With another listless weekend of baseball in Detroit and a bad sweep at the hands of the Tigers in the books, the first-place in the AL East New York Yankees arrive at Camden Yards with a battered, reeling version of the last-place Baltimore Orioles. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the Orioles implosion and demand accountability for all concerned as the season has quickly turned into a free fall.
Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Baltimore Orioles’ dismal start to the 2023 season, with a record of 10-17 and a negative run differential. They highlighted the poor performance of key players like Adley Rutschman (.209 AVG) and Jordan Westburg (.217 AVG), and the struggles of the pitching staff, particularly Charlie Morton’s 11.36 ERA. They questioned the leadership and decision-making of manager Brandon Hyde and general manager Mike Elias. The conversation also touched on the lack of fan interest and the impact of the team’s performance on ticket sales and overall morale.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Orioles implosion, accountability, Yankees series, Brandon Hyde, Mike Elias, pitching issues, run differential, young players, leadership, fan frustration, ownership, rebuild, injuries, roster changes, team performance.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore, positive. It is a fresh week of baseball. I remember when the schedule came out. I’m like, Yeah, Yankees coming to town right after the NFL Draft. This will be good for the Orioles in a first place matchup. I don’t know what to say about the baseball season, so I’m going to welcome Luke Jones in. I will be on Wednesday over at Coco’s pub. I’m wearing my cocoa shirt. It’s all the Maryland lottery presenting the Maryland crab cake tour. I’m going to need a crab melt. I’m going to need some cocoa shrimp. I’m going to need all that. Because I originally thought like, hey, we’ll all get together and watch the Orioles play on Wednesday night against the Yankees. Luke, I hope they win before Wednesday night.
Luke Jones 00:47
You know, over the weekend, I was thinking about Yogi Berra as it pertains to the Baltimore Orioles and the state they find themselves in at this point in time. First, the first Yogi ism is it’s getting late early out there. And the other one is, I’ve even posted on my Facebook page on Sunday, the future ain’t what it used to be. I mean, what do you want me to say? This is a train wreck. There’s nothing about this right now that I’m encouraged by other than what we what we thought all these young players were supposed to be, and what we thought, where we thought this team was heading last June, you know, and certainly throughout the 2023 season, this is a disaster right now. And the problem Nestor is, I’d love to be, to be able to sit here and say, Well, you know, they’ve lost a lot of one run games. The run differential isn’t so bad, like there’s none of that. Their run differential is awful. Even if you take away the the 24 to two loss, it’s still a negative run differential. I don’t know if they’re getting off the mat from this and sometimes, and I’ll use a perfect example here, obviously a way different team, a way different set of veteran players. But for as much as we look at what happened in 2018 and how that in some circles, there’s a revisionist history that that was attached to Mike Elias and that was part of tanking and everything. No, it was the opposite of that, that 2018 team, let me be clear, I’m not sitting here saying that I was optimistic that that team was definitely going to be a wild card and and they are keeping the band together one last time, and it was going to be fun, and Adam Jones was going to get another shot at the postseason, and, you know, maybe they’d hold on the Manny Machado, all that, I think you would still be hard pressed to find too many people that thought that team was going to be putrid to the degree that it actually was. I think you’d find more people that thought they’d be 500 maybe 75 and 87 something like, Hey, by the way I go. You’re too
Nestor Aparicio 02:57
young to remember this. But the 88 team that was so horrific. You know, Eddie Murray and Cal ripke. They had great players on that team. You know what I mean? Like, I look down and I think about the era of players, you say, well, that roster should have been better than 57 wins or whatever. Why? It’s just It doesn’t work that way. You have to go out and play. I mean, looking at Charlie Morton said he started World Series games. He’s fine. He’s always six with a 12 era, you know. So like, if you can’t do it, you can’t do Jim Palmer, Ben McDonald can’t do it. That’s why they’re in the booth. So when it happens, and for Brandon Hyde and for his hide and him keeping a job, this is how managers get fired in baseball, is when you get swept and you can’t get out of your way, and it’s April, and maybe we’ll take a chance with somebody else that we can get this thing right and be the last wild card, because we feel like we have that kind of talent. I don’t know. I don’t. I always go back to Jonathan scope with you and say I thought that guy was going to play in a league 1012, years, and be a five time all star, and be a guy that would make $150 million based on what I saw in the early going from him off the cliff, like Craig Worthington, off the cliff, like Joe charbonne, off the cliff, like Matt weeders, not off the cliff. But damn what, what it starts to be. And I don’t know what level of expectation we give to these one ones in baseball when you see how BJ sur off career worked out as a one, one, great career, good player, not Hall of Famer, and then you become a disappointment when you’re a one, one and you’re just a player, Matt weeders, not a bad player, not just a disappointment based on what we had, what we wanted, what we thought we were going to get. And when you think everyone’s going to be Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken and Mickey Mantle, and they’re 24 years old, and suddenly they’re hitting 220 all at the same time. All when the pitching is bad, all when I’m not convinced Brandon hides a great leader, a man, or a great man, or a great baseball man, or a great manager, I don’t know what he is. But he’s the guy, as you pointed out over the weekend, I thought was very fair of you. I I was a little taken aback when you said it, this is his job to get them ready to play baseball, not to complain about how bad my pitching is. Not to complain about we got rid of this guy in the off season. The owner didn’t spend money. No, no, it’s your job. Is the over under was 89 wins on this team right now. That’s the over, under on the losses, and it it’s moved quickly, and it’s moved badly. And we haven’t had a lot of years where there’s been hope here. And you brought up one year, you know, back back in the the fly, the flying period of 16, 1718, with buck and what was going to happen with Peter and Chris Davis’ money and all of that. And I’ll buy that there was some disappointment that those teams didn’t win a World Series. I’ll buy that the Dolman young things the most exciting thing to ever happen. I’ll buy all of that. But the the big picture of the franchise is I’m old. I don’t remember a team having potential that has gone down this pathway, this organization, this franchise, the fan base, has been through a lot of stuff. As I wrote to Katie Griggs, you got a lot of trauma here. This is one of the really weird traumas that a season in an ascending environment with this goofy new owner making bobbleheads of himself, throwing out the hats and avoiding all accountability, as well as any expertise in what he’s doing. I don’t know it’s off the rails at this point, because, like, fire a lie. It’s fire. Well, that takes the owner, and the owner needs to know his head from his elbow, and he does it. So like, Who’s firing, who? Who’s in charge? All of these people were hired by John Angeles, right? Like, you know they really were, so I don’t think Mr. Moneybags is rolling around the clubhouse showing off his bobble head to Jordan westburg and talking baseball with these guys. I don’t know if Elias isn’t in charge. And if Elias can’t fire hide and doesn’t want to fire hide, it feels like their hides are tied together, and they have this new owner, and he’s put, I put $80 million into the team. You told me Charlie Morton can pitch like, I don’t know what any of this is, and my wife asked me about it on Sunday night. I’m like, I don’t know this guy’s run a money thing in a bunch of funeral homes. And I don’t He doesn’t look like he knows anything about baseball. So I’m wondering, like they get rid of Mike Elias, who’s the one hiring the next general manager? Nobody knows anything about baseball, so I’m throwing that at you and saying they haven’t fired Greg Bader yet. Greg Bader has been promoted and is running the television network, which is horrible, by the way. Massen broadcast all the announcers are muted and how critical they can be during this really challenging time for the franchise, and it’s the broadcast to become embarrassing now. I mean, Rob long apologizing for the team after they’re getting swept in Detroit, and you put the post game on, you wouldn’t know whether they won or lost, because that’s the way they’re being told to broadcast by that, that great broadcaster, Greg Bader, the whole thing’s a train wreck. And I don’t know where the leadership is that. And I wrote a letter to Katie Griggs the other day. Where are the leaders that are going to straighten out the baseball if you don’t believe in Mike Elias and Brandon high. If you don’t believe in them, who are you looking to to make decisions, real decisions?
Luke Jones 08:26
Well, I mean a couple things there. First, their structure is not like the ravens, my assumption. And he even has a vice, you know, President title, Vice President title, you know, when you’re talking about baseball operations. Mike Elias would fire Brandon Hyde. Now that said, I’m sure, you know, that’s certainly something you’re gonna at least keep ownership in the loop on. So just, just to, you know, whereas with the ravens, Eric da Costa does not, you know, obviously he didn’t hire John Harbaugh. John Harbaugh was head coach before da Costa, but, but they don’t have a structure like Eric.
Nestor Aparicio 09:01
Ozzie Newsome did not have autonomy in hiring John Harbaugh. As you know, it’s, you know, it’s not done that way. The Ozzie general man swears, and he’s never lied to me that he didn’t know Brian Billick was getting fired by Steve Bucha. He came in and told it’s because the general
Luke Jones 09:15
manager answers to the owner, the head coach answers to the owner, the rate, or the Orioles structure, at least it was,
Nestor Aparicio 09:20
but we don’t know what the structure is, because it’s never, they never been a structure your dog. I mean, seriously, they’ve been structured since Latino left. There’s been Peter and and my
Luke Jones 09:30
point, but my point is that Michael is hired Brandon Hyde, right? I mean, okay, was, was John Angelos and Lou Angelo in the loop to some degree?
Nestor Aparicio 09:39
Did they say Anderson at that point, did they sit?
Luke Jones 09:43
Maybe a little bit. Brady was
Nestor Aparicio 09:45
on John and Lou down at the Four Seasons to make up decisions like, but that was where the structure was until the day he wasn’t anymore, right? Like, right? I mean, but Brady was kind of out. But Brady Anderson was the special advisor to ownership. That’s a whole lot more than a title where Adam Jones is. Off, you know, eating eating paella in Spain right now. You know what I mean, like, there’s a different level of being involved and involved. You know what I mean, like, right? I mean, George Brett was involved in Kansas City, right? Cal Ripken sitting behind home plate. Here’s the thing now, Luke, this is the crazy thing, because they brought Ripken into this, and him and his wife sit behind home plate. His kids on the podcast every day saying whatever they allow him to say, right? Cal Ripken looks like he wants to be involved, right? Because he’s there five nights a week. And Cal’s always wanted to run the Nationals and run the Orioles, and Cal was going to run this, and Cal soul had baseball team. You these people on the street are nuts. The fans are nuts. I’ve had three fans come up to me say, well, they’re grooming Cal grooming. So you know who they voted for grooming. They’re grooming Cal do. Cal, 65 years old. Cal ain’t run anything. Cal sold these baseball teams. He’s living with his wife down in Annapolis. Cal Ripken wants to work 80 hours a week doing Mike Elias job that he doesn’t know how to do. I mean, people are nuts, but I’m just telling you, they’re believing that Cal Ripken is going to usurp that George Brett role and come back and be the Special General Manager to the speaker advisor to the baseball operations to, I mean, people are thinking Cal Ripken is coming to rescue them. If that happens, I’ll be shocked. I mean, and I’ll sit here and poo poo it until such moment, because I had John maroon on the show four months ago. I’ve known Cal for 35 years, but, you know, nasty, he sold his team so he could come run the Orioles. Yeah, Reuben Stein told him to sell them teams. And people even know how to pronounce Rubenstein’s. They don’t even know his name. They come up to me with all sorts of weird concoctions. But this is what I get on bar stools when I roll to the zoo on Friday night, when I’m sitting doing the show at Coco’s, people come up and they’re looking for solutions in their own conspiracy mind. And I’m thinking, No, there’s a billionaire owner who likes his ego, who’s throwing out hats and wants to make everyone happy, including keeping Greg Bader and everybody keeps their jobs. We don’t want to rock any boats. We don’t want to do anything. We’re going to hire this young lady from Seattle to come in and she’s going to settle things down. We’re going to get an all star game. And you know what’s going to happen? To happen? Luke, what’s going to happen is teams going to be good. Teams going to win 95 or 100 games, because they’re really good. So we don’t have to worry about that. We have genius Mike Elias me Brandon Hyde, Manager of the Year. They’ve won 192 games the last two years. We’re fine. Gunner Henderson is going to compete for an MVP. We’re holidays. Going to come on, Richmond’s going to rebound. We’re going to be fine. We have to worry about making baseball decisions. It’s kind of like where Bucha is right now. I mean, he thinks of hardball as a son. I’ve had many people tell me that Eric the Costa, he thinks of him as a son. They would they’re not firing anybody or anything in their football operation, because Steve wants no part of it. He doesn’t want his hands messy and have tears under his eyes and be all bleached out the way he was when he fired Billick that day, which is 20 years ago now. But the baseball thing, dude, I don’t have tea leaves on this because I know this owner doesn’t know what he’s doing. If he knew what he was doing, he wouldn’t had a bobble head last week. Let’s start with that. So let’s start with that. So I know he’s getting bad advice. I know the people around him. I know Greg baders wrecking the television network as I’m watching it, and the team stinks, and that’s something, dude, we you and I didn’t spend five seconds of oxygen in the last since he bought the team, in the last year, since Peter died, on anything about the team imploding. This is unthinkable. It’s unthinkable that they have baseball decisions now because of all the other decisions they have with government, the stadium, leadership, sales, just all of it, all of it is problematic, but the team was never anything we discussed that they could be 10 and 17. No way.
Luke Jones 13:44
Yeah, all right, let’s get our feet back on the ground. Go ahead a little bit, because every everything you just talked and look, I’m not disagreeing with what you just said. That’s what I’ve been thinking about all week, but that’s the that’s the 30,000 foot look at this right now in terms of
Nestor Aparicio 13:57
the manager, my question is, who’s doing it, and where’s the structure of a baseball
Luke Jones 14:03
it would be Mike Elias. Mike Elias his He’s the executive vice president and general manager of the Baltimore Orioles. He’s in charge of baseball operations. They don’t have a structure where the manager and the general manager answers to the owner, like the way that the Ravens head coach and general manager and well, the team on the field. General Managers fall. So tell you that Yogi Bear that? Sure, but let’s deal with where they let’s put our feet on the ground. It’s April 28 okay, it’s, it’s the last week of April. This team’s in last place. There’s seven games under 500 they have the worst run differential in the American League. It’s bad. Is it still early? Sure. Are they exhibiting any meaningful signs of turning this thing around? No, not at all. Okay, you can look at some of the stat cast data. Are they hitting into some tough luck? Yeah, has every one of their young players truly been as bad as what their actual numbers are? Compared to the batted ball profile and expected numbers? Sure, you know, No, they haven’t, but doesn’t mean it’s been good. Doesn’t mean that I can sit here with any level of conviction or honesty and say that there, there are reasons to be optimistic right now. There aren’t all the reasons to be optimistic are, are priors that continue to evolve and change based on what we saw last year. You know, I mentioned the 2018 team as a cop, just in terms of not, not in terms of where they were with veteran players and all that. I mean, of course, you know that that’s completely different in that regard. But what? What about the previous year maybe lent itself to seeing what happened in 2018 Well, that’s September. The Orioles. By late August of 2017 they were still in wild card contention. And then they went seven and 21 over the final month of the season, and, you know, completely bottomed out. Now, people at the time were hoping that that was more aberration, more of an outlier. You still believed in Bucha Walter, you still had Manny Machado, you still had Adam Jones. Go down the list, right? They signed Alex Cobb that, you know that that spring they signed what? I guess they had cash. I think they had Andrew Cashner at that point in time. Yeah, I try to block block out those years because they were such a disaster. But the point was, no one went into opening day of 2018 saying, I think this team’s going to lose 115 games. Was that team, from a true talent level standpoint, a 115 loss team? Probably not. But sometimes, when you get off to such a bad start, you never do get off the mat, and it just spirals and it just snowballs, and it just gets worse and worse and worse. And then they sold off all their players at the trade deadline, and yeah, like it. Then at that point, you were fully into a rebuild, whether you liked it or not, you know, whether you had fought it off for the last couple years before that or not, they were in a rebuild. So, you know, I bring that up by saying, sometimes you could keep saying it’s early and you’re just not going to turn things around. I mean, let’s use Sunday as a perfect example. Jordan Westberg was out of the lineup because of a hamstring. Adley rutschman got hit on the hand. You know, it doesn’t sound like it’s serious, but it was enough to keep him out of the lineup. And Cedric Mullins was under the weather. Tyler O’Neal went on the aisle on Saturday. Colton cows are still on the aisle after breaking his thumb in Toronto on the fourth day of the season. So we’ve talked about the pitching at length. Now you’re starting to have some some issues with some position players. Now, again, Sunday was that example. And I mean, my goodness, you looked at that lineup, I made the comment on social media that looked like the the travel squad that you take to Lakeland playing the Tigers down in spring training. I mean, against Eric scoobel, forget it. It was good. They weren’t no hit. I mean, that’s about the best I could say about whatever that was Sunday. But look, they’re not firing the general manager in April. They shouldn’t fire the general manager in April. But in terms of what we’re seeing, as far as changes they can make now or in the coming weeks, or by or by, say, Memorial Day, which is less than a month away at this point in time. You do look at the coaching staff. First of all, even before that, you do have to start looking at making some changes to your roster. You know whether it’s bringing Kobe Mayo up here to get you know, some fresh blood, you know, whether it’s DFA ing, a couple of your bench guys that aren’t doing anything, you know. So you start with, where are you with Charlie Morton. Let’s start with that. With your $15 make sure that you want to give the ball every fifth day, and think at some point maybe we’ll get five or six innings out of him, or no. I mean, I think, I think you go the route, and I assume we’re going to see Kyle Gibson make his season debut this week, you know, Tuesdays at TB, TBD. I assume that’s him, although I’ll point out he made his last start for Norfolk on the 20th you know, I kind of got a little bit of a indication that maybe he was dealing with a little bit of a back soreness, things like something like that, nothing major, like nothing that shut them down or anything like that, but maybe complicated, you know, what him making his debut, you know, not in Detroit, but now this week, but assuming that still the plans, assuming that’s still what we see. You know, you kind of look at their off days. They don’t need a fifth starter for, you know, about another week, week and a half or so because they have an off day. Thursday, they have an off day. Monday, this coming Monday, do you move Morton to the bullpen and try to see if you can give him three side sessions, you know, pitches and Garbage Time, whatever, and you try to see if there’s any meaningful improvement being made. I don’t know. Man. I mean, it’s, it’s $15 million but at some point in time, it’s $15 million that’s spent either way. And are you really seeing enough to to that there’s any sign whatsoever that he’s turning this thing around, or is it just getting worse? I mean, okay, he didn’t give up 10 runs on Saturday, but it’s walking people. I mean, he’s walking what is going
Nestor Aparicio 20:21
to get you back to 500 to be in contention, to talk in July about
Luke Jones 20:25
a wildcard run? Well, and that’s where you look at this thing. And you know, who’s your best
Nestor Aparicio 20:29
pitcher you can send out there every single night, if he’s still the guy, then you send him out there.
Luke Jones 20:33
I mean, he’s not. I mean, he’s not. But the problem is that, you know, you’ve got all the pictures you have on the IL right now. I mean, okay, I get it. Chase McDermott and Trevor Rogers have started minor league rehab assignments. You know, F one’s throwing again, you know, brace Grayson Rodriguez sounds like it’s not catastrophic. It’s, they said, a very minor lat stream, to be clear, he’s not coming back anytime soon, but you know that, but that’s what you’re looking at right now. I mean, Brandon young. They tried that. It hasn’t looked good in two starts.
Nestor Aparicio 21:04
So is there some stat out there about pitchers being drafted by Elias and getting to the big leagues that I saw over the weekend that
Luke Jones 21:11
Brandon Young is the first they haven’t, they haven’t drafted a pitcher and had him debut in the major leagues, yet Brandon young, they signed. Remember that that was the COVID year where there was only five rounds in the draft, dude,
Nestor Aparicio 21:23
that’s an unbelievably damning This is why you’ve heard me bad, that you would make lies fireable. You know what? I mean, like in that way, like we were so awful for so long, but they haven’t drafted
Luke Jones 21:35
picture. I mean, they haven’t drafted pictures with it. They haven’t used any meaningful draft capital on pictures. I mean, they just haven’t
Nestor Aparicio 21:41
well, but meaningful, meaning defeating the first call this the rebuild, during the rebuild back in 1819, 20, when they lost on it was a tank. It wasn’t rebuild. It was being awful on purpose for long stretches of time to draft Colton cowser and to draft testing curse that, and the draft Adley rutschman When you’re really bad. And
Luke Jones 22:04
it started in 2018 but they clearly, they did nothing to
Nestor Aparicio 22:09
well, they got in here because he was part of the tank in Houston, right? So they, you know how to do it that that was but again, that’s another philosophy. It’s John Angelos baseball team out there right now. For better or worse, let’s blame it on him. I know Rubenstein would like that. Jonathan give himself a bobblehead. David has just standing on the outside. I am shaking my head, dude, at all of it. At the leadership, the ownership, owning the pitching, where they are, what they’ve promised the fans, the fact that they will, they don’t take phone calls and people like me because they’re too good not to I’m too dirty Dundalk to pick up the phone and meet new people like shame on all of them. I’ll sit there and talk about it. I’ll watch it. I’ll watch the Yankees beat their heads in this week. I’ll be at Cocos on Wednesday. I’m in. I haven’t gone anywhere, but I don’t know what the solution here is, other than better ownership. You know what I mean? I don’t know. Like the owners, not the owner, the owners, the one that gave the $80 million to sign, more than sign Goliath size, Mike Elias signed the players, though, correct. I mean, correct. Look, that’s why I’m saying Elias hasn’t drafted a picture that’s been to the big leagues. He’s had all of these one, ones that are all supposed to go to the Hall of Fame. And like, you draft them, and you get them up here, and then they hit looking very good, and, and, and I have to say, maybe Mike Elias is not the genius that we may be locking for is smarter than I think he is, or just throwing darts.
Luke Jones 23:31
I mean, look, I No one’s absolved here, and that’s why I, I’ll reject, reject the premise that, well, this isn’t Brandon Hyde’s fault. He didn’t put the roster together. And look, I am not at all saying it’s all Brandon Hyde’s fault in the same way that I would say in defense of Mike Elias, even though I’ve been extremely underwhelmed by the work that he’s done to improve the roster, going back to the trade deadline of 2023 when Fuji and Jack Flaherty were your big ticket deadline acquisitions for a team that will ultimately won 101 games, he also it’s also very difficult to anticipate and cover for the number of pitching injuries that they’ve had. Now that doesn’t mean that the organization is absolved from a gap in their strength and conditioning, how they’re coaching their pitchers, how they’re developing their pitchers, but my point is, you can only say next man up so many times until there’s just where they are right now, where they’re still giving Charlie Morton starts, at the very least, not just because he has a $15 million salary, but also because, who are you bringing up from Norfolk? I mean, Brandon Young is the best option, and you’ve seen how that’s looked,
Nestor Aparicio 24:49
by the way, and Brandon young and Kate povidge and McDermott when he comes and what all these guys, these are guys that they knew, they know in their heart of hearts, if you ask Mike Elias back in January. If those three guys are in our rotation in July all at the same time, we’re not going to win. Sure we’re not good. They’re all Norfolk pitchers. And the notion that Charlie Morton and Kyle Gibson and Albert Suarez were going to be fourth or fifth starter kind of players, I mean, that’s really what they were. I don’t think you were paying Charlie Morton to be a number two, paying Charlie Morton old money to be a reliable for a guy that was going to have a five era, but go out there every fifth day and take the ball, and if you could score six, you’d win, and if you only score four, you’d lose. And that’s kind of that was where the the floor needed to be for Charlie Morton and for all of these guys sure was be a capable fourth or fifth starter. Be a guy that’s going to get me a 4852, era, we can win with that, but just be reliable. Have your arm not fall off. Give me five innings, dude. You got to give me if your ERA is going to be five, give me five innings, you know, and we can live with that three out of five days. If we have efflin and we have, I don’t know, pick somebody else that’s not pitching anymore either. You know, any of these guys that were supposed to Rod Rodriguez, the guys that were top of the rotation, guys, we need two of them and three of the rest of you, and we need you to stay healthy and give me five innings. All of you, we’re month into this. I don’t, I don’t know where their next five inning starts coming from. I mean, maybe Chicano, because he’s been the most consistent Kramer. I mean, Kramer, to me, was a guy you bragged about being a three that always looked more like a five. To me and always looked more like with the Yankee sentiment.
Luke Jones 26:47
I never said he was a three. I said he was a league average. I’ve said he’s a league average starter that makes him a three or four. What does that make something like that more of a four? Okay, it depends on the team, right? A League average starter, for some teams, is a number two or number three starters. I mean, the Orioles one of the worst teams in baseball right now. I mean,
Nestor Aparicio 27:04
whether all your starters have eras of 10 and 11 and 12, other than Sagan?
Luke Jones 27:08
Oh yeah. I mean, um, I mean, I you and I were texting a little bit Sunday in the aftermath of being swept in Detroit. I mean, I think you can, I’m at a loss for this. I mean, this is, let me be clear, did I love the Charlie Morton signing? No, I did not. I it kind of felt weird to me. It felt, you know, this guy was contemplating retirement. He wasn’t great for the Braves last year that said he wasn’t awful last year. He had a but he spent $15 million Understood, understood, understood, right, but, but even if you gave him $5 million right, even if you signed him for $5 million he had a 419, era last year, he made 30 starts through 165 and a third innings. You know, was he great the second half of the season? No, but you know what his era was in September, in five starts, 386, I mean, it’s quite a jump to go from that to what this is. And I don’t, I don’t care if you’re Bill James, I don’t care if you have the best projected projection models in the world, you’re not going to have any that are going to spit out Charlie Morton having an 11 era after, you know, six starts into the season. I mean, it’s just it’s kind of unheard of to be that bad, to be that extremely horrible and and that’s either that’s even working under the if he had a six and a half era right now, you would still be saying he might be washed up, right he might just be done. But when it’s 10.36 you’re just kind of pulling your hair out like this is the 1% worst case scenario of even the bad outcomes that you could envision so and it feels like they’re dealing with a lot of that. Let me be clear when I say this, this is not me making an excuse for them. This team has been bad. It’s been really bad. It’s also been very unlucky too, you know, like it’s it’s bad and hapless right now, because, like I said, you look at the batted ball data, and they’re batting average for balls in play and different things like that, and it says that it shouldn’t be as bad as what the the output is right now. Problem is, I can’t look at that and say I have any confidence that it’s going to improve to any meaningful degree now to say that they’re going to be fine and they’re going to be a wild card contender and all that. But and all that, because now you’re looking at it through the lens of, okay, let’s throw out the 95 wins pie in the sky scenarios at this point in time. You know, think about what your record needs to be just to be a an 87 win team. You know, that’s an 87 win team is playing 12. Games over 500 for the season. They’re seven under now. So think about what you have to be just to get to that point for the rest of the season. Now, you start looking at it, and that’s where, you know, I said it in jest. And you know, it’s a funny Yogi Berra, you know, Yogi ism, but you know, without a swift turnaround here, it’s getting late early. I mean, it, it is through that lens, and then you start getting into and this is where I really have my most concern at this point, like, Look, if you had told me their pitching would be last, or I think, I think they wake up Monday morning, it’s 28th in starter era in the majors. I’m not shocked by that, right? I mean, I’m not. We talked about the starting pitching all, all off season, even before the injury started piling up. What I am shocked by is, and I don’t say this to be personal, I’m shocked by how little fight this team’s showing. I mean, when you draft one ones, when you talk about a growth mindset, when you talk about investing meaningful one one, or the second overall pick or the fifth overall picker, even get outside the top five, just first and second and third and fourth round kind of guys, you’re also trusting that you’re doing homework, that these guys have a certain level of character. And when I say character, I don’t mean choir boys or anything like that. I mean that they’ve got conviction, they’ve got confidence in what they do. They you know, you feel that they can handle adversity. I mean, we go back to Adley rutschman at Oregon State, you know, we forget about it because it was six, you know, six plus years ago when or six years ago when he was drafted. But, you know, go, look at him in Oregon State. I mean, he had to rebuild his swing. You know, he he struggled early in his collegiate career, and there was a thought at that point in time that, Oh, this guy’s a has a growth mindset and can under overcome adversity, and that’s why he’s worthy of being a one, one on top of being the best player in college baseball at the time. And I’m, I’m just, I’m using Richmond as an example here. I’m not picking on him individually, but this group collectively, I said it, how many times to you last July and August and September, I and I really believe this. This wasn’t me trying to look through orange colored glasses or anything like that. I really thought that that was going to help them long term in terms of, you know, kind of callousing these guys up and going through some adversity and going through some losing and some tough times and some disappointment, and maybe that still happens. Hopefully it’s, I mean, heaven forbid if it doesn’t. I mean, then we’re talking about this team in the next couple years going through another rebuild. I suppose. I don’t know, but you know, where is the overcoming adversity? Where is the resilience, resiliency of this club? Where is the mental toughness of this club? Where’s the fight? I mean, they just and it’s never buck. Showalter would tell you this. And any manager worth assault, or any head coach worth assault would tell you, it’s never as bad, truly as bad as it looks when you’re at your worst, just like it’s never as great as it looks when you’re at your best. But man, these guys just look like they’re just rolling over. It’s almost like they’re giving up. And I don’t, I don’t mean that in terms of like they’re jaking it, but they just look so defeated. And, my goodness, it’s April. It’s not August 28 you know, this is, we’re not talking about the dog days of the season. You know, dog days of August. It’s April. And, you know, I get it because of the injuries, because of the state of the starting pitching. Do what I expect this team to have the best record in baseball now, not even close, but you can’t just keep pointing to the pitching or Mike Elias is lousy off season. If we want to call, you know, just call it that, plain and simple. Or if you don’t like the managers lineups, or any of this, and I’m just throwing these out because these are the things you hear fans say right now. And I’m not saying that to be disparaging. Fans are frustrated, and they have every right to be frustrated right now, but I just look at all of this collectively, and I’m just like, where’s the fight? Like it feels like they’ve given up already. And that’s man, that’s a that’s a bad reflection on everybody, everybody, not just Brandon Hyde and Mike Elias, not just the coaching staff. That’s everybody, and that’s where I look at this thing. And you know, the question right now for me, and obviously so many people are talking about Brandon Hyde, and the way this is going, Yeah, it’s going to cost him his job, but because you can’t fire the entire roster, and you’re not going to fire the you know, ownership is not going to if they’re going to fire Mike Elias, they’re not going to do it in April or May. But the question for me isn’t, who should go who should be fired right now? The question is like, go back to the you love to cite this. Who are the pile divers on this team right now? Yeah. And I mean that collectively, players, coaches, front office, everyone like, who’s taking them out of this right now, and, man, it just looks like it’s just lost its way.
Nestor Aparicio 35:13
Was the guy with the pat on the ass that changed everything in the beginning, and him falling apart last summer. And, you know, westburg not being right, you know, injury wise, and Henderson not being really ready to go in opening day, and hasn’t looked himself. And, I mean, Mullins looks like he wants to get paid, right, like
Luke Jones 35:34
he’s the one guy that you could cut up. You know, a couple others. You know, Hearns had a good season. Ramon Arias, I think
Nestor Aparicio 35:41
a good season. It’s been a month, so they’ve had a good to this point. You know what I mean? Of course, it’s early, you know, you know the seasons, despite how fatalistic I sound right now, the season is not over, but, man, but we should say, Where’s the upside on the pitching? And that’s problematic. That’s was problematic six weeks ago when you and I shining got together with Johns. It was problematic four weeks ago when you and I got together with Viviano before the season began, like we’ve had these long chats with long term baseball people again and again. I had Lynn heading on this week talking about, hey, the Orioles could have dealt for scuba. If they liked him that much. It would have cost them a holiday, but they could have had scuba if that’s what they wanted to do. That’s the cost of getting a number one starter Right. Like, that’s the real cost of it. You didn’t want to do that last summer. I didn’t want to do nobody want to do that last summer. You thought these guys were going to be special and and as more and more time goes on, you question whether they’re special, you know, like, um, but, But. But. Yeah, that’s good. I know Luke Jones is here. Go ahead, but
Luke Jones 36:45
you that’s why I said I said this when, when it was apparent that Grayson Rodriguez wasn’t starting the season or in the rotation. I really said this when effluent went on the IL I mean, at that point in time, right there, when you’re when you have a rotation that was already a big question mark at best, collectively, and you lose your top two projected guys at that point, I kind of that’s when I started saying to you, they’ve just got to figure out a way to tread water. Well, they’re not treading water. They’re they’re sinking and it’s happening, happening rapidly over the last week especially. But you know, you start looking at it if you you’re in this territory now, where you’re seven under. I mean, who knows what’s going to happen over the course of the next week? I mean, you know Yankees are coming in. I mean, I don’t think this is the Juggernaut, best version of the Yankees we’ve ever seen, but better than, certainly way better than the Orioles right now. You know best, best in the division, but, and
Nestor Aparicio 37:45
this is a franchise, and this, let me give a little letter to Katie Griggs, because I haven’t even read my letter out loud. I hope everybody goes and reads, My dear Katie Griggs thing. But this is a weekend where or weekdays where it’s 80 degrees, the Orioles are supposed to be good. The Yankees Don’t, don’t come in four times a year anymore, right? Like they come in twice a year. This is one of those ones where you’re like, man, we’re going to be 17 and 10. We’re going to be a game up on first place on the Yankees. They’re going to come in here. We’re going to have given those that David Rubenstein bobblehead out. We’re going to sell out the splash zone. We’re going to get 32,000 of our real fans out for a real baseball game on a Monday, a Tuesday or Wednesday with the Yankees in we’re going to have this swirl of enthusiasm for baseball NFL drafts over the Ravens. Don’t, don’t worry about the Ravens. We’ll worry about them in September. We’re going to play baseball every night, and we’re going to build this brand. We’re going to build Birdland. We’re going to build inside. We’re going to get people back to the ballpark. We’re going to make all the white people in Harford County that are afraid of the city come back on a Monday and see the Yankees play and root for gunner and Adley. And this should be a big week for them in April, if they’re the franchise that’s growing the way that they think that they wanted to grow the way that I believe they could grow when they finally got new ownership, new leadership, new all of that. And instead, there’s not going to be any energy at the ballpark. And that’s like, part of what they sell on mass, and that’s part of what Rob long and Melanie knew like that, come on down. Get your cotton. Can’t come on everybody, come down to the ballpark. I mean, come on down, like, let’s be a part of it. And when the team’s this bad, to your point, you can’t sell that. You don’t have that to sell anymore. You don’t have the we’re young, good looking. We’ll be there. We’ve got the great young players. We we lost so we can win that. You know, it was a rebuild. It wasn’t a tank. Well, this is the kind of series we only get to play the Yankees couple times a year here, where they’ve done well against the Yankees the last couple of years, and that’s been part of getting people like you and me to buy in. Is you’re going to show up in that fight against the Yankees and the Red Sox in your own division and do all of that. So here it is, and they stumble in. Now. What if they. With the Yankees this week, somehow, you know, win a couple of games, 12 to nine, which is what they’re going to have to do. But this is the kind of thing for them. For Katie Griggs taking this job last summer and coming in here and penciling in where the with teams going to be on the field, no one ever questioned that they would have that part of it to sell, and they don’t now they don’t, and they’re not going to have that
Luke Jones 40:25
and that. I mean, that’s tough, yeah, and I don’t care how, I don’t care how great you are at your job. I mean, you have this kind of start, in contrast to what expectations have been the last couple years that that’s tough to sell. People that are coming to the ballpark are pissed off tonight, right? And that’s the thing right now. It’s it’s not impacted quite as much right now, because a lot, you know, there aren’t a ton of people that are walking up to the ballpark the day of the game and buying tickets, right? So, but one of the reasons
Nestor Aparicio 41:00
for that is a team like they’ve been bad, but generally
Luke Jones 41:04
speaking, you don’t see it as much of that. I mean, even that you saw 40 years ago, where this is real, where this really starts to show up. However, is June, July, August, September, where, if this team is out of it, then Boy, you better. You better add some bobble heads and T shirts and trinkets and all kinds of swag that you can think of, because no one’s going to come to the ballpark otherwise, you know. So are you feeling that in late April quite as dramatically? Probably not, because a lot of people have tickets for these few games, probably already bought their tickets, you know, a month ago, you know, or, you know, they looked at, hey, you know, I can’t make it to opening day. I’m not, not going to make it to the first couple of home stands. It’s cold all that. They play the Yankees in late April. The weather should be nice by then. So, you know, they might have good crowds here this week. Who knows? But, but, yeah, in terms of what you said from a big picture standpoint. You know, June, July, August, September, when you see a team that’s 10 and 17, and you know you’re you’re already talking about having to play at a pretty good pace just to get to 8788 89 wins, and still having the pitching concerns that have been there all along. I mean, that’s why I said this thing starts to get, starts to feel late, pretty quickly here. So, I mean, it’s, well, I don’t
Nestor Aparicio 42:30
know where the pitching helps coming from, even over the hill for next gotta hit. I mean, right, usually, like, even if they hit the ball, like, where they’ve got to hit the ball coming, in general, if they’re not going to go, it doesn’t matter if they millions get it.
Luke Jones 42:42
But if all these young players, and I’m not ready to say this to be clear, if all these young players like this, if this whole thing is broken and just isn’t I mean, okay, yeah, you can go out and sign a starting pitcher. I mean, what’s that going to do?
Nestor Aparicio 43:00
Like you have your stars right at 230 but
Luke Jones 43:03
that’s what I mean. I mean, like everything else is not that. That’s why you and I have sparred about this a little bit. You know, you’ve talked about the pitching so much, and that’s was never to say that that wasn’t true. But if you’re going to start off with what’s supposed to be the greatest thing about your team, and it’s not even close to great. I mean, it’s been below average then, yeah, I don’t even care about the pitching at this point in time, because their offense stinks. Let’s
Nestor Aparicio 43:30
go through Westburn. 217, rushman, 209, Henderson, 220, Mount castle. 207, holiday 233, he’s leading the team. Cursed at 197 Tyler O’Neill, much like Peter King, my dear friend and I text over the weekend. He said I told you so, because he text me two months ago and said he’s going to spend 45 games on the DL, and then you have to figure out he might hit 31 home runs in the 90 games he plays. But you have to figure that part out. But he’s hurt. Lorianna, 184 right? Mateo 136 cows are 125 before he went out. These are batting averages. Um, you don’t need to know more than that, right? I just gave you the whole Mullins. 279 oh, Hearn 303. Urea is 317, they’ve been their three best players,
Luke Jones 44:17
well and going beyond the batting average. Mean, this team even last year, you know, even two years ago, you know, a criticism that often made me bristle, and even get a little prickly was, you know, hearing over and over, well, they’re too reliant on the home run, to which I would reply, most teams in baseball hit home. Most good teams in baseball hit home runs. You know, just the nature of the game in 2025, whether you like it or not. I mean, there are a couple exceptions to that rule, but Yankees hit a lot of home runs, for example, so but, I mean, you look at Adley rutman slugging 363, Ryan mount Castle, a first baseman, Nestor, he’s his slugging. Percentage is 293, I mean, that’s utility.
Nestor Aparicio 45:03
It has four, RBIs,
Luke Jones 45:07
four. I mean, yeah, you look so they’re not hitting for any power, you know, they’ve got a couple guys that, you know, Mullins and Richmond, draw walks. That’s it. I mean, it’s just, it’s really, really bad right now, and you can’t fire the team. I joked with someone after the after the double header on Saturday. You know, the Orioles put out their roster announcement that Colin Selby has as the 27th man has been returned to triple A Norfolk. I joked, well, the shame is, they can’t return anyone else to Norfolk at this point in time, but you can’t fire the teams. But that’s where you look at this and say, do you need to change the voices? You know? Is there anyone you can bring in? And that’s why I think I mentioned this, this to you last week. You kind of look at this thing now the way they the offense waned over the second half of last year, and they struggled with runners in scoring position. And obviously they, you know, Ryan fuller and more Schulte were gone, but what did they do in terms of replacing their hitting coaches? They promoted Cody ashy, and they promoted another minor league coach as an assistant coach, Assistant hitting coach, and they added Tommy Joseph, who was an assistant hitting coach for the mariners, whose biggest problem last year was what they couldn’t hit. So you kind of look at those moves and you say, was this actually meaningful change, or was this window dressing to to kind of sort of make it look like you’re appeasing the masses, but not really changing anything about your process. I want I question their process. It’s one thing to say if one of these guys isn’t working out, or in the case of Westberg, he’s been banged up, right? They’ve talked about that. They’ve talked about that since going back to spring training. Now we could question whether he should be on the IL then or not, but that’s a different conversation when you have all these guys struggling collectively, other than Cedric Mullins, that makes me question your process, that makes me question your approach, that makes me question your coaching. So that’s where I do look at this thing. And as much as these guys talk about trusting the process and staying true to their process. Well, how do we know the process is worth anything at this point in time, when these are the results you’re continuing to get? So that’s where I do look at this thing and say, I’m not saying today or tomorrow, but man, if this thing doesn’t turn around and start showing not just improvement, and I don’t mean taking two of three out of the from the Yankees. I mean like, start winning multiple games in a row. Start winning some series. You know, they have one they’ve won two in a row once all year. Start doing some things that are more indicative of a competent, solid, competitive baseball team. I don’t know how Brandon Hyde survives. I don’t know how this entire coaching staff survives and and, to be clear, I don’t know what the solution is, and that that’s why this is a disaster. But I You can’t continue with the status quo either. Because, you know, I hear some of the quotes coming out of whether it’s hide, you know, Dean Kramer said something along the lines on Sunday of, you know, it’s really tough to lose a baseball season in April. And I, I almost felt like that was a subconsciously, like you’re saying the quiet part out loud, right there. You know, these guys are talking about how, you know, they they get down when things aren’t going well, it’s just like, where’s the leadership in terms of coaching staff and where’s the leadership in terms of players? Because it has to be multi pronged. As much as people will sing the praises of Earl Weaver, and he’s in the Hall of Fame and all of that. You hear those if you heard those guys talk about it at the time, you know, go back to 6869 7071, at the very least, you know, I, I can, I can hear it. I remember watching this. I can’t remember what it was, an Orioles video. At some point there was L rod Hendricks talking about, you know, Frank Robinson, something. Someone didn’t do something the way they were supposed to. Earl Weaver didn’t even have to say anything, because Frank Robinson was going to let you know. Who is that guy, and I don’t mean a Hall of Fame outfielder right now, but who is that voice in this clubhouse right now that is taking someone to task if they
Nestor Aparicio 49:36
Where’s Kevin Millar when I need him? Rick Sutcliffe, who is where that guy, whether it’s chewing
Luke Jones 49:41
someone’s, you know what, Al, whether it’s putting an arm around someone and saying, Hey, it’s okay, whether it’s giving someone the proverbial kick in the butt.
Nestor Aparicio 49:49
Well, this might have been McCann last year as a backup catcher, who might have been a little bit of that kind of guy in their locker room, like a little bit, right? I mean, and that Sure, I. I’ll buy that, although
Luke Jones 50:00
I would say James McCann was on the team second half of last year, when they were started to fall apart. But I’m
Nestor Aparicio 50:06
just thinking from a personality, no, that’s supposed to be Russian, and Henderson, right? A rushman, and Henderson have to be that for this to be like, it’s not going to be holiday who’s barely shaving. It’s not going to be Westberg who’s heard, I don’t think it’s going to be Cedric Mullins, who’s playing for a free agent contracts much more of
Luke Jones 50:22
a quieter lead by example I see. I think that’s part of the problem. I think they have a lot of guys that fit that mold. You know me, man, I I’m not the one that wants to sit here and just flap my gums about team chemistry and and things that you can’t quantify. But just, we all saw Ray Lewis, but because you can’t quantify something does not mean it does not exist, right? So I do think, and this even goes back to a couple years ago, you know, look at some of the guys that they had at that point. You know, Kyle Gibson. Maybe Kyle Gibson is going to help with this. I’m not saying it’s going to be the end all be all, but maybe Kyle Gibson will be something that will help them, from an intangible standpoint, that is not going to fix it all, but will be something that they’ve been lacking. Because Charlie Morton is not performing at any kind of a level that makes him even a credible option. To do that you need your leaders can’t be the worst players on the team, and Charlie Morton’s the worst player on the team right now. So even if you would say, well, he’s 41 it’s a good guy all that, you know, no one’s going to listen to the guy that has a 10 and a half era. I mean, it’s just they, doesn’t mean they’re disrespectful, but it’s not going to carry any weight. But I do think it’s very fair to ask. And this was even asked at the end of last year, and Mike Elias even acknowledged it to, you know, the possibility, I suppose, even though, ultimately, they didn’t really make a move of this ilk. But you know, who are the grown ups in that in that clubhouse right now? Who are the Glo the grown ups? And I don’t mean being unprofessional. I mean guys that have been through it, guys that are accomplished players, guys that will give you professional at bats, guys that will go out there and give you six innings when you really need it, which Charlie Morton now has failed to do that multiple times when they’ve been in a position where they’ve needed it. But I mean, who? Who’s that guy for them right now? I mean, it’s, doesn’t feel like there is any leadership right now, and that’s a poor reflection on Brandon Hyde, and it’s a poor reflection on the makeup of the players themselves, and it’s a poor reflection on Mike Elias for maybe that being a blind spot, you know, with all the analytics and predictive models, and you know, technology, and you know, there might be some paralysis by analysis going on as well. You know, when it comes to their hitters, who knows? But it really feels like there are some intangibles that are just not there for this team. And maybe that’s something that not maybe they definitely need to look at that problem is the time to go get a guy or two like that was the off season. Now she’s pitching elsewhere right now for that right? And look great baseball players, yes, but I’m also, but I’m talking more in terms of, like, the makeup of these guys and when things are, when things when you’re struggling. Who are the guys saying, we got this, we’re fine. You know, the Orioles in 2012 and 14 at the very least. You know, they had veteran players. You know, they had some guys that had been around. I mean, we’ve talked about Nelson Cruz, the the impact that he had on a young Manny Machado and a young Jonathan scope and and, oh yeah. It helped the Nelson Cruz also hit 40 home runs, let’s be clear. But like, they don’t have guys like that, you know, they’re they’re older guys are guys that Charlie Morton, his performance has been awful. Gary Sanchez, his performance has been awful, you know? So, I mean, it’s just by
Nestor Aparicio 53:59
the way, Santander is hitting 179 in Toronto, just as a leadership example, we got to take a break. Luke is here. We’ll continue on. Yankees are in town. He’s at the ballpark. Any breaking news happens on the wnst tech service, as it did for the NFL Draft over the weekend. On Wednesday, I’m wearing my cocoa shirt. We’re going to be over with marcellic Cocos and lauraville. Back to the Future. Scratch offs, delicious crab cakes, crab melts, Orioles games on the television on Wednesday night as well. We will be at red brick station on the seventh of May in white Mars, with Bill blocker over there in Paul. We’re looking forward to getting over there and doing that as well. Um, plenty of baseball, plenty of football, plenty of conversation, all of it lives at W, N, S, T. Am, 1570 Towson, Baltimore, where we never stop talking, Baltimore positive, I.
