Frobby

Re the “carry over from last year” argument, I was thinking today about Luke Scott in 2009-10. In 2009, Scott had a .957 OPS at the all star break, but slumped horribly after that and posted a .667 the rest of that season. Then he had a horrible first 5 weeks in 2010, and as of May 4, had a .604 OPS. We were hearing all the exact same arguments about how Scott’s bad start was tied to his poor finish in 2009 and spelled long term doom. Zap - Scott then posted a .964 OPS for the rest of the season. I'm not saying this will happen with Hays, but it’s an example of why I don’t buy the “carry over” argument.

I have been known to follow that rule myself. Though to be honest, a better rule might be never trust anything ever. We’ve seen promising May/June stats go south plenty of times, as well as guys who dug themselves out of huge holes.

So clearly mine is better.

My, that is pedantic. Multiplying by nine is much easier and more fun than doing all that boring stuff.

And as noted, he followed that with an .858 August. So, hopefully there’s light at the end of the current tunnel.

The season is exactly 1/9 over, so you can just multiply any cumulative stat by 9 to see how it projects over a full season. That results in the O’s protecting to 108 wins, scoring 936 runs (+129 over last year) while allowing 693 (+15 over last year). On an individual level: Gunnar 117 runs, 135 RBI, 54 HR, 8.1 rWAR Westburg 99 runs, 126 RBI, 36 HR, 9.0 rWAR Mullins 126 runs, 135 RBI, 45 HR, 8.1 rWAR Santander 99 runs, 135 RBI, 36 HR, -0.9 rWAR (!) Cowser 72 runs, 135 RBI, 36 HR, 9.9 rWAR Mountcastle and O’Hearn also are projecting out to 6.3 rWAR, and Adley 4.5. Some folks may remember that last year I posted a thread where I was tracking WAR and other stats every 18 games. Going back, we never had an offensive segment last season with as many good performances as this last one. (I am planning a similar thread this season, but in 27 game segments, as 18 just seemed a little too frequent.)

I heard he worked out with Austin Hays and Chris Davis in the offseason. The slash line is bad, but he’s only struck out 8 times in 36 PA, and he’s walked 7 times. So, I’m chalking this up to some bad BABIP luck and maybe just some trouble squaring up the baseball early in the year. It should straighten out.

Rubenstein didn’t do anything. Anyone who thought that is the type of person who thinks if a pretty girl says hello to them they’ll accept a marriage proposal.

If he starts hitting, he won’t be batting 9th.

I’ve looked at it.

You can slice and dice last year several different ways, but I view this year as a different animal. I think you’d be hard pressed to find any stretch of 44 PA in Hays’ career where he had a .210 OPS.

Yes, but it would have been a tougher call.

Baserunning is worth at best about 0.5 WAR.

I’d take the under, and I probably would have said that the day he got called up. ZiPS had him at 2.7 before the season began, and now has him at 2.2 the rest of the way (he’s at -0.2 now, so the updated full season projection would be 2.0). And I’d be perfectly fine with a 2 WAR season from a 20-year old rookie. Witt had a 2.4 rookie year at 21, and look at him now.

He was a minor league free agent after the 2022 season, so it’s likely he wouldn’t be with our organization now even if we hadn’t traded him.