Author Topic: Machado begins an Oriole reset . . . doesn't he?  (Read 799 times)

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Offline EasyAce

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Machado begins an Oriole reset . . . doesn't he?
« on: July 23, 2018, 11:23:42 pm »
By Yours Truly
https://throneberryfields.blogspot.com/2018/07/machado-begins-oriole-reset-doesnt-he.html


Machado--reached base seven times, went 5-for-13 with
his new team, wearing number 8 in tribute to one
Baltimore icon (Cal Ripken, Jr.) and one Los Angeles
icon (Kobe Bryant) . . .


Manny Machado's first weekend as a Dodger told you most of what you need to know about his new team and the team which let him go. He went 5-for-13, reached base seven times, and drove his first Dodger run in with a double Sunday. (His All-Star selfie buddy Matt Kemp hit two out amidst a fifteen-hit attack that buried the Brewers, 11-2.)

The Maybach addition to a fleet of Lincolns, Machado looked better amidst a team worthy of him than the Orioles looked surrounding their Maybach with maybe one Lincoln and a fleet of Smart Cars. And you can can the Mannywood II gags, folks. Machado is nothing like the narcissist Manny Ramirez was when the Dodgers took a chance with him a few years ago.

Machado got to a couple of postseasons with the Orioles and it wasn't his fault they didn't get farther past one American League Championship Series. The Orioles got a package of prospects in return for him, led by Yusniel Diaz, whom every farm analyst and prospect evaluator rates as having plus upside as a corner outfielder with an impressive enough slash line. He was the number five Dodger prospect before the deal, but the Dodgers striking for the postseason couldn't wait another two years for him when they could bag Machado post haste.

But Diaz might be just what the doctor ordered for the Orioles having to face reality and remodel the team. Wasting the prime seasons of the best position player they've had since Cal Ripken, Jr. does not reflect on an organisation once thought a model baseball operation.

So might righthanded pitcher Dean Kremer, who was at the bottom of the Dodger prospect list but has turned into a strikeout virtuoso whose virtuosity got him kicked up to AA after opening at A this year. Bearing in mind that the Dodgers' lowest prospects of late might have been another club's top ten, Kremer could be seen in orange and black soon enough, and perhaps none too soon for an Oriole team whose biggest weakness in the Machado era was starting pitching.

And with closer extraordinaire Zach Britton healthy and likely on the non-waiver trading block this week and next, there'll be Oriole eyes on another Zach, as in Zach Pop, another part of the prospect haul Machado delivered. He shot through two A levels this season with a 1.04 ERA out of the bullpen, and if he holds to that form he could be the Orioles' closer of the near future. Could.

They'll cast such eyes on third baseman Rylan Bannon, hitting like a classic extra-bases-hitting third baseman and considered a plus glove at that position. Sounds a little like the guy he was traded for? Wait and see might be the best option, but Bannon is hitting for a .296/.402/.559 slash line at the highest A level this year, with 20 home runs and 89 runs batted in thus far.

If he hits like that or a little better at the next minor league levels, you may see him at Machado's old stand sooner than two years from now. And if you do, pray the Orioles don't make the same mistakes they made in the Machado era. With little enough pitching, an inconsistent lineup around him, and a momentarily short-sighted manager, Machaco was probably lucky to get any postseason action. And he missed the 2014 postseason thanks to going down that August with a knee injury.

Especially the 2016 American League wild card game. When skipper Buck Showalter answered back-to-back Blue Jays singles off Ubaldo Jimenez in the bottom of the eleventh with a confab at the mound involving Jimenez, catcher Caleb Joseph, and the entire infield including Machado but not even a thought about bringing Jimenez a hook with Britton---who'd surrendered four earned runs all season long, all early in April---in the wings.

No, Showalter decided it was safe to let Jimenez pitch to Edwin Encarnacion with one out and men on first and second. "No one has been pitching for us better than Ubaldo," Showalter said after the game.

Before he could say it, of course, Encarnacion decided it was safe to hit a fastball down the pipe into the second deck. That put Encarnacion into the club of men who've ended postseason win-or-be-gone games with big flies; members include Bobby Thomson, Bill Mazeroski, Chris Chambliss, Joe Carter, and Aaron Boone.

It also put Showalter into the sad society of skippers who made the wrong moves with postseason advancement, the pennant, or even the World Series on the line. Members include Donie Bush, Charlie Dressen, Tommy Lasorda, John McNamara, Grady Little, Matt Williams, Mike Matheny, and Terry Collins, among others.

As for Britton, it looks to be a question of where, not if he's going at or before the non-waiver deadline. The Astros are said to have eyes for him in the wake of the continuing collapse and demotion of Ken Giles and the lack of lefthanded relief options, possibly the number one need the Astros have right now. But they have competition if they're interested in Britton: the Cubs are thought to have him in their sights, and the Red Sox (who'd like a lefthanded partner for Craig Kimbrel at the back end) and the Indians (whose bullpen's collapse has been one of baseball's surprises this year) both need relief.

Look southward, New York Mess. The Orioles are finally facing certain realities, if not all of them. But it's a start. A start you, Mess, need to make in spite of your sorry selves. The sorry selves who got themselves caught flatfoot when Yoenis Cespedes turned out to need possible surgery on his ailing heels. He could also live without the innuendo surrounding his too-often-injured self, too. He got his injuries in honest competition, not hauling deer up the stairs, punching out inanimate objects, or trying to rip phone books in half.

You've probably got the phones ringing off the hook about Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard (for when he recovers from his unlikely hand, foot, and mouth disease), and even Zach Wheeler, and there will be prospects to burn in return if you're smart. Good grief, you may hate the Yankees but they're practically willing to hand you half their splendid enough farm for almost any of those guys. Pick up the phone. Brian Cashman's waiting.

Oops! Maybe that's asking too much. After all, David Wright (everyone knows this except you, Mess) is all but finished, sadly enough (yes, he was on the Hall of Fame track before the injuries trainwrecked him) and Machado is a plus third baseman you can rebuild around if you'd only been willing to give the Orioles a solid starter to start their reset and a couple of spare parts. (Like Dominic Smith, who may yet prove to be the DH type.)

Oh, sure, you unloaded your hapless closer Jeurys Familia for a couple of Oakland prospects only one of whom has apparent upside. Did you at least apologise to him for blowing World Series saves for him that should not have been blown but for your porous defense in 2015? It's the least you could have done, too, after you let him hang out to dry on a domestic violence accusation that turned out a lot of nothing much.

Enjoy watching the Dodgers from across the country, Mess. They didn't hesitate when the need and opportunity arose. That's what well-built, well-operated organisations do regardless of their liquid capital.
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« Last Edit: July 23, 2018, 11:30:48 pm by EasyAce »


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Online Bigun

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Re: Machado begins an Oriole reset . . . doesn't he?
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2018, 11:31:27 pm »
No good player wants to play on a mediocre team.  That has been true forever. That's true now.  And that will remain true for as long as the game is played.
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Online DCPatriot

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Re: Machado begins an Oriole reset . . . doesn't he?
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2018, 11:39:22 pm »
My prediction:  Manny's friend Jonathon Schoop, the Orioles' 2nd baseman is going to spell Chase Utley, who says he's retiring.

To see those two interact over the years....it's something special.  And Schoop would raise his game wearing Dodger Blue.
"It aint what you don't know that kills you.  It's what you know that aint so!" ...Theodore Sturgeon

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Offline EasyAce

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Re: Machado begins an Oriole reset . . . doesn't he?
« Reply #3 on: July 24, 2018, 12:11:29 am »
No good player wants to play on a mediocre team.  That has been true forever. That's true now.  And that will remain true for as long as the game is played.
@Bigun
It depends on the circumstances at the time and place. Tony Gwynn could have written his own ticket out of San Diego but he chose to stay, and he played on a few good teams and a lot of horrible teams. Cal Ripken, Jr. became an Oriole when the team was still great, then played on a lot of putzie-downzie Oriole teams with one or two exceptions in the years to follow. Dale Murphy probably would have stayed a Brave for life, despite having played on only one really competitive Braves team in his career, had they not traded him to the Phillies after the 1988 season; he bypassed a couple of free agencies to stay with the Braves, and only when his batting skills began to decline did they even think of unloading him to begin a rebuild. (Murphy's sudden decline meant he would miss being part of the Braves' first returns to greatness in the early 1990s.) Don Mattingly---once a Yankee, always a Yankee, as a player, anyway---he never availed himself of the free agency route until his bad back finally ordered him to call it a career, and he'd been through the worst Yankee panky of the 1980s, when the team was pressurised to mediocrity by the end of that decade. (Look to your non-laurels, Atlanta Braves---the Bronx Bumblers have captured baseball's booby prize.---George F. Will, 1990, in a Newsweek sidebar, "The Damned Yankees," to a cover story on George Steinbrenner's come-uppance-to-be . . . the articles appeared almost the same week Steinbrenner got suspended over the Howard Spira business.) Ozzie Smith stuck it out with the Cardinals after their 1980s greatness dissipated, right down to the day he retired. And thought it would make a lot of sense for the Mets to push the buttons on trading Jacob deGrom and/or Noah Syndergaard, both those pitchers have said in recent days they'd like to be Mets for life, which some Met fans think is a sign they each need psychiatric attention unless they know something about the ten-thumbed Mets ownership and administration that we don't know.
« Last Edit: July 24, 2018, 12:13:59 am by EasyAce »


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Machado begins an Oriole reset . . . doesn't he?
« Reply #4 on: July 24, 2018, 12:12:20 am »
My prediction:  Manny's friend Jonathon Schoop, the Orioles' 2nd baseman is going to spell Chase Utley, who says he's retiring.

To see those two interact over the years....it's something special.  And Schoop would raise his game wearing Dodger Blue.
@DCPatriot
It wouldn't shock me if the Orioles make Schoop available. And right now second base is the lone Dodger weak spot.


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.