Dan Moroz
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danmoroz.bsky.social
Dan Moroz
@danmoroz.bsky.social
440 followers 1.1K following 1.7K posts
Orioles (wrote about baseball in the before before times), Ravens, movies.
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danmoroz.bsky.social
November 28, 2025 at 4:08 AM
danmoroz.bsky.social
We did it!
2131 films Celebration at Camden Yards for Cal Ripken Jr's 2,131 consecutive game.
November 27, 2025 at 2:42 AM
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Movie poster for Nobody's Fool
November 25, 2025 at 12:47 AM
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November 12, 2025 at 2:48 AM
danmoroz.bsky.social
How did no one think how insane this looks all written in one line?
Footnote on odds image saying Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Odds and Lines Subject to Change.
September 7, 2025 at 10:17 PM
danmoroz.bsky.social
This is basically just a list of things I listened to in college, but they're still good:
Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production of Eggs Destroyer - Streethawk: A Seduction The National - Boxer Songs: Ohia - The Magnolia Electric Co. The Decemberists - Picaresque Stephen Malkmus - Stephen Malkmus Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - The Tyranny of Distance Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress The New Pornographers - Electric Version My Morning Jacket - It Still Moves
July 9, 2025 at 10:01 PM
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Arrested Development "It might work for us" meme about teams having pitchers rehab to avoid Tommy John surgery.
June 12, 2025 at 2:28 AM
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May 21, 2025 at 6:08 PM
danmoroz.bsky.social
Conclusion.
The Orioles are currently 27th in baseball in total fWAR as a team at 3.1. You can’t just add all the pieces together because, for example, if Rodriguez and Bradish are healthy then they are replacing Gibson instead of another free agent. But adding 2.3 wins from the offense playing to expectations and a few for the rotation would have the Orioles around the Blue Jays, Royals, Braves, and Guardians (average record; 25-23). Should a team that’s coming off of a rebuild, with some (theoretically) good young talent, following seasons of 101 and 91 win, still only be looking at sneaking into a third Wild Card slot unless they have a collection of good luck (or, I suppose, the players out-performing their projections by making adjustments or for other reasons)? I would hope not. But that does appear to be where the Orioles were heading into 2025, and the failure to do even that can be blamed on a number of factors.
May 20, 2025 at 11:20 PM
danmoroz.bsky.social
Rotation.
Tomoyuki Sugano and Charlie Morton being the O’s big pitching additions didn’t sit well with pretty much anybody, and while Sugano has been a bit of a pleasant surprise, Morton has struggled so much he’s been moved to the bullpen. Combined they’ve allowed 53 earned runs in 93.2 innings pitched, compared to the 47 earned runs they’d have been projected to allow in those innings. (I’m not sure you can completely blame the front office for Morton without giving them any credit for Sugano.) Some of the free agent starters signed this off-season: Nathan Eovaldi (TX, 3 yrs, $75M) – 2.1 fWAR Max Fried (NYY, 8 yrs, $218M) – 1.7 fWAR Nick Martinez (CIN, 1 yr, $21.05M) – 1.3 fWAR Nick Pivetta (SDP, 4 yrs, $55M) – 1.2 fWAR Luis Severino (A’s, 3 yrs, $67M) – 1.2 fWAR Clay Holmes (NYM, 3 yrs, $38M) – 1.1 fWAR Corbin Burnes (ARI, 6 yrs, $210M) – 0.3 fWAR Jack Flaherty (DET, 2 yrs, $35M) – 0.2 fWAR Blake Snell (LAD, 5 yrs, $182M) – 0.0 fWAR (60-day IL) If you assume that signing one of the pitchers in the middle here would have prevented Kyle Gibson from being given 12 innings to give up 23 runs, you can tack on another 0.7 WAR. Total: ~2.6 wins.
May 20, 2025 at 11:19 PM
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Offense.
Regardless of the other quibbles with the team, everyone still thought this Orioles squad would be buoyed by its offense. That hasn’t happened, with several players performing worse than expected. Here’s how thing have shaken out, relative to the pre-season projections: [Table] An argument I’ve seen is that O'Hearn and Mullins are veterans so they’re doing their own thing and Holliday is listening to his dad, while everyone else is being ruined by the hitting coaches. Maybe! Some of it is also bad luck (when things are going terribly some of it is invariably bad luck). But they’re also 26th in baseball in walk rate, 28th in strike-out rate, and being 11th in isolated power isn’t enough to make up for it. Are the hitters pressing because the pitching staff is terrible? Maybe! At least they have a few guys producing to keep this from being a total disaster. One thing that stood out when comparing the pre-season projections to the actuals was that a lot of players are being dinged for their base-running. FanGraphs has the Orioles as by far the worst base-running team in baseball at -5 runs. Last year they were middle of the pack. Another demerit for the coaching? Maybe! Total: ~2.3 wins.
May 20, 2025 at 11:18 PM
danmoroz.bsky.social
Injuries.
The front office and its defenders will surely point to the rash of injuries the team has suffered, attributing it to bad luck. I won’t go into things like health being a skill or the way the team has the players train or focus on certain things potentially increasing their injury risk, but if you need some else to yell at them about you could make the arguments. Colton Cowser had a very nice rookie season and was expected to hit at around the same (above average) level this year. He’s played in 4 games and is on the 60-day IL. Orioles’ left-fielders have collectively hit about league average this year, so replacing them all with Cowser about have netted about +4 runs. Grayson Rodriguez was looked at as a potential top-of-the-rotation started if he could take some additional steps forward and stay healthy. He’s also on 60-day IL. The projections had him as an above average pitcher but topping out at 23 starts. If you assume he’d stayed healthy all year, the expectation was that he’d be around 9 runs better than a replacement level pitcher. Kyle Bradish is also on the 60-day IL. He had an even better projection than Rodriguez; good for around 11 runs better than replacement. There have been other injuries – and you could maybe blame Jordan Westburg’s struggles (as you can see below) on not being 100% – but these seem like the biggest losses. Total: ~2.4 wins.
May 20, 2025 at 11:17 PM
danmoroz.bsky.social
Distributing some blame for the 2025 Orioles season.
This Orioles season has been… disappointing, frustrating, rage-inducing… pretty gosh darn bad. There were definitely complaints about the way the team handled the off-season, but nobody coming into 2025 expected anything approaching this. Constantly seeing people arguing about what happened had me wanting to take a closer look, to try to spread the blame out (and there’s plenty of things that have gone wrong), so for the first time in years I decided to break out the old blogging fingers. For the projected stats I’m using FanGraphs, which has a number of projection systems on their site, so I’m generally deferring to the one that’s closest to what we’ve actually seen. I’m also ignoring defense because 45 games of those stats for individual players isn’t necessarily going to be the most revealing – overall the O’s defense has been below average (that’s been the case for a few years now, but so far 2025 has been even worse).
May 20, 2025 at 11:16 PM
danmoroz.bsky.social
Surprised I haven't seen this classic.
May 15, 2025 at 2:12 AM
danmoroz.bsky.social
Like, these are the top RHH seasons (min 400 PA). And Judge is at 245 wRC+ this year. So if someone said "Aaron Judge 2022-2025 is the best RHH ever" that's pretty reasonable.
May 9, 2025 at 11:36 PM
danmoroz.bsky.social
Judge obviously has a decline phase to go, but RHH through age 33 on a rate basis:
May 9, 2025 at 9:57 PM
danmoroz.bsky.social
A friend asked me about doing something, using the phrase "normal fun". So I asked if after 20 years of friendship, he thought I was a "normal fun" guy. Then I searched the phrase "normal fun", and Bing absolutely cooked me.
Search result for "normal fun": Normal Distribution - Math is Fun.
April 20, 2025 at 11:21 PM
danmoroz.bsky.social
Favorite films: The Fellowship of the Ring and Ocean's Eleven
April 14, 2025 at 1:15 AM
danmoroz.bsky.social
If you want me to stop bothering you all about this, let me know.
March 11, 2025 at 10:49 PM
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That's what the food was for!
Fortune cookie fortune that says "Prioritize your mental health and seek help if necessary."
February 20, 2025 at 11:45 PM
danmoroz.bsky.social
Love that they have a scene in Trouble in Paradise after the rich lady loses her diamond handbag and before the conman arrives to turn it in where this dude shows up just to berate her for spending so much money on it during the Great Depression.
Slightly disheveled man yells "phooey!" at wealthy woman.
February 17, 2025 at 2:11 AM
danmoroz.bsky.social
Favorite first-time watches for January.
Movie posters for Ball of Fire, Rififi, The Wedding Banquet, The Wild Bunch, The Cranes are Flying.
January 31, 2025 at 11:24 PM
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Ehem
January 14, 2025 at 2:04 AM
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He's eligible. Hard to believe, with that smile.
January 12, 2025 at 3:35 AM
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James Mason playing a really old edition of Guess Who? in Odd Man Out
Screenshot from Odd Man Out of a bunch of paintings of people's faces
January 9, 2025 at 11:54 PM