I’ve been through a lot of the post-game reporting and I haven’t seen where anyone challenged him about what he thought hew was doing there or what he thought of the results. Did I miss something? I only saw a DT quote in the Sun:

“I did [try different things],” Trembley said. “We hit-and-run three different times, lined out to right, double-play ball back to the pitcher. Hit-and-run again and swung through it. That’s baseball. That’s the way it goes.”

Or they’ll drive you to drink.

Tough losses in particular bring out the armchair managers. The O’s base running blunders have been a constant source of griping, win or lose. At least this provides some quantification in an area we’ve felt was a problem.

Trembley’s talk of good ol’ fundamental baseball has bugged me for as long as he has uttered the phrase. I wonder if he considers this style of play as an important component of his brand of fundamental baseball. I suspect it is, and this post is a data point that indicates why it bugs the hell out of me.

Is that, if you’re gonna do it at all, you certainly don’t do it on 3-1. That’s the hitter’s best count, and you’re making him sacrifice a lot in order to protect the runner. You do it on 1-1 or 2-1 or first pitch, not when the hitter should be looking to drive the ball—or take the walk.

Very interesting (and cringe-inducing) baserunning stats here.

yeahp. that’s about right.

Yeah… I’d been moving in this direction for a while, and the whole “John Gibbons” situation brought me back towards Trembley a bit…. but at this point that game has solidified my opinion. Dave Trembley needs to go. Honestly, sooner beats later. Managers in baseball don’t have a lot to do. Basically, the stuff the manager is responsible for is

Baserunning
Pinch-hitting/Pinch-running
Pitching changes
Lineups

Of those, Baserunning and pitching changes are the most important by far. It’s hard to evaluate whether Trembley is good at managing a pitching staff… although my initial vote would be for no, and he could certainly do a much better job. However, the baserunning and small ball tendencies are just terrible

I’d say anyone who zeros in on that last line of the post is missing the point.

I’ve always given Trembley the benefit of the doubt since he’s never had the talent that “smarter” managers have. However, when we watch an O’s game, we expect or are completely unsurprised, by the team giving up outs (and runs) on the bases. This type of post provides data that our perceptions are correct. Trembley should reconsider this aspect of his managing instead of chalking it up to tough luck. If he refuses to do so, then MacPhail should consider it when contract negotiations renew.

yesterday afternoon i had just been looking at team stats and noticed huff’s caught stealing numbers. this is really bad. the rest of the baserunning numbers are equally alarming if not more so.

at least our starting pitcher kept us in the game.

I feel like Dave Trembley could be a really good manager. Once you have the talent on a team, the biggest thing to keep a team successful is managing the players. From all we’ve seen and heard, the players like and respect Trembley. He’s been manager for about 2 years now and there’s been no whisper of him losing the guys, nothing about a team revolt. He just gets in his own way too much. The reason Joe Torre is considered such a great manager due to his time with the Yankees is because he let the talent do their job. He handled the behind the scenes things so that they could go out there and win. Obviously the Orioles don’t have the talent that those Yankees teams did, but I believe it’s the same principle.

Most managers aren’t going to be statistical geniuses or great minds of our time. But they don’t have to be. Get the talent, manage the egos and the clubhouse, and get out of the way and let the boys play.

“The early part of the rebuilding phase is over.”

“It’s time to find a manager who has the in-game skills to manage a winning team.”

“Now, the team is at the point where the pitching is coming around and the offense is pretty good, at least on paper.”

“Damn, this club should be almost .500 now. Two more months of starting pitching like this, and if we’re not, it’s ALL on Dave.”

— various

First I should say that I neither watched nor listened to the game last night, so I felt no particular anger that we gave it away, because I didn’t have to experience it while it was happening. Second I should say that I appreciate this post very much, as it does put in statistical terms a disturbing tendency Dave has to want to run despite the fact that we’re a terrible base-running team. But I have to say I’m not convinced of anything I quoted above. We just managed to win 7 of 8 and five in a row. We had a good week. And then we didn’t hit for the next week. We were fortunate to get a trip through the rotation that was full of quality starts. I don’t know what the next trip through the rotation will look like. But I’m really not ready to even imagine “two more months of starting pitching like this.” To paraphrase Casablanca, when we get two more months of starting pitching like this, ask me if I can imagine it. I don’t think “the early part of the rebuilding phase is over,” unless you mean the early-early part of grabbing a bunch of young guys from another team’s farm system. Whether those young guys will pan out is unclear, although Adam Jones certainly looks good. I just don’t see .500 until next year at the earliest, and more likely 2011.
I agree that Dave obviously affected this one (and probably a few others) to the detriment of everybody. And I’d like to see fewer hit-and-runs and it would be great if MacPhail would talk to him about it. But I just don’t think we should forget that Brian Roberts is 0 for his last 17, we went 2 for 17 as a team with RISP during the Seattle series, and we’ve put up seven runs in our past four games. And not-for-nothin’, but if Matt Wieters gets a hit with the bases loaded in the fourth, we’re not even talking about this today. When the players aren’t getting it done, stuff like this starts to loom very, very large.

It is actually disgusting to me that Aubrey damn Huff has been caught stolen five times. I mean really?

Well it doesnt address the fact we had a bunch of Pie on our bench instead of Huufl, after last night I doubt Dave Tremebly will be quite so liberal with his hits and runs.

At least I never saw it. I guess they don’t want to add more fuel.

I know that game was bad, but I don’t really understand the people here are who ready to fire Trembley. It’s like we promote a few guys and all of a sudden everyone expects us to shoot to first place.

We are still a work in progress. Our bullpen needs major help, our starters are learning on the go, and we’re going to need answers at first and third pretty soon. I think this post was tremendous and I loved the title, but truly, we’re going to need a ton of patience. Their dangling the future in front of us right now and we’re taking the bait, expecting to be the comback story of the decade.

Managers have been handed young talented teams and have done far worst things than call a hit and run too often. Yes, it was annoying and I screamed at my TV too. But put this loss into the context of what has been, at least for me, a season with way more optimism than I expected.

I like how Trembley deals with our youngsters. I don’t mind that he takes out rookie pitchers early to ease them into the rotation. I like that he’s handed left field over to Reimold despite the lingering Pie issue. I like that first and second year players seem to find him approachable. I like how he handles the media. Every manager makes mistakes. But to look at this team and say its Trembley that’s keeping them from rising in the standings is ridiculous. And I’d take him 1,000 times over Perlozzo.

What They’re Saying About The O’s

I knew that e-mail would work…

I am sick of the mistakes made on the basepaths. This has gone on for at least two years.