15 replies to this topic

[BSLChrisStoner]

Balt Sun: A quiet winter after a breakout season? Maybe just another way the Orioles are following the Astros.

[dude]

This whole Astros thing needs to stop.

 

Are we going to start cheating next year?

[ivanbalt]

Returning to competitiveness in the AL West is a little different than the AL East.

[dude]

Also, we are routinely seeing the "breakout 2022 season" in national and local narratives.

 

The 2022 season wasn't intended to be a breakout anything.  The Orioles were widely rated as the worst team in MLB coming into the 2022 season and the only addition was Lyles to eat some innings and waiver claims.

 

Credit to Mike Elias when he's interviewed on the 2022 results, he generally puts it ALL back on the player and coaches.  Some might want to credit that to Leadership, but none of his actions before the season or at the trade deadline or his words anywhere (even now looking into 2023) indicate he wants a direct role in improving the roster. 

 

When we go back to 2012, people like to act like that season was some culmination of non-competitive behavior from 08-11 under MacPhail.  It wasn't.  Heading into the 2012 season, it looked like a failure and MacPhail bailed rather than be accountable.  MacPhail has proven to be less than competent in his time in Chicago, Baltimore and Philly.

 

The 2022 team was largely the inherited Talent from 2018 plus waiver claims.

 

I think there's a lot of good things that have happened with the draft and player development (actually looks much better than what happened in Houston, '12-'16), the IFA stuff is good but has basically zero impact now or anytime soon....but none of that has anything to do with propping up non-competitive behavior.

 

We are where we should always be with some level of Organizational competence. 

[BSLRoseKatz]

I'm really not interested in we're copying the Astros being spun as a positive until we're willing to do something as aggressive as trading for Justin Verlander 

[Mike B]

This whole Astros thing needs to stop.

 

Are we going to start cheating next year?

Agreed, enough of the Astros crap.

[You Play to Win the Game]

Also, we are routinely seeing the "breakout 2022 season" in national and local narratives.

 

The 2022 season wasn't intended to be a breakout anything.  The Orioles were widely rated as the worst team in MLB coming into the 2022 season and the only addition was Lyles to eat some innings and waiver claims.

 

Credit to Mike Elias when he's interviewed on the 2022 results, he generally puts it ALL back on the player and coaches.  Some might want to credit that to Leadership, but none of his actions before the season or at the trade deadline or his words anywhere (even now looking into 2023) indicate he wants a direct role in improving the roster. 

 

When we go back to 2012, people like to act like that season was some culmination of non-competitive behavior from 08-11 under MacPhail.  It wasn't.  Heading into the 2012 season, it looked like a failure and MacPhail bailed rather than be accountable.  MacPhail has proven to be less than competent in his time in Chicago, Baltimore and Philly.

 

The 2022 team was largely the inherited Talent from 2018 plus waiver claims.

 

I think there's a lot of good things that have happened with the draft and player development (actually looks much better than what happened in Houston, '12-'16), the IFA stuff is good but has basically zero impact now or anytime soon....but none of that has anything to do with propping up non-competitive behavior.

 

We are where we should always be with some level of Organizational competence. 

 

This is a really good point, he does do that, and I've overlooked it. That is a good thing to do and worth noting. Good post btw, brought it home with the non-competitive behavior. There's just no excuse for it.

[dude]

I'm really not interested in we're copying the Astros being spun as a positive until we're willing to do something as aggressive as trading for Justin Verlander 

 

Well keep in mind that was about 5 minutes from not happening.  The Astros FO didn't want to deal a package of younger players for Verlander at the non-waiver deadline (back when there were 2 trade deadlines) and only the epic floods in Houston that Fall (when Houston was literally just about under water) caused them to prioritize making that move.  Even then, the deal came together in the last minutes before the waiver deadline and anyone that had claimed Verlander could have had him for nothing and prevented Houston from getting him. 

 

Ideally the City of Baltimore doesn't have to suffer catastrophe for the Orioles to value winning.  

[TwentyThirtyFive]

This is a really good point, he does do that, and I've overlooked it. That is a good thing to do and worth noting. Good post btw, brought it home with the non-competitive behavior. There's just no excuse for it.

Plenty wrong with that post.

[You Play to Win the Game]

Plenty wrong with that post.

Not really. I can see it from your angle when I look hard enough, but I agree generally with his tone here. The biggest impact of last year was Adley, and he was the consensus #1 and about as sure of a thing as there is. They still deserve credit for developing him though, no player doesn't need professional development. Also, the things they do well with the minor league development infrastructure and the intertwinement of analytics within their coaching decisions and day-to-day obviously had a positive impact on last year's turnaround as well. The front office deserves a ton of credit for Voth, Kremer, even Spenser Watkins being quasi-passable for a period of time, the bullpen which will still regress... but they clearly had a positive impact on those results specifically with the use of analytics and great coaching for the pitchers. But other than that, he's still pretty spot on IMO. They still didn't intend to win.

[TwentyThirtyFive]

Not really. I can see it from your angle when I look hard enough, but I agree generally with his tone here. The biggest impact of last year was Adley, and he was the consensus #1 and about as sure of a thing as there is. They still deserve credit for developing him though, no player doesn't need professional development. Also, the things they do well with the minor league development infrastructure and the intertwinement of analytics within their coaching decisions and day-to-day obviously had a positive impact on last year's turnaround as well. The front office deserves a ton of credit for Voth, Kremer, even Sammy Watkins being quasi-passable for a period of time, the bullpen which will still regress... but they clearly had a positive impact on those results specifically with the use of analytics and great coaching for the pitchers. But other than that, he's still pretty spot on IMO. They still didn't intend to win.

Hes already had a direct role in improving the roster. The sooner Stoner has had enough of this broken record fraud the better

[BSLMikeLowe]

Not really. I can see it from your angle when I look hard enough, but I agree generally with his tone here. The biggest impact of last year was Adley, and he was the consensus #1 and about as sure of a thing as there is. They still deserve credit for developing him though, no player doesn't need professional development. Also, the things they do well with the minor league development infrastructure and the intertwinement of analytics within their coaching decisions and day-to-day obviously had a positive impact on last year's turnaround as well. The front office deserves a ton of credit for Voth, Kremer, even Sammy Watkins being quasi-passable for a period of time, the bullpen which will still regress... but they clearly had a positive impact on those results specifically with the use of analytics and great coaching for the pitchers. But other than that, he's still pretty spot on IMO. They still didn't intend to win.

 

I know it's easy to confuse dumpster wire claims between the two Baltimore teams, but at least the Ravens only go cheap on WRs.

[You Play to Win the Game]

Hes already had a direct role in improving the roster. The sooner Stoner has had enough of this broken record fraud the better

Well, it's about time, and I'd hope so, though I don't really see it. It's basically his job.

[You Play to Win the Game]

I know it's easy to confuse dumpster wire claims between the two Baltimore teams, but at least the Ravens only go cheap on WRs.

Dammit. Nice. 

 

2035 didn't even catch it. He just rage quoted and asked for dude to be banned again. Lol. Love it. 

[dude]

Also, the things they do well with the minor league development infrastructure and the intertwinement of analytics within their coaching decisions and day-to-day obviously had a positive impact on last year's turnaround as well. The front office deserves a ton of credit for Voth, Kremer, even Sammy Watkins being quasi-passable for a period of time, the bullpen which will still regress... but they clearly had a positive impact on those results specifically with the use of analytics and great coaching for the pitchers. 

 

I'd like to add to this.  I'm all of the above when it comes to adding Talent so if you think you know something about a guy, awesome, go get it done.

 

...but why is it we can only do this with waiver claims?  You don't get any real credit from from variance of expectations to performance.  If we can do [whatever] with this lesser class of Talent (nothing against anyone, I have several of them in my current expectations)...why don't we ever do it with better Talented cats?  If I can go from a D to a B, why can't I go from a C or a B to an A?

 

We had very little gains in terms of pitching or hitting over the last 4 years.  We tried to credit Mullins explosion, but (as most expected) it's hard to maintain that level of gain.  We saw some excellent pitching in 2022, so credit for that....but we haven't really seen that in the 3 previous years....so is that more happenstance like Mullins performance or are there real gains there we can leverage on in the future.

 

For me personally, I want to see.  I think guys like Kremer and Bradish looked really good in the second half and if they are sustainable sub-4.00 ERA pitchers, that is great.  I want to see Baker repeat his progress and Cionel repeat his performance.  Many mocked the Voth addition, but he pitched his ass off in Baltimore...why can't we tandem him with IL Hall to buffer his innings.  He's out of options, he pitched great...I need 5 innings out of him, Hall gets 6-7/8.

 

I'm good with all of the surprises, but we could probably have more surprises at the expense of competing well.  If we're competing well....do we need surprises?  Is anyone going to be like..."damn....we made the Playoffs, but you realize if we had lost 90 games we could have probably developed another waiver claim?"

 

If you have the tools to turn straw into gold, Refine better gold and if you find yourself in a position where you lack some gold, go get some straw and turn it into gold.  Never need non-competitive behavior to find straw.

[mdrunning]

With the last of the big-ticket free agent shortstops off the board, there are now rumblings of teams contacting the Orioles regarding Jorge Mateo's availability. Not sure how much value he would have at the current time, but maybe where there's a bit of trade smoke there may eventually be some fire.