Baltimore Orioles start the march to the World Series

Close game last night in Texas. Everyone has said the starting pitching is weak but I do not like the looks of the bullpen. Sherrill is scary as the closer. Scary in a bad way. 5-2 though , the road uni's with Baltimore on the front looked great.

lets go BUCS! wrote:

more like the Pittsburgh pirates start the march to the world series, ma f***a

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The only way the buco's, O's, or Blue Jays are going to the WS is if they buy a ticket like everyone else.

Or if baseball starts implementing a more equitable system the way that football does. The Pirates can never win as things are without a miracle season.

no_fair wrote:

I am glad O's are thinking like the Ravens, Defense wins games! Strong pitching + outfielding will get it done (with a scrappy offense).

Not so sure about the "strong pitching part," but the outfield should catch most of what is hit out there that manages to stay inside the park. The offense should be a lot better than scrappy.

Ravenmaniac, I agree with you on the pitching comment. Guthrie and Kohono or whatever his name look good to me. The starters have to to be able to go longer then 6 innings though. The Birds are looking better.

Cool. I'm sure you meant the O's instead of the A's. No big deal. Funny about your time line. My family moved in the spring of '81.

Actually I screwed up twice in one sentence. I meant the final National League championship game against the Reds where we swept them 3-0. Blyleven closed it out.

Baltimore wins its third series in row, nice way to start the season.

why dont they call it the "american series"?

its kinda like when superbowl champs say they are the world champs.

The best players in the world play in the World Series but the teams are American and Canadian. I agree with your point though, I think MLB is missing the boat by not having teams in other countries that love baseball. One of the reasons why they do not have teams in other parts of the world is MLB does not want owners who drive salaries up, they like having very cheap owners who do not drive players salaries up.

A classic example is the Washington Nationals who will draw squat this year because of the crap players on the field. A new franchise that the town is turning on already. When the fellow owners selected the Nats owner they loved his "thriftiness" .

Old Man by the Sea wrote:

I think MLB is missing the boat by not having teams in other countries that love baseball. One of the reasons why they do not have teams in other parts of the world is MLB does not want owners who drive salaries up, they like having very cheap owners who do not drive players salaries up.

They don't have teams in other parts of the world because the logistics of travel are still too difficult.

You'd can't be having a team flying to Japan just to play a couple games. And Latin America doesn't yet have the economic wherewithall to support baseball. It's not like a team based in Caracas is going to be able to draw enough fans at major league prices to be competitive.

i agree. there needs to be a salary cap. some teams are basically minor league teams and haven't been good in decades, because they can't buy talent and can't keep any talent they "grow." in any case, i love how every year there is a thread about the o's. i grew up outside of baltimore and remember the rabid fans. the only core group of fans that can compare are bostonians.

We're definitely seeing a return to "the Oriole way"...

1. Pitching

2. Defense

3. Three run homers

It's birdland baby!

Actually I think they could have more players and perhaps teams from around the world. San Francisco travels to Miami to play, five hours south or west of San Diego by plane is where ?

One thing MLB could do is put a team in Hawaii and market that team to Japan. The Hawaii team could also sign players from the Far East. Anyway thats my take.

Old Man by the Sea wrote:

Actually I think they could have more players and perhaps teams from around the world. San Francisco travels to Miami to play, five hours south or west of San Diego by plane is where ?

One thing MLB could do is put a team in Hawaii and market that team to Japan. The Hawaii team could also sign players from the Far East. Anyway thats my take.

5 hours south of San Diego puts you in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. (Remember, South America is primarily EAST of NYC)

And it's about a 5 hour flight from SF to Hawaii. That makes it 10+ hours from the East Coast.

And a flight from Japan to Hawaii is about 8 hours.

The travel times are just too great at this time.

But back to the original thread...watching the O's right now on MASN - they're knocking the ball around the park and the defense has been great.

I went down to Spring Training this year and was really impressed with the team. Uehara was great in the game I saw him pitch - even when he was struggling, he still LOOKED like a professional on the mound - a marked improvement from guys like Danys Baez. And Wieters was a monster down in Florida too. Another month before he comes up.

We've got half-a-dozen young arms, and pretty good ones, in the system. But baby steps now. Let's win 81 games this year. In that division, it's an accomplishment. And if we get more - even better.

All this Orioles talk has me wanting to wander down to Pickles right now...

I'm sorry to hear that Wieters is in AAA still. Obviously, they're just trying to manage his service time, because he was already far better than anyone they had last year. If he is what Baseball Prospectus and others think he is, he will be bringing 7-10 extra wins per year over replacement level for years. A stud at catcher is a huge competitive advantage because of the normal weakness of the position.

I love these delusional threads. Forget about the O's for a few years. They have actually had good records for the first half or so for a number of years in a row, but the lack of quality at many positions will show through. Conversely, the Yankees very often start slowly before destroying the league for the last four months. The O's did a pretty good job trading their assets, particularly Bedard. Roberts would have brought something good but Angelos loves him and won't trade him (correct me if I'm wrong). Pie is a good prospect but I'm personally not sold on him because his minor league numbers were too Corey Patterson-ish. The five tool player who can't hit the baseball. The O's are not a small market team, although they were hurt by the Nats' move significantly. They have a great ballpark and good revenue streams. But what they need to do is to concentrate on high ceiling talent in the draft and that will not pay off for another five years or more.

Sense, I am watching the game as well, not looking good. My take on Hawaii still stands as you would not have a team travel from the East Coast to Hawaii, it would be part of the west coast swing. With so many Japanese living and visiting Hawaii I would think you could get a owner from Japan with money and market to Japan. Just my thought.

Impressive that you went down to Florida during the preseason. Is the camp as bad as the papers make it to be ?

Uehara looks great to me as well. I don't understand why the National baseball media have given him so little pub. His record in Japan was impressive to say the least. Part of my desire to have a more "worldly" MLB is because of the the pure style the Asians play as opposed to some of these guys who look like beer league players. I like swift, fast players who are in shape. { Not that anyone cares what type of players or ball I like}

Last question, I have been impressed with how Zaun has handled the pitchers, how long do you think it will take Weiters to be able to manage the pitchers ?

I don't recall a rookie catcher with the Orioles before.

Well the O's are predictable so far this year win first two games of the series and get blown out the last game. Grand Slam ouch !

jonesy. wrote:

I'm sorry to hear that Wieters is in AAA still. Obviously, they're just trying to manage his service time, because he was already far better than anyone they had last year. If he is what Baseball Prospectus and others think he is, he will be bringing 7-10 extra wins per year over replacement level for years. A stud at catcher is a huge competitive advantage because of the normal weakness of the position.

Wieters at AAA is simply a roster move. If they brought him up at the start of the season, he would have qualified for the "Super Two" status...and would be eligible for salary arbitration early, at the end of 2010. Meaning that he could theoretically becomes a free agent at the end of 2011.

By keeping him down until June 1 of this year, they'll avoid that scenario and he'll be eligible for arbitration in 2013.

But beyond that, while he's a great prospect and had a great spring, he has played one season of minor league ball, and that was split time between A and AA last year. Making the jump from AA to the majors is a big stretch, if nothing more for a catcher than learning to handle the pitchers. He needs a bit of time to mature at AAA, but you'll see him up in a couple months.

Hey OMBTS, we Red Sox fans have really enjoyed the Orioles' visit. We hope they come again, soon.:)