ST: Orioles vs Jays (Sept 3 - Sept 5)

[Relentless88]

Rajai carrying the offense.

[Fairview4Life]

how can you be a jays fan and predict failure for the next 10 seasons? That quote is signature worthy.

20 years of failure and being owned by Rogers who doesn't care about winning. I'll see you again in 10 years, coward. You might wanna remove that signature because you're the one who's gonna look like a dumbass.

After the Jays not making the playoffs for 20 years, how can you not predict failure? Seriously, are you just polishing Mike Wilner off in your spare time or something BigLeague?

Glad to see you've moved on to "not making the playoffs". Nice pivot.

[Michael Bradley]

It's a good thing that guy didn't make the bet this year that the Orioles would finish ahead of the Jays.

Everyone kept waiting for the O's to come back to earth after their hot start but it looks like it's not happening.

Didn't you hear? The Orioles aren't actually really good. They're just lucky.

In the Wild Card era, only three teams have made the playoffs with a negative run differential; the 1997 Giants (-9), the 2005 Padres (-42), and the 2007 Diamondbacks (-20). The Giants and Diamondbacks won 90 games each, the Padres won 82.

That is 17 years and exactly three teams that did what the Orioles may end up doing. That is not even factoring the biggest outlier, and that is Baltimore's record in one run games. It is widely accepted that records in one run games are not determined by talent, but by luck. Baseball Prospectus did an article on August 22 with the records of teams based on 1-run games and by games decided by 3 runs or more. The Orioles, at the time, were 23-6 in one run games (.793 winning percentage) but were below .400 in games decided by 3 or more runs. Maybe the Orioles have an elite bullpen that helps them win close games, right? Well, sure, they rank 5th in bullpen ERA (2.99), but the Cleveland Indians who are nearly 20 games under .500 overall and have the 29th ranked bullpen ERA in baseball (4.82) are 18-8 in one run games. The Yankees are 17-20 in one run games, by comparison.

Again, that is not "hating" on the Orioles. If they make the playoffs with a - run differential and excellent record in 1-run games, then good for them. I wish the Jays made the playoffs with any differential. But don't put your head in the sand to reality here. Luck is a major factor.

[LittleOzzy]

Can someone please make the next series thread?

[youreachiteach]

I'm a bit tired of hearing how "lucky" they are. Of course they are. So what. The Jays have underperformed their pythagorean record every year for ever. What does it really mean?

Nothing. All it suggests is that the Jays are poorly managed and the Orioles are not.

Let's face it, Farrel vs. Showalter is a total mismatch. Is he worth the entire difference? Of course not. But a great manager, as the Rays show, has a way of having a club believe in the whole, and doesn't let his team beat themselves with asinine subs and poor gambles. All the one run games mean is that Bucky is smart enough to take his group of five inning specialists and not try to pretend they are anything but. He has used his elite pen wisely.

This let them build their record to the point where THE TEAM believes it is as good as its record. Ever hear of fake it till you make it? Even as much as Cito is ragged on here, he was one of the only managers to take average Jays teams on huge runs early in the season and make them relevant until their lack of talent and/or lack of assistance down the stretch from management was crippling. The Orioles didn't let that happen. They went out and made enough moves to keep them mentally and physically in the race. And they are still going.

Today I saw Bucky pull his "ace" Hammels after five innings with a four run lead. Do you think Farrel would have had the foresight for that move? In fact, that might have been the move of the game, because for once his bullpen cracked in the eighth, and letting Hammels give up any more runs was crucial to keeping as much of a lead as they could.

Any team in the league has to have some luck go their way--but good teams make their luck. Perhaps their best player at second has been either hurt or concussed for 2 years and all they did was replace him with Andino and hardy--two excellent infielders.

No one needed to number crunch about why the Orioles have fared poorly in recent times--their pitching was a **** show.

They have always had decent to excellent position players, though, and have been bad enough to pick up a few gems in the minors.

Why? Because their ownership has always spent money to do so. Angelos gets laughed at by all the number crunchers for his foibles of trying to spend money on a team going nowhere, and his misses on the free agent market. But you know what? The guy tries. He honestly made every effort to put a decent team on the field every year. The Orioles have also had many of their can't miss pitching prospects go south on them, when they couldn't convince the upper tier starters to come to Baltimore. They have taken chances that have failed. But at least, in recent memory, they have a few seasons where they were relevant. What have the Jays accomplished in the last 20 years following 93? Nothing.

If you look at their roster now, I'd take it over the Jays.

First Encarnacion vs. Chris Davis and Reynolds

dead even

second
andino/roberts vs. Johnson

It is to laugh (Orioles)

ss
Esco vs. Hardy

Dead even--but the Orioles can put Andino here and we can't. (orioles)

Third
Lawrie vs. Machado

Dead even

Home
Wieters (best in the league) vs. Arencibia (.230 strikeout machine with less defensive ability) Orioles

LF
Insert Jay failure vs. Markakis Orioles

CF
Rasmus vs. Jones

Yeah, not close Orioles

RF

Bautista vs. O's castoff --this is our only true advantage

As you can see, I'd take their position players over ours any day of the week as a whole unit, especially if Roberts comes back healthy.

Yes, Bautista and EE are great, but the Orioles have talent at positions where it is traditionally REALLY difficult to get, CF and Catcher. At every other position it's a push or a win for them, and even first is adequately manned due to depth. You know how they get that depth? They spend money. As they have always done. They always give out these 5-8 mil contracts to guys who need another chance and prognosticators often scoff at their needless spending. You know what? If the Blue Jays had a habit of doing that, maybe they wouldn't have bottomed out so badly in August and still given themselves a shot.

The only difference this year is that Baltimore's **** starters became more than passable--and the pen, depth and offence held it together when they inevitably started slipping. That, and management added some extra artillery.

Yes, they've gotten lucky. But let's not hide it all behind run differential because it makes us all feel better about ourselves. It played a part--but the Orioles made their luck, too.