25 Nuggets

Mountcastle's 23. He needs MLB at bats now or he'll be too old to be a top prospect.

CBS Sports - Ranking 30 clubs by 2021 payroll situation This appears to be a subjective list, just Mike Axisa's opinion, but he does explain himself pretty well for each team. He has the Orioles 11th best out of 30 teams and the Blue Jays #1. That said, you look over all those payrolls and future obligations, and you see what he sees - teams are going to be slashing payroll all over the major leagues. The Orioles have already done so to the best of their ability. This is going to be a great opportunity for Baltimore. They can do one of two things during a supremely suppressed market: Sign a bunch of value contracts in the off season and trade them later for prospects. The top players are still going to command top money... perhaps not quite as much, but still substantial. The tier 2-3 free agents project to have their contracts drop substantially. Take on bad contracts attached with good prospects from teams looking to slash payroll. This is mentioned in the article and is something that rebuilding teams are starting to do more often. Since the Orioles are going all in on this rebuild, they HAVE to get to a point where they're a top 5-10 farm system in MLB or you may consider the rebuild a failure. So, after this abbreviated season, or perhaps even during the season, I would hope the team is proactive when so many others can't be.

Fangraphs lists him as a switch hitter, though Arkansas says he's a pure lefty. I wonder if it's some kind of projection.

Something I noticed is that Kjerstad is the highest rated switch-hitting prospect in the draft, and the only one that made the Fangraphs' numbers ranking / has an AV of 50 or better. Adley Rutschman? Switch hitter. Imagine if those two pan out, having them back-to-back in the lineup.

Hi all. Long time no post. How are the Orioles doing in this department compared to other MLB teams? 'Cause it's really important.

Terrific news; you deserve it!

There is no reason, other than saving money, to jettison Villar with no compensation or return. I would be unhappy with that move.

2018: 47 wins ($143 mil payroll) 2019: 53 wins and counting! ($73 mil payroll) Baby steps people!

It's a lot bigger than whatever influence analytics has.

WAR or not, if you're going to name a Most Valuable Oriole at this point in the season it's either going to be John Means or Jonathan Villar. Three more stolen bases tonight including one of home - bringing his total to 32 and 80% success.

He's getting close to OPSing over .800 too. He's had the fourth most valuable season on the team and is going to pass Cashner soon. Well done Hanser, I didn't see it coming.

4.10 now. And still a 117 ERA+. One can argue that his stats are not poor, but average and a little lucky. Red Sox have a team 4.71 ERA which looks awful. And it's a 102 ERA+! That's crazy.

Statcast is the new public standard IMO, with their route efficiency and catch difficulty metrics.

Looks like the Red Sox have fallen victim to the current state of baseball. Chris Sale has a stellar K9, BB9 and WHIP and yet his ERA is almost five during that stretch.

It's all about expectations.