what did we spend $42 million on, can someone remind me?

Can we put the "interim" tag BACK on Trembley? Or maybe Angelos is working on a time machine.

Preliminary diagnosis on Jim Hoey (Phooey) follows:

Bruce Swango Disease

Swango was a pitcher the Orioles either signed or attemptd to sign in the mid-1950s.

He flopped because he "couldn't pitch in front of big crowds."

Bad illness for someone aspiring to play major league baseball, no?

Anybody know Todd Williams or Scott Williamson's phone numbers?

daytona boy - I owe you an apology too.

This is the worst bullpen in MLB history.

These guys couldn't get Whistler's mother out if they had to - and she's been dead for 120 years.

Lost amid the latest bludgeoning and an effective outing by Cabrera, has anyone noticed how Cabrera's velocity has gone down fairly significantly in the last few years? When he came up he was hitting 98,99,100 pretty consistently and (in my opinion) was more successful, even if his command wasn't the best. The hardest fastball I've seen him throw this year has been 96, with a more consistent fastball in the 91-94 range. I understand that Mazzone de-emphasizes velocity for command, which is a valid philosophy if you have good command, but Cabrera seems to get worse command as the years have gone by. The numbers are a little deceiving, as Cabrera's BB/9innings ratio is actually the best of his career this year, though he is only striking out 7.14 per nine innings after having 157 K's in 148 innings last year. The most telling stat for me is the 22 HRs allowed this season (11, 14 the previous two years) which tells me he doesn't have the velocity to get away with his misplaced fastballs up in the zone and they're getting hit hard.

One of the reasons I check back on this blog daily is because of what you just said: you give us a good feel for what the heck's going on out there, even if you can't betray the entire truth, so to speak.

On Penn, I agree wholeheartely with you, Roch. Like all youngsters, you give it time. And time means, years in the MLB, not going 7 innings in a Tides game. Hope is pretty bleak regarding his track record, but you have to put him through the test, like the organization is doing with Cabrera.

Thanks for your updates, Roch, as always.

Hey Roch, you should ask Trembley if you can pitch the 8th for the rest of the season.

The organization being frustrated with a pitcher is one thing...but the pitcher not performing at all is entirely another...Penn certainly has to work his way back into the picture...what some of us "normal" folks don't realize that a lot of these kids, esp. the more "gifted" ones, have always had people waiting in line for them and throwing money at them who tell them how great they are...

...I'm not mentioning this to start a rant against "spoiled modern athletes" but only to point out the extremely extraordinary circumstances these kids are in from pretty much Day 1...a top prospect like Penn has been told how great he is since his formative years in High School...that's bound to lead to a skewed view of things...and this kind of frustration that I see right now is sort of a syndrome of bonus babies...the odds are that he's never really had to actually work "hard" a day in his life to get things...that's not to say he doesn't want to be a successful pitcher; he might be just used to his extreme talent doing the work for him...the difference between quality players and mediocre ones is those who make the connection between working hard and success...we'd all love it if all of them were like Garrett Olson with a very mature attitude but, it's sad but I think there's more to the "Change of Scenery" cliche...basically speaking, if you DFA a guy, for some guys (like, say, Guthrie) it is the first time where they have to face the very real possibility of never playing baseball as a pro again...perhaps that lights a sense of urgency for some of these guys...

...just ask Matt Riley, one of the most notorious Bonus Baby headcases in recent Oriole history (i.e. Sid might be a close 2nd)...

I don't understand why "message boards" would be "blowing up" about your notations on Hayden Penn. It is what it is with the young prospect, and he alone bears the burden of his failures and successes. He hasn't pitched enough Major League games for anyone to get a good read on him, and given the weird circumstances of his various health ailments, he can't rise above the status of "potential." That's all he is until he takes the mound in a meaningful game and shows us that he can produce outs.

I'm sorry, this is just pathetic. The FO spent all that money on relievers over the winter and look what's happened. What the heck will they do now?

LOL. This is the point I've been making all year to my dad. We have SO many SOFT throwing guys, we have two HARD throwing guys, Hoey and Baez, and both of them don't even have excellent command. So we only rely on the SOFT guys more, and look at what we get. We need MORE Hard guys, NOT Soft guys.

Come on, Front Office, find us these guys!

Nice entry, Roch, especially the final graph. It's good for us as readers to be reminded of what you guys face in terms of establishing -- and maintaining -- a rapport with your sources.

I though the Hoey quote was also poignant and yet my initial response to send him down to the minors immediately gave way to the idea that this may be THE perfect opportunity to get his head screwed on right. It's essentially September, we're so far out of contention that he can get his footing when the games matter little to not at all, and besides, sending him down to the minors achieves nothing -- except perhaps a repetition. That's to say, he gains confidence at Norfolk, comes up to the bigs and loses that confidence promptly.

The quote was also a reminder of how mental a game baseball is (that doesn't get mentioned enough), but that's likely a topic for another time.

Roch,

Please don't apologize. You know what it means to be a reporter, and you're darn good at it. Keep up the good work.

Just make sure you stay on Bedard's good side.

Roch,
Gotta tell ya...(3, right?)
I read you every day,all day and people I respect read you every day and the vote is in.
You're the best damn Print/web (TV,Cable) Baltimore sports guy we have!
You also have a slew of Knowledgeable, informed , and woefully optimistic contributors who HAVE to rank you as the top Sunpaper blog site by a huge margin...Sooooooooo,
Stop Apologizing
or going out of your way to explain WHY you can only say and write what you do.
The adults here already know and are thankfull for what we get..

I'm still ticked that Roberts and Trembley called the fans out 2 weeks ago. What do they expect?

The bullpen is brutal. Hernandez is calling and playing a lousy game.

Angelos has killed this franchise for our kids who will never experience what we did in the 60s-80s.

It's hard to look at the positives after a blow out like this. But, I see three. Cabrera pitched a decent game, Jaime Walker did his job, and Ramon Hernandez showed his first sign of coming out of the slump.

No comments about Ramon Hernandez's 100% lack of effort to block home plate half way through the 8th?

They had the runner out but Hernandez inexplicably backs off instead of trying to block the plate. He looked like a bullfighter the way he just olayed the guy into scoring. Absolutely pathetic. I was at home wishing Mr. Drill Sargent Trembly would yank him for that. This team makes me want to puke.

It's not JUST the Orioles ., Major League Baseball has reached Slow Pitch Softball status with scores like 19-5 , 22 -8 all to often . Of course this is by design ( small parks , Minor League pitching, Maple bats , Juiced Baseballs ) Isn't it about time for The 4th Outfielder ?

Yes, Roch, you're right. If you start trying to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. Don't pay attention to blowhards who know nothing about the newspaper business.

4 Club level tickets - $180
Parking - $10
Dinner for 4 - $60
The Orioles bullpen - Worthless

My wife and I had season tickets for 15 years before we gave them up in 2001 out of frustration with rising prices and incompetence both on the field and in the warehouse. We started attending about a dozen Baysox game each year and had a lot of fun.

Last winter we started getting the itch and, tempted by some good young players and some off-season spending, we bought an Orioles 13-game plan in the Club Level.

What a mistake! Next year, I'm back at Prince Georges Stadium rooting for the Baysox. It's closer to home, cheaper and a whole lot more fun.

Wasn't it Piniella who had the notion of starting his relievers and letting the starters take over to finish up games? I can't blame Trembley for the 8th because he didn't have a lot of choice. Nobody is pitching well, his least ugly option is to hope Hoey gets lucky and gets out of the inning for that uplifting experience. I agree with the earlier post, though, that once it's gone you should save Bradford. At least he's been mediocre and consequently a better option when we're ahead.

Put Penn in the pen. At least he's got the name for it.

As one of the posters complaining about your thoughts on Penn yesterday, I appreciate your clarification today, and now I have a better understanding of where thngs are.

Roch, can you tell us the Orioles record this year in games that skip the 8th inning?
I was watching the game with my wife last night when the 8th inning started with a score of 6-3. I told my wife the Devil Rays would end up with about 15 runs by the end of the game. It's sad when their poor pitching is so predictable.
Substantial PItching Folly for anybody still on the SPF kick from last week.
How does McPhail feel about Trembley now? Can you fire a manager before his contract officially begins? We really should have at least looked to see who was available.
Let Hoey pay his dues here. It's virtually impossible to play more embarrassing baseball than we have this last week. What do we have to lose? Have Liz and Olson start and release Traschel. He's not in next years plans anyway and we need to know how many starters we have and how many we need in order to take the strain off the bullpen. The bullpen is only bad because they have pitched more innings than our starters (or so it seems). We need more durable starters that get deeper into games and we need to start evaluating candidates now instead of spring training '08.

As for the bullpen, what’s there to do at this point? At this point, it seems as if they can only count on Bradford, Walker, and Baez (and counting on Baez shows just horrible things have gone) to get people out. For everyone else, something’s gone horribly wrong. Hoey should be on mop up duty at best at this point; he was pitching well for awhile, and now he’s just horrendous, but I think they should give him a shot to work out of this but not when the game is on the line. Beyond that, I’m not sure what they can do at this point other than a revolving door to see who works. Let Birkins hang around. Maybe Wright if he returns soon (can’t believe I’m saying that, since I was ready to send him packing just a few days ago, but they need anyone to get people out late in the game). Perhaps put Liz or Penn out there. Who knows who’s going to work on any given night at this point?

I don’t have any answers. The bullpen and this team overall are just confounding. They’re not confounding in that they’re predictably a fourth place team, but confounding that they can just continually sink to new lows. I mean, what do we read into the fact the bottom fell out on this team exactly when the interim tag was taken off Trembley? Is there anything there? Why is it the team played well just before the trade deadline, allowing MacPhail to say the team’s playing well together and should be mostly kept together, but are now 8-17 in August? Just a couple weeks ago, they played well against Boston and New York but have now stunk it up against Toronto, Texas, Minnesota, and Tampa Bay yesterday.

There’s evaluating talent and allowing young players to make mistakes, and there’s embarrassing yourself to the point where it’s tough to label yourself professional. It’s the same old broken record year after year: someone’s (this time, in the bullpen) got to step up and assert themselves. Or at least not embarrass themselves.

Thank God for this forum! I've been a fan of the Orioles since the mid 60's(through the glory and gory days!) and this has to be one of the worst weeks ever. Roch gives us a place for fellow O's fans to vent, offer suggestions and even inject some humour into a rapidly deteriorating situation.
Not that we can change anything unfortunately, but I am amazed at the knowledge base here. Maybe Roch has an inside track to the warehouse and he can forward on our comments,etc. Who knows, maybe some our ideas will get acted on( I can dream can't I?) but at the very least, the brain trust can get the message that we are VERY fed up!!

Bob Baer...big crowds? Where?

Custard that ball was a tad late & too high for Hernandez to block the plate. On the replay from the side, you can see that. If he is in front of the plate, that throw might have gone over his head.

Roch, I think I can speak for many here... we WISH you could give us more info BUT we trust you give us all you can since you can't burn sources. That being said, we just have to use some intellect & read between the lines based on the info you do give us.

On Penn, that seems to be the FOs problem, impatience & over eagerness with young pitchers. The guy is 22, they need to relax & give him a chance to grow up, no matter how hard that might be. He is a talent
& worth some headaches, for a little while. I just hope they don't give up on him, deal him for lesser value, whatever. They NEED to cultivate any pitching they have.

I am SO glad we cut Shuey & kept Hoey around. I know Shuey was doing poorly but come on....
Last night I was not too thrilled with our new manager's handling of that situation. I would have yanked Hoey sooner, 3 batters sooner, you could see he was in trouble.

Hoey calls it nerves. Unless he has social anxiety - which can be treated with medication rather easily - his issue is confidence.

Daniel Cabrera often has the same issue. Once he gets behind 0 - 1 or 0 - 2 he comes unglued. He either starts trying to nibble to try to not walk the hitter while simultaneously trying to not allow the hitter to make contact, or he lays it right in there at 3/4 speed to just get that strike. Either way, the result is disasterous.

A pitcher in his situation has to go in there blazing and not let up. If he his afraid of getting hit or walking the batter he is going to give up walks or hits. If he gets beat with his best stuff you take your hat off to the other team. If he gets beat because he is afraid to pitch he has no one to blame but him self - and he shouldn't be in the major leagues.

Atlanta got a sports psychologist for Smoltz in 1991 and he turned a 2 - 11 start into a 14 - 13 season. Maybe the O's should skip pre-game drills for the pitchers and have them all go to group therapy.

At this point the O's have 2 choices - stay with who they have and hope they can right themselves or make serious changes.

If Bradford and Baez are too tired they should go on the DL and be replaced by fresh arms. I would even be willing to bring up Fernando Cabrera and se what he can do in middle relief. His 5.61 ERA might make him the 2nd best guy in the pen.

Whatever, we cannot afford any more games like the last 7 - 18 inn, 40 ER, 42 hits, 18 walks and 4 HR allowed.

Even if you take out the last Wednesday's implosion it is 14 inn, 16 ER (10.29 ERA), 22 hits, 11 walks and 2 HR allowed.

Pathetic.

Jeff: Good point about Cabrera and the home runs. He was hardly giving up any before, and now he’s giving up a lot. A drop-off in velocity would not be a good thing, unless there’s some intention to it, which I can’t imagine.

G Mac: Don’t forget that Joe Jordan basically called out the fans with his line, “You can tell the city of Baltimore that the old evil owner stepped up and took care of things tonight,” after the Wieters signing. Yeah, it’s an indirect shot unlike the direct one from Roberts and Trembley and you’ve got to read into it, but we know he’s mocking how many of us feel about Angelos. The only ones who deserve to be mocked are the front office and the players and managers/coaches on the field because they’re terrible.

After 10 years of losing and organizational ineptitude, why should fans even care about this team anymore? Admittedly, signing Wieters is a solid step, but that’s a drop in the bucket. We got one solid prospect but need about 5 more like him. Amateur drafts only happen once a year so other ways of acquiring such prospects need to happen somehow, somewhere. Keep making positive steps and turn this franchise into a winner and maybe fans will show up at the park again and have a better attitude about this organization and players, managers, and front office can stop taking shots at them.

I have a confession to make. I made a prediction back in the spring, on these very pages, that I have since hoped would never see the light of day again.

Anybody crazy enough to look it up will no doubt find it anyway, and then I'll be exposed. Roch started it by prompting us for our won/loss predictions for the 2007 Baltimore Orioles season.

I was cautiously optimistic about the off season bullpen moves, despite what the talking heads were saying on ESPN. But I thought the real key would be our young starting pitchers having a breakout year; Penn, Loewen, Bedard and Cabrera with the 5th being a veteran presence like Benson or Wright.

Huff would be the 5 hole hitter we've desperately needed to give Miggy better pitches to choose from. Payton would provide us with some matchup options within our relatively solid core of outfielders.

I was convinced that the maturing starting pitchers, a dependable bullpen, and a refreshed and encouraged group of hitters and fielders would easily result is a 20 or so game swing.

I predicted...90 wins.

There, I said it. Another load off my mind. I'm out of the closet. I'm a rose colored glasses, kool-aid drinking sucker who falls for the same gag every year.

On a lighter note, my typing has improved dramatically the past 6 months or so.

Interesting that Radhames Liz' name never came up in all the discussion about relievers, hard throwers, young prospects and all that?

MacPhail should bring in his most trusted pitching advisor (not hire him, just bring him in for a consult). Flanagan, MacPhail's guy, Mazzone and maybe Trembley's new bullpen coach should talk individually with each and every member of the bullpen and most of the guys who have been and no longer are members. And they should talk to Mazzone too.

There is something seriously wrong with the psychology and there may be something seriously wrong with the environment or preparation (something like the starters being made to have 2 side sessions between starts, when the rest of the league and the rest of their career have been doing only 1).

MacPhail's guy gives his report (by himeself) to MacPhail and fades back out of town. MacPhail then takes the appropriate action.

These pitchers have a decent track record. And this performance is off-the-scale awful. It is not the pitchers themselves, it is something in the environment. Isolate potential causes and remove them.

At least you should get the pitchers back within a standard deviation or two of their career averages. It does no good at all to get rid of Baez, Bradford, Walker or even Hoey or Bell. They will return to their career averages at their next stop. The problem is here. Find it and fix it.

In the interim, in the "we'll try anything" category, perhaps when rosters expand they can have a second starter (Penn, Wright, Liz, Olsen) come in to start the 7th automatically whenever Bedard is not on the mound. Force fewer innings from the traditional bullpen guys and give the starters the knowledge they only have to go 6 for the rest of the year and get a look at some of the starter/prospects, injury rehab guys.

Thanks for sharing Mig's comment about the fans....being one of those fans that is there every night and suffering implosion after implosion it's nice to know that they realize that some of us are still there for better or worse (though right now definitely falls under the "worse" category, I must say)

Roch: You's don't have to apologize fer nuttin'. You da best. Keep up da good, no, outstanding work.

Roch

Let me join the chorus of praise for your work, keep it up! Is the problem with the O's pitching perhaps a situation where the catching corps is the culprit? We've seen the ebb and flow of the bull pen, how do so many pitchers get into a groove collectively then into a funk collectively? The common element seems to be the catchers. Palmer is always talking about Cabrera needing to throw his change up more often, has anybody whispered in the catcher's ear to call for more change ups? I don't discount the fact that pitchers still have to execute the pitch thats called for, but, again, what's the common element?

No doubt the Oriole 'brain trust" is working on a deal to get some bullpen help. I hear a Cabrera, Bedard, and Weiters for Mussina and Ikawa deal is on the table.

Here's an idea. At least for the rest of the season, put Liz at closer. You can't tell me that a guy throwing 96-100 coming out of the bullpen in the 9th wouldn't be good for us. Plus...we know he can at least get 6 outs if needed...

I agree with Tom D and Mark C that there seem to be a lot of psychology-related problems on this team that need to be addressed. For quite a few years we have been bringing up young pichers who looked terrified to be on the mount. They are not viewing the situation as a challenge or an opportunity but rather it is a threat and a scary place to be. What are they telling these guys before they go out there? Don't screw up, buddy. Or don't worry if you get in a jam we'll let you work yourself out of it to "build" your confidence.

The coaches are missing the boat somewhere. Riley, Penn, Hoey, Eddy Rodriguez, Doyne, the pitcher from SF with the shoulder problem... trust me there are plenty more who looked like they had good "stuff" but lacked the mental make-up to be effective at the major-league level.

This is a player development problem. These kids are not being prepared for the big show. I don't know if this team would benefit more from a clinical or an I/O psychologist, but they certainly need some sort of intervention! What a dysfunctional lot.

Jeff, CRB - Some interesting stuff about Daniel Cabrera from Baseball HQ in 2003 (when he was moving from A to AA):
"Strengths: Command and movement of 91-97 MPH fastball and slider. Competitive. Keeps ball down. Height (6'7")
Weaknesses: Tightness of slider. Deception of change-up. Maturity and experience
Comments: An imposing figure on the mound for his size and velocity, his fastball picked up a few ticks over the off-season and didn't yield a HR all season. He loves to attack hitters, but his aggressiveness can sometimes lead to his downfall. Experience should cure most of his ills and should be able to pitch in a full-season league in 2003."

What happened to his slider? He is basically a 2 pitch pitcher right now - fastball and curve and he occasionally throws a change. I remember the slider being pretty nasty.

I think the loss of the slider and the increasing use of the curve has more to do with the HRs than the drop in velocity.

He never consistently threw much above 93 - 95 and 91 - 93 is not much of a drop off. But if you only throw a couple pitches and one is a so-so curve or a lame change-up, the hitters sit lesser pitches.

A little known fact (backed up, believe it or not, by research from a U of Ca. physics department) that it is easier to hit a curve out than a fastball. More curves (especially when it is not very good) = more HR.

I would rather see Cabrera walk 120 and get outs with the slider than see him walk 120 and have his curve hammered around the park.

The maturity is still an issue, too.

Roch, I echo everyone else’s sentiments on the good job you do following this team. Solid reporting all year. I don’t how you can be so close to this team, though, and not have it be detrimental to your health. I just look at a box score or read a recap and get a twinge in my abdomen. In the offseason, you might need a month in the tropics to detox from this team.

Daytona Boy: I predicted 75 wins. At this point, that seems grossly optimistic. I was hoping that I would be proven wrong but in the other direction.

Jack--I'm with you on the Liz as closer idea up to a point. The O's have nothing whatsoever to lose by putting him there and he could definitely close out some games, no question. (Torii Hunter, who went deep on Liz, said it took three at bats before he felt like he had a chance hitting against him.)

The trouble is it doesn't look like he's going to get many opportunties the way the bullpen's been going. He's one of the most exciting pitching prospects the team has, so giving him some starts is better in terms of hastening the maturation process.

Best case scenario is that he gets some quality work for the next month or so, then, come spring, he might have a chance to make the 25 man roster. (For anyone questioning that possibility, do the following: Name all the pitchers on the staff who are better or on the farm who have a brighter upside than Liz. Also, while you're at it, name all of the pitchers whose stuff makes for uncomfortable at bats for opposing hitters the way his does. Short list, no? When you've done all that, add the names up and I believe you'll find there'll be room for him next spring. Easily, I'd say.)

As for prospects, come September 1st there'd better be a locker at Oriole Park with Matt Weiter's name on it. This guy needs to be fast-tracked to the big club, but I state the obvious.

Miggy feels bad for the fans? I feel badly for the players that are putting in the effort only to be rewarded with another loss by the bullpen. It's quite evident what the team's Achilles heel is just by looking at the box scores. Maybe Jim Palmer should suit up for bullpen duty. Or maybe they can allow fans to give it a shot.

I was impressed to see the Birds come out in the 8th and instead of just rolling over and whiffing a few quick outs, the offense continued to get guys on base.