Trade:
Guthrie
Roberts
Value is high.
Get back shortstop, second baseman and five more pitchers

Huff is your first baseman next year. This isn't a one year wonder. Look up his career stats.

This crap is hard to watch.
I don't want to hear Andy McFAIL
say he expected this and we were
lucky to have been close to .500.

The opposition is tougher. But playing
poorly like not covering first is inexcusable.

You can't make chicken salad from
chicken crap. I am tired of the FourA,
Waiver-wire claims, washed up or
hurt veterans, Rule-5's poor excuse
of a pitching staff that implodes EVERY year at this time.

Give us a reason to keep watching!
Some real hope other than we're
stockpiling arms.

If I am Trembley, I'm gonna say I'll fine each and every one of you $1,000 dollars if you walk one, and $10,000 if you hit somebody.

And then I'm gonna call up the entire Bowie rotation and send down the 2-5 starters after Bowie ends their season.

And then, in the off-season, I'm cutting anybody who has their first or last name as: Ramon, Millar, Walker, Castillo, Cabrera, and Cabrera. Then I'm looking for pitchers and get in the running for Mark Teixiera. Bringing up Wieters, Ray, Patton, and so on. Demanding that MASN has the entire season in high-definition. And then, I'm still gonna fine people if they hit or walk batters.

One more thing. I'm not gonna sit on the bench looking like I'm dead. I'm gonna stand on the steps, my hands on the rail, and get my feelings known to umpires and players alike.

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Pete's reply: Well, as tempting as it might sound, you can't fine a player for poor on-field performance.

Keep Guthrie and Roberts; let Castro stay at shortstop. He probably has 2 more years in his tank.

Sign two real starters in free agency.

Angelos needs to open his wallet.

Win now, stop the 11 season bleeding.

Get Bradford back from Tampa.

At one point does the organization realize that Burres, Castillo, Bierd, Cherry, etc. are not Major League caliber pitchers and try and find guys within the organization that are?

Well, uh......Maybe because the Orioles don't have any guys that are ML pitchers in their system? They may have a few potential ML pitchers but aren't ready for the ML.
I hope people are realizing that developing ML pitchers is not as easy as they think.
Rich

Top of 6th, bases loaded. 1 out, ground ball to short flips to send baseman who does not even hold the ball for 1 second - where is Trembley. We don't get our share of close calls and I think it's directly related to our manager very rarely going out to argue a call that could have gone our way.
I do appreciate the NO-QUIT in the Birds this year and I credit Trembley for that but come on, pull an Earl once in awhile.

He's seen the light.

I agree with him wholeheartedly. Throw the ball over the plate. The best hitters still make outs about 70% of the time. When you walk people, they make outs 0% of the time.

Speaking of Pep talks, somebody managed to find Trembley's pregame pep talk from today

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz3KpY5lrRc

I agree that we should keep Huffy and move him to a permanent 1st base job. He is more grounded now than ever due to the impending birth of his and Bobbie's 1st child. Make moves to get a top notch SS, cut Millar, Ramon and some other dead wood and next year hopefully some young arms will step up. Oh, forgot to mention Weiters. This kid has got to make the opening day roster. Please God, keep him healthy!

I hope Jerry will ask for seperate donations for Ed McMahon or for Nagen town. The O's will be fine. They just need more coaches.

Bill Freserick. Your logic makes very little sense-why not trade Markakis too? We aren't going to get any better by trading away our few good players in hopes of getting back a bundle of prospects. Reality doesn't work that way; random trading usually results in creating more holes and we already have more than enough!
For example, our starting pitching is in shambles so why trade our only dependable starter? We have a god 2nd baseman so are we going to find a better one in a trade? Yes, we have gaping holes but find help from within.
And Peter, I'd say the '08 season has sunk to a new low. Getting swept is one thing but to be out-scored by the tune of 35-11 is a an embarassment. Trembley was quoted as saying it will be addressed is a joke. What' s he going to do? Put himself and Kranitz on the mound. His response so far was to lace into a journeyman like Fernando..Yes, was out of line and if the O's wanted him to sell peanuts he should be thankful he's in the bigs but the problem runs far deeper than that. Trembley should be complaining to McPhail and co. about the sad sack pitchers he's been given. In 40 plus years of following the Orioles I have never seen such brutal pitching. Unless McPhail is a magician, it doesn;t look to get better any time soon.

Umm Huff is having a Career Year. Career high in OB%, Slugging and OPS. The real numbers. Might want to check those numbers again Bill.

Castro has 2 years left in him? How is hitting .186 showing that he has 2 years left in the tank? Get K.Greene or J.Wilson both of them have a lot more in the tank now and in the future.

The O's won't be going after any major Free Agent Starters. So stop hoping for 2 quality starters. It won't happen. Also don't plan on the O's going after any RPs either. They have like 15 guys for 8 spots in the Bullpen next year.

People need to get a little more realistic.

I have to agree with Dave, I'd rather have the opposition score hitting rather than on freebies. Walking in 2 runs in a row?? That topped yesterday's. Is that 9 year old whizz- kid pitcher busy?

We can trade and dump all the deadwood we want but that doesn't guarantee anything. The offense isn't the problem. Without pitching you can fill the field with hitting superstars and sooner or later, it catches up. Yesterday 9 runs weren't enough.

No pitching, dying bullpen, no closer. What does anyone expect?

We've been hit with a ton of injuries to the bullpen and rotation this year. Next year's bullpen should be pretty solid if no major injuries occur. The rotation can be passable next year, and if the bats keep going, we can be a .500 team next year.

Soon or later we're going to need to bring in a true ace, like Sabathia. I know MacPhail is opposed to big contracts for pitchers, but I think he needs to take a look at getting him into an O's jersey. If we have him here for 4 years, he'll be part of the 2010 plan. Though, the 250 innings he'll pitch this year does raise some red flags. Ben Sheets would be an interesting look as well for the right price, but he has major injuries concerns.

We also need a shortstop. Maybe we can deal Huff in the offseason centered around a solid major-league-ready shortstop prospect.

I'm buying cheesesteaks for everybody posting here when an Oriole pitcher pitches a no hitter.(Thats "one" per person Schmuckster). I saw worse pitching in little league, except when I was batting.

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Pete's reply: One measly cheesesteak. Not even worth the effort.

Oh, come on. The only thing different between this year's pitching and last year's is an injured bullpen that was good and the rise of the Rays to the top of the league -- which took a decade to produce. Patience, people. We've sunk and sunk and sunk. You have to hit bottom before you can recover.

McPhail knows this team doesn't have any pitching, as does Dave, but what do you want them to do? They have done a really good job of getting the most of out of the two trades (check out Miggy's stats) and the draft, but they don't have any replacements for Burres and the rest of these guys. They aren't going to let a viable prospect pitch if they think that person has reached their limit for the season.

McPhail knows what he has at the major and minor leagues in terms of pitching so this off season, I am sure he will address the situation. I think both he and Dave, have a better idea of what they have in Olson and Liz and now that Adam isn't part of the solution, they will go from there. It's funny how some in the beginning of the year wanted Trax (before he even threw one pitch) out ASAP because you wanted to see the young blood, well the young blood is worse than Trax. I can't even imagine how frustrating it is for Dave to manage these guys, as I can't stand watching them, but we all knew this would be tough.

On a side note, enough with that petition, as I can't see why people still want Tex because even if he hits 40 HRs and drives in 120 runs, he can't pitch so he isn't the answer. Does anyone really think that Tex will get more butts into the Yard? The offense isn't the problem, it's the pitching. Winning and winning only will fill the Yard with O's fans.

Peter,

This is all about fundamentals PERIOD! Our catcher can't block the ball, block the plate or throw you out stealing second. Our shortstops either can't hit or field or both. Our starting pitchers (other than Guthrie) can't throw strikes, get ahead in counts or eat innings and wear out our bull pen. Further our SP's who can't end in a fielding position and field routine ground balls, and lefthanders with no move to first base. Our base runners watch the ball instead of the thirdbase coach. There is a fundamental LACK of FUNDAMENTALS! Blame the players and coaches but we have as many live arms as most playoff teams we just give games away repeatedly. I do not envy you having to cover MLB's version of the Bad News Bears!

Andy has his work cut out for him this off season. Shedding Payton, Hernandez, Walker and several shortstops would be a good start. Our system isn't producing productive starting pitching and pursuing inning eating starters might be required.

But keep the faith, our time will come, hopefully sooner than the Cubs and Red Sox fans had to wait!

Anybody other than me think Dave Trembly looks like Captain Kirk on valium? He sits in the dugout like nothing is happening and taking depresants! Then again, maybe he is because I'm sure if my job depended on some of these guys I would be on depresants or choking the living **** out of them!

The Orioles have been giving the fans the proverbial middle finger for 11 years now. Why don't they tell us how they really feel by having a Jamie Walker t-shirt night?

I will not go to or watch another game until they assign him to where he belongs -- to Aberdeen -- as a hot dog vendor.

Wow, the comments are so negative. If people had told you before this year started that we'd have this record at this point in the year, would you be surprised? Probably not (unless you were surprised that it was this good). Several important things happened this year.
1. Our young minor league pitching got experience, and are that much closer to reaching the bigs.
2. Jim Johnson and George Sherrill proved that they could be very productive late-game relievers.
3. Adam Jones' development.
4. Matt Wieters' development.
5. Laid the foundation (international scouting, switching ST sites, Dom Rep academy, etc.) for continued growth in the next few decades.

Player development is a slow process when you don't start out with much. It's going to take a couple of years to where we start seeing some big progress. Let's keep that in mind, shall we?

Let's try this:

Stop attending Orioles games and stop purchasing Orioles merchandise. Until the organization changes from the top, you will not see it succeed. Yes, it might be painful watching then getting worse for a few more years, but if Angelos is losing a ton of money, he'll sell.

10+ years is more than bad luck and other teams getting good, it's poor decisions.

Whats important is that we continue to develop guys like Jay Patyon & Kevin Millar...HA!! Payton is a waste, since nobody was stupid enough to trade for him, we should DFA him. Montanez / Jones / Markakis in the OF from here on out !!!

Its just amazing how empty our organization is for us to year after year bring in guys like Castillo, Vicstor Santos, Victor Zambrano....its really really bad & its not going to get better anytime soon. Just get used to it. Angelos / Flanagan / Duquette left McPhail w/ essentially nothing.

McPhail brought in our most promising prospect - Adam Jones. He drafted & traded for our best pitching prospects, Tillman & Arrietta....and he was the GM when we finally signed Wieters.

This whole thing is a mess. There is only so much he can do in his first full year. Just be thankful its football season.

without a tremendous upgrade in starting pitching next year the orioles will again be in last place. i doubt very serioulsy that any top flight free agent pitcher would come to balt. next year look for guthrie, albers, cabrera as starters and after that who knows. maybe one of the pitchers from bowie but i can't think the o's are going to rush a young pitcher to the majors to help stop the current bleeding. that method doesn't work.

Young pitchers are babied in the minors to protect multi-million dollar arm investments. This team has been fun to watch as a unit and the offense has been surprisingly strong. Some pieces are missing (a shortstop, one more power bat) to be sure where the starting rotation is in need of growing up. With Tillman, Arrieta and David Hernandez on the horizon, things will get better. That's not even counting on things like Patton to come back strong, Albers to be moved to the bullpen where he belongs and Radhames Liz gaining maturity. We are a long way from relying on rag-armed veterans like Trachsel to fill out a rotation.

Birdland Todd -

Amen! I've been saying the same thing about that annoying Tex petition. You are 100% correct. We need pitching. Want to take the Teixeira suggestion to task? How did the Braves do with him in the line up? Yeah, thought so!

For the last time, Andy MacPhail did not load this team done with all the dead weight, and you can't rid yourself of this crap in 1 year. That's one year he's been on the job, and now we have knuckleheads questioning what AM is doing to improve this team. Give me a break!

Pete, please point out to some of these Einsteins just how far our farm system has come, and how for years our system consistently ranked at the bottom. I'm out!

Why haven't you fans in Baltimore figured this out by now. It's not about the money for Angelos, it's about control. MLB is set up such that no team can lose that much money (by past owner standards). He'll only sell when he's physically unable to stay in control of things. As for Trembly, Don't go signing any more extensions unless the club is no more than 5-8 games below .500 when the season is over. Get someone that is proven to be able to develop young players.

I am done watching the O's until Angelos sells the team. I cant take the pain anymore. I grew up watching the O's in springfield VA and i am sick to my stomach everytime that we pitch. Ever since we got rid of Mussina we have sucked and ill never go to another game at Camden yards until Angelos is gone. I still remember when he signed Bell. I could go on forever but its not worth my time....