tjack16 said:

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Bregman needs out of the 3 hole ASAP.

Hell I'd even be fine if Pena hit there… but it can't be Bregman

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I could be down for Pena at 3. You've lost more than 2/3 of your games and you're solidly a last-place team, what's to lose?

Armchair psychology

Hader is forcing, trying to live up to his contract

Pressly is petulant, still not over the demotion

Abreu feels forgotten and underpaid

woof...missed the game today

1 step forward and 2 steps back

very frustrating that the extra inning malaise continues unabated

need to win the series tomorrow

AggieJ2002 said:

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When the front office is more worried about making sure last year's bust of a signing gets opportunities over prioritizing winning just so the signing doesn't look so bad, these are the results we deserve

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there is truth here

no one wants to take responsibility for the signing...and no one wants to admit a massive mistake

I fully expect this team to get going at some point but it's looking increasingly likely it will come too late. The good news is I'd rather they do this now than in September. We might be able to do something about it earlier in the season (whether that's addressing holes or giving up and selling).

Listened to that on my way back from college station

****ING VOMIT ON THIS TEAM

MaxPower said:

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I fully expect this team to get going at some point but it's looking increasingly likely it will come too late. The good news is I'd rather they do this now than in September. We might be able to do something about it earlier in the season (whether that's addressing holes or giving up and selling).

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The problem is we don't have anything of value to trade to fix the issues mid-season.

I didn't watch. What the **** happened in the 9th?

Too much talent and experience to make the amount of
mistakes they have.

Even Altuve, it feels like he's gone above and beyond his ordinary amount of headscratchers on the base paths so far, no matter his OPS

I think you have two options:

1) Get your pitching healthy and trade someone. If (big if) you get Framber, McCullers, Garcia and Urquidy back (really just 3 of 4) then you can trade someone to a pitching needy team.

2) You can trade a lower level prospect with a high ceiling like Baez. I generally wouldn't recommend that but could see scenarios it works. I will use the following scenario:

The Orioles may be willing to move Kjerstad but are worried about their OF pipeline. Maybe you trade Framber but include Baez and you get Kjerstad and Povich. They get a lefty top end starter and you get a young bat who can play 1B or corner OF while also adding a lefty who can be mid rotation starter in a system deplete of lefties. Both Povich and Kjerstad can help this team this year so it's not a rebuild move.

agproducer said:

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Win tomorrow. Win the series. Win the next series. Then the next one.

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This is where I'm at. As ****ty as this game was, a series win is a series win. Need to start piling em up and pray we correct the issues on the fly.

Watching O's-Royals and listening to the Royals broadcast talk about how that 2015 team came in after losing to the Giants a year before and just clearly had an edge and were on a mission and went wire to wire first place and won it, and you could tell in spring training.l that was all they cared about.

I think it's obvious to all of us that this franchise has completely lost that edge, as one might expect after that much sustained success.

There's no perfect formula for "it". I will say sometimes it's good to infuse youth to a team. Guys who have played hundreds, maybe even over a thousand games, can get complacent with the grind. To a certain extent that's good because you don't want a team that gets too high or low. Young guys bring an energy because they appreciate it and don't know how long they will be in the bigs. There's an energy to that older guys can feed off of just as much as young guys can grow and learn from professionals.

One other thing to note that hasn't been talked about much is defense. Based on team DRS, we were 5th in 2022 then 17th in 2023 to currently 26th in 2024. We know Abreu and Altuve suck but the biggest difference has been puzzling regression from Peña, Tucker and Chas. I can't help but wonder if those guys have lost some defensive focus in their attempts to increase their bat values.

Beau Holder said:

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Watching O's-Royals and listening to the Royals broadcast talk about how that 2015 team came in after losing to the Giants a year before and just clearly had an edge and were on a mission and went wire to wire first place and won it, and you could tell in spring training.l that was all they cared about.

I think it's obvious to all of us that this franchise has completely lost that edge, as one might expect after that much sustained success.

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Lucky for them they had Will Harris to bail them out

We have this uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory this year.

LOL. I can't believe that our biggest "need" right now is a closer. The thing absolutely nobody was concerned about coming into the season turns out to be the worst part of the team. Unreal.

I have a lot more reason to believe Hader will get his sh&@ together than Abreu. Advanced metrics would support his ERA should be much lower. Abreu's not so much.

Pressly is washed.

Wabs said:

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LOL. I can't believe that our biggest "need" right now is a closer. The thing absolutely nobody was concerned about coming into the season turns out to be the worst part of the team. Unreal.

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To add insult to injury, our "backup closer" is just as bad.

I wonder what the heck is going on. Is it just bad luck?

MaxPower said:

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I have a lot more reason to believe Hader will get his sh&@ together than Abreu. Advanced metrics would support his ERA should be much lower. Abreu's not so much.

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Abreu can't barrel a ball for the life of him.

What's wrong? His timing? His perception of the pitches? He's constantly on top of them, it seems like.

That seems...fixable....but it's concerning that a veteran ex-MVP hitter can't seem to suddenly figure it out anymore.

It happens to even the best of all time. You can't forever. You just lose it one day.

MaxPower said:

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He sucked last year. It isn't a sudden problem. His second half OPS last year was .760, which, when combined with his defense, was just an improvement from awful to below average from the first half.

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He was excellent from August and into the playoffs, though. So this doesn't appear to be aging related.

tjack16 said:

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All we have to do is this

- get better at the back end of the bullpen
- get better at 1B and 3B
- get better at baserunning
- get better at hitting with RISP
- get better at extra innings
- get better in 1 run games
- get better in general
- stop making stupid errors
- stop walking batters

Other than that… we are totally good to go

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While all these are weaknesses and issues right now….

If the big three of our bullpen quit ****ting all over themselves and the heart of our lineup showed a pulse with runners in scoring position, we're probably in first place.

He had an .835 OPS in Sep / Oct which is good not excellent. Can't argue with you on the playoffs but it's such a small sample size it's hard to say whether he was locked in or just got a few meatballs that he took advantage of.