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Post by mmmbeer on Sept 27, 2016 14:20:55 GMT -5
lol. that's a lot of negativity for an almost play-off team.
I disagree with "much better job". He needs to do a slightly better job, IMHO. His wheeling & dealing is probably average compared to other GMs with the same budget restraints.
However, the real problem is not the offseason, it's the ongoing, year round problem of drafting & developing SP. They have to fix that to see more than incremental improvement. It may be that his heart is not in improving the farm system since Angelos blocked his Toronto move.
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Post by Evil Yoda on Sept 27, 2016 14:52:05 GMT -5
The farm system seems like it injures starting pitchers regularly, and it doesn't seem like there's much depth there. Is that because they don't draft well? Because they don't develop the talent they do draft? John Stockstill is the Director of Player Personnel, and the rumor about him is that his principal qualification is his friendship with Angelos. But I don't know for sure. Someone needs to figure out what's wrong here and how to fix it.
They need to spend smarter in free agency, which means Angelos needs to stay out of those decisions (if Angelos doesn't trust Duquette any longer then he needs to replace him).
Blocking the Toronto departure was a blunder. It meant that the team couldn't build on the previous year's success because Duquette did nothing while that dragged on. And then he couldn't do anything.
Overpaying Davis was a mistake that's going to cause them pain and might even cost them their chance to sign Manny. I like Davis, but Angelos needs to learn from the Ravens: they let *other teams* overpay much of their talent, confident they can replace it. I believe Angelos remembered fan backlash over the departure of Markakis, and insisted on signing Davis solely because he thought it would put butts in seats. That's consistent with certain other past mistakes, such as Raffy Palmeiro and Albert Belle. For a long time the one thing you could be sure of was that if the Orioles signed a star, it was because he was all but done.
It's my opinion, based on the fact that Angelos is the only constant for about 20 years of forgetting the "Oriole Way", that he is the problem, and nothing will change until he is out of the picture. Buck is a motivational miracle worker. I believe he is almost single-handedly responsible for the team's success since his arrival. If he had a decent owner and a better GM helping I believe he'd already have managed a World Series win.
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Post by Evil Yoda on Sept 28, 2016 8:56:38 GMT -5
Over the weekend, against a very bad team, they showed some spark.
Last night, they again played like a team that didn't care if they made the post-season on not. Like they just want to get the next five games over with so they can start their vacation. Someone I know put it best: "The Blue Jays are playing like they can't wait for the playoffs to begin. The Orioles are playing like they can't wait for the season to end."
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Post by mmmbeer on Sept 29, 2016 9:58:26 GMT -5
critical win last night. I looked at the Tigers schedule & their last series is against Atlanta. Bummer. It would be good for the Os if the Sox eliminate the yanks tonight so they won't have anything to play for.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2016 10:21:09 GMT -5
Cleveland hasn't been much help the past few nights against Detroit, either. The Indians are clearly focusing on next week and the beginning of the divisional playoffs.
The Orioles need Kim's bat in the lineup, lefties be damned. If Showalter is concerned about his defense, then just DH him, but get his bat in there. Kim hit .296 against lefties for his career in Korea, which I realize isn't the same as the majors, but I'm guessing he wouldn't be an automatic out, either. He's only had 18 at-bats (without a hit) against lefties thus far this season, which is much too small a sample size to draw any definite conclusions.
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Post by Evil Yoda on Sept 29, 2016 14:25:53 GMT -5
I don't understand Buck's thinking on some things: how he handled Reimold, McFarland, and Kim, how he and Wallace seem oblivious to pitchers when they struggle, and how he and Coolbaugh have allowed the plate discipline to disappear. It has reached the point that it is corroding my confidence in his decision making ability. I have heard speculation that Buck is still raw about Kim's refusal to accept a minor league assignment early on. It's based on the theory that players should do whatever the team needs them to do. But Kim proved he does not belong in the minors; Buck made a mistake there. What he asked the team to do was honor its contract, and that's his right. And I speak as someone who was initially not his fan.
Put Kim in. Let's see if he can learn to hit lefties. And if he can't? There are worse problems; lefties aren't that common. His defense isn't spectacular, but neither is it horrendous, and let's face it: past week or so, a lot of his teammates are playing worse defense.
Angelos is stuck with Duquette until 2018; if he tries to fire him, Duquette will certainly squeeze every dime he can out of the old miser; he owes Angelos at least that much payback. I sure hope his next few off-seasons are better than his last couple.
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Post by mmmbeer on Sept 29, 2016 21:08:05 GMT -5
2 out of 3 from the Jays. Yanks eliminated. Fantastic.
Ubaldo coming through the last month. Who would ever guess that. Let's hope Atlanta can take 1 from Detroit.
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Post by Evil Yoda on Sept 30, 2016 11:01:41 GMT -5
I do not understand where Ubaldo found this reserve of competence. But more power to him.  |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 30, 2016 15:06:08 GMT -5
2 out of 3 from the Jays. Yanks eliminated. Fantastic. Ubaldo coming through the last month. Who would ever guess that. Let's hope Atlanta can take 1 from Detroit. Atlanta has won 10 of its last 11, so I don't think this series is going to be a gimme for Detroit. What remains to be seen is whether their rainout from yesterday with Cleveland will need to be made up. Boston still has some incentive, so I'm thinking they'll put their varsity out there against Toronto. They hold a tiebreaker against Cleveland, but Texas holds tiebreakers against both Boston and Cleveland. Should the Rangers win tonight, they'll clinch the No. 1 seed in the American League. That would ensure a Red Sox-Indians division series, but the only thing in question would be home field. The Sox are starting Porcello tonight and Price on Sunday; since they are much better offensively at Fenway than away, they'd most likely want that home field advantage for the first round. |
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Post by Evil Yoda on Oct 1, 2016 10:32:46 GMT -5
They've stepped up in the last few games like a team that wants to be in the post season. I hope it continues.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2016 15:10:47 GMT -5
A win today and the Orioles are in, at least in some capacity.
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Post by Evil Yoda on Oct 2, 2016 9:51:22 GMT -5
Yesterday's game was ugly. Buck, as is his flaw, left Miley in just a little too long. I heard his rationalization of it but I found it unconvincing. Of course, we don't know how or if that would have changed the rest of the game; e.g. Brach might still have had an off day. But you know when the newspapers, the radio announcers, and Kubatko are all mystified by the move that it might have been a mistake.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2016 11:39:29 GMT -5
Yesterday's game was ugly. Buck, as is his flaw, left Miley in just a little too long. I heard his rationalization of it but I found it unconvincing. Of course, we don't know how or if that would have changed the rest of the game; e.g. Brach might still have had an off day. But you know when the newspapers, the radio announcers, and Kubatko are all mystified by the move that it might have been a mistake. Hindsight being what it is, had Showalter simply brought in Givens to start the seventh, maybe Brach wouldn't have been needed. Let him start the seventh and possibly the eighth, then turn it over to Britton, even if he might have needed to get four or five outs instead of just three. At this point in the season, everyone should expect to get stretched a little bit. |
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Post by Evil Yoda on Oct 2, 2016 17:15:49 GMT -5
Well, they did what they had to today. And it looks like Boston decided to phone it in, and why not? They have nothing to gain from a win today. So the O's will be on the road to Toronto on Tuesday.
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Post by mmmbeer on Oct 2, 2016 19:46:23 GMT -5
Tigers sputtered to the end. 88 wins would have been enough! The wild card is a fair outcome for this team. The game with Toronto will be a total coin toss. Hope they make a little run in the postseason because they won't make it next year. That's the pattern. |
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Post by Evil Yoda on Oct 2, 2016 19:55:51 GMT -5
Tigers sputtered to the end. 88 wins would have been enough! The wild card is a fair outcome for this team. The game with Toronto will be a total coin toss. Hope they make a little run in the postseason because they won't make it next year. That's the pattern. If Duquette hibernates as he does most winters, and then groggily grabs a few guys from the discard pile in the spring and hopes they work out, then the next season will depend on whether he's right. He is, about every other year. Trumbo and Weiters will probably be elsewhere. And if he's not giving serious thought to Manny's future he's incompetent. Whether that means signing him for a great deal of money or dealing him for prospects, I don't know. Angelos may want to sign him because it won't be lost on him that the fans will be enraged if the club lets Manny depart. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2016 20:08:39 GMT -5
Well, they did what they had to today. And it looks like Boston decided to phone it in, and why not? They have nothing to gain from a win today. So the O's will be on the road to Toronto on Tuesday. Boston had everything to gain from a win today. Had they done so, it would have forced Cleveland to play that makeup with Detroit tomorrow to determine the No. 2 seed. Now the Red Sox will still face the Indians in the ALDS, but the series will open in Cleveland instead of Boston. The Indians and Rangers both won 53 home games this season, best in the American League. |
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Post by Evil Yoda on Oct 3, 2016 9:06:02 GMT -5
Well, they did what they had to today. And it looks like Boston decided to phone it in, and why not? They have nothing to gain from a win today. So the O's will be on the road to Toronto on Tuesday. Boston had everything to gain from a win today. Had they done so, it would have forced Cleveland to play that makeup with Detroit tomorrow to determine the No. 2 seed. Now the Red Sox will still face the Indians in the ALDS, but the series will open in Cleveland instead of Boston. The Indians and Rangers both won 53 home games this season, best in the American League. That's what I get for listening to Gary Thorne, who said they couldn't change the seeding, or something like that, whether they won or lost. Inasmuch as I was splitting my attention between two games I could have missed part or his comment, or a correction of it later. |
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