A Summer Without Baseball
It’s hot today in advance of the traditional Memorial Day summer kickoff. Heat that speaks to, without yet rising to the level of, the suffocating Mid Atlantic haze waiting just around the corner.
A haze that in many ways is synonymous with baseball. The days are long and hot and it’s hard to breathe but then in the evening things cool off. There’s a beer in the fridge and there is the Orioles. Nearly every night, all summer. I think that even during 12 long years of losing most people still found some comfort in this. It wasn’t always great but it was still ours.
This year, something’s different. Something’s not right. The energy is gone.
In the past even the angry folks still cared. The debate about whether The Plan was working, whether it could work, were at least debates. There was a sense that it mattered and that somewhere beneath the sarcastic comments and behind the empty seats everyone wanted the same thing: a night at the Yard with a winning team and a genuine hope that someday when the haze finally lifted there would still be meaningful baseball to play.
That’s all gone. In its place, only apathy. Sure there are still some die hards out there. I’m one, you’re probably another. Some of the others still call radio shows and contribute to thriving communities in various corners of the Birdland virtual world. But we’re the last of the breed, and we’re not enough.
I worry that Baltimore this summer will be a different place. More like, say Raleigh or Austin or Columbus. There are, no doubt, people in those towns who love baseball, but they don’t have baseball culture because they don’t have big-league teams around which to organize it. The only thing worse than that? The same situation with a team in town. If we’re not there yet we’re perilously close.
That thought haunts me. And I don’t want to hear about how it’s the team’s own fault, how it’s all because of Angelos, how nobody should have to support a losing team, etc. As Henry Ford said, “Don’t find fault, find a remedy.”
It starts by recognizing the basic value of having a team in town to root for. The basic value of the baseball culture that team creates. The importance of still giving a damn no matter how bad they are because they’re what we’ve got and, damn it, we’ll live and die with ‘em.
If this city loses that — and we’re dangerously close — then we’ve lost part of who we are, and we are lessened for it.
(photo via)
It sure feels like a summer without baseball sometimes. First time that I can really remember. I was so psyched for this season, too. But I think, without going into the “is this town losing its baseball town-ness” type of thing, you can point to exactly why there’s a thicker-than-usual air of apathy this season:
When you’re most exciting players – Matusz, Wieters, Jones, Reimold, Roberts, Pie, and Bergesen – all came out of the gate either injured or not very effective, it starts to feel like September come early. I mean, these are the CORE guys. Minus only Markakis, who is playing well, the entire core of what makes O’s fans excited about O’s baseball has come out of the gate poorly. In some cases, like Wieters, we can see some improvement in game calling and defensive prowess. Matusz and Bergy flash good games every now and then. But it’s not enough.
It’s just a cursed season so far.
One of the best things you’ve written, Neal.
The sooner the ballclub reads things like what you’ve written, and listens to other folks in town who have been telling them for years now to get their shit together (or else), the sooner, perhaps, we’ll all feel connected to the team again.
I went last night to the 6-1 snoozer against the A’s and the whole thing resembled a picnic. Folks were only sort of watching the game and when Atkins hit his HR, a bunch of people around me in the lower deck couldn’t clap because one hand was holding a beer and the other was holding their cell phone.
The only DYNAMIC difference between the way you think and the way I think is, I believe, this:
You write what you write and in an off-handed but sort of hope-you’re-getting-my-drift kind of way, you blame the fans. If that’s not how you intend it to come across, perhaps you’re just going for the “let’s contemplate it” angle and you’re leaving it to the reader to determine what he/she takes out of it.
It certainly appears to me as if you’re blaming the fans, in essence saying…”if you all don’t get your shit together and start going to the games, this franchise is in REAL trouble.”
The reality, of course, is that the organization has done all of this to themselves.
It’s THEIR job to fix it. It’s THEIR Job to treat their customers right. It’s THEIR job – like right now, when times are tough – to do something extra for people so they appreciate being appreciated.
This is ALL on the Orioles.
They made their bed.
I do agree, though, that people should go to the games. I’ve been to four this year. I’ve purchased tickets to three and was given a ticket to one. Not one of the games was worth the ticket price I paid, other than opening day when I took my son to his first ever game. That had no price tag attached to it.
They should have paid ME $10.00 to sit there a couple of Monday nights ago in the rain and watch the club half-try in a 4-3 loss to the hapless Royals.
Had I paid $48.00 for last night’s ticket, I would have left the ballpark mumbling something about “I’ll never plunk down that kind of money again…”
The crowds they’re currently drawing can, I believe, be traced back to last winter when they curled up in the fetal position and let the Yankees and Red Sox add quality players while they pissed and moaned about being in the American League East.
People were really eager to see them spend some money last winter and go through the off-season with some energy.
Instead, they spent $22 million on a dude who has as many big hits so far as The Gin Blossoms, a closer-with-no-pedigree-for-closing and Miguel Tejada, who, I assume, is in the final 50 games of his Orioles career and will be playing somewhere else in August.
People aren’t stupid. They know when a team is REALLY trying to win and making an effort to APPEAR as if they’re trying to win.
I think the club lost a lot of people last December and January and they’re feeling the affects of that now.
And when you start the season 3-16 and don’t do anything about it, people quickly catch on that the final 143 games are going to be nothing more than exercise for the players and condiment races on the scoreboard.
Like you, Neal, I too hope the fans go back to the stadium soon.
The baseball stadium, that is.
The football stadium doesn’t have that problem.
And Neal, I meant to ask you this and forgot.
What do YOU think the solution is to all of this?
You never really say what you think SHOULD be done. You just write about the plight and how you don’t want to hear that it’s the team’s fault, or Angelos’s fault, etc.
So, honestly, what is YOUR remedy for all of this?
I’m interested…
Neal, there are still plenty of angry folks. Just listen to 105.7 any time of day. People care, and they’re looking for any scapegoat they can find, which is natural. It’s just been such a brutal season in so many ways, and this after MacPhail went out on a limb big-time and said this is the season where it begins to be about wins and losses,ana all those national writers saying the O’s are a team on the rise. Just a lot more hope at the beginning of this year and then basically everything that could go wrong has gone wrong, especially with the injuries and the inexplicable regression of nearly all of the young players.
I do sense the apathy too, and I think it’s more pronounced this year because we got NO good baseball, no time to irrationally hope for a few months, just awfulness night after night on the field. I don’t have a solution. I think it will take a real shift in the mindset of this team overall though. They just expect to lose — it’s as simple as that.
It’s true. Unfortunately, a fanbase can only take so many beatings before they just have to look away.
I maintain the fan apathy is a direct result of poor on-field results, especially when it comes at the hands of our most exciting and talented young players. It’s the losing, Stupid, as Andrew would say.
Andy’s done a good job gathering talent – they just aren’t performing. He needs to do a better job going forward, or at least maintain his rate of acquiring young talent. You can’t really blame the fans, and I don’t agree that Neal was blaming the fans. I think the original post isn’t hinting at anything or insinuating anything. I think it’s a simple fear of “if we don’t turn this around, Baltimore isn’t going to be a baseball town anymore”. How do we fix this problem?
Baltimoreans don’t want really want the organization to give them anything but a winning team. It’s part of the reason why the MacPhail video didn’t go over well. Don’t talk about it, just act. Don’t give me marketing and promotion, give me good players. When the team on the field matches what O’s fans envision their up-and-coming baseball team to be like, the fans will return.
The O’s are trying to win. Otherwise, we’d have just kept the now injured George Sherrill. We’d have just kept an injury-ridden Bedard. We’d have just as soon not drafted the expensive Matt Wieters and Brian Matusz, or paid $9 million to Kevin Millwood to make sure our young pitchers know what a real pitching bulldog is like.
When you start the year with an utter disaster that no one saw coming (and that no one is really at fault for), and you’ve lost the previous 12 years, this is what you get. A baseball ghost town.
Baltimore ISN’T a baseball town anymore.
That’s very clear based on the attendance alone.
Baltimore is a football town.
The debate about “if something doesn’t happen, Baltimore will no longer be a baseball town”…that ship has left the harbor.
35,000 empty seats 50 nights a year can validate that statement.
“But back to the lecture at hand”, as Snoop/Dr. Dre said…
If the only remedy, then, is winning, I guess MacPhail better get his act together and get the thing remedied. Otherwise, he’s going to be exposed as a guy who can’t get the job done.
That’s a lot of weight on one man’s shoulders.
He clearly crumpled under the pressure last winter when he signed two bums and a just-about-over-the-hill former All-Star.
Perhaps, in the end, MacPhail wasn’t fit for this endeavor.
Maybe, just maybe, his miserly approach doesn’t work in the American League East.
So if the remedy is winning, someone better get busy.
15-32 ain’t winnin’.
It’s fun watching it all unfold, if nothing else. Winning and losing aside, this whole thing is like a daytime soap opera. I can’t imagine it’s this entertaining and discussable in, say, Pittsburgh, with the Pirates.
It makes for good discussion.
@ df1570:
I’d love to hear what you think MacPhail should have done last offseason to remedy the situation.
Sign Holliday? We had LF locked up at the time, and no reason to think otherwise at the time. Clearly Matt Holliday would rather play alongside Albert Pujols. He was never coming to Baltimore.
He was your biggest bat. Beltre? Balked at longer offers to play a shorter contract with the contending Red Sox.
Please do elaborate on what you think should have been done.
MacPhail inherited 12 years of ridiculously poor decision-making. I could make an obvious political parallel, but I won’t. He’s not a perfect GM, even I’ll admit that at this point. But when you have Nothing to sell to big name free agents (who could give a shit about prospects), then I’m not sure you can do anything but try to draft well, try to make sound trades, and get it turned around enough to finally have something to sell to the big names that are available. It hasn’t happened yet.
Baltimore is more of a football town right now, but so what? Baltimore was never Boston or New York. It’s soured on a lot of bad decisions that were made by the organization, and it won’t return until it’s fixed. Which is fair enough. So what can we do but hope MacPhail continues to make mostly good decisions?
It’s true – I put a lot (not all, there’s plenty to go around) of the blame on MacPhail for his bad winter. And even when he was making the moves it felt like a bad winter. You reap what you sow, and so on.
I’m not sure, though, that his free agent signings (and kudos to him, btw, for turning Chris Ray into Kevin Millwood. I didn’t like the trade at time, which just seems ridiculously foolish in hindsight) are dwarfed by potential options. There was Holliday and Figgins and a lot of middling talent, and neither Holliday’s nor Figgins’ contract looks appealing to me even at this early juncture. So Andy went largely with the middling talent (although the Atkins thing was, is, and will forever be inexcusable).
But look, the team (and the offense in particular) sucks because of who was always going to be on the team who aren’t producing: Roberts, Pie, Jones, Reimold, and Wieters have been disappointing to varying degrees, and that’s why the Orioles suck.
Anyway, knowing why the Orioles stink doesn’t help, it’s doesn’t put butts in seats. And that’s my point: I don’t think there is anything that can be done to make the on-field product better in the short-term. That isn’t saying much, but then that wasn’t really the point of all this, was it?
I’m not sure what I think about the team’s spending habits matters, really. I’m not the guy in charge.
I’ve said all along they should have signed LaRoche instead of Atkins. There’s ONE signing for you. He was begging for a team, but we went with the cheaper one-year option because Brandon Snyder might come up someday and play a few years for $440k.
We don’t really have a left fielder. We have a guy (Pie) who is good one day, not good the next. We have a guy (Scott) who really can’t play left field all that well but once every 10 weeks he has 2 great weeks at the plate so we keep him around. And the guy we all thought was going to be good, Reimold, has more family problems than Tiger Woods, it would appear. And he has a bad achilles. And, suddenly, he can’t hit. Which sucks…actually…because I like the guy as a player.
Holliday didn’t come here for one reason. Money. To say “he wasn’t coming here anyway” is akin to looking at the girl with the big tits across the dance floor and saying, “I’m not asking her to dance…she’s going to say no anyway.”
The Orioles would NEVER have signed Holliday because he wanted too much money. We all know that.
Had they offered him $130 million, he might have showed up. We’ll never know, of course, because they wouldn’t have paid him that. They’d offer Jesus two less years and $60 million less than the Yankees if he came back and wanted to play in the majors.
St. Louis thought he was good enough and they gave him $120 million. SOMEONE thought he was worth it — it just happened that we, in Baltimore, didn’t think he was worth it.
If you want to get by on guys making $4 million a year and $470k a year and $900k a year, you’re probably gonna get your ass kicked most nights.
In six months, they’re going to need a shortstop. And a new manager. Maybe a new 3rd baseman. For sure…a new first baseman. And they’ll probably need a reputable closer too.
How are they going to acquire that talent to compete in the AL East? I don’t know what free agents are available, but I know this: the good ones cost a lot of money and the bad ones come in at $4 million a year and stink up the joint.
But my thoughts on how they should improve the team don’t matter.
What matters, as you’ve pointed out Dan, is that the team wins. It’s not MY job to get them to win.
It’s Andy’s job.
The remedy for the team’s woes isn’t on Drew’s shoulders or Dan’s or Neal’s. It’s on Andy MacPhail’s.
At this juncture, he’s failed to do produce a winner, as you have noted with the team’s current losing ways.
That’s why I said earlier “perhaps this endeavor was too much for him”.
Perhaps it WAS too much to ask MacPhail to come in and overhaul this organization.
We all THOUGHT he was the right guy. I know I certainly did. Now, nearly 3 years later, maybe we need to start wondering whether or not we were wrong.
It’s not OUR job to fix the team. It’s Andy’s.
He’s the guy in charge of fixing it.
What we all think doesn’t matter.
@ df1570:
I’ll buy your LaRoche point. That’s fair enough.
Your “it’s not my job” excuse is pretty weak, though, because if it’s not your job, then by that logic you shouldn’t really be criticizing him either.
Is he the guy? Maybe not, but we don’t know for sure after a few offseasons. He’s doing a better job than previous GMs, from what I can see on a purely talent-level basis, and from the standpoint that the team isn’t hamstrung by terrible multi-year contracts for aging big-name guys.
One thing is for damn sure, though. Matt Holliday ain’t worth no $120 million.
And Neal’s title for this debate is a tad misleading.
“A summer without baseball”.
That’s NEVER going to happen here.
The team is making gobs and gobs of money, they have the sweetest-of-sweetheart stadium rent deals and they have MLB by the balls with regard to the MASN TV deal and the Nats.
In fact, oddly enough, the Orioles will probably benefit MORE from the Nationals over the next five years than they’ll benefit from themselves.
With all due respect, Neal should have titled this:
“A summer without competitive, interesting baseball”.
That would have been appropriate.
A summer without baseball, meaning, “no baseball to watch” will never, ever happen here.
They’re simply making too much money the way it is now.
Carry on…
Acutally, it IS my job to critique MacPhail.
That’s the irony of it all, I suppose.
It’s NOT my job to fix it.
It IS my job to analyze the team and comment on it.
I watch every single game. I sat through that snore-fest last night, in fact. I consider every move they make and those they don’t.
And then I talk about it 20 hours a week from March until football starts at the end of July.
But it’s not MY job to fix it, as in, “here’s what they should have done”. For all I know, LaRoche might have come here and swallowed the losing-poison-pill that some guys have ingested and he might be hitting .225 right now with one dinger. Who knows?
It’s far easier to look at the moves that WERE made and say, “well, that one worked”…and “that one didn’t”.
The Yankees signed three players last year for $425 million in total. They paid those three roughly $60 million in 2009.
They won’t be worth $425 million when it’s all said and done, but they sure were worth $60 million last year.
It’s all relative.
It’s easy to say “Holliday isn’t worth $120 million”.
Here’s a news flash: Atkins isn’t worth $4 million.
@ df1570:
Holliday isn’t worth 120 million dollars. That’s an Albert Belle type disaster waiting to happen.
Garret Atkins also not worth anywhere near 4 million dollars. That’s a Jamie Walker type disaster in action.
I don’t see how saying one of these things (and they’re both completely true) is equal to denying the other.
@ Andrew:
Well, the Cardinals thought Holliday was worth $120 million.
And like I referenced with the Yankees last year, if the Cardinals somehow win up winning the World Series this year, Holliday’s $16 million price tag will be all but forgotten.
Because we haven’t won in forever here, we just *assume* every large contract by these “other teams” (also known as: contenders) is a bad investment.
I have to admit I do the same thing. When I see $20 million thrown at a player, I scoff and say, “Yeah, right…let’s see him earn that money.”
Then I remember this: Those contracts are going to great players who are making good teams better and better teams great. Most of the time.
We’re so used to losing here and doing it on a just-enough-to-look-like-we’re-trying payroll, we assume any big name free agent isn’t worth the money he gets.
And then we watch the playoffs every October.
@ df1570:
I actually had that exact conversation with my Yankee-loving girlfriend. We both agreed that Burnett is overpaid in New York, but he helped win a championship, so is he really overpaid? And we both agreed that no, he probably isn’t.
But if the Orioles had signed Matt Holliday for that exact price tag, do you really think that we would be talking playoffs right now?
I mean, best case scenario is Holliday would be adding like 4 wins to the Orioles this year but the Orioles would still be under .500. It’s a lot of cash to not get over .500.
Andrew wrote:
I don’t know much, but I know this:
Holliday is better than anyone we have in LF.
Would he have helped the team make the playoffs? Well, of course not. But if you stand around every off-season saying “this guy won’t help us make the playoffs”, it turns out you don’t sign anyone.
Except for Garrett Atkins.
And then, you DEFINITELY don’t make the playoffs.
The Orioles wouldn’t have made the playoffs last year with Mark Teixeira, but they would be better WITH him than WITHOUT him.
Same with LaRoche.
Same with Beltre.
Same with Dunn.
Would those guys have showed up here? Well, LaRoche and/or Dunn would have, for certain.
We just didn’t want to pay them.
Probably because, as you noted, “we aren’t going to win anyway.”
@ df1570:
I don’t disagree with any of that at all. All’s I’m saying (and heck, I may very well be wrong – we are all a heck of a lot of the time. Even you, Drew, were dead wrong about Derek Lowe last year. It happens) is that had I been running the show I would have balked at adding Holliday at that price, too, because the opportunity cost would have been pretty prohibitive in my view compared to the potential gain. And I don’t think the extra win that he would have provided to this point in the season would have the fanbase any more energized than it currently isn’t.
And anyway, it’s all academic. Holliday is not here and we are. And so is Garret Fucking Atkins.
And it’s true, everything about the baseball team just seems dead, doesn’t it? I was out in DC on Sunday and even with a modestly good crowd and decent enough weather and a tight ball game, the whole affair just draaaaaaaaaaaaaagged. There really is no zest to the Orioles. I don’t pin that on the fans, I don’t think it’s some civic duty to march proudly through those gates just so that we don’t forget what it’s like to march proudly through those gates.
But I don’t know how to fix it, or how it could have been avoided. The players we hoped would play well haven’t. Add in the recent endless history of the team and of course this is the result. And that’s sad, but hardly indicative of the fans. We kept the drum beating (more or less) up through 2005. We certainly deserve better than we’ve been given.
Anyway. It is what it is. Anybody doing anything fun for the holiday? I’m going to get back to sunny Rochester and do some serious grilling. I’m looking forward to it as much as I ever have looked forward to being in that town.
@ Andrew:
I’ve got like three cookouts lined up. Grilled meats and beer. I’m pumped.
Happy Summer, regardless of our boys in Orange & Black.
@ df1570: I actually agree with everything you’ve written here.
Although I disagree about Matt Holliday; he’s not worth as much as he’s getting. He’s batting .279 with 5 homeruns so far this year. You know who is batting .279 with 5 homers? Jonny friggin Gomes.
@ Andrew:
How was I wrong about Derek Lowe?
He didn’t pitch for the Orioles.
He pitched in Atlanta.
It’s my LaRoche theory all over again. It’s fair to say “They should have gone out and picked up LaRoche”.
We all KNOW he’d be doing better than Atkins, right?
Well, MAYBE he would.
You can’t use his stats in Arizona as a true barometer for what he would have done in Baltimore.
Same with Lowe. Sinker ball pitcher in a good ballpark like Baltimore? Who knows what he would have done.
I wanted the Orioles to sign Lowe or Burnett. People like you said “Oh no, you can’t sign Burnett. He’s a walking-disabled-list waiting to happen.”
Only thing…he never made it to the disabled list. And he had a good year. And he contributed to a World Championship team.
But who knows what he would have done in Baltimore?
So we’re NEVER wrong on anyone we want unless we get them and we watch what they do and they wind up stinking up the joint…a la Atkins this year.
For the record, I assumed Atkins would be OK here this year. I was dead wrong. He’s never approached OK.
You guys all tend to look at salaries and use them to your advantage when necessary.
If it’s a player you WANT and the team pays him too much but we get the player, you say, “that shows we want to win…we wanted that guy and we went and got him.”
If it’s a player you want and the team DOESN’T get him because they didn’t spend the money, it’s suddenly no longer about winning, but more about fiscal responsibility and such.
In the Orioles case, it’s this simple: they’re frugal.
But, like I wrote earlier, the joke’s on everyone else. They’re still making boatloads of money and they’re making more than ever because, in part, they’re not willing to fork over $120 million for the likes of Matt Holliday or $18 million for Adam LaRoche or $75 million for A.J. Burnett.
Lot of thought-provoking stuff to read through here — very cool to see. For my part, a few points.
– If there’s a target audience for this piece it’s simply “people who need to hear what I’m saying.” We could argue for hours about who we think those people are but in truth the point here was to remind everyone of some ideas and not to call out any person or group of people.
– I think it’s plenty clear that winning will bring fans back. Maybe not back to “can’t get a ticket” levels but back to something we’d all be happy with. That’s not what I’m talking about here — I’m talking about what happens in the meantime. I think everyone — fans, O’s officials, media, whoever — needs to be aware of what’s at stake. And anyone who cares should be prepared to do something about it.
Again, we can argue about the who and what. Which is fine, but for me that wasn’t the purpose.
– Andy MacPhail isn’t responsible for this mess. He and everyone else had good reason to believe that this collection of players would perform better than it has. There was no logical reason, for example, to overpay for Matt Holliday when we had two young guys ready to go.
What MacPhail is responsible for is fixing this. And for the first time, I have my doubts.
– To answer Drew’s question, what would I do? A few things.
First, I’d send the message internally to every player but particularly the young ones that goes something like this: “We believe in you. We know you have the talent to succeed and we’ve got your back. But we need to see results. Whatever help you need, you’ve got it, but we’re going to be making some hard decisions soon.”
Second, I’d send a message to every scout, admin, front office person, etc that we’re going to have every single one of our ducks in a row come midseason and be prepared to make bold moves in the interest of both short and long-term improvement. Bold moves — it’s time to cash in and take the next step.
Third, I would not panic. Bold moves should not mean stupid moves.
I can’t get any more specific than that because I’m not in the room. The main point, though, is that it’s time to change the culture and make sure that nobody in the organization is OK with losing. Anyone who isn’t putting in the extra effort — and the smart effort should be looking for another job.
For all I know they’re already doing that. All I’m saying is that if I’m Andy MacPhail, that’s where I start.
@ df1570:
Yea, except Derek Lowe suuuuuuuuuucks. He doesn’t just suck. He suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. He fucking blows. He’s horrible, especially for that money. If the Orioles had signed him, it’d be money down the drain and a roster spot blocked. 4.67 ERA in the NL last year? 5.30 ERA this year? And he’s signed for how many more years?
And you weren’t wrong?! Fuck, Drew, you’re a bigger apologist than any of us.
I don’t know why you keep bringing up Garret Atkins. Dude, we all agree with you about Atkins. Nobody wants Garret Atkins. Everyone knows they overpaid wildly for Atkins. Heck, the vigor with which they signed Atkins to that horrendous contract is reason enough for some of us to question Andy MacPhail’s competence.
But at least he didn’t sign Derek fucking Lowe. Oh man, that would have been a Disaster!
Dragging Berken off the mound after one out is exactly the reason Dave Trembley needs to lose his job.
Sorry, I just had to get the snark in there. No offense, Drew (really).
I didn’t want this thread to turn into a thread about any particular player or a finger-pointing exercise, and in fact I wanted to wish you all a happy holiday since I’ll be in New York away from the computer all weekend. Even the ones who are big name-callers with radio shows.
Happy Memorial Day, everyone!
Oh god; taking Hendrickson out for Meredith now in the same inning. This is fucking ludicrous.
HOLY FUCK the Orioles make me so angry sometimes.
@ Greg: Ludicrous is right. Trembley is clearly overthinking out there and in doing so just cost us a game we had well in hand.
It’s true that none of it matters if these guys just do their jobs, but there was no reason to do the bullpen like he did. Sad.
Jesus fucking Christ Trembley.
FUCK DUDE! DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND? WHAT IS YOUR MALFUNCTION? DO WE REALLY NEED TO BLOW THROUGH CASTILLO WITH TWO OUTS IN THE NINTH OF A LOSING GAME, TOO? FUCK! YOU! TREMBLEY! STOP DOING THAT!
I’ve tracked the pitching changes in the last 10 games at each minor league affiliate and here’s something:
None of the Orioles’ minor league affiliates in the last ten games have used more than four pitchers in one game.
Norfolk has used more than three pitchers in a game three times; Delmarva, Frederick and Bowie have each done it twice.
The Orioles have used more than three pitchers in six of the last ten games; two with four, three with five and one with seven.
This is poor poor bullpen management. Ohman already owns sole possession of most appearances in the league with 25, and he’s only pitched 15 innings.
Where the hell is David Hernandez? Trembley blew this one, straight up. Jesus Christ…
Yeah…this one hurts. More so than most of them.
I feel bad for the guy because I can see that he’s only trying to put his guys in position to succeed. It seems like he just can’t see the forest for the trees. No sense that sometimes, often, the right move is no move.
It’s like… I know Mark Hendrickson told the media that he loved being put in the late inning role, but it’s up to Trembley to know that he’s not a late inning reliever, no matter what he says, and no matter if he had a good couple of innings last night. Sure, maybe if you’re still up 5-2 in the 9th, what the hell, put in Mark Hendrickson. But Jason Berken or Hernandez should have pitched the 8th inning. Clearly.
I dunno. Wow. After some great at bats with some good walks and guys hitting behind the runner. Jesus man, just put in the guy that throws heat and make them beat you that way. Cla Meredith? Alberto Castillo? Stop, just stop.
Meredith started warming up around the time Hendrickson got on the mound. He was probably ice cold out there, no wonder he gave up the Kouzmanoff double.
Can we get a manager that realizes that Berken’s numbers vs. LH are better than Mark Hendrickson’s? Is it too much to ask for a guy to look at the stat sheet and know the strengths of his pitchers? There’s so much wrong with what just happened, I can’t even believe it.
I wonder if any of the guys on the team would start second guessing Trembley after every move like this? They know the game of baseball as well as he does, and can clearly see he mismanaged this game and games in the recent past. If it was me, and I was Berken or Bergesen or Meredith I’d be thinking “My manager has absolutely no concept of what needs to happen here”. How can you lead a clubhouse like that?
It seems like DT wants to use Hernandez as a long reliever (apparently he was warming as early as the 3rd inning?) when he should instead be giving him multiple innings late in the game. During times the O’s have struggled this year. Take your fire baller and put him in there in the 7th and 8th. Hendrickson is your long reliever, not David Hernandez. I mean… I’m so livid about this, and this is the first time all season.
Trembley said he pulled Berken after the one hitter cause…”he’s never been in that situation before, and Hendrickson has.” What a fucking moron.
1. What situation would that be Dave. 2 on and 1 out. But hes ok with 2 on and no outs. As soon as he retires a batter though it’s unchartered territory?
2. Bergy gave up 2 hits after retiring 15 straight. Let him go!!! he was only at 88 pitches or so.
3. Has is ever occured to you that these guys are pitchers. It doesn’t matter if a guys a lefty or righty, they are ball players, and they get paid to get guys out.
4. Lefties hit .194 vs. Berken. .333 vs. Hendrickson. Didn’t do your fucking homework like a real manager should do, did ya. That was like pinch hitting in reverse. Benching Wigginton for Tatum when you need a hit.
5. Don’t blame the guys for not getting it done, or the bad bounces. Just 1 time hold yourself accountable. And say “I fucked up. I shoulda done x, or shoulda stayed with y.”
6. Brought in Castillo, with 2 outs in the 9th and no one on in a losing game. FUCK. YOU WONDER WHY THEY’RE ALL TIRED AND CAN’T EXECUTE.
7. YOU FUCKING SUCK TREMBLEY.
The Asian looking guy from The Wiggles could manage better than Trembley.
Guaranteed.
Yeah man, stop coddling the kids. It’s as good a time as any to let Berken pitch in that situation! Is anyone blaming Trembley for putting in his 1.50 ERA bullpen pitcher in the 8th inning of a 3 run game? No! I’m sure Berken’s cool with that! We’re like 50 games under .500! Go for it! See what these guys have!
WHAT THE FUCK
62′ Mets were 12-36 after game 48. We are 15-33. Just 3 games off the pace. But hey, they won a world series 7 years later. Soooooooooooo heres to the O’s in 2017! How about paper bag night at the yard. I’m going to love watching the O’s be the laughing stock of ESPN like they made the New Jersey Nets out to be.
@ Mike R: #7 is a little gratuitous but you pretty much nail it in 1-6.
One of the things about by-the-book managing that blows my mind — everywhere, not just with DT — is this idea that the inning is a huge factor in deciding which reliever to use. Call me crazy but I don’t see how a guy who is capable of making pitches and getting outs could somehow lose that skill because it’s the eighth or ninth inning and not the sixth or seventh.
Utterly frustrating. This is the first time all year that I’m on board with the “DT’s decisions cost us a game” idea. There’s really no way to argue it.
I thought I was going to sleep that loss off, but nope… I’m still mad.
1. Bergesen was at 80 pitches and gave up two singles after retiring 14 batters in a row. He should not have been taken out to begin with. Bergesen deserves the respect of his manager to take care of his own runners, and he earned it that night.
2. Berken, he of minimal ERA and possibly first of two good relievers on the squad, he of sub-.250 against LHP, should not have been taken out after one out with a lefty coming up. Dave says “he’s never been in that situation before:
a. Jason Berken, of 519 professional baseball innings pitched, has played a game with two on and one out. I guarantee you can find it somewhere.
b. How is this situation much different than two on and no outs?
3. Hendrickson should not have been brought in because:
a. He’s not a lefty-matchup guy. He’s a long reliever.
b. He’s less effective this year against lefties than Berken is.
c. He’s not effective against anyone this year.
d. Berken never pitches! Look at his game log; his use is erratic at best. He hasn’t pitched in a game since the 20th!
4. Meredith should have never been brought in because::
a. Let’s face it, two of the infield singles were not really Hendo’s fault per se… one skittered across the field after glancing off the mound, and the other was a bad one hopper off Izzy’s chest. Hendo did give up the bloop single, but again… luck. I don’t think he was pitching terribly.
b. Meredith started to warm up not long after Hendo took the mound.
c. Meredith, like Hendo, is wildly inconsistent.
5. Castillo should not have been brought in because why warm up a bullpen arm for the last batter of the game. Just WHY.
In summary: Beregesen should have been given a shot to finish the 8th and then you give the ball to your best relievers Ohman or Berken to close the 9th. Niether had pitched the night before. It smacks in the face of good baseball to use one pitcher over 7 innings and then use five pitchers for the last two.
Why now Trembley? I’ve been griping about this bullpen management for weeks. This wasn’t in Trembo’s MO last year.
Trembley’s overall use (or misuse) of Berken baffles me. I simply don’t understand how it’s fine for someone like Simon, for instance, to be thrown into the closer’s role, but then to question whether Berken can handle pitching in late inning situations because “he’s never pitched in that situation before.” Total nonsense.
All of this makes me think DT ain’t really so bright. I kind of knew that already, but he shows exactly NO creativity or insight in basically anything he does as a manager. Yes, he treats the players fairly, yes, he’s a nice, stand-up guy, but he is absolutely not a good strategic manager. He’s just not. And given that most of the young players have actually regressed this year, the argument that he’s good with the young talent is not holding a lot of water either right now.
eh it’s probably as good a time as any to share a little dave trembley anagram with you:
Very Lame Debt
@ Big Ben’s Motorcycle: That’s actually an anagram for “Garret Atkins”.
i think for atkins’ anagram name we have to go with Rank Ragetits.
although Streaking Rat is okay also.