Frobby

Here are my votes. I didn’t include anyone with less than 50 PA or 15 IP. Exceeding expectations Henderson .892 OPS, 2.7 rWAR Westburg .871 OPS, 1.8 rWAR Cowser .831 OPS, 0.7 rWAR (ignoring recency bias) O’Hearn .883 OPS, 1.0 rWAR Mateo .706 OPS, 0.6 rWAR Irvin 4-1, 2.90 ERA, 0.9 rWAR Suarez 2-0, 1.96 ERA, 0.8 rWAR Webb 0-2, 1.47 ERA, 0.4 rWAR Akin 1-0, 3.00 ERA, 0.2 rWAR Coulombe, 0-0, 2.30 ERA, 0.5 rWAR Meeting expectations Rutschman .834 OPS, 1.7 rWAR Mountcastle .797 OPS, 1.2 rWAR Santander .731 OPS, 0.5 rWAR McCann .541 OPS, - 0.5 rWAR Burnes 3-2, 2.68 ERA, 1.0 rWAR Kremer 3-3, 3.73 ERA, -0.2 rWAR Rodriguez 4-1, 3.71 ERA, 0.3 rWAR Cano 2-1, 2.21 ERA, 0.4 rWAR Baumann 1-0, 4.02 ERA, -0.1 rWAR Failing to meet expectations Mullins .592 OPS, 0.4 rWAR Urias .492 OPS, 0.0 rWAR Hays .311 OPS, -0.9 rWAR Wells 0-2, 5.87 ERA, -0.3 rWAR Kimbrel 4-1, 3.86 ERA, 8 saves, 3 blown saves, 0.0 rWAR Obviously, many of these are debatable, and largely depend what your expectations were to begin with. For example, Adley is having an excellent season, but I expect excellence from him. He’s probably exceeding my expectations a little, but not enough to put him in the exceeding expectations category. My expectations for Baumann were low, and he’s doing about what I expected. Bottom line, we have more guys exceeding expectations than failing to meet them, but there’s plenty of room for improvement

Yes, good point, 8 out of 154 people voted that way, though I suspect at least a couple of them were just being contrarian for the hell of it.

No offense, but what difference does it make who was pitching for the other team? Sometimes a mediocre pitcher has a good game. If you’re the opposing pitcher, that’s not your fault. Are we blaming Burnes that we got shut out by Williams and Gil? You can’t win a game in which you score zero runs, last I checked. I will grant you that Burnes so far has looked very good, not great, in most of his starts. Still, he hasn’t thrown a single stinker. We’ve had a good chance to win every time he’s pitched. The bullpen blew two saves for him, and we were shut out twice. I really can’t fault him for any of it.

Who is saying anyone should just accept it? Is anyone arguing for McKenna to stay on the roster? If they are, it’s only because they don’t want Stowers sitting on the bench and would rather have a worse player doing that.

McKenna is pretty much the definition of a replacement level player. It’s not like we’ve given him tons of playing time. I agree that every team has guys like this.

Three homers as a LHB in the last two games, and suddenly Adley’s on pace for 32 homers and 101 RBI. He now has 4 homers from each side of the plate. His LHB split is still well below normal for him, but it’s nice to see him getting it rolling. .309/.343/.491 at the quarter-pole. On pace for 6.8 rWAR, 5.6 fWAR. I think he’s still trying to find the right balance between patience and aggressiveness.

If it happened a lot, I’d be concerned. Something to keep an eye on, but feeling a bit gassed one game is going to happen.

It wax a poorly executed pitch. It happens. Even excellent pitchers make some mistakes in key spots. I’ll take one run in six innings every time.

6-4 (54 RS, 34 RA) 7-3 (63 RS, 59 RA) 6-4 (40 RS, 28 RA) 7-3 (43 RS, 31 RA) 1-0 vs. NYY, 3-0 at CIN, 1-1 at WSN, 2-1 vs. ARI, 0-1 vs. TOR It’s amazing how sour we can get about losing two games in a row.

I’m mostly in this camp. Burnes is on pace to throw throw 197 innings at a 2.68 ERA, and people are complaining? I’ve been mildly disappointed that he hasn’t gotten deeper into a few games, but I’d take 197 innings any day. And you’re right that he’s gotten very little run support of late. 4 runs in the last 4 games.

So what is the educated narrative? I think he’s off-balance and pressing a bit. By off-balance, I mean right now he’s having trouble distinguishing between fastballs and changeups, so he’s trying to gear up for one or the other instead of just reacting to what comes. And he knows he’s slumping and he’s trying a little too hard instead of letting the game come to him. Especially in important situations.

So this comes down to what it means to be “lost” at the plate. If you make good swing decisions but aren’t making good contact on hittable pitches, are you “lost?” I don’t think everyone would agree on the answer.

I’m sure it’s Spakman’s remark that set me off: “Literally been praying every single second to the God of my choice that someone takes him away from the Orioles organization.” But just generally, I don’t hope that our players get claimed when they’re DFA. When you say that, you’re saying that having the player in the organization is worse than not having him. I don’t buy it. I also didn’t like the remarks (in previous threads, not this one) suggesting that McKenna misjudging a fly ball was due to some character flaw on his part.

I didn’t make the remark, but that was a pretty poor at bat overall. The first pitch he swung at was a low slider that wasn’t a strike, and if he’d put it in play it likely would have been an infield grounder. Then that final pitch he was clearly guessing, and guessed wrong. Late and close, he’s hitting .095/.130/.238 with 9 K’s in 23 PA. He’s got a .454 OPS in his last 17 games. I don’t know that I’d say he’s “lost,” but he’s scuffling and pressing IMO.

Because they don’t want to use a 40-man spot.