So…

…I’m real fucking bored.  I have nothing meaningful to say about Orioles baseball right now.  I rarely do anyway.  Orioles Hangout was in my CD player for a while but it seems someone pressed repeat and all I hear is LaRoche and Lee, LaRoche and Lee, and so on.

Die Yankee Scum!

Cliff Lee has finally made a decision on where to play in 2011, and in a surprise to everyone he did not choose the Yankees.

The Orioles hate us.

In what is obviously a sick joke, the Orioles did this.

What are they doing? They are paying Cesar Izturis 1.5 million dollars to be the club’s utility infielder. I don’t understand it all unless it is a joke to get back at the people like us who bash Cesar. Cesar Izturis is an awful major league baseball player. We are paying him over 3 times the league minimum salary to do the same job as Robert Andino would at the league minimum. Money aside I would probably prefer Andino, but he is also cheaper, younger, and with more upside. I was really, really, really hoping to never have to watch Izturis flailing away helplessly at the plate in an Orioles uniform. All the positive momentum they had going with me has now been killed. The Orioles clearly did this just to spite me.

We need some good news soon to offset this giant dagger.

Come on, son.

As you probably know by now, Luke Scott is in the news for being an idiot. The original interview can be found here.

As most know, I defend Luke Scott the baseball player ferociously. He gets a lot of criticism for his play by dumbasses who have no idea what they are talking about. That’s the real issue, I hate dumb baseball fans much more than I love Luke Scott. Luke Scott is a good baseball player, but this is not the first time he has offered up these sort of opinions. These latest comments are indefensible however, it just makes him look like an idiot and even I must concede that he deserves all the negative criticism that he’s getting for this. I was just surprised to see it spread to the masses as fast as it did. I have seen it on pretty much every major news site and when I turned on the radio during my commute this morning it is all everyone was talking about. I even heard a long conversation about how his rant was “veiled racism”, that actually seems a bit extreme to me. I must say though, if even the guy who is interviewing you calls you out for being blatantly incorrect in your statements you are probably on the wrong track.

Bottom line Luke, it is probably a good idea to pipe down on your extremist political views in the press and do what you do best… grow a sweet ass beard, look menacing,  and hit baseballs to the fucking moon. I will still love you come April.

When it’s time to party…

Celebrate with me! The Orioles will officially acquire J.J. Hardy today after coming to an agreement with the Minnesota Twins late last night (if you say early this morning, go fuck yourself). The deal involves minor league relievers Brett Jacobsen, who we acquired in the Aubrey Huff trade in 2009, and Jim Hoey. It is also likely that we will be including our Rule 5 draft pick Adrian Rosario but hat has not been made official yet. The Rosario pick seems a bit odd since Rule 5 picks must be kept on the 25 man roster all year and Rosario is a 20 year old kid just out of rookie ball. Regardless, we have essentially picked up J.J. Hardy, a solid shortstop, for nothing of consequence except money. Also included in the deal is terrible utility man Brendan Harris who was likely added as a salary dump.

The most important part of this acquisition is that I no longer have to watch the excruciating at bats of Cesar “I’m swingin’ a flyswatter” Izturis. The best part is all the old guys who bring up Mark Belanger and talk about how much they love Cesar can shut the fuck up too because Hardy is as good as, maybe even better, than Izturis with the glove too! I like this deal a hell of a lot more than giving up Nolan Reimold to get an inferior player in Jason Bartlett as was rumored before. I have to say that we have made two pretty good trades so far. It looks to me like we will round out the offseason with a first baseman, likely one of Adam LaRoche or Derrek Lee, and a couple of relievers. I would be pleasantly surprised with that amount of activity. Were I in charge, and it’s probably a good thing I’m not, I would also look into getting an old DH a short term deal to add some more pop to the lineup. for example, maybe Jim Thome a cheap one year deal though it seems unlikely he would be interested. That would allow us to move Luke Scott back to left field and Pie to a 4th outfielder role where he can still get plenty of time. That would be a pretty formidable lineup and no one I see as a big time future piece would be getting blocked. I see that scenario as unlikely however. All I know is I’m glad to not have to watch the worst hitter in the major leagues again this year.

We have also completed a deal to re-sign Koji Uehara, which is another good deal. As a reliever, Koji was shut down quality last season. He brings kick ass sideburns, an insane strikeout to walk ratio, and he hasn’t walked a batter since August 5. It will be interesting to see how long this streak lasts.

Let’s party!

Psych!

Was that fucked up?  Aren’t the winter meetings exciting though?  I can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow!

And, good news, tomorrow is a gym day.  For those that don’t know (everyone), Monday I was at the gym and before I went, the Reynolds talks were heating up and I was totally like, “He better be ours by the time I get back”, and he totally was!!!!  Neat!

Tomorrow, I’m looking for Koji or Hardy or Lee (either one!)

LYLAS,

Lomax

Strikeout King

Ladies and gentlemen, Mark Motherfuckin’ Reynolds!

Today is my happiest day ever as an O’s fan.  Mark Reynolds is my favorite player and now he plays for my favorite team.  But that is only half of why I am so happy.  The other reason is that I know I will have plenty of opportunities to call people idiots for putting WAY too much stock in useless “old guy baseball” stats.  People are all worried that Reynolds is going to strike out 500 times this season, and my response is the same as his:  “So what.”

Reynolds is a masher who strikes out a ton and walks a whole lot as well, he may be the definition of a true three outcome player.  Why is this a bad thing?  Old school baseball guys see his sub .200 batting average and 200 plus strikeout totals and immediately write him off as a bad player.  Well, old school baseball guys are stupid and I will attempt to tell you why.

The majority of the offensive game (especially on the Orioles over the last decade) is played without runners in scoring position.  And when there are no runners in scoring position, an out is an out.  Whether it is a strikeout, a flyout or a groundout.  The only time one kind of out is worse than any other kind is when you ground into a double play, which is impossible to do if you strikeout.  What is the difference in striking out 200 times and grounding out 200 times?

Next useless old guy baseball stat, batting average.  Mark Reynolds hit .198 last season and will never sniff .300 in that category.  So, what does this tell us?  I’m not really sure but I do know that he walks a ton and his career low for on base percentage is .320 which tells us that he is still on base more often than the average MLBer and all but 5 Orioles regulars (including Brian Roberts) last season.  The point of getting a hit is to get on base, so why is it more important to old guys that you get on base by getting a hit rather than taking a walk?  Does anyone have an answer for me?  If you are going to bring up that it matters when there are runners in scoring position then you should probably check some stats first.  I totally agree with you that a hit is a better outcome than a walk with RISP but even still a walk is not a negative outcome in that situation.  Oh yeah, Reynolds also hit a respectable .276 with RISP last year and also had an OPS of 1.033 in that same situation.  So that means that in the small percentage of plate appearances where a hit is clearly a better outcome than a walk he understands that and is able to raise his batting average significantly.  So now everyone wants to know why he can’t do that in all situations.  Truth is, he probably could but not without it causing a drop in his power numbers.  And despite what old guys and Ichiro lovers will have you believe, a homerun is ALWAYS better than a single.  If you ask Joe Morgan, a homerun is a rally killer.  But if you seek wisdom from Joe Morgan on anything you aren’t very smart anyway.

While I am on a rant about worthless baseball statistics let me tell you how I feel about some not related to Reynolds. First, RBI.  Maybe the most worthless because to be a “good” RBI guy you need to be incredibly lucky and rely on the guys ahead of you in the order to get on base.  Why do we put any stock into a statistic that is least dependent on your individual performance to measure your worth?  That makes no sense to me at all, but old guys eat that shit up.  Kind of like they do with starting pitchers and wins.  Case and point, Felix Hernandez.  By far the best pitcher in the American League  this year yet there was some doubt as to whether he would win the Cy Young because he didn’t have enough wins.  What?  All of his wins were more impressive than anyone else because he had to be nearly perfect to have a chance at winning any games this year.  Thankfully the voters got it right this and weren’t swayed by idiots like Roy Halladay saying you have to find a way to win.  Really, Roy?  You just had one of the best seasons of your career and instead of congratulating a fellow Cy winner you are going to say he didn’t deserve the award because of wins?  He needs to find a way to win?  The guy had 10 losses this season.  His COMBINED run support in those 10 games?  12.  Twelve.  1.2 runs per game.  Shut up Roy, you dick.  You had an ERA of 2.44.  You know that means?  You would have lost a lot of games with run support of 1.2.  In fact, you would have lost all but 9 starts, sooooo how about you think about things before you open your stupid mouth next time.  Also, you should have found a way win in the playoffs if you really wanted to go to the World Series, guess it wasn’t that important to you guys.

ZOMG! part 2

The Washington Nationals are crazy. No seriously, what the fuck (WTF) are they thinking? This is one of the dumbest contracts I have ever seen. They are paying Jayson Werth 18 million dollars a year until he is 39 years old. Jayson Werth. 7 years. 126 million dollars. For real. The deal is so stupid in fact that Scott Boras didn’t even bother shopping the offer to other teams because it was so much higher than any other team had offered. One GM, told Ken Rosenthal it was “absolutely bat—- crazy”. Danny Knobler says one American League GM “nearly fell over when I told him the terms”. Keith Law called it “irresponsible”.

Carl Crawford probably pissed all over the front of his pants when he heard this news. I have a hard time imagining what the contract he is going to sign will look like now. I have to think he is going to get at least 160 million now. The MLB network had a hot stove predictions question that asked how many nine figure contracts would be given out this offseason. Both Mitch Williams and whoever the other idiot was in this segment said there would be none. I remember thinking 2 to myself (Carl Crawford and Cliff Lee). I did not imagine that Jayson Werth would make it 3. This contract is the 3rd largest contract ever signed by an outfielder, with only Manny Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano receiving larger deals.

Ah, the memories…

Side note: How did that kid above turn into this guy?

Update: The Orioles announce they are not a big market club

Just kidding, they don’t need to announce that if you aren’t an idiot. As usual people are up in arms about the Orioles not signing every single free agent who signs with another team so far this offseason. In casual fans opinion we ought to be signing every single player available every offseason. They say remarkably stupid things like “It’s not my money, what do I care?”. Brilliant. I get it, numbers and math are above your comprehension level, it’s cool. Those of us who understand basic economic concepts know that the Baltimore Orioles cannot afford to spend with the big market clubs in their division, or some others around baseball. We simply do not have the market size or economic climate to do so. What’s that you say? Peter Angelos is rich? Yes, I am well aware of that. You do also realize that anyone who owns a sports team is rich too? Sports teams are an investment first and foremost to almost every single person who buys them. The only exception to this rule is probably Mark Cuban, who is awesome by the way. Peter Angelos and every other baseball owner bought their team to make money, plain and simple. Expecting Angelos to dip into his personal finances to fund his baseball team and operate at a loss is not realistic.

With all of that in mind, how can you not care what the team spends on it’s players? If you understand that they are operating within a specified payroll budget then you have to understand that you can’t afford to buy all of the best players every offseason. Only Boston and New York can operate like that. So let’s stop freaking out every time a big name signs elsewhere. We are not a team with the economic capability of competing with the big markets without hamstringing ourselves later. Can we do more than we currently are doing? Absolutely.

Andy MacPhail came onboard and stressed the need to build a solid team from within. He made two good trades and since then his record has been pretty awful. We’re not spending enough in the draft, we’re not spending an international free agents, we are short on scouts and our development is lacking. This is the real crime. These problems existed well before MacPhail entered the picture however, and we all know what the real problem is:

ZOMG!

Fallout from Orioles fans over the offseason at such an early stage is hilarious, I guess we should all be used to it by now since it happens every season. That said, I still find it funny again this season.

If you are looking for a few quick laughs, check out this link.

Adam Dunn has signed a 4 year, 54 million dollar deal with the White Sox. This is around what I expected him to sign for, and apparently for many O’s fans, it was an offer the Orioles should have beat. I’m not so sure.

The Orioles reportedly were in on Dunn and offered him what now looks like a token offer of 4 years/40 million. By no means is that a competitive offer that had any chance of landing Dunn. I know the Orioles aren’t going to spend big on free agents, most fans should know that by now too but it doesn’t stop them from losing their shit about it every fucking offseason. My problem is that the Orioles should just say that instead of pretending to be in on some “targets” and making silly offers. If you aren’t going to play the game, then just tell the fans that and don’t bother even making these token offers. I’m not even sure what they are trying to accomplish with them anyway. You know you aren’t getting Dunn for that offer, and you know announcing that offer isn’t going to please the fan base so I don’t see the endgame here.

What likely happened is they felt out Dunn to see if he was open to becoming a full time designated hitter, when they realized he wouldn’t they made an offer reflecting what they thought he was worth as a first baseman. If Dunn is insistent on playing the field I can understand a significantly lower offer and diminished interest from the Orioles. If I were signing Dunn, he wouldn’t even be allowed to bring a glove in the clubhouse with him. Yes, he is that bad. Adam Dunn holds a career -14.4 UZR/150 at 1B, a -11.2 in LF, and a staggering -52.6 in RF. Don’t like UZR? The Fielding Bible has Dun at totals of -34, -51, and -12 respectively in defensive runs saved at each position. There is no denying that Adam Dunn is a very talented offensive player but he simply cannot play defense…at all. He is so bad defensively that he takes away a great deal of his value at the plate by giving runs back with the glove. If the Orioles didn’t want to sign Dunn to play first I am okay with that, just don’t even tell me you made some bullshit offer. To put it another way: don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.

The A’s…that’s right, the A’s…are reportedly close to signing Adrian Beltre to a 5 year contract. Call me skeptical. Either this is a serious surprise move by Beane or Scott Boras is using the media to drive up his clients price. He’s done that before right? Beltre is a guy I would be interested in but someone is going to sign him to a stupid contract. I would advocate something like a 4/60 deal for hi, but he has already beat that offer. I think it would take a 5 year deal worth about 90 million to bring him to Baltimore and that would be insanity.

For those of you calling for Andy MacPhail to resign over not signing big money free agents, I urge you to hold your breath for a GM to come in a spend the 120-150 million dollars on payroll I read people calling for constantly. I hope you can hold your breath for….forever. MacPhail isn’t the one standing in the way of the Baltimore Orioles becoming a top 3 spending team, simple economic concepts are. I just wish they would commit to being a top class organization somewhere. If you are no going to spend it on payroll, you better be an innovator in the amateur market…we apparently are doing nothing to bring us out of this. To win in the AL East you have to be the best team in baseball. If you aren’t the best in baseball at anything, then how are you going to make that possible?

All of that said, the offseason is still young and it can still be success. Missing out on Beltre and Adam Dunn doesn’t and shouldn’t make or break our offseason. No one should have been expecting to sign any of them anyway. Sign Derrek Lee, Trade for Mark Reynolds and JJ Hardy, re-sign Koji and another arm and I for one will be one happy camper.