62 replies to this topic

[TwentyThirtyFive]

Why's everyone ignoring 1998? What was more exciting entering '97 than entering '98? We didn't know '98 was gonna stink heading into the year. Team returned almost everybody except Randy Myers and Davey Johnson.

This is fair. Trying to remember if they lost anyone of importance off the '97 team. Not that its the end all/ be all but Ill quickly try to find Vegas win totals for those years

[TwentyThirtyFive]

Btw the '96 team started winning games just in time. Took a long time to gel. Won 88 games which is a solid enough win total but in an era of only one WC a bit lucky 88 wins was enough.

[BaltBird 24]

Bonilla was the only player lost from 96 to 97, but was replaced by Eric Davis. Of course, Eric Davis missed a big chunk of 97 to colon cancer. He did amazingly return for the playoffs; then had a monster 1998 season.

[TwentyThirtyFive]

The '98 Orioles scored 5 more runs than the '97 Orioles but gave up 100 more runs than the '97 Orioles. All about the pitching.

[BaltBird 24]

Offense was weird in the late 90s.

Mussina won 19 games, was a 3.3 WAR pitcher, and had a 4.81 ERA in 96.

O's had a team OPS of .822 in 96 (4th best in the league) and a team ERA of 5.14 (8th best).

O's had a team OPS of .770 in 97 (6th best) but a 3.91 ERA (2nd best). Basically all they did was replace David Wells with Jimmy Key.

[BaltBird 24]

Late 90s the O's rode Mussina and Erickson, but really struggled to find any other decent SP.

Ponson logged a ton of innings, but wasn't particularly good then a bunch of random fillers.

[TwentyThirtyFive]

Os got hot in July of '98. Were 10 games under on July 1. Made it to 55-53 by July 30. I camt remember if Gillick wanted to sell like he did in '96 anf PA overruled him again. Im guessing that happened. But we lost Palmeiro, Alomar, Davis for only comp picks.

[BaltBird 24]

7 picks in the top 50 in 1999 draft. 4 in the top 23. They needed to nail that draft and all they came away with in the top half was Brian Roberts.

Bigbie had a short run, but no huge impact.

Paradis, Stahl, Cenate, and Rice were all huge misses.

They did nab Bedard in the 6th round that year.

[TwentyThirtyFive]

Teams gave up more at the deadline then IMO. Palmeiro and Davis were having terrific seasons in '98. Prob coulda got a pretty penny.

[BaltBird 24]

Looking at the biggest deal - Houston traded Freddy Garcia and Carlos Guillen for 2 months of Randy Johnson.

[BSLChrisStoner]

Why's everyone ignoring 1998? What was more exciting entering '97 than entering '98? We didn't know '98 was gonna stink heading into the year. Team returned almost everybody except Randy Myers and Davey Johnson.

The BP projections for 98 match my memories... expectations were not high.

https://www.baseball...ers-and-losers/

[BSLChrisStoner]

Offense was weird in the late 90s.

Mussina won 19 games, was a 3.3 WAR pitcher, and had a 4.81 ERA in 96.

O's had a team OPS of .822 in 96 (4th best in the league) and a team ERA of 5.14 (8th best).

O's had a team OPS of .770 in 97 (6th best) but a 3.91 ERA (2nd best). Basically all they did was replace David Wells with Jimmy Key.

Mussina's 96 was rough.

[TwentyThirtyFive]

Has any sites done win loss projections for this year?? If Fangraphs did one I missed it. 

[BSLChrisStoner]

Has any sites done win loss projections for this year?? If Fangraphs did one I missed it.

They are up. Believe the Os gained 3 games with Burnes.

[TwentyThirtyFive]

Mussina's 96 was rough.

 

Mussina's 96 was rough.

Still a 103 ERA+. '93 was worse in his prime years as that season he was 100 ERA+.  Just an insanely offensive year. Balls super juiced and the players too. 

[SBTarheel]

'83 is the top one for me. 11 year old Seth couldn't wait for Opening Day after spending several sad months after the last game in '82. 

 

'98 is a great one!! Kudos to whoever brought it up. Everything was going ok until Ray Miller said "ask them, they're the ones that make all the money" after a loss. Eric Davis turned half the clubhouse against Miller, and it became a disaster. None of the veteran signings worked out, and Guillen, Carter, Drabek, Pete Smith...etc all bombed. 

 

2013 too, after the "Buckle Up" season was definitely a good one as well. 

[BSLMikeLowe]

And along the same lines as 1998, 1984 was pretty highly anticipated. They returned pretty much the entire championship team, and made an upgrade at 3B with Wayne Gross (he wasn't great by any means, but compared to what they had he was for sure an upgrade).

 

But they got off to a really slow start (5-13), bounced back in May, but never sustained it and were just 1 game above .500 from June-Sept. Meanwhile Detroit reeled off 9 straight wins to begin the season and never looked back. For what it's worth, which isn't much, the O's were the only team that had a winning record against the Tigers that season.

[glenn__davis]

I anticipate all of them. Maybe a cop out but true.

[Ravens2006]

And along the same lines as 1998, 1984 was pretty highly anticipated. They returned pretty much the entire championship team, and made an upgrade at 3B with Wayne Gross (he wasn't great by any means, but compared to what they had he was for sure an upgrade).

But they got off to a really slow start (5-13), bounced back in May, but never sustained it and were just 1 game above .500 from June-Sept. Meanwhile Detroit reeled off 9 straight wins to begin the season and never looked back. For what it's worth, which isn't much, the O's were the only team that had a winning record against the Tigers that season.

Didn't the Tigers start like 35-5 or something obscenely good? I have a vivid childhood memory of a Sunday afternoon fishing with my dad listening to an O's / Tigers game and in my youthful optimism saying something like "The O's are going to catch them" and he laughed and shot me down nicely.

So weird, have so few memories from then (I was 9) but that's always been one that sticks with me to this day. Pretty sure we were on the Back River too... so yeah, just glad we didn't catch anything to keep either!

[BSLMikeLowe]

Didn't the Tigers start like 35-5 or something obscenely good? I have a vivid childhood memory of a Sunday afternoon fishing with my dad listening to an O's / Tigers game and in my youthful optimism saying something like "The O's are going to catch them" and he laughed and shot me down nicely.

So weird, have so few memories from then (I was 9) but that's always been one that sticks with me to this day. Pretty sure we were on the Back River too... so yeah, just glad we didn't catch anything to keep either!

 

Through the magic of Baseball Reference I looked it up, and yes, on Thursday May 24th they beat the Angels 5-1 to improve to 35-5.