Frobby

I’m curious about your reference to “career middling relievers.” These are two guys who have all 6 years of service time remaining, and Smith had never pitched in the majors. So what “career”do you mean? Minor leagues? I’ll grant you that neither had a great ERA there, though Smith at 14.1 K/9 (14.6 in AAA) is pretty intriguing. I’d defer to the Orioles evaluators as to what their major league potential is.

I distinctly recall reading reports (pre-call-up) that Holliday was particularly adept at covering high fastballs. So, who knows?

I would not expect a player who’s been as successful as Holliday to start overhauling his mechanics based on a couple of bad weeks in his major league debut.

Well, the kid posted .267/.396/.400 in AAA last year, and was at .333/.482/.595 prior to his call-up. I’m inclined to think he can hit AAA pitching just fine, he just has gotten a bit spun around during his major league call-up and needs a little time to regain his footing. In any event, it’s only been 8 games back in AAA and he does have a .385 OBP in that span. So, I’m pretty comfortable he’ll be acing AAA again pretty soon.

I used Chris Davis as an answer in the Immaculate Grid game last week. The category was a player who had won a Silver Slugger award and who had compiled an ERA under 3.00 over a season (no innings limit).

It can only help.

This is one of Bowden’s more rational trade proposals, IMO. Neither Gaddis nor Smith is a guaranteed back end reliever, but both have good potential and are optionable. We need those type of arms more than we need a LH power bat who’s a defensive question mark. On Cleveland’s side, they have a top notch bullpen and probably could afford to deal these two. I’m not saying either side would do it, but it’s less unrealistic than most of Bowden’s ideas.

I’m not really going to take issue with this. He was excellent in his first 11 appearances but pretty lousy in 3 of his last 4, and that’s not consistent enough for a good closer. But if the issue is, would he have a good chance of stranding a ghost runner on the days when he’s on his game, the answer is he’d nave a better chance than most closers due to his K rate.

Just curious, where do you draw the “inner circle” line? Opinions can vary about that. I’d say Trout still has a decent shot at 100 rWAR, which in addition to being a beautiful round number, would put him in the top 22 position players of all time. Is the inner circle tighter than that? This may be a situation where WAR doesn’t define the inner circle. He won’t get close to 3000 hits. He’s maybe a 50/50 shot to teach 500 homers, and almost certainly won’t hit 600. He’s never been on a WS team. He’s had 100 RBI only 3 times. So maybe 100 WAR isn’t enough for inner circle in his case?

Oh, that blows. But I’m sure there’s going to be boundless video of this.

I agree with these comments. I’m willing to be patient and wait to see how all of 2024 unfolds, especially with the youngest guys at Delmarva. How they finish the year is more important than how they start. I did look the other day to see whether the number of 19-year olds we have is unusual. The answer is no - maybe slightly more than average but there are several teams with as many or more than Delmarva. By the way, in addition to not hitting well, their defense is atrocious, second worst in the Carolina League in both errors and unearned runs, and a long way from the league averages. 49 errors compared to league average 37, 38 unearned runs compared to league average 24. Ugh.

I have heard that about the batters’ eye, but I’ve also heard the ball doesn’t travel well there. Also, I’ve read that the lighting there is poor. So it’s several things. None of which bothered Jackson Holliday.

Kimbrel is striking out 14.9 per 9. Lack of strikeouts hasn’t been an issue for him.

Thank god you’re back! But how about: 11. Mike Elias. (Not funny, but accurate.).

It’s getting pretty close to put up or shut up time for our Latin American program. This isn’t 2018 anymore. Perez has been on the job for 5+ years. First two years, we all understand he was playing catch-up because a lot of these kids make commitments 2 years before they can be formally signed. But that really shouldn’t have impacted our last three signing classes, populating the Carolina League, FCL and DSL by now. I haven’t really drilled down, but it feels like we are still getting a below average share of the talent down there, based on the record of those teams and just skimming the individual leaderboards. Last year, Delmarva was 56-74 and the FCL team was 22-32. The players on this Delmarva team are either holdovers from last year or guys promoted from the FCL, so it’s not surprising that Delmarva is pretty bad. Our two DSL teams were 35-19 and 20-35, so 55-54 collectively in a league where 20 MLB teams have two affiliates while the other 10 have just one (and therefore can concentrate their talent in one team). That gives me some hope that our FCL team will be more competitive this year, though their first two games were uninspiring.