Tuesday Bird Droppings
by duck on Jun 15, 2010 7:42 AM EDT
in Open Threads
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PrintA quick announcement: Bird Droppings will start posting closer to 9 a.m. starting Monday. And Birds Up, O's Down will start publishing mid-day Monday as well. Now, on to the Orioles....
Recaps of last night's loss can be found at baltimoresun.com, orioles.com, and SFGate.com.
Where's the outrage? - MASNsports.com
A pair of bad calls by the umpires last night sent Roch Kubatko bolting from his couch to yell at his TV. Roch, join us in acceptance. -duck
Felix Pie, Michael Gonzalez, Koji Uehara, Jim Johnson may return to Baltimore Orioles soon - baltimoresun.com
Felix Pie, Michael Gonzalez, Koji Uehara, Jim Johnson are due back by the end of June, but Brian Roberts has been basically shut down for the next month. -duck
Baltimore Orioles first baseman show less power than some pitching staffs - baltimoresun.com
Not only are the Orioles the only team in the league without a homer from a first baseman, but the Arizona Diamondbacks (.271), Milwaukee Brewers (.270) and Cincinnati Reds (.263) also all have higher cumulative slugging percentages from their pitching staffs than the Orioles are getting from first base. There's nothing I could possibly add to that sentence. -duck
Bobby Valentine says he met with manager-less Orioles - ESPN
"It's a big challenge," Valentine said. "I like big challenges, but I like to have some reward too, and the reward is in the standings and their standings don't look like they're going to turn around very quickly." -Stacey
Base Running: Which Teams Help (or Hurt) Themselves the Most? - Beyond the Box Score
Not that you need fancy stats to tell you that the O's are the worst base running team in baseball, but here they are anyway. -Stacey
Orioles Insider: Tillman's time in rotation nearing end?
Samuel immediately met with Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail in the clubhouse immediately following the game. That's usually a sign that a roster decision is pending. So, who takes the spot? -duck
Huff recalls stint with Orioles | MLB.com: News
"My last couple years, you really start getting so down about the losing and I was thinking I'd rather retire than go through another year like that. It's tough," Huff said Sunday of his time in Baltimore. "To come here, with the pitching staff we have here, you have a great chance to win every day." Well, that's just great Aubrey. Just great. -duck
IN THE MINORS
Orioles Insider: Minor league game recaps - June 14
Norfolk won, Bowie was off, Frederick was off, and Delmarva shut out the Intimidators. Apparently, they weren't so intimidating last night. -duck
Aberdeen's roster features plenty of 2010 draft picks - MASNsports.com
Nine players drafted by the Orioels last week will be joining Aberdeen for the season. -duck
Orioles Insider: Orioles release two minor leaguers
Tony Butler was the only player of the five acquired for Erik Bedard who never appeared in a MLB game for the Orioles. Not than Kam Mickolio's done much for us, either. -duck
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Rangers interested in Wiggy?
Think we could get Chris Ray?
Isn't it almost impossible to believe that none of the perfect games this season have been thrown against us? -O'sFan21
by Stacey on Jun 15, 2010 9:12 AM EDT via mobile reply actions
For Wiggy?
That’d be a steal. You do know that Ray is worth one Mentor right?!?!
/sarc
Insert something witty here.
by Knubles and Bits on Jun 15, 2010 10:04 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
So the team just matched 1988
Bobby Valentine not so subtlety blasts the franchise.
Article after article of bad news.
This is Birdland 2010!
Sigh
Or he's angling for a slightly greater "reward" in a more paycheck-related area
Until somoene officially accepts or declines an offer, i try no to put much stock in statements like that.
That's a pretty negative statement
He may be angling for more money, but there are much more diplomatic ways to deal with it publicly. After making that public comment, I doubt that either party is sitting by the phone waiting for a call.
I don't think he would have taken the interview if he wasn't interested.
It almost definitely came down to money.
Insert something witty here.
by Knubles and Bits on Jun 15, 2010 11:57 AM EDT up reply actions
Why not?
What does he have to lose by taking the interview? Meanwhile, he gets to publicly demonstrate his appeal to other teams that he might prefer to manage.
To be understood is to be a prostitute. ~ Fernando Pessoa
I guess that could be a possibility
but I see it more as he was interested in coming back and using his history to make AM overpay him. Then AM shot that idea down and Valentine pretended to not be interested.
Insert something witty here.
by Knubles and Bits on Jun 15, 2010 12:04 PM EDT up reply actions
I see it more as Bobby V interviewing the Os, not the Os interviewing him
If that’s the case, maybe what he heard from mcphail about the direction of the franchise didn’t impress him much
by brek on Jun 15, 2010 12:13 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
There may be something to that.
From Orioles Insider:
During the interview, Valentine told Kay: “I did go down there and I did talk with the owner (Angelos) and the general manager (MacPhail) and they have a whole lot of problems and they seem like they’re really putting their heads together to try to solve them somehow, some way, [but I’m] not sure how.”
"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all." -- Earl Weaver
Great so the front office is clueless.
Insert something witty here.
by Knubles and Bits on Jun 15, 2010 12:20 PM EDT up reply actions
He also
might know what he is talking about and that scares me.
Insert something witty here.
by Knubles and Bits on Jun 15, 2010 12:25 PM EDT up reply actions
this is in the interview clip that's posted at ESPN
to me, it sounds much more innocuous when heard than it appears written down. It was more of an afterthought, along the lines of, “they’ve got a tough situation to solve”. Which we do.
"I put a pepper rub on the scallops so you have a little contrast. You have sweetness from the coconut oil and little acidity from the splash of lemon." – Luke Scott
I didn't hear anything in there blasting the franchise
I hear outright criticism of the current team, and maybe some gamesmanship (perhaps salary related).
"I put a pepper rub on the scallops so you have a little contrast. You have sweetness from the coconut oil and little acidity from the splash of lemon." – Luke Scott
and gamesmanship will officially take Bobby V out of the runnings
Next!
I came to camdenchat and all I got was this lousy avatar.
o......k
Criticism of the team and a statement that they are ‘somehow’ trying to turn it around but it isn’t going to happen any time soon is not the kind of public statement you’d expect from a guy looking to be employed. That’s a criticism of the current team and beyond, including some innuendo that the front office may be struggling a bit. Why publicly cast doubt on a potential employer if you are interested in the job?
Gamemanship maybe. But like I said above, I doubt wither party is expecting a follow up call. What would you like to bet that Valentine is history?
Criticism of the team and a statement that they are ‘somehow’ trying to turn it around but it isn’t going to happen any time soon is not the kind of public statement you’d expect from aguykiss-ass looking to be employed.
FTFY.
Valentine is calling it like it is. He’s not a kiss-ass, he’s not sugar-coating his feelings, he’s just being honest. To me, that actually makes him a more attractive candidate. If the FO chooses to be offended from hearing the truth instead of having someone blow sunshine up their ass, that’s on them.
And there’s a difference between “blasting the current situation” and “blasting the franchise”. In the clip, he comes across as having a grudging admiration for PA. And I take his choice of words, “somehow”, to mean “this is a difficult problem with no obvious fix” (which is true), not as “AM is a fuckin’ idiot.”
"I put a pepper rub on the scallops so you have a little contrast. You have sweetness from the coconut oil and little acidity from the splash of lemon." – Luke Scott
Tillman
Tillman, along with Jones, was a centerpiece of the Bedard trade. I assumed that Tillman had outstanding stuff that needed to be refined. Now, we are told that he has a low 90s straight fastball that Tillman must locate perfectly to be effective. I assume that the lack of movement on his fastball explains why the pitching coaches want him to develop a cutter. If Tillman needs to develop a new pitch, then he should stay in AAA until he masters it.
I have to admit, I'm getting worried about him.
I know, I know; he still has less than a year of major league experience, etc. But what’s with the drop in velocity and movement on his fastball? It’d be one thing if he were sacrificing 1-2 mph for more movement, but both are down from last year.
Right now, take away the curve, and he’s looking like Brad Bergesen minus the sinker.
"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all." -- Earl Weaver
No idea if there is any validity to this
but I’ll just throw it out there that I was not happy when they announced that he was learning the cutter and said that many people end up losing velocity on their FB when they try to pick up the cutter.
Rub some $100 bills on it, you sell-out. -duck
I remember you saying that.
Sounds clairvoyant right now.
"I put a pepper rub on the scallops so you have a little contrast. You have sweetness from the coconut oil and little acidity from the splash of lemon." – Luke Scott
So, who takes the spot?
It’s honestly the first time i remember hearing his name, but Armando Gambino seems to be doing pretty well at Norfolk. Though he put up similar numbers for Minnesota’s AAA team and got shelled when they called him up last year.
Well let me provide a little more context
He got shelled in both of his two major league starts last season. The concerning part? One of the two was by us.
So,
Huff says his last season with the Orioles made him think about retiring. Michael Kay says he thinks the young players are falling into bad habits and being affected by the losing, and Valentine says players start to stare off into space and forget the competition when it’s this bad.
Can we please put to bed, once and for all, the notion that players are only motivated by money and that systematic losing doesn’t affect their performances?
THIS is why you fire managers. Players who have fallen into a rut of losing will continue to lose until they are motivated by someone to stop. The job of motivating them falls to the manager more than anyone else, especially if there is not a natural clubhouse leader.
This is also why Rick Dempsey shouldn’t be let anywhere near the Orioles’ top job. Who in the world is HE going to motivate to play better?
"I put a pepper rub on the scallops so you have a little contrast. You have sweetness from the coconut oil and little acidity from the splash of lemon." – Luke Scott
Meh
I don’t believe a word Michael Kay says.
Certainly, the young players are falling into bad habits. Certainly, as Valentine said in his quote, MacPhail and Angelos don’t appear to have much of a plan.
But the rest of it? Meh. Aubrey Huff played for a large part of his career in a hopeless Tampa Bay that was worse than the Orioles over his period with them. He managed to still perform and be motivated to play baseball. Carl Crawford and James Shields played their formative early seasons with that same hopeless Tampa franchise; they managed to stay motivated to be good and consistently improving players. Constant losing didn’t make Ryan Zimmerman work less hard and lose his focus for the Expos, nor did it stop Fausto Carmona from working hard to come back after two lost seasons with the Indians, nor did it stop Grienke from developing his talent in Kansas City. Nor have we seen much in the way of ill effects on Markakis or Roberts with the Orioles. And all of those players have experienced turmoil with managers and played for some shitty managers as well.
There are many things the Orioles lack, including talent and drive. Signing and obtaining veterans with shitty attitudes like Tejada and Lugo is a big part of that mistake. So has been the promotion of Samuel, who has shown nothing but the lack of focus, drive, and commitment that he had as a player. And the attitude of MacPhail throughout this season has been calamitous.
But the managers alone simply don’t, for me, explain the depths of our problems.
To be understood is to be a prostitute. ~ Fernando Pessoa
Nor have we seen much in the way of ill effects on Markakis
…except for the whole 100 point drop in OPS from 2008 that’s continuing so far this year.
Rub some $100 bills on it, you sell-out. -duck
What we're really talking about is a 40 point drop in wOBA
But at the same time, it seems just as likely that his 2008 performance was the aberration – for every other season, his wOBA has stayed within a 20 point range that his current performance matches.
To be understood is to be a prostitute. ~ Fernando Pessoa
I mean that's one stat.
And it’s really just a result of him walking at a higher rate, which has come at the sacrifice of what limited power he already had. his ISO is now lower than it was his rookie year. I don’t see much of an argument that he’s not regressing.
Rub some $100 bills on it, you sell-out. -duck
jesus
I just typed a long reply to this and then lost it all
in essence:
the players you cite were all in other organizations. that’s my point exactly. they found a way to develop during awful losing periods. but our blue chip players who clearly DO have talent (Wieters, Jones) are regressing. and i feel the atmosphere is definitely contributing to that. witness luke scott lying about hustling out of the box. what happens when adam jones sees that, and that ther are no repurcussions?
to me, that is failure in coaching and managing. i’m not suggesting it’s ONLY the manager, i’m saying that it’s perfectly valid to fire a manager if that kind of listlessness has become systemic.
When DDT was fired, there was a lot about, “it’s not on him, it’s on the players.” but when ALL the players en masse (even the talented ones) are playing under their potential for a long period, it stops being on them and starts being on those who motivate them.
"I put a pepper rub on the scallops so you have a little contrast. You have sweetness from the coconut oil and little acidity from the splash of lemon." – Luke Scott
I want to be careful about how much I say our guys are regressing
For example, Jones had a brutal start, but has improved steadily as the season has gone on – from a .268 wOBA in April to a .295 in May and a .347 so far in June, which is actually a touch higher than his .343 last season. And a lot of his struggles early I think can be credited both to his need to come back from injury as well as the mess that DT made of him. Wieters’ struggles are harder to explain away, but second year players often slump.
At the same time, while I agree that the atmosphere is a problem, I think that the problem is multi-faceted. In bringing in players who have never been high-effort guys, like Tejada, Lugo and Atkins, the front office is somewhat responsible for the mess. No one has been able to motivate these guys to give a ton of effort anywhere, and the fact that Jim Tracy buried him on the bench during a playoff run and criticized his lack of effort should have been a major warning sign to the Warehouse about that. Having an idiot like Samuel continue as the third base coach, and then promoting his sorry ass is yet another. Someone like Allenson should have been given the interim position, while making it clear that we would want him back at Norfolk when our permanent manager is found. With Samuel, we have someone who knows there is no chance that he has a future with the club, as the manager or anything else. He has little incentive to do fuck-all.
We’re a badly run club, and we have a problematic philosophy. And I don’t know how we’re going to improve in these aspects without improvement from the people who make the decisions at the top. That’s what concerns me about the Valentine quotes – MacPhail and Angelos don’t seem to know what has gone wrong and what their plan is to fix it.
To be understood is to be a prostitute. ~ Fernando Pessoa
Losing Culture
I have had a ton of entirely jumbled thoughts running through my head all day about this stuff and as such I withhold the right to take back everything I say instantly:
I don’t think that hiring “the perfect manager” is going to reverse the obvious losing culture in Baltimore. These guys are fucking zombies out there, waiting patiently for the sweet release of October or the DFA, whichever comes first. And I think that that is at least 95% a function of the record. I mean, I can’t even be bothered to watch more than 3 innings of this “baseball”, and I love the Orioles more than most earthly things. I can’t imagine – and I don’t completely blame them – what it’s like for some of these guys to go through it. You can bring in the Kindergarten Cop to kick these guys in the ass, but at the top of the first it’s still a team 30+ games under .500, and that’s going to stay on these guys. If some manager could resurrect them, that’d be way above and beyond as far as I’m concerned.
That said (if you’re still following me), I think that the losing was a function of bad luck, rookie regression, and being set up poorly – what I’d classify as “a problematic philosophy”. Surrounding Matt Wieters and Adam Jones with Garret Atkins, Cesar Izturis, Miguel Tejada, and Julio Lugo (which goes back to bad luck vis a vis Brian Roberts) is basically Andy MacPhail calling a core team meeting before the first game and saying “Guys, I hate all of you. Good luck out there.” The bullpen and Mike Gonzalez, don’t get me started.
All that said, I don’t think that what happened in 2005 affects what has happened in 2010, and I don’t think that 2008 affects 2010 and I don’t believe that Baltimore has some innate “losing culture” that predefines the players here. I think the Orioles suck because Andy MacPhail had a terrible offseason, some young guys took steps back and then weren’t given even a respectable supporting cast to help them out (see: Andy MacPhail’s winter) and our best player got taken out by a back thingy (though kudos to Trembley for having Balky-Back Brian Bob stealing bases for those few games he was around) and…then the losing in 2010 predefined the more losing in 2010. That’s the losing culture.
Heck, I’m not even sure if someone was arguing otherwise. But those are my ranting thoughts.
Fire Garret Atkins.
by Andrew_G on Jun 15, 2010 4:35 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Jones had a brutal start, but has improved steadily as the season has gone on – from a .268 wOBA in April to a .295 in May and a .347 so far in June, which is actually a touch higher than his .343 last season. And a lot of his struggles early I think can be credited both to his need to come back from injury as well as the mess that DT made of him.
Sorry, I hate say this because you seem to know so much about baseball, but I am really sick of hearing about Adam Jones tough start. Some people get it half right and say he has struggled since the all-star break last year. But the reality is his “slump” began over a year ago in the end of MAY last year.
Last year his wOBA was .269 in June, upticked to .334 for July and then was .278 in August.
This is the reason I’m not sold on the idea that he is “turning things around” because he has batted .300 over the last 5 games. He has played shitty baseball for a lot longer than he played good baseball.
When he says "no thanks" too, will the Orioles come crawling to Dempsey with their tails between their legs begging for him to take the job that no one but him wants?
/embracing pessimism
I'd rather have Juan Samuel than Dempsey.
Hell I’d rather let Brian Roberts manage the team and play when he can than have Dempsey. I’d rather have 3DG manage the team from the booth while broadcasting than Dempsey.
Rub some $100 bills on it, you sell-out. -duck
I am pro a 3DG and Jim Palmer tagteam managerial approach from the booth, while broadcasting.
Isn't it almost impossible to believe that none of the perfect games this season have been thrown against us? -O'sFan21
If nothing else,
it would be very entertaining.
"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all." -- Earl Weaver
No, let them broadcast from the dugout while managing!
That’d make Wired Wednesday a whole lot easier.
Baltimore is Baltimore. That's kind of what I know. - Manny Machado, 6/7/10
by Eat More Esskay on Jun 15, 2010 1:29 PM EDT up reply actions
The O's will never hire Dempsey
He hasn’t been interviewed yet nor do I expect an interview to happen.
I came to camdenchat and all I got was this lousy avatar.
They'll hire Amber before they hire Dempsey.
I came to camdenchat and all I got was this lousy avatar.
I sincerely doubt they would find it that hard to find a manager.
There are only 30 of these jobs around.
I like that Aubrey Huff had a quote like that
The more embarrassed we get about these last three years especially, the better.
Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "Mankind". Basically, it's made up of two separate words—"mank" and "ind". What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.
-Jack Handey
Delmarva shut out the Intimidators. Apparently, they weren’t so intimidating last night. -duck
Bada bing!
I came to camdenchat and all I got was this lousy avatar.
Tip your bartenders and waitresses
I’ll be here all week!
When you watch the Orioles every night, a beer after dinner turns into a six pack WAY too many times. Stacey
About that Huff quote
Last year when he was with the Orioles he was on about how he could tell they were about to turn the corner and he didn’t want to miss the boat the way he did in Tampa Bay. Also I don’t believe for a second that he would rather retire than take some millions to play baseball for the Orioles.
Isn't it almost impossible to believe that none of the perfect games this season have been thrown against us? -O'sFan21
Have you linked to this yet?
John Sickels’s review of the O’s draft:
http://www.minorleagueball.com/2010/6/14/1516429/baltimore-orioles-draft-review
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