Frobby

How about the fact that Mayo has played in far more AAA games and has hit much better in AAA than Holliday, plus he’s older and more physically mature? Mayo: 421 PA, .944 OPS in AAA Holliday: 186 PA, .862 OPS in AAA It doesn’t seem like a stretch at all to argue that Mayo is more ready offensively. Defense is the question with Mayo.

Winning does. The O’s win the World Series and I won’t give a crap if he’s spent. But if we don’t retain any of our young stars, eventually that will catch up with him. Not a 2024 issue though.

I think Bradfield is less likely to be negatively affected by Aberdeen than other players mentioned here like Cowser, because he’s not a power hitter. His game is slashing the ball for singles and occasional doubles, and beating out grounders, and getting on base via walks. Those things aren’t affected by the ballpark in the way that long fly balls are. So, I’m not going to buy “well, it’s Aberdeen.” At the same time, Bradfield hasn’t played enough games for me to start worrying. He’s at a point in this year where he could have two good games back to back and his numbers would suddenly look very good. His K rate is good, his BB rate is good, he just needs a few more hits to fall in. It’s too soon to have any concerns.

I agree with this. And of course, if the O’s disappoint or remain tight with the purse strings, this goodwill he’s built up won’t last long.

Per Tom Boswell, this series marks the end of 21 straight games for the Nats against 2023 playoff teams, and they are 11-8 so far. However, that group includes Houston (12-22), Miami (10-27) and Toronto (16-19).

Burnes (3-1, 2.61) faced the Nats twice last year, allowing 4 ER in 5.2 IP the first time, 2 ER in 6 IP the second time. Bradish (1-0, 0.00) also faced them twice, throwing 14 scoreless innings. Advantage, Bradish. Trevor Williams (3-0, 2.27) started against the O’s in 2017, allowing 1 run in 6 IP. Michael Parker (2-1, 2.53) has never faced the O’s. The Nats come in scoring 4.18 runs per game, 18th in MLB and a 100 OPS+, 16th. The O’s are 2nd in R/G at 5.29 and 2nd in OPS+ at 122. The Nats lineup features 5 hitters who are off to good starts: CJ Abrams (165 OPS+), Luis Garcia (160), Nick Senzel (143), Jesse Winker (134) and Jacob Young (119). The rest of the lineup has been a bit of a black hole, all at 79 OPS+ or worse The Nats’ bullpen ranks 16th in ERA at 3.81, while the O’s are 11th at 3.54. The Nats have built their 17-17 record on a pretty easy schedule, -0.4 SRS per BB-ref. The O’s 23-11 has come against the toughest schedule in the league to date, at +2.0 SRS. Time to show the Nats who’s the alpha dog in this region.

Right, but the list of decent starters who became closers is much shorter.

I’m planning a thread on which of our pitching and hitting coaches would make the best third base coach.

Eckersley was healthy when he made the switch, IIRC. I could probably come up with a pretty long list of good closers who were starters initially. Not that I’m advocating we try this with GRod.

Have you seen The Saint of Second Chances? Fantastic documentary about Mike Veeck, the creator of Disco Demolition Night, available on Netflix. @Tony-OHput me on to it.

Of course, I didn’t say that. In fact, my earlier post cited both his career numbers and this year’s numbers and I said I’d probably go with Bradish. But I think it’s appropriate to consider his career numbers as well as this year’s.

Simple question Roy: how many times have you seen Mayo play? What is your basis for saying his defensive deficiencies are overrated? Don’t misunderstand me — I haven’t seen him play much (3-4 times at Bowie and in spring training), so I don’t have much to go on other than the stat sheet. I’m not claiming that I have an informed opinion that he’s not a major league quality 3B. I really don’t know one way or the other; I merely have concerns. But do you have more to go on than I do?

I’d guess Kjerstad. He’s optionable and is getting little playing time anyway.

“Same team twice” would be a good category.