41 replies to this topic

[dude]

I feel like so many people, including many on this board, seem to constantly forget that they have like 90some wins in their last 162.

 

I could point out that the performance of the team over 162 has nothing to do with rebuilding, but let's shelve that one, we've done it enough.

 

What is important to point out is that people seem to get comfortable with the notion that things somehow can't go wrong.  They can.  Ask the 14-28 White Sox or the 17-25 Cards.  I don't think Steve Cohen was envisioning a 20-22 4th place team when he shelled out 400M for the 2023 season.  The Padres are hyper-committed and are sitting at 19-22.  The Giants were desperate to compete with a big stack of cash, and are 5th at 17-23 behind the Rox.

 

Performance Formula.  You have to find a way to grind out a win every night.  Short memory about yesterday (good or bad), tomorrow will get here soon enough, focus on winning today.  Every team is 2-4 weeks from being in it or out of it, including the Orioles.

 

Nobody hangs a banner in May.  Lot of Baseball left to play.  Play well.

[TwentyThirtyFive]

Is dude a motivational speaker. Know you wanted the GM job but maybe Elias can find a place for you to remind the boys about grinding, short memories, and each day being a new day. Look, if it were up to me I'd even give you a shot at talking to Hyde about his BP management.

[hallas]

This is only tangentially related to the main point, but I wonder if orgs are going to willingly tank going forward as consistently as they have the past 5-6 years.  In the past, it seems like most teams at least put forth the facade of trying to field a semi-competitive team, and as a result, the worst teams ended at around 97-102 losses.  But since 2018, every (full) year there has been at least 1 team with at least 105 losses, and many years more than 1.  The existence of these terrible teams means that someone is beating them, which would mean that the previous expectations of a playoff berth with 93 or 94 wins might not continue, even with the expanded playoff format.  It might take 95-97 wins just for a wild card berth as long as multiple teams on the schedule are basically free wins to the top teams.

[TwentyThirtyFive]

This is only tangentially related to the main point, but I wonder if orgs are going to willingly tank going forward as consistently as they have the past 5-6 years.  In the past, it seems like most teams at least put forth the facade of trying to field a semi-competitive team, and as a result, the worst teams ended at around 97-102 losses.  But since 2018, every (full) year there has been at least 1 team with at least 105 losses, and many years more than 1.  The existence of these terrible teams means that someone is beating them, which would mean that the previous expectations of a playoff berth with 93 or 94 wins might not continue, even with the expanded playoff format.  It might take 95-97 wins just for a wild card berth as long as multiple teams on the schedule are basically free wins to the top teams.

Who is tanking this year outside of Oakland. KC is playing young guys but enough with real potential. Colorado has salary so there hasnt been an intention to straight up tank of late even if they  know they have to rebuild.  This is why IM fine distinguishing between tanking and rebuilding. Even with lottery drafts and other things leagues try to do to dissuade tanking/rebuilding its still gonna be a thing at  all times.  When an org realizes the talent is too poor that team will try to get the best draft picks as possible, trade off any assets left, and not invest nearly as much in FA, Again, across all sports. Its happened for years and years and it will continue for years and years. Long after we are all gone and dude has cursed the word rebuild for the last time.

[hallas]

Who is tanking this year outside of Oakland. KC is playing young guys but enough with real potential. Colorado has salary so there hasnt been an intention to straight up tank of late even if they  know they have to rebuild.  This is why IM fine distinguishing between tanking and rebuilding. Even with lottery drafts and other things leagues try to do to dissuade tanking/rebuilding its still gonna be a thing at  all times.  When an org realizes the talent is too poor that team will try to get the best draft picks as possible, trade off any assets left, and not invest nearly as much in FA, Again, across all sports. Its happened for years and years and it will continue for years and years. Long after we are all gone and dude has cursed the word rebuild for the last time.

 

I think KC is starting Witt, a bunch of retreads that haven't played well, and a bunch of AAAA guys.  I guess you could argue that they at least signed some guys, but Greinke felt like a nostaligia/swan song signing, and Lyles wasn't very good to begin with so I guess they just wanted to set some money on fire.

 

Maybe they were hoping to be a 92-95 loss team, and they hit some bad breaks.  Either way, their look pretty bad, bad enough that it's at least a borderline tank job.

 

I do think that the existence of even a single team that tanks to the level that Oakland is tanking has the potential to warp the playoff picture.  If they end up with 120 losses - not inconceivable considering their current win percentage is worse than the 2018 Orioles team was at any point after the first 2 weeks of the season - that's at least 20 wins that other better teams are winning over them compared to a "typical" 100-loss worst team.  When you factor in the fact that other teams are also hitting 100 losses while being only the 3rd or 4th worst team in the league, the wins quickly add up.  And this isn't an isolated situation.  In 2022, you had the Athletics at 102 and the Nats at 107,  In 2021, the Orioles and D-Backs.  In 2019, Orioles Tigers and Marlins.  In 2018, Orioles and Royals.

[BobPhelan]

I think KC is starting Witt, a bunch of retreads that haven't played well, and a bunch of AAAA guys.

 

Witt, Pasquantino, Pratto, and Melendez were legit prospects. So were some of their pitchers. I don't think they're tanking but doubt they expected to do anything other than break these guys into the majors this year.

[BSLRoseKatz]

For the next five years, the first six picks in the draft will be decided by a lottery system that will give the three teams with the worst record the same odds of drafting No. 1.

 

Additionally, revenue sharing recipients (small-market teams) will not be able to receive a lottery pick more than two years in a row, and teams that pay revenue sharing (big-market teams) will not receive a lottery pick in consecutive years.

 

https://www.espn.com...ng-mlb-here-why

 

You can still tank for a bunch of #7 picks I suppose but the post-lockout CBA reduced the incentive to tank by a bunch

[bmore_ken]

I feel like so many people, including many on this board, seem to constantly forget that they have like 90some wins in their last 162.

It wouldn't be forgettable if they added to the team last year at the deadline and made the playoffs and doing a great job with an early weak schedule in May

[Mike in STL]

I could point out that the performance of the team over 162 has nothing to do with rebuilding, but let's shelve that one, we've done it enough.

 

What is important to point out is that people seem to get comfortable with the notion that things somehow can't go wrong.  They can.  Ask the 14-28 White Sox or the 17-25 Cards.  I don't think Steve Cohen was envisioning a 20-22 4th place team when he shelled out 400M for the 2023 season.  The Padres are hyper-committed and are sitting at 19-22.  The Giants were desperate to compete with a big stack of cash, and are 5th at 17-23 behind the Rox.

 

Performance Formula.  You have to find a way to grind out a win every night.  Short memory about yesterday (good or bad), tomorrow will get here soon enough, focus on winning today.  Every team is 2-4 weeks from being in it or out of it, including the Orioles.

 

Nobody hangs a banner in May.  Lot of Baseball left to play.  Play well.

Steve Cohen has a bum for a manager. 

[makoman]

It wouldn't be forgettable if they added to the team last year at the deadline and made the playoffs and doing a great job with an early weak schedule in May

Did they play anybody the last 120 games last year?

[Mike B]

Witt, Pasquantino, Pratto, and Melendez were legit prospects. So were some of their pitchers. I don't think they're tanking but doubt they expected to do anything other than break these guys into the majors this year.

I think KC was hoping they would get much more from their young pitchers.

Brady Singer, Kris Bubic, Brad Keller, Daniel Lynch have all struggled.  I worry about the Orioles young pitchers too, but I think we have a much deeper position player core than KC, so we can use some of that depth to get more pitching.

[hallas]

https://www.espn.com...ng-mlb-here-why

 

You can still tank for a bunch of #7 picks I suppose but the post-lockout CBA reduced the incentive to tank by a bunch

 

I think that the rookie scale made tanking for cost controlled talent much more viable.  As long as there is such a big divide between drafted players and open-market players in terms of salary commanded it's really hard to make an equitable system.  A draft lottery is a bandaid over a bullet hole IMO.

 

It's so easy to lean into the owner-favorable argument that goes something like, "ohmigod these unproven players are making so much, how can a high school/3rd year college kid be asking so much money, they're so greedy!" but looking at the success rate of draft picks, it's pretty obvious that it's an absurdly good investment on the aggregate because of how cost-controlled they are.

 

I know the timelines don't line up, but I think these kinds of things tend to have a little bit of lag.  Teams aren't going to tank the second the rookie wage scale is implemented, they're going to tank the next time they have a reasonable opportunity.  For the Orioles and Tigers that was 2018 and 2019.  For the A's it's 2023.

 

I don't know that there is a perfect solution to this; the old system heavily favored small market teams.

 

All the best solutions would require player concessions that I don't think they're willing to make.  Increase the rookie wage scale, reduce the number of cost controlled years, etc.

[bmore_ken]

Did they play anybody the last 120 games last year?

Did they make the playoffs?

[TwentyThirtyFive]

Lol. Well one things pretty certain. They arent gonna finish the season winning at a .650 rate. I guess ken will pat his back for making that call. I mean they will have regressed. You get to literally cover everything and say i told you so. Joke.

[bmore_ken]

Lol. Well one things pretty certain. They arent gonna finish the season winning at a .650 rate. I guess ken will pat his back for making that call. I mean they will have regressed. You get to literally cover everything and say i told you so. Joke.

It's not even an "I told you so thing" for me. I would love to see them make the playoffs. My dad took me to game three of the WS against Cincy in 1970(yes I'm old af). I was at game two in 1983 vs the Phillies. There are O's fans posting on this board who have never seen the O's in a post season game. I just don't think the rotation will get them there and have no faith management will do something at the deadline to improve it. As I said in another post, I'll gladly be here to take my lumps if they make it. 

[weird-O]

I mentioned this in another thread. I'm not using strength of schedule against the O's. They've beaten bad teams, that's what good teams do. More importantly, they've done well against teams with winning records by taking the series against the Rangers, Rays and Pirates. They only lost the Braves series. If they slide backward, we'll know the reason(s). If it's related to weaknesses that could have been improved through free agency, then it's business as usual with the ownership group. 

[bmore_ken]

I mentioned this in another thread. I'm not using strength of schedule against the O's. They've beaten bad teams, that's what good teams do. More importantly, they've done well against teams with winning records by taking the series against the Rangers, Rays and Pirates. They only lost the Braves series. If they slide backward, we'll know the reason(s). If it's related to weaknesses that could have been improved through free agency, then it's business as usual with the ownership group. 

As i said I'll be here to take my lumps if they make the playoffs, but as of May 17. Six pitchers have started games. 5 of those 6 are at a 4.67 ERA or higher. That doesn't spell playoffs to me. Regardless of their win total since last season's 2nd half. 

[weird-O]

As i said I'll be here to take my lumps if they make the playoffs, but as of May 17. Six pitchers have started games. 5 of those 6 are at a 4.67 ERA or higher. That doesn't spell playoffs to me. Regardless of their win total since last season's 2nd half. 

I don't blame you for being doubtful. It's the Orioles. What have they done in the last 24 years to make anyone say, "WOW, the O's are really going for it this year". 

[BSLSteveBirrer]

I don't blame you for being doubtful. It's the Orioles. What have they done in the last 24 years to make anyone say, "WOW, the O's are really going for it this year". 

I don't think anybody can say that with a straight face. Now they may well have enough (I am leery) but that's different than the quote you made.

 

Nothing and I mean nothing they did over the winter lead anybody to say anything close to that.

[weird-O]

I don't think anybody can say that with a straight face. Now they may well have enough (I am leery) but that's different than the quote you made.

 

Nothing and I mean nothing they did over the winter lead anybody to say anything close to that.

Exactly, that's why I don't blame Ken for his doubts. As he pointed out, there's a generation and the beginnings of another one, that haven't seen the O's play in the WS. That's all this ownership group. At the end of the 2014 season, the Royals (the Royals, of all teams) added players to get back to, and win the WS. The O's told DD to "really dig deep into the dumpster this time".