Orioles Slap Bet Poll

[Frank Delicious]

The new "blow up our good team" direction the red sox are taking is nice.

[Working Stiff]

That was dumb. There isn't a bat coming into free agency that can replace Gonzales, and they got rid of Youkilis because Gonzales was at 1B. All because he was linked to the players BobbyV bitchfest. Their clubhouse is still poison and now the line-up is full of holes. All they gained was money to throw around this off season. They should have just fired BobbyV and lived to see another day.

On a side note, for as good as he is Gonzales gets traded a lot.

[Frank Delicious]

He got traded to the Sox because the Padres knew they couldn't re-sign him and wanted something for him before he walked. Whatshisname GM of the Padres was from Boston and took a pretty crappy package from Theo after not dealing with any other club. I forget why he got traded off of the Rangers but I think he only played like 50 games with them or something in his age 22-23 seasons. And now the Sox traded him to get the Dodgers to take on Crawford and Beckett which I think Crawford will be pretty good when he gets back from TJS in 6-8 months.

Also A-Gon has not had a very good year this year.

[Working Stiff]

Fun Fact: I saw Gonzalez play in A ball for the Kane County Cougars. The Kane County stadium was 45 minutes from my house and we used to go there as a low-cost alternative to Cubs and/or White Sox games. He was a great big deal that one summer because he was a #1 pick and the buzz surrounding him huge.

Kane County was a Marlins farm club, so at some point he was traded from the Marlins to the Rangers (I think it was the Ugueth Urbina deal) as well as from the Rangers to the Padres and the Padres to the Red Sox and the Red Sox to the Dodgers. Off year or no, that's a Hell of a lot of trades for a guy with that kind of talent.

[Frank Delicious]

His wiki page is interesting. He was traded from the Marlins to the rangers because they thought a wrist injury would hamper his swing.

[Working Stiff]

God Damn it! It's end of August, we are talking baseball and Frank is the only other person in this thread?

I knew I fucking hated disc golfers for a reason.

[uNicedmeMan]

I'll be up in NY on Sunday for the third of a Yanks/O's three game set. Here's hoping the O's leave NY on top of the division.

Impressive win tonight to at least split this series with the Chi Sox, Sale is one of the best pitchers in baseball and the Bird's touched him up pretty good. Adam Jones finally got his 25th home run of the season and 100th of his career. Nice work by Orioles SP Chris Tillman tonight too.

[uNicedmeMan]

I'd talk more but I only know about HTS.

[Working Stiff]

Quick question: How many PED's do you think Lew Ford would test positive for if they made him piss in a bottle tonight?

[BrotherDave]

God Damn it! It's end of August, we are talking baseball and Frank is the only other person in this thread?

I knew I fucking hated disc golfers for a reason.

I'm a Phillies fan, that's my excuse.

*shrugs*

Here I'll try: Boy that Frandsen sure looks like a player.

*shrugs*

[Working Stiff]

Kevin Frandsen<---what happens to your roster after all the actual big leaguers get salary dumped. When a 30 year-old journeyman is the most exciting thing about your team, your team sucks.

Thanks for playing, though.

[uNicedmeMan]

Quick question: How many PED's do you think Lew Ford would test positive for if they made him piss in a bottle tonight?

Quick answer: A few but I'm not pushing for a drug test

[uNicedmeMan]

I like the revolving door relationship the Orioles have with their minor league clubs and starting pitchers, I think it creates a low-stress atmosphere that the young pitchers do well in. The team calls you up for a chance to prove yourself, you pitch well and your back in the rotation or you pitch poorly and head back down and await your next chance. I thought the Birds would be screwed after Jake Arrieta decided to suck but the rotation continues to do the job. If Bundy grows into something awesome and the question mark guys continue to preform, the Orioles rotation could be pretty impressive in the future.

And... how about Pedro Strop and Jimmy Johnson? They have to be close to the top in 1-2 combo's in the league. If the Orioles can make it to the 8th inning with a lead, I feel confident that they can shut the game down.

Great year to be a Baltimore sports fan (finally), now to see what Joe Flacco can do with the hurry-up offence the Ravens have been showing this preseason.

[Frank Delicious]

That's an interesting take on having all our pitching prospects suck and getting sent back down to the minors for said sucking.

The bullpen is awesome but bullpens fluctuate between seasons, that is their nature. They are very fungible and you don't usually see one stay dominate year to year even if the pitchers in it stay the same.

As for Bundy I hope he does well but there was that interview with Duquette and then with whoever, Peterson maybe, where they both said they made Bundy stop throwing his cutter because it is a bad pitch. Telling your best pitching prospect to stop throwing his best pitch, not to work on other pitches, but because you have an organizational philosophy against the pitch is dumb as hell.

[Working Stiff]

The O's supposedly are signing Randy Wolf. It seems like there is a pattern in baseball: You are a pitcher who sucks and gets released. Your phone rings. You answer and hear "Hi, this is Dan Duquette..."