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anyone have any idea why Wieters stinks?


DocJJ

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You mean the psychological side of "mental," and I am sure that's part of it.

But I also believe that the sheer volume of mental preparation involved in being a new catcher...

You can only divide up "mental" into categories like that when you're studying it, or trying to make a science out of it. When you're living it, it's all one big thing. So, I agree with the part you're talking about, and the context of the missing guys and all the losing is part of it, and it all adds up into one big jumble. It takes a toll on a guy who hasn't even established himself yet. He's still trying to prove he's worth it, he's not trying to maintain success, he's trying to establish success. And, no matter which aspects of his duties you look at, he's got a big load in one way or another. They say that hitting well means you have to go up there feeling confident and relaxed... fat chance of that happening these days...

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Wieters has the same problem all of our hitters have. They swing at the pitchers pitch with less than two strikes. Part of the Crow's philosophy of being aggressive and swinging at pitches you think you can hit no matter where they are around the plate. He is swinging regularly now at the first pitch. Tonight he popped up weakly on the first pitch with the bases loaded and 2 out. He has a lot of ground ball outs hitting the pitchers pitch which means low and inside or outside and he's also swinging at a lot of high pitches out of the strike zone. Scott and Jones are doing this as well. We need a change of philosophy. Tonight we have the bases loaded and none out. Guess what happened? 3 swinging stikes missed by Scott with the last one up and around his shoulders for strike three. Adam Jones comes up and three swings and misses for strike three. Wieters comes up and hits the first pitch for a popup to third. bases loaded and none out and the pitcher gets our next three hitters out on 7 pitches. Impressive display of hitting.

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Wieters has the same problem all of our hitters have. They swing at the pitchers pitch with less than two strikes. Part of the Crow's philosophy of being aggressive and swinging at pitches you think you can hit no matter where they are around the plate.

You just made that up. Crow preaches being selective and looking for a pitch you drive. He does not say that they should swing at anything half-decent, he does not say they should swing at anything that happens to be in the strike zone. He says they should be selective and look for a pitch they can hit hard, because that's how you get hits. We've heard the whole "be selective and look for a pitch you can drive" from various Orioles over the years when they talk about Crow. Yet people insist on making up other stuff out of thin air for no good reason... and then they get mad at Crow for the stuff they fabricated. Now, I don't know who should be the hitting coach, but I do know that people should quit making up phony stories...

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You just made that up. Crow preaches being selective and looking for a pitch you drive. He does not say that they should swing at anything half-decent, he does not say they should swing at anything that happens to be in the strike zone. He says they should be selective and look for a pitch they can hit hard, because that's how you get hits. We've heard the whole "be selective and look for a pitch you can drive" from various Orioles over the years when they talk about Crow. Yet people insist on making up other stuff out of thin air for no good reason... and then they get mad at Crow for the stuff they fabricated. Now, I don't know who should be the hitting coach, but I do know that people should quit making up phony stories...

Ummm, okay. But the current Orioles still are the worst hitting team I have ever seen. They do not situational hit. They do not hit for power. They do not have a high OBP. After pitching a shutout against us, the great Clay Bucholz was asked whether anything had changed since Trembley was fired. He answered something like, "Well, they're still aggressive. I know that."

Crowley's hitting philosophy is completely dated. The best hitting teams today work the count, make pitchers throw alot of pitches per inning, and get into the middle relievers. He does NOT teach that. Period. We swing at entirely too many first pitches. We make every pitcher look like Cy Young.

I think Wieters and the entire organization would be better served with a new hitting coach. I think McPhail should look at the Oakland A's and Boston Red Sox and try to institute an organizational hitting philosophy. Currently, our philosophy is HACK. It's not working.

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I think Wieters and the entire organization would be better served with a new hitting coach. I think McPhail should look at the Oakland A's and Boston Red Sox and try to institute an organizational hitting philosophy.

Oh, that may be true. I don't really know what effect Crow has, or any hitting coach for that matter. But it's fine with me for everybody to have their own opinion about hitting coaches, especially since none of us here know beans about it. But having an opinion about who should or shouldn't be the hitting-coach doesn't mean people need to keep on making up phony stories. As for establishing an organizational hitting philosophy, that doesn't come from the hitting coach, any more than an organizational pitching philosophy was established by Leo. A coach doesn't have that kind of clout unless somebody higher up the food chain insists on it.

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Listening to Billy and Cal on XM today, talking to Tracy of the Rox: they asked him how he tries to get a young team to stop pressing at the plate, relax and play within themselves. They cited the O's. Tracy said you stress quality AB. He said they need to understand that you don't have to get a hit to be productive. It's hard to get hits in the ML. Most of the young players have one thing on their mind. They want to stay in the ML. "The paycheck and the meal money intrigue them" he said. This translates into getting hits in their minds. So when they get up in a bases loaded no outs situation they think they have to get a hit when all they need to do is to get a firm GB to the right side with the IF back, to bring in a run. If you stress QAB's, that takes the pressure off. Trouble is QAB's don't necessarily translate into the kind of numbers that get you more money at arbitration or when you become FA. I think teams should make this a system wide priority, the same way the A's made OBP that in their system. I know they keep charts on this sort of thing in the MiL, they should reward it in the ML as well.

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Have you ever watched batting practice? The Orioles always look like they are taking batting practice. Unless it's in the dirt or over their head they are taking their cuts. Did you watch the game last nice? I was there and I didn't say it in my first post but.......Scott......and then Jones....and then Wieters looked pathetic. Actually I'll be more to the point. They looked like high school players and that's being disrepectful to the ones that went in the first round recently. Scott heard more boos than looooooke.... looooooke's last night and he knew it when he came to bat. His lack of hustle twice in games recently caused him to want to hit a HR every time up last night. Correction! He wanted to hit a 450 FT HR. No cheapies for Luke. When he walked off the field with his normal disgusted look I had direct eye contact with him and I couldn't help but put my hands up to my shoulders. Later in the game with no one on base he hit a double after laying off the high hard ones. No! I'm not taking credit for that.

Jones in the same inning with the bases loaded swung and missed at three straight pitches. Guess what? He wanted to hit a grand slam about 475 FT. No cheapies for Adam. Both of these hitters had no interest in getting a single or double that might have plated one or two runs. One more thing. The pitcher was floating his knuckeball up to the plate from 72 to about 78 MPH all night last night. Our hitters acted like he was Bard from the Sox throwing 98 or 99. It was embarassing. I said Scott and Jones will get a hit when there is nobody on base and sure enough Scott led off the ninth with a DB and then Jones went with the pitch to right for a single. Why couldn't they do that with the bases loaded? Because they wanted the GRANDSLAM. Forget the team. I WANT A X!X!ytz GRANDSLAM. There are no excuses for Scott. He has more experience than Jones and should know better. Plate discipline? Are you kidding? I am not making stuff up about our hitters approach. It's time....after 13 losing seasons for people to stop making excuses for the Crow. Can we end it today? He would be better to just stay away from the hitters. Don't talk to them. I think we had 11 hits and 1 run. 9 left on in the last 6 innings. We could have won this game. A run or two each inning we got a man to third and we could have made this game interesting or maybe won it. It was winnable in spite of the final score. Markakis was the only hitter that looked like he knew the strike zone last night.

It's pretty obvious to beat the Mets this series we just need to pitch around Wright and Reyes. They both looked like they should be starting in the All-Star game last night. I'll be back out there again tonight and maybe we can get a win with Matusz. Did anyone see Valentine at the game last night? I don't know if he was there. There was a guy that resembled him in one of the suites behind home plate last night but I could not tell for sure. Since he interviewed yesterday it would seem he would have wanted to view the game last night. If the Orioles are going to attract free agents in the future they are going to need to spend the money and bring in a name manager like Valentine.

If we could just add two RBI guys to the middle of our lineup there would be less one and two run losses. One run again last night. Will we end up with the worst record ever in baseball and get Anthony Rendon? AM will keep the Crow and leave the roster alone if that's his plan. Will the paying customers be able to hold up over the long summer and will there be more than 3,000 people in the stands in September?

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I don't want to hear the excuse that Wieters has a lot on his mind due to his catching duties. He's not the first catcher ever to come up in the major leagues, and plenty of them have hit.

Mauer - .783 OPS in his 1st full year

V. Martinez - .851

R. Martin - .791

McCann - .960

Kendall - .773

Pierzynski - .773

Soto - .868

This isn't that hard. Heck, Wieters posted a respectable .753 last year, and he was coming on strong. I sure expected .800+ this year. He's a HUGE disappointment at the plate.

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Isn't there a theory out there that says that most logical answer to a question is probably the right one? Occam's Razor? Maybe that is the case here. Terry Crowley is not doing a good job with our young hitters and needs to be replaced. Can it be that simple?

I don't know, but we need to find out....and there's only one way to find out.

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Isn't there a theory out there that says that most logical answer to a question is probably the right one? Occam's Razor? Maybe that is the case here. Terry Crowley is not doing a good job with our young hitters and needs to be replaced. Can it be that simple?

I really don't understand how this hasn't happened yet. I know we ask for change too quickly around here, but at this point, it has been really far past due.

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I really don't understand how this hasn't happened yet. I know we ask for change too quickly around here, but at this point, it has been really far past due.

I really don't get how MacPhail fired Trembley and left Crowley in charge of this craptastic offense. I said it before, it's like firing the regional manager of a Friendly's after all the ice cream melted and letting the ice cream station manager keep his job.

AM basically blamed Trembley for the bad hitting. But Crowley is the hitting coach. It doesn't make any sense.

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I really don't understand how this hasn't happened yet. I know we ask for change too quickly around here, but at this point, it has been really far past due.

What AM is probably doing is this: he ousts DT and installs an interim, which then allows him to do a full candidate search without looking like an a-hole (interviewing guys while the manager is still there). He will then let the new manager make the call on is coaching staff, instead of firing TC now and then having the new manager possibly bring in a THIRD hitting coach.

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Over three decades ago, a switch-hitting catcher put up a .973 OPS in the minors and was starting in the major leagues the following year.

Some of us are still waiting for Butch Wynegar to realize his promise. There are no guarantees or sure things.

Baseball is a very hard game, particularly at the major league level. That said, Matt Wieters' best days remain ahead of him and he'll be very good, though I think it's inevitable that some will perceive him to be a disappointment no matter what he accomplishes after all the unfair hoopla.

But there wasn't unfair "hoopla". The guy was considered the best player in the draft, crushed everything he saw in the minors, and genuinely looked like an impact major league player.

People can make all the excuses they want, and if I was seeing a guy hitting into bad luck or just not hitting homers yet, I'd be ok, but the guy is not driving the ball and pitchers are throwing him a lot of fastballs inside which means the book says he has a slow bat.

Now, did he mature into a slow bat or is there something wrong with his swing? He works pitchers well for the most part and can still lace a single the opposite way, but I'm genuinely concerned over his bat speed. It looks long and slow and I didn't see that swing last year or the year before.

Wieters has done well defensively, but his bat has been a huge disappointment from just about any perspective.

Now, my hope is it's just something mechanical and perhaps when a new manager is hired he'll be allowed to bring in his own coaching staff next year or maybe even this year.

I've been pretty neutral on Crowley for a long time, but Wieters' lack of development at the major league level is fire-able offense to me.

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Its simply really.

Pitch selection.

He watches to many fastball over the plate then is forced to swing at tough pitches.

I do think he has concentrated more on defense, so I expect his efforts to concentrate more on offense in the 2nd half and off season. Hopefully, he works this out.

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