Frobby

If he threw 3 innings in under 40 pitches, I’d be totally cool with that.

Yes, I wonder what his playing time would have looked like if he’d played in the AL in his 20’s.

I’m just reminding you there are worse alternatives. Everything you’ve said about Brown is fair enough, though I happen to like things like the Rutschman grounder to Witt observation. What I want in a TV PBP guy is: 1. A good voice. 2. The ability to convey that the game is interesting, even when it’s not. 3. A good rapport with the color guy and the ability to use questions to get the color guy to use their expert knowledge of the game and convey it to the audience. 4. Knowing when it’s appropriate to get a little excited. 5. Being well prepared and knowing stuff about both teams that most viewers don’t, and inserting that information at opportune times. I score Brown very high on all five criteria. Puns and cultural references, or the lack of them, aren’t on my list of what’s important.

If they pitch well.

Thought it would be good to have a thread tracking any big gaps between wOBA and xwOBA from time to time. At this early stage, I’d say only gaps of 50 point or more are really notable. That’s the case for: Cowser .539/.465 Rutschman .330/.385 Mullins .370/.320 Mateo .362/.303 Hays .100/.224 Urias .172/.232 It’s worth noting that Cowser would be awesome even at .465, and Hays and Urias would be awful even at .224 and .232. The team has a pretty typical mix of guys who’ve been hot or cold, and guys who’ve had good or bad wOBA “luck.” Overall, the picture is pretty darned good.

The Yankees won this preseason poll, and so far they’re off to the hottest start. Once again, every AL East team is currently over .500 and the division is 38-24 (.613) against the rest of MLB.

If I saw the O’s chasing a lot of pitches out of the zone, it would concern me. I haven’t noticed that. The team is 4th in MLB in runs per game and OPS+, so whatever the O’s are doing, it’s working well. It teams start trying to get them to swing at bad pitches, I expect the O’s will adjust and start walking more.

Jeez, tough crowd. I guess we’ll bring back Jim Hunter and his “modest three game hit streak.”

It’s amazing. Congrats to the Orioles on seeing his potential, and congrats to O’Hearn for making the adjustments necessary to improve. As a reminder, the O’s have an option on O’Hearn for 2025 at $7.5 mm.

Positioning doesn’t affect catch probability. It’s a function of hang time and distance.

Better players get used more often than players who aren’t as good. Most catchers aren’t good enough hitters to be used as DH regularly when they’re not catching. I thibk it’s about that simple.

It takes about 3 seconds to get up to speed. That’s why Statcast measures “jump” as the distance the fielder travels in the first three seconds (further divided into “reaction” in the first 1.5 seconds and “burst” in the second 1.5). Mullins is doing very well on jump this year, at +2.4 feet (covering 37.8 feet). He wasn’t as good last year. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/outfield_jump

There’s only 3 possible explanations: 1. Mullins didn’t get a great jump. (Always hard to tell on a replay.) 2. Mullins isn’t that fast anymore and a speedier CF wouldn’t have had to dive for it. 3. The stat is flawed. Take your pick.

Roch on Bradish’s rehab start tonight: The Orioles want to get multiple innings out of Bradish. “I think we’re hoping somewhere between two and three innings, in between 40-50 pitches would be ideal,” said manager Brandon Hyde. “See how he feels after every inning, but that would be best-case scenario.”

It’s interesting to compare the careers of McFarland and Danny Coulombe. TJ debuted in 2013 and is 35; Danny debuted in 2014 and is 34. TJ has appeared in 362 big league games, throwing 480.1 innings at a 4.16 ERA (101 ERA+), and has been worth -0.1 rWAR; Danny has appeared in 262 games, throwing 250.1 IP aa 3.63 ERA (114 ERA+) and has been worth 3.1 rWAR. Going into this season, TJ had accrued 8.028 years of service and had been paid $10.5 mm; Danny had accrued 5.008 years and had been paid $5.2 mm. So I’d say at this point that McFatland has spent more time and bern used more heavily in the majors than Coulombe, and has been better paid, even though Coulombe has been more effective.