Frobby

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.

Well, you can rule out Cedric and O’Hearn, who throw left handed. I’ll go with Gunnar since he’s best at everything and has the strongest arm. But if I had to designate someone on the current roster as the emergency catcher, I’d probably go with Urias. Good hands, dispensable if something happens to him.

I’d also say that Adley hitting .324 over a full year isn’t too likely. But you never know!

https://www.masnsports.com/blog/hays-beginning-injury-rehab-assignment-at-double-a-bowie Based on how the O’s handled Mullins last year, I’d expect Hays back with the O’s by this weekend.

When you look at career numbers rather than just this year, Burnes fares better than the players you mentioned.

Yes, that is interesting. Of course, several of the listed seasons were in the pre-DH era. Torre in 1970 played 161 games, including 88 stsrts at catcher and another 72 at 3B. And people worry about Adley DHing so much when he’s not catching.