Tony-OH

I believe Dan Ford just had his front foot back like that , but extremely closed. I remember batting like that once in Little League because of that and hit one on the longest home runs I ever hit at that age. Then, I made a couple of outs and ditched it to more of a regular stance. haha.... Anyways, as for Jackson Holliday stance, legs kicks work for some and not for others. The key is to get it down in time and being able to pick up spin and movement early enough. To me, Holliday just got behind in too many counts because of some great pitches on the edges of the strikezone. I'm not a swing expert, but I've seen the kid hit well against all types of pitches including velocity so i think he's going to be just fine. He's gotten on base a lot more down in AAA where the automated strike zone helps him with his great eye, but hasn't hot for much average or power since going back down (.242./432./364./795 with a 11-9 BB to K in 44 PAs. The Ks are still a bit high in AAA. He just needs more seasoning.

John Wockenfuss had one of the strangest stances. He used to have both feet facing away from the pitcher.

I've kind of heard the same thing. It's not just a lack of power that regresses in Aberdeen, but the K-BB ratio have typically been among the worse for the players who eventually made the big leagues (Gunnar, Adley, Cowser, Westburg) and had success.

I'm a fan of Koby's and I think he's done a great job down there under some difficult circumstances. I'm hopeful the new training facility down there will help get more talent to sign with the Orioles. Saying that, I agree that we need to start seeing more guys out of that program able to compete well once they hit the states. I know some got upset at more just [providing facts about the players who are failing when they get to A-ball but it's just the truth. Outside of Basallo and now Bencosme to a lesser extent, none of the international guys have had any real success once they hit Delmarva. So it's one of two things at this point. Kobe and his team are missing a lot (I haven't researched to see how others teams Latin American players are doing) or they are not being prepared well to compete at full season ball levels. It's really weird how they can show pretty good plate discipline and some pop in the FCL, then look like they have no business facing Caroline League pitchers. And before the excuse is, "They're young," they're not that much younger than the other teams that are beating them up. There was a lot of money spent on Maikol Hernandez, Braylin Tavera and Luis Almeyda and while the book is not finished on Tavera and Almeyda by any means, they are going to have to show something here soon. Good young players with major league promise typically can compete with older players. Basallo has done it. The special ones do. It's a little weird that Liranzo hasn't played the first two games either. Either he's banged up or they just don't think he's ready to compete against FCL pitching because he should be a priority play. Now it's not time to give up on any of these guys (minus Hernandez is just a miss) I mentioned and Thomas Sosa has hit a little bit and is competing though his K's are pretty high. It's just time for some of these guys to step up.

@Warehouse made some nice points and that's a pretty good synopsis. The only thing I would caution with this year's numbers is that he might be getting into the "bored" mode of being in AAA. It's hard doing that grind for as long as he has and see players comes and pass him by onto the majors while he was putting up good offensive numbers. I like Norby in the outfield better than second base, but he does get a little lazy out there and will will not field a ground ball cleanly out there either sometimes. He's working on hitting cut off men and just the nuances of playing effectively out there. He's getting better in my opinion. It's ashamed he doesn't have the reflexes and hands to play 3B effectively because being a OF/2B/3B would give him more value and make him a potential replacement for Urias. Right now, I don't see what he role would be with the Orioles unless Hays and McKenna go down. Then maybe they would consider him to come up. Other than that, it's clear they don't want him playing 2B in the big leagues in anything more than a game or two situation. His best bet is to go to a team like Oakland and find major league at bats. If the Orioles can ultimately pry one of those Oakland arms away, Norby and Stowers are guys that definitely should be hopeful they're in the trade.

Yes, it was very well done.

Watch out, you'll get RZNJ telling people they couldn't possibly be a 3rd base coach because their arms are long enough to swing wildly to send runners home.

Just that you and a few others are picking and choosing when you want reality, when you want fake, and when you want to just trying shoot other people down when they took about 10 second of thought into this "fake" scenario.

The only common sense in this made up thread is when you and some others decide to add some into under your rules. Can't make this stuff up. lol

Lol, so in your made up situation that doesn't take into effect the loss of said pitcher, only takes in career stats and not this season!

Not the way he starts off games. He's got a 643 ERA and batters have slashed .344/.382/.813/1.195 off him in the 1st inning of work. He seems to be a guy who needs to get in the groove a bit.

I think he's on a very nice heater. But his statcast percentiles are video game stuff right now. That certainly suggests he can stay well above average this year at least.

Pretty solidly honest wrapup!

O'Hearn is overlooked by a lot of people, including me sometimes because we get so focused on seeing the shiny new prospects. At the end of the day, he's been pretty mazing so far this year. After looking like they may have figured him out by the end of last year, he's turned it up another notch. Right now, it's hard to keep him out of the lineup against right-handers. I don't think he's as good as he's been this year, but then again, he keeps out performing what anyone thought he was capable of so far since becoming an Oriole.

I agree with most here that I would not take Grayson out of the rotation to become a closer, but I don't think it's as insane as some would lead you to believe. Now I can always build scenarios that could make just about anything become plausible, but what if Bradish and Means hold up all season and we're heading into the playoffs with Burnes, Bradish, Means, Grayson and Kremer/Irvin/Povich in the rotation. You really only need 3 starters in most playoff formats until potential game 7. What if Grayson was long on innings by then and say Kimbrel was toast and the bullpen is missing that dominant guy late in games? Now remember, in this scenario, Burnes, Bradish, and Means are all pitching at their top form. Would I then consider Grayson as a closer? I don't know, but I would consider the option at some point in this scenario. Would I do it now at this point in the season, no, I would not, but Grayson does have the lights out closer stuff a team would look for, and he could be used for multiple innings if needed. If the Orioles win a World Series, no one is going care whether he was a starter or a closer at that point.

Way too early for me to get reliever vibes from him yet. My report was from one outing and he's only a few games into his professional career. Not a fan though of how he falls off the mound and the velocity so far this year has not been elite (92-94 from what I've seen).

We don't do that here. If you want to speculate, please say so because that looks like you heard something.

I'll echo the folks that say it's way too early to draw any conclusions on the bat. While his start this year has not been very impressive, let's have the assessment conversation at the end of the year. Cowser looked really ugly in Aberdeen in his first 44 games there in his first full minor league season slashing .236/.386/.363/.749 with a 36 BB - 62 K ratio in 197 PAs.

Updated as May 6th.. Big drop for Baumler due to velocity drop and lack of pitches thrown per start. A few new names break into top 30 and with the FCL playing one game, Almeyda and Wager (rehab) pop onto the list now that they've played. Liranzo should show up next week.

That new routine includes getting himself warmed up differently and more quickly than as as a starter. These nuances are why no one can assume a starter can just become a great reliever and automatically get a bump in velocity. We also don't know how quickly he can rebound to be able to pitch again. Now, he hadn't pitched in a week yesterday so he should been fresh, so perhaps the new warmup routine did not see him fully warmed up. Or maybe a lack of adrenaline pitching late in a 6-0 game was why we saw about a MPH difference in his velocities? Suarez didn't miss many bats and actually missed none with his fastball. His fastball has typically gotten a lot of whiff. The good news is he didn't allow any hits or walks, and needed only 24 pitches to get through 2.1 innings.

One of Browns strengths is his knowledge and quips are not limited to his generation. His baseball knowledge is very good and he clearly does his homework prior to games. But to your point here, he can do pop culture from previous generations too, which helps him connect with us 50+ folks.

I'm sorry this post was downvoted by three people. While I don't agree with you, an opinion does not deserve to be downvoted. I'll be honest, every time I turn on the radio and listen to Newman say "highball" or "skyball" or not describe the action until long after the crowd told you what happened, does make me wish a bit he was still on radio. For all of Hunter's over the top "cheerleading" and statements like "Two-game hitting streak", he was very good at calling the action on the field. As for Brown, while he can be a little over the top in his story telling in times when the game at hand should be the focus due to the situation, he's a very good announcer in my opinion.

I've seen that said essentially twice in this thread and yet I just read through 7 pages of positive comments about Kremer. I think some get confused when people suggest Kremer may get bumped from the rotation as they don't like him. Somebody is going to have to go when Grayson comes back. It's not going to be Burnes, Bradish or Means, which means it's going to be Irvin and Kremer. Both Irvin and Kremer are pitching great right now but Kremer has an option and Irvin doesn't. Now, could this mean the Orioles slow play Grayson back to give him an extended down time so he will hopefully be very fresh come this October? Perhaps. All I know is that it's a good problem to have too many good starters. Kremer has been nails of late and he's a solid major league starter. But all also could get caught up in a numbers game as this fleshes itself out like they tend to do with IL stints.

I sure know other teams are not excited to play the Orioles anymore. The team is young and has depth in the upper minors to make deals for any needs at the trade deadline where I hope Elias will cement this team with some back of the bullpen help. We also have a new owner who seems to love the team and is positioned financially to improve/maintain it in the offseason. It's a real good time to be an Orioles fan for sure.

Besides not walking many guys, I agree, Kremer has been getting pretty "lucky" so far this year. He's a bit of a gamer though and he's typically outperformed his expected stats. Either way, I agree, he's needs to keep pitching well or could have some risk to being options for no other reason than to lose a pitcher.