books and there's no way to undo them. I'm just saying the horrible start does not provide any useful baseline for the level of performance that is reasonable to expect of the team as its roster has been constituted recently.

I've said this umpteen times, and I don't understand why people keep changing the subject I'm not saying certain games shouldn't count, and I'm not saying who the manager should or shouldn't be. What I'm saying is that is that people are not facing reality about the kind of winning percentage it's reasonable to expect of the team when doesn't have 6 guys playing who had significant roles, not trivial back-up roles, but significant roles on the team. When the team had everybody, it was expected to be about a .500 team, more or less, nothing more than that. If you subtract 6 guys from significant roles and still expect it to play at about the same level, then you're saying the good players don't matter, that you can expect a team who's roster has been decimated and filled with fodder is still supposed to be about a .500 team. That's crazy... unless you really think the quality of the players doesn't really matter...

[square634]

Oh, stop. I never said they shouldn't count. Of course they count, they're in the record books and there's no way to undo them. I'm just saying the horrible start does not provide any useful baseline for the level of performance that is reasonable to expect of the team as its roster has been constituted recently.

I've said this umpteen times, and I don't understand why people keep changing the subject I'm not saying certain games shouldn't count, and I'm not saying who the manager should or shouldn't be. What I'm saying is that is that people are not facing reality about the kind of winning percentage it's reasonable to expect of the team when doesn't have 6 guys playing who had significant roles, not trivial back-up roles, but significant roles on the team. When the team had everybody, it was expected to be about a .500 team, more or less, nothing more than that. If you subtract 6 guys from significant roles and still expect it to play at about the same level, then you're saying the good players don't matter, that you can expect a team who's roster has been decimated and filled with fodder is still supposed to be about a .500 team. That's crazy... unless you really think the quality of the players doesn't really matter...

On the other hand, I think the expected .500 record was taking into account the normal injuries that occur throughout the year for all teams. The O's have had more than their fair share of injuries so far this year for sure, but I think if you had told people that no one on the original 25-man roster would miss a game to injury, then the expected record would have been better than .500.

[Sports Guy]

Oh, stop. I never said they shouldn't count. Of course they count, they're in the record books and there's no way to undo them. I'm just saying the horrible start does not provide any useful baseline for the level of performance that is reasonable to expect of the team as its roster has been constituted recently.

I've said this umpteen times, and I don't understand why people keep changing the subject I'm not saying certain games shouldn't count, and I'm not saying who the manager should or shouldn't be. What I'm saying is that is that people are not facing reality about the kind of winning percentage it's reasonable to expect of the team when doesn't have 6 guys playing who had significant roles, not trivial back-up roles, but significant roles on the team. When the team had everybody, it was expected to be about a .500 team, more or less, nothing more than that. If you subtract 6 guys from significant roles and still expect it to play at about the same level, then you're saying the good players don't matter, that you can expect a team who's roster has been decimated and filled with fodder is still supposed to be about a .500 team. That's crazy... unless you really think the quality of the players doesn't really matter...

Ok, maybe you will keep avoiding it but I will continue to bring it up.

After that 2-16 start, we went 10-10 in the next 20 games...Since then, we have won 3 games. So, after going 10-10 against some of the best teams in the sport, don't you think it is reasonable to think we should have won at least 6 or 7 games since then..especially since we weren't facing the top level teams?

[El Gordo]

Ok, maybe you will keep avoiding it but I will continue to bring it up.

After that 2-16 start, we went 10-10 in the next 20 games...Since then, we have won 3 games. So, after going 10-10 against some of the best teams in the sport, don't you think it is reasonable to think we should have won at least 6 or 7 games since then..especially since we weren't facing the top level teams?

So you are essentially saying that since we went 10-10, that prooves the loss of BRob, Gonzo, Koji, JJ. Pie, had no significant impact on the team, and they should be expected to be a .500 team? All Shack is asking is what is a reasonable W/L % expectation for the current 25 man roster.

[RShack]

After that 2-16 start, we went 10-10 in the next 20 games...Since then, we have won 3 games. So, after going 10-10 against some of the best teams in the sport, don't you think it is reasonable to think we should have won at least 6 or 7 games since then..especially since we weren't facing the top level teams?

I don't think playing .500 in a stretch where we faced some good teams is any more meaningful than the worse record since. If you go by little chunks of games, you get roller-coaster results, it's normal to see that for any team. You need a bigger chunk of games than just a few games here and there. Now, if you wanna ask what size chunk is big enough, well, that's a perfectly good question and I don't really know... the way baseball works, the proper answer is 162, but people are always dividing the season into a couple chunks for one reason or another... often to support whatever point they're trying to make, it's just a normal thing to do... yet, when we're talking about what is reasonable to expect of the team, people have a fit about it, mainly because they wanna believe the team is playing lousy because of DT, not because the roster has been decimated and filled with fodder...

[Frobby]

What I'm saying is that is that people are not facing reality about the kind of winning percentage it's reasonable to expect of the team when doesn't have 6 guys playing who had significant roles, not trivial back-up roles, but significant roles on the team. When the team had everybody, it was expected to be about a .500 team, more or less, nothing more than that. If you subtract 6 guys from significant roles and still expect it to play at about the same level, then you're saying the good players don't matter, that you can expect a team who's roster has been decimated and filled with fodder is still supposed to be about a .500 team. That's crazy... unless you really think the quality of the players doesn't really matter...

This team should not expect to play .500 ball for any extended time while BRob is out. But you can also make too much of the injuries. I expected this team to play close to .500 ball this year, AND I expected that the team would have its fair share of injuries along the way. I never expected that somehow we'd get through the season with nobody of importance getting hurt.

That said, of every player on this team, the two I thought were most indispensable were BRob and Wieters. Losing BRob is a huge loss.