Why I Think The Browns Made A Mistake - Week Of 4/28/2025
Passing on Hunter, plus the woeful Orioles and a lack of awareness crisis
Happy Tuesday everyone and welcome back to the blog. We’re almost into May, meaning we’re between 15-20% of the way through the MLB season, there are less than three weeks until another men’s major, and playoff basketball is in full swing. We’ll start today, though, with the only football thing I paid attention to in regards to the NFL Draft.
1. Cleveland Will Regret This
Like I said in the intro, I didn’t give too much attention to the NFL Draft this weekend. There were too many Rockies/Royals & Marlins/Mariners games to follow. But the one thing that I have an opinion on is the Browns trading down from the #2 pick and allowing Jacksonville to select Travis Hunter instead of themselves. I think this was a huge mistake, from both a football and marketing perspective, but mostly the latter. Let me explain my reasoning.
It’s no exaggeration to say Hunter may be the most unique prospect this century. We just saw him win a historic Heisman trophy playing both receiver and cornerback while being a part of the headline-dominating Colorado program. Playing both sides in the NFL will be a herculean task, but if he’s able to pull it off to some degree, that would be an amazing accomplishment really only done in the modern era by his now-former coach Deion Sanders. All of this is to say there will be a lot of eyes on the kid as he enters the league, and that’s a huge boon to the team that employs him. And the Browns passed on it.
An additional angle to this is that the Browns needed something exciting to rescue the franchise from only popping up when there are new allegations against Deshaun Watson. Mind you, Cleveland has had two winning records in its last 17 seasons. Their leading passer a year ago was Jameis Winston. Simply staying put at #2 and taking Hunter instantly brings more energy and fan engagement. Plus, if he were to lead Cleveland to any sort of success, he’d be a legend there, in the same way guys like Ditka and Favre became legends for other Midwestern teams.
Bottom line here is I feel that the Browns threw away a ton of jersey sales and national interest just to trade down a few spots and take a Michigan DT. When a once-in-a-generation player is available and is the most talented guy in the class, just stay put and make the pick!! I’m excited to see what Hunter is able to do in the NFL but I must say that has been dampened by his becoming a Jaguar. For their own sake, I hope the Browns didn’t just make a move that will go down in team lore next to The Drive and The Fumble.1
2. What Happened To The O’s Rotation?
The 2025 Orioles starting rotation has been an unmitigated disaster, especially compared to just a season ago. Consider: in 2024 the O’s compiled 68 quality starts (6th in baseball) and had a 3.77 ERA as a staff (5th). 27 games into this campaign, and Baltimore has a 5.83 rotation ERA, only in front of the Marlins and Rockies on the bottom of the list. Combine the WAR from their six main starters and you get a pathetic -1.3. Charlie Morton in particular has been atrocious, going 0-6 with a 10.36 ERA and having issued an MLB-worst 20 walks. Where did it all go so wrong?
The elephant in the room is GM Mike Elias letting Corbin Burnes walk in free agency. The former Brewer went to the desert and signed a 6-year, $210 million deal with the Diamondbacks. And honestly, despite the criticism the O’s faced for making that call, I think it was the right one. Burnes has been pretty bad by his high standards, and his strikeout rate continues to drop year after year. He will not be worth $210 million through 2030, I can guarantee that. However, the moves made to replace his production have totally backfired.
The aforementioned Morton is making $15 million this year on a one-year deal, one that is looking worse and worse by the start. The other addition made by Elias was getting Tomoyuki Sugano from Japan, and the 35-year-old has been solid so far. The returners, though, in Dean Kremer, Cade Povich, and Zach Eflin, have been mediocre at best. And this isn’t a case of bad luck, either: the O’s team xWOBA allowed is .350, second-worst in the league ahead of the White Sox.
It’s hard to believe that the Orioles competitive window could close so soon, given they won 91 games, in 2024, but here we are. Clearly, the team needs a reset and perhaps a year or two of buffer, as the young hitters like Jackson Holliday and Heston Kjerstad adjust themselves to the big leagues, before they compete for the AL pennant again. But this is baseball. Anything can happen.
3. The Crisis Of Awareness
I have noticed this brewing for a while in the sports world, and I’m ready to present it to the world. There is a crisis right now across pro sports, especially in baseball, of a lack of situational awareness from players. This is completely anecdotal, but I feel like I’ve seen more instances of players screwing up situations due to it in the last year or so than ever before. Let me list a few recent examples.
On April 12, Jose Miranda was running at first base for the Twins when grounder was hit up the middle. Tigers 2B Colt Keith missed the bag on the play and Miranda was called safe by Malachi Moore. Despite the call being made right in front of him, Miranda started back to the dugout as if he was out and was tagged by Keith. The Twins infielder was sent down to AAA the next day.
Two weekends ago in an Angels/Giants game, Taylor Ward bounced into what appeared to be a double play, but 1B LaMonte Wade Jr was unable to scoop the throw. Totally unaware that the scoop was botched (despite calling himself safe while passing the bag!!) Ward decided to loop into shallow right assuming he was out. Wade was also unaware of the situation, and despite a late throw from the Giants pitcher, Ward escaped to 1B safely.
A recent minor league ejection covered by the great YouTube channel CloseCallSports featured a grounder to the first baseman with a runner on 1B. The fielder went to second immediately to get the force there, but the baserunner thought he had stepped on the bag and retreated to 1B. The batter-runner then casually jogged past 1B despite a botched relay, and was off the base when tagged by the defense for a double play. The base coach had no idea what was going on. Here it is.
And lastly, anecdotal evidence from basketball. It was Bill Raftery that pointed this out on a late season college basketball broadcast (can’t recall which one), saying in a nutshell: there are way more guys stepping out of bounds than in the past. I agreed; while it’s not every play or anything, once you start recognizing when people step on the sideline or baseline on accident, especially in the college game, it’s hard to unsee.
So, I believe there is an emergency lack of game sense across sports right now. These are basic fundamentals we’re talking about. Little things add up over the course of games and seasons. Assuming is a bad thing to do, especially in baseball. Whatever the causes of this crisis are, and I’ll leave you to speculate, I believe it’s a serious problem.
Weekly Trivia
LAST WEEK
Q: What golf course has hosted the most U.S. Opens, with nine? The tenth will be this June.
A: Oakmont CC
THIS WEEK
Q: There have been seven countries that have participated in all nine women’s World Cups. Name as many as you can.
A: Next Week!
And I didn’t even mention the team moving to Baltimore.
United States Canada Brazil Japan China England France Spain Portugal
The orioles’ mistake was overvaluing their prospect hitters. They had many of them but never traded them for pitchers when they had the chance . Now many of those hitters have proven to be very average or below and not worth anything. Their window has closed because they put too much faith in the young guys . Bummer. It was fun while it lasted .