CaptainRedbeard

Kjerstad obliterating AAA pitching is almost to be expected at this point, so the thing I’m keeping a close eye on is his BB rate. Up at 11.5% now, while still maintaining only a 20.7% K rate. Very encouraging, since I’m sure pitchers are pitching him more carefully now. It’s good to see him willing to take those walks. He’s now turned the hard contact into power and he has good contact ability for a power guy, so the biggest flaw in his offensive profile is his aggressiveness and tendency to chase. I’m sure the Orioles’ message is that’s what they want to see improved from him at the AAA level.

I think the K rate is 27.9% after the 4-4 game and your page hadn’t updated yet? I wish we could see his whiff, chase, and in-zone/chase contact rates. Those add a lot of context to a ~30% K rate. Not based on anything scientific, but I feel like if Fabian gets to around a 25% K rate at AA this year, he moves up to AAA at some point and has a decent chance of eventually being below 35% in the MLB level. If he does then I think he’s going to be a nice 4th/5th OF type, play vs LHP and pinch run / defensive replacement.

The Orioles have so much cost controlled hitting that they’d likely need to trade a lot of them to ever really need to sign a free agent hitter in the next few years. Which means they should have a lot of payroll flexibility and just need to use that in some fashion to add pitching. Whether that’s by signing pitchers or trading the extra hitters or a combination of both, I think that really just depends on who is available and what prospects are blocked. This past offseason it was clear they needed to trade Ortiz so a trade was the obvious route over FA (even though I wish they did both…). Now they don’t have another prospect of that caliber that is blocked to the same degree so it’s not apparent. With a new owner as well, it impossible to predict how Elias will approach it this offseason, and I think any route is appropriate so long as they continue to increase payroll and actually leverage the advantage of having a tremendous cost-controlled offensive core.

The second question is - what extensions can the Orioles do with guys other than these 4, who are not Boras clients? Don’t want to rehash the “Boras clients don’t extend” debate, but let’s assume whatever they can do with these 4 doesn’t impact the ability to do other extensions. Grayson: With 5 years of control after this one, it would have to be something like 6 years + a couple option years. Possible, but not super high priority. Bradish: Entirely TBD on how he returns from injury, and even then a bit of the same question as Grayson with so much control remaining. Westburg, Cowser and Kjerstad: Lumping them all together because I think it’s similar considerations. At their ages when their years of control expire, I don’t think it really makes sense. All 3 have been phenomenal to start the year but still have significant question marks about their games (really high whiff rates and not great K/BB for Westburg and Cowser, Kjerstad’s defense, chase rate and of course not yet facing MLB yet). Mayo and Basallo: Given their ages they are going to be the best candidates, IMO. However, it’s premature now for obvious reasons, particularly with the major questions about how much defensive value they are going to provide at the MLB level. Unfortunately I have a hard time seeing any extensions happening in the near future, even if Elias and Rubenstein have all the best intentions of wanting to do them.

My concern with extending Burnes is not so much his age, he’s got a lot going for him that should allow him to age well. He’s not overly reliant on velocity and has really great command, elite ability for spin, and could lean into throwing more sinkers/curves/sliders and fewer cutters than he does now. He also been a really durable SP his whole career. He checks a lot of boxes, even if he’s unlikely to ever be the 7 WAR pitcher he was once. Pitchers like Burnes can remain really effective into their mid-30s. The concern is just how much he’ll cost, for how long and the potential for injury for any pitcher. Pretty good chance he finishes in the Cy Young running this year and is going to want something around Gerrit Cole’s deal. I don’t think he signs an extension that doesn’t exceed that anyway, so he’s really going to just be a free agency signing. Burnes blowing out his arm on a $300M deal (or even “just” a $200M deal, which I think is the floor of what he’ll get if he performs as expected this year) could be pretty crippling to the Orioles, and I have a hard time believing the Orioles are going to outbid the big markets clubs for him.

Rankings for fantasy baseball, which of course for pitchers is pretty close to real baseball, but Burnes and Grayson benefit from being higher-K, pitching in OPACY and having the Orioles’ offense.

Rankings for fantasy baseball, which of course for pitchers is pretty close to real baseball, but Burnes and Grayson benefit from being higher-K, pitching in OPACY and having the Orioles’ offense.

Means is still fairly cheap this year, but has a non-negligible salary and was a very good pitcher before his injuries. Unless the Orioles think he’s totally done or re-injured, they’ll stick him in the bullpen at the end of his 30 day rehab until he shows he can’t get out MLB hitters. At that point he’ll be optioned and granted his release if he wants it, but either way his free agency is a moot point because he’d be non-tendered this offseason even if he doesn’t get a full year of service. The only positive spin on his AAA rehab performance is that his stuff looks fine, at least his fastball. Averaging 92 with his typical high spin rate. If he strings together some better rehab outings in his remaining time he may be ok and just working through the rust.

Love the sound of that write up. Thank you. Sounds a bit like Trace Bright. Or McDermott with a better changeup instead of a curve. Or a number of the arms the Orioles drafted last year. They definitely have displayed a type that they like for pitchers similar to the “power + swing decisions + athleticism, but questionable hit tool” type for hitters. Good fastball qualities, ability for spin, and hope we can get them to throw strikes.

Tanner Scott broke out in a big way last year, and Shawn Armstrong has been quite good for the Rays. But yes Elias’ track record with RP is exceptional. Those are bound to happen with RP - we got both Cano and Coulombe from the Twins alone. The Mets cleary like the same qualities the Orioles do because they picked up Fuji, Jorge Lopez and Reed Garrett, and we just got Yohan Ramirez from them. Reed Garrett may be the latest addition to the Elias RP miss list, he’s been lights out so far this year. Looks like he’s following the Tanner Scott approach of dramatically increasing slider usage.

Worth noting that he had a 3.40 FIP and 2.95 xFIP in his 15.1 AAA innings so his bad AAA ERA was not supported by the peripherals. Also worth noting that the Orioles have to believe there’s potentially something there with Suárez, because not only did they go with him over Zimmerman (who was on turn and optionable), but they let Suárez have a lot of rope to continue pitching in the 5th/6th innings in a 1-run game with plenty of available RP. Hyde yanked Irvin with a 2 run lead in the 5th inning on Monday rather than let him go through the order a 3rd time. He let Suárez face the Twins’ 1-2-3 for a 3rd time in the 6th inning yesterday with a 1 run lead. Neither were high in pitch count. Yes Suárez was pitching well, but Hyde could have easily said those 5 IP were plenty good enough, let’s not risk a 3rd time through.

I don’t have a BA subscription, but the article before the paywall says: These are 10 prospects outside the Top 100 who have popped early on, a mix of players who could find themselves on the Top 100 this year, sleepers and others where the initial looks this season have been favorable. Chace was previously not on the radar at all for me but now he has my strong attention. Sounds like a really strong three pitch mix, definitely a potential breakout candidate “late” bloomer pitcher (despite being only 20). He’s also got an 80-grade pitcher name so I hope he makes it for that alone!

Yeah, and if there are ever minimal injuries at the same time, much more than one person. Only 13 spots for 17 guys: Locks (Some have options, but obviously won’t be) 1. Burnes 2. Rodriguez 3. Bradish 4. Kimbrel 5. Cano 6. Coulombe Options 7. Means (*but could reject the option and elect FA) 8. Kremer 9. Wells 10. Akin 11. Tate Out of options 12. Perez 13. Irvin 14. Suárez 15. Webb 16. Baumann 17. Ramirez I’d DFA those last 3 names before Suárez if it came down to it, but likely there would be some combination of ILs & options, even if Tate is the only clear option candidate now. Perhaps Wells gets optioned to work back into a RP but that would be short term. I think all of our out of options guys would get claimed, except perhaps Ramirez - but the Orioles traded cash considerations for him to jump the waiver priority so clearly they think he would have gotten claimed before them.

I’m skeptical how much the lack of scouting report matters nowadays. They have all the same data on pitchers in AAA as they do in the MLB, you can figure out a lot about a pitcher without ever having someone there watching them. Not to discount that additional value, just to say it’s not like the old days when a guy could come up and be pretty much unknown. Plus Suárez just pitched a lot in Spring Training and was pretty much exactly what we saw yesterday.

I definitely agree that we keep him in the rotation for as long as he is effective. It’s just with Bradish and Means coming back there’s that inevitable roster crunch incoming with all the out of options RP. If he can maintain 96 as a SP and stay healthy then he should be a SP. He has 4 pitches even if relies heavily on the four seamer and cutter, but you could see him working in other pitchers more as he turned the lineup over. However, I’m skeptical he can actually maintain that velo with a SP workload over the course of a season and not get hurt. Big spikes in velo are often correlated with injuries, and you could see him running out of gas towards the end of his start yesterday and he threw less than 80 pitches. A bunch of 93s on the radar gun in that last inning.