953 replies to this topic

[dude]

Obviously you think there is a problem.  So it seems to me like you must think that Elias is not in favor of this change.  Isn't that what you've been saying?

 

I'm not sure what you think I've said is the problem.

 

I've stated my opinion of the wall itself (the changes) many times.  I think it's dumb, but so what.

 

The angst towards me was over the words half-baked (plan) and half-assed/incompetent (execution).  Nothing changes that at this point.  That's over. 

 

Regardless of the design, the construction teams hired to build it will get paid and do their jobs. 

This will be the wall in LF.  We'll see what happens (ie consequences)

[Mackus]

I'm not sure what you think I've said is the problem.

 

I guess I assumed from your tone and other context that you were saying it would be a bad thing if this was not a decision made by the baseball people.  

 

Remember when Peter Angelos walked into the draft room and demanded they take a college pitcher?  It was just understood that anyone bringing up that story was implying that it was a bad thing that the owner made that dictate and not baseball people.  So I guess I assumed that the many arguments you made trying to support your opinion that Elias wasn't the one who made this decision were from the underlying perspective that ti must be a bad thing for baseball people to not be in support of the move.

 

I'd agree that it would be a bad thing if Elias is against the change but the Angeloses are pushing it through anyway.  I don't believe that is happening, but I certainly think it'd be a bad sign if it were.

[Ravens2006]

The idea that they'll be more attractive to free agent pitchers because of the change is almost as questionable to me as the whole submit-doomed-idea-to-MLB concept. Because that assumes they'll be willing to actually spend the money it takes to acquire top tier free agent pitching. THAT is the side of the two-way street I suspect won't actually be open anytime soon.

[TwentyThirtyFive]

The idea that they'll be more attractive to free agent pitchers because of the change is almost as questionable to me as the whole submit-doomed-idea-to-MLB concept. Because that assumes they'll be willing to actually spend the money it takes to acquire top tier free agent pitching. THAT is the side of the two-way street I suspect won't actually be open anytime soon.

Doesnt have to be top tier FAs. Thats just not going to happen. Not for pitchers or position players. I think the hope is they can at least be considered by these pitchers who are signing short term deals. The 1 year 10-15 mil deal.

[TwentyThirtyFive]

I don't want the thread locked. Tell dude to knock it off. I want to discuss the impact this has as the season goes on. I can't wait for the small sample sizes to start rolling in.

Im for it being locked if it means not having to deal with dude posting the same crap over and over while refusing to answer other posters simple questions or acknowledge other posts like Palmer saying Elias talked to him about this last year. Its disingenuous and unbecoming. Yet he wont hesitate to call everyone else out. I become more and more convinced its trolling and Im not against a suspension or ban because of it.

[NewMarketSean]

Late to the thread but they signed Lyles who allowed the most HR last year. Not a coincidence they decided to move back the LF fence. 
 

maybe sign better pitchers and you don’t need a stadium hack. 

[BSLChrisStoner]

Ohh look, Elias commented again... 

https://www.masnspor...ster-plans.html

 

“I continue to think it’s a very important step for us,” Elias said. “The style of play here, while it’s created a lot of exciting moments and great baseball here at Oriole Park over the last 30 years, we’re looking ahead to the next 30 years. There’s going to be a lot of activity and refurbishment around the ballpark over the next several years. But this is something we felt was important to get going right away, and I think it’s going to create a more beneficial and appropriate style of play here at the park.

“It’s no secret this has been an extreme home run park, arguably the most extreme home run ballpark over the last 30 years, and it’s just not a real healthy way of playing your home games 81 times a year. So, we think this will go a long way to making this more of an average or normal type of ballpark in terms of home runs, and we think it will create a better style of play and be helpful for building a team.”

[bmore_ken]

Park effect data is very noisy, so it'll take multiple seasons to have more than a loose idea of how much of the run scoring in the stadium is due to changes in the dimensions versus other factors.

 

But it's definitely an interesting topic so I will absolutely be monitoring what the park effects are showing even in the early going.  Which is a really dumb thing to do, but there won't be much else to look at so let's get ready for it!

Not according to jamesdean 

[Mackus]

Not according to jamesdean 

 

Nope, he said in this thread that he understands how to do it now via park effects and not just by looking at year-to-year ERA!  Hooray for learning!

[dude]

Ohh look, Elias commented again... 

 

Epic. 

 

Now for my next trick....

[bmore_ken]

maybe sign better pitchers and you don’t need a stadium hack.

My position this whole thread.

[BSLChrisStoner]

Late to the thread but they signed Lyles who allowed the most HR last year. Not a coincidence they decided to move back the LF fence. 
 

maybe sign better pitchers and you don’t need a stadium hack. 

 

Still been a homerun park, even when you've had better pitching staffs. 

Working to get the park to league average homerun wise, seems like a worthy goal to me.

[BSLSteveBirrer]

This is backwards. In the day and age of three true outcomes and video games shouldn't they be moving the wall in closer? Something like 280 down the lines, 345 in the gaps, and 385 to dead center should do the trick.

[dude]

This is backwards. In the day and age of three true outcomes and video games shouldn't they be moving the wall in closer? Something like 280 down the lines, 345 in the gaps, and 385 to dead center should do the trick.

 

...next thing you know, the Analytics Department will be linking future performance to the Baseball MLB chooses and Global Warming.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Alexa show me ambien in post form

This is f’ing hilarious.

[Ravens2006]

This is backwards. In the day and age of three true outcomes and video games shouldn't they be moving the wall in closer? Something like 280 down the lines, 345 in the gaps, and 385 to dead center should do the trick.

Not a bad idea. Still a little deep but interesting. If you bring the fences in so far that almost any contact results in a HR, then maybe hitters will start swinging more for contact than power. Which is a change I'd love to see. It all makes sense...

[dude]

well...

ok, now that Beavis is asleep.

I guess I assumed from your tone and other context that you were saying it would be a bad thing if this was not a decision made by the baseball people.

Again, I think this is much of the angst against what I've suggested. Go back to pg8 (#144) and then watch 2035 and RichZ lose it. I think people want to believe that there is some 'new day' in Baltimore and alignment and focus on winning between a competent FO and the ownership. If you want to believe that [FO, PGA family and MLB] are all synched up looking forward to 30 years together...OK....but I think you have 3 different agendas and at some point the trains are going to collide or derail or something, probably sooner than later.  That's nothing against the good things that Elias is doing. 

 

I'd agree that it would be a bad thing if Elias is against the change but the Angeloses are pushing it through anyway. I don't believe that is happening, but I certainly think it'd be a bad sign if it were.

So let's go with [Scenario 2] and you tell me how you think Elias feels. fwiw, I'll stick with Scenario 1 because it precedes S2 in priorities, but whatever. Scenarios 3A, 3B, 4 and 5 I have issues with. After 2, I have a hard time getting around the rendering, but they'd all be more in alignment than everyone's current perception, given everything we know about human nature and everything that has actually happened.
----------

Scenario 2: There is a good plan THIS isn't it. (the capitalization previously is intentional) It's the 30 year anniversary of the Ballpark and so you make some changes in conjunction with any celebration you are doing there. There's some elements of everything Elias has said and they put together a good project and submitted it to ownership. It probably looks like something what hallas or Jack drew up early. You probably had to move the visitor bullpen and other changes around the area. 30 feet back and 13 foot wall always seemed extreme and less interesting. Maybe 10-15 feet back and a 10 foot wall. No wonky.

It's likely a much more expensive change. Maybe John didn't want to pay for it. Maybe he wanted to hold onto the idea for a time after Elias leaves. Just didn't want to do it. Whatever. One thing we know about the ownership is they are 'no accountability' (it's why we're where we are today). I'm confident there's been a number of agreements on Elias job acceptance that have to be executed. Spending in Draft and IFA. DR facility. Baseball Ops Staff control (outside of Brady). Changing the Park isn't in that set of agreements....but John/Lou don't just want to say 'no' and risk the stability of the current relationship (Elias is still needed to keep doing what he's doing). MASN is controlled by the family so you can limit that exposure. Don't announce it. Create no expectations and submit something - an alternate, simpler, cheaper, wonky plan - to MLB with the expectation that MLB rejects it. You aren't submitting it to get approved, you are submitting it to blame MLB for not approving it. Then, internally, it's over. You never publicized it, you never go to the public portion of the MSA hearings where you'd have to share anything publicly....so there's no "hey wait...what about" type questions, ever. We wouldn't have ever heard about it. This thread wouldn't exist. Elias has no right to see what was submitted to MLB. He knows what he did and he can assume it's what MLB rejected, but that's all behind closed doors.

Somewhere, MLB backchannels with Elias. That's likely a real problem, but whatever. Maybe Elias shares "not THIS" with someone in MLB. Does anyone think the relationship between MLB and the Angelos family is anything but antagonistic? So MLB knows that John Angelos is playing games so, hey, you asked for it, go do it. Now THIS project is approved. Now you have an approved project and you have Elias and MLB pressuring you to follow through on something you submitted, that was approved. That can leak and the Angelos family looks bad for not doing it.

They might not even have had all of the details worked out which explains why we don't even see it start until January. They had real work to do. You haven't marketed this thing at all. Construction has to start. Someone (Bader?) says "we are moving season tickets, construction is starting, people are going to find out, we have to say something publicly". They release it through the Sun on a Friday after 5pm. That's what you do when you are trying to avoid a news cycle. Hard to do with social media. Friday and Saturday, everyone (not here) is freaking out. This isn't an easy one to slip through the cracks. Sometime before Monday....

JA: You need to go defend this.
ME: We have IFA signing on Tuesday.
JA: You need to defend this.
ME: I didn't want to defend THIS.
JA: You wanted a wall, you got a wall, go defend it.

The wall is getting built. Elias is doing the minimum. Angelos family rigs the MSA public approval process to cover the cost after construction starts and doesn't even show up to defend the request..
---------------

So back the question...(while I don't specifically think this is what happened) is Elias 'against' the wall? Not really. How do you think he'd feel in scenario 2? Frustrated? (that was my earlier answer) He wanted something, but not THIS, but he has to be the front man because it was agreed from Day 1 that he wanted to be the front man. So he's the front man. For everything. When there's scuttle about the Orioles moving to Nashville "Elias" writes a letter. Really? Because he has absolutely nothing to do with it, but he's the front man so ...here, tell them this letter is from you.

If you want to say I'm stupid and 'shooter on the hill' and all of the other stuff, cool....but S2 actually matches up everything we actually know. You want to sharpshoot an alternate theory, but nothing in the actual execution follows the common assessment of human nature across everyone. S2 does (even if I think it's S1) You accept something you want to believe regardless of the evidence to the contrary...which is a pretty common process for most of the posters on this site.

Somebody wake up Beavis.

[Mackus]

I think your Scenario 2 is relying on lots of pretty big assumptions.  I'd consider each of the following assumptions are somewhere between "little bit of a leap" and "very unlikely":

 

"The Elias Plan" is different than what is happening

Elias isn't able to see to the submitted proposal to MLB

Angeloses would feel compelled to submit a fake plan to MLB, expecting rejections, so they can lie to Elias that his plan got rejected

(assuming first 3 above are true) Someone in MLB would know the plan the submitted by the Orioles isn't Elias' plan

(assuming first 3 above are true) Someone in MLB leaks to Elias that the plan the O's submit isn't Elias' plan

MLB would only approve the plan we have solely because they think the Orioles want it rejected

There is so much work for Elias to do the day before the IFA season opens that he can't spare one hour discussing the changes

 

I think it's much more likely that Elias was a big part of brainstorming and finalizing this change.  You don't like the design.  That is fueling all of the above logical leaps.  You hate it, which is fine, but you hate it so much that you are assuming that Elias can't possibly have any part in designing it and he must also hate it and he must be being strong-armed by ownership into presenting and backing a plan that he hates.  Isn't it simply much more likely that he likes and proposed it?

[TwentyThirtyFive]

Assumptions you say. Geez you think. Labeling them  as assumptions is also very kind.

[Mackus]

If scenario 2 were true, I think Elias would quit.  He wouldn't be fronting the charade.  Beyond frustrated.  He walks away, probably gets to keep all his money or else he goes public, and then he gets another job with a real team.  Perhaps having to walk back to Asst GM for a while like Wren did when he left.