We Means It, Maaaaaan: The Baltimore Orioles of 2021

Gotta love the walkoff walk courtesy of Ryan "porous bat" McKenna

This team can't win without almost losing

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, June 29, 2021 9:30 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Entered the bottom of the ninth, promptly let the Tigers load the bases with nobody out, still won

Oh yeah:

The bullpen has been pretty good but they are sure trying to waste another great Means start right now

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, May 11, 2021 9:15 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

asdhklhfajkshlgwjhi

this just in: adley rutshcman is good. colton cowser is real and cannot be contained by the florida coast league. grayson rodriguez is the truth.

Chris Davis has announced his retirement. pic.twitter.com/3QKvErwTzn

— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) August 12, 2021

it is a crime that rutschman was in double-a until five days ago (and that grayson rodriguez is still there)

presumably with september rosters only expanding to 28, there'll somehow be no room for rutschman then, either

joke organization/league

the best reason i've heard for keeping him down is that anyone on a 40-man will be locked out for at least part of 2022 (probably), and it makes more sense to have your big prospects getting reps in AAA than sitting at home.

also if he was brought up it would make the team better when we're only 1.5 back of the dbacks and i WANT THAT PICK IT'S ALL I HAVE TO LIVE FOR

What, so you can once again have the thrill of hearing analysis say "weird, I thought that guy would go at 10-12, must have something to do with underslot issues"

As Matt Harvey turns back into Matt Harvey.

What, so you can once again have the thrill of hearing analysis say "weird, I thought that guy would go at 10-12, must have something to do with underslot issues"

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, August 16, 2021 7:59 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

they took adley at 1, i have faith they'd do it again if there's an undeniable player there, and by all accounts there will be

adley is a college guy and now 23 years old; when they drafted him in 2019 *lots* of ppl were all like 'he could play for the big league team right now'. he didn't really hit like it that summer, okay.

so now he's spent 2020 at the alternate site. and he's put up a .400 OPB in the minors this year. and admittedly pedro severino is eminently serviceable and practically a star in this lineup.

but the team is terrible and adley -- tHe ToP pRoSpEcT iN bAsEbAlL -- is learning *nothing* in the minors while the o's stall his clock. maybe he'll get there next april 16th when he's 24 i guess.

with a different, less shitty team he'd have been in the majors a year ago, and there's no reason we shouldn't all want that.

rodriguez is only 21 but he's fanning like 15 per nine innings now in double-a. can he possibly be worse than the shit they regularly roll out? do we not want to see the best available players playing in the majors?

also sucks for cedric that he's not even eligible for arbitration until after *next* year -- he'll probably get a $10K raise to $600K after putting up 5 WAR this season. (and if he were eligible for arbitration *this* winter you know goddamn well he'd have been traded at the deadline)

anyway sorry -- the o's are just the most egregious current example of how fucked up the entire system is. the pirates/marlins/etc are little better if perhaps less blatant.

i really hope it all burns down this winter!

Seriously, fuck this

Why Not? '22

two homers off ohtani in the first!!!1!

won a game

what a moment

break em up

love this team again now

as cedric mullins goes, so go the orioles...but keegan akin w/ the out of the blue gem. what? 71 gamescore!

lol wasn’t he like 0-9 with an 8 ERA or something

Keegan Akin's last three starts: 17 IP, 5ER, 10H, 8BB, 14K, lift your head and breathe the fresh replacement-level air

aww

with two w's for Keegans two wins (so far!)

...and a happy john means to all who celebrate

big series win in da bronx

Keegan Akin Can't Lose

akin to be

you gotta hand it to hanser alberto

but then hanser is compelled to hand it back to cedric mullins

"zac lowther with a great outing lowers his season ERA to 6.91" is a thing Orioles fans say

Manny Barreda gets his moment

what a day

what a day

"zac lowther with a rough outing sees his season ERA tick back up to 9.92" is a thing Orioles fans say

Ugh. A game we should have won. Bullpen troubles.

seems crazy that cedric mullins is the first o ever to have a 30-30 season. maybe don baylor got closest?

It was pitching defense and the 3 run homer not pitching defense and the 30 stolen bases

fucking fleas.

In a fitting homage to classic Orioles baseball Mullins did indeed reach 30-30 with a 3-run homer

maybe don baylor got closest?

Thanks to Play Index I can tell you that the closest is Reggie Jackson in 1976, 27 HR and 28 SB. Baylor is the only other guy to get to 25/25. We are not counting Ken Williams, a 30-30 man for the 1922 St. Louis Browns.

most steals he ever had in a season...crazy how many bases that team stole for a weaver team. can't imagine ever sending belanger for how infrequently he got on base.

Thinking next year's thread title should be something along the lines of "Mullin it over: J.Q. and Eephus discuss whether or not the 2022 Orioles will be any good"

Like I don't even exist

lol

This is important context: The first time that a Baltimore season ticket holder renews for next season, that person will have committed more dollars to the 2022 Orioles than the club will have in payroll obligations. https://t.co/CvSX9kis1i

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) September 24, 2021

if only chris davis didn't retire

The quote tweets on that tweet are kind of insane. I'm an Orioles fan, and I will stay an Orioles fan through it all, but I cannot grasp the level of stannage required to spend your day bashing Buster Olney for stating the obvious fact that the Orioles are not trying to put a major league baseball team on the field. Like, it's a rebuild, I get it, but how can you be so in the tank that you insist THIS is the exact rebuild you want? Have these people not noticed that the 2017-21 Astros are not the only good team in the league, and all the other good teams didn't tank like this?

this isn't the exact rebuild i want... that one would involve us having a presence in latin america before like yesterday... but i'm extremely happy with how it's going

i latched onto orioles baseball in 2005 and had to wait 7 years for a winning team, after 7 consecutive years of never fully committing to a rebuild. imagine if i'd latched on in 1998. i never wanna go back there again. can't handle it. absolutely give me one more #1 draft pick before we start to improve. and i think we will improve next year, faster than people think. i don't doubt that the team will spend money again like they did 5 years ago. part of me wants them to sign one of the big shortstops, like the padres signing machado before they were good, but i can understand the windows not really aligning. maybe it isn't worth it to sign carlos correa and potentially waste his age 28 and 29 seasons.

one thing i do wish we were doing is spending money to tank better. i think that's really all a salary floor will do. take costlier chances on players that can be spun at the deadline. take a chance on trying to fix a robbie ray instead of a matt harvey. take on bad contracts from other teams in exchange for their prospects. but no one really does that.