Tony-OH

Hicks has looked very tentative in pushing off quickly, probably because he worried about re-injuring himself again. Saying that, he really hasn't missed any "easy" catches since coming back. I'm not sure if last night's non catch is in baseball savant yet (I couldn't find it this morning) and to me it looked catchable for most CFers, but his worse play of the year was this one https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=8631ab0e-ae23-423d-b416-41979ca72c15. I can see trying to get Hicks' bat in the lineup when giving Mullns a day off against a tough lefty but I'd try and keep him out of center as much as possible even though I don't think he's going to kill a team out there even with his tentative play.

Where are you getting that .428 OBP from? His OBP is .326.

I'm not sleeping on him. I just have concerns on his strike out to walk rate (39 BB to 118 K) and low OBP (.326 below the team avg of .334). He's also older for the league and his slash line against older pitchers is .249/.315/.394/.709. He's also not good defensively on the dirt and not a plus defensive outfielder despite his speed. As a right-handed hitter, he also does not hit lefties particularly well at .219/.303/.371/.674 in 120 PAs. I also think his power output is aided by hitter (power wise) friendly Prince George's Stadium. Away from home, he's slashed .239/.304/.362/.665 with just 5 homers in 237 PAs. Does he have a little pop and speed? Sure. Is he a great 10th round pick and a bit of an overachiever? Sure. Is he the 27th best prospect in a loaded system? If he is, this system is not as loaded as people think. At best he's a guy who sneaks in and ends up a Ryan McKenna type 4th/5th outfielder, but let's put this in context, McKenna is only two years older than Cook. At 24-year old, McKenna slashed .307/.423/.683/1.106 in AAA and is a much better defensive outfielder than Cook. So I don't even think he's at Ryan McKenna level as a prospect. He's a nice little story, but let's not get too caught up with homers and stolen bases when he's hitting them at a hitter friendly and running against AA catchers/pitchers.

I've always been a visual learner and when I see the players names it triggers where they played. Typically I can visualize their baseball cards if their from the 70s or 80s.

New Record for me: 0.4% Jeff Suppan, 1%Tony Batista 0.5%Russ Springer 0.1%Mike Paxton 0.5%Rico Carty 0.4%Cliff Johnson 0.1%Rich Gale 2%John Mayberry 0.04%Leon Roberts Now I'm not doing this off pure memory. I go to 1977 baseball (or first year for Arizona) reference pages of these teams and then start looking at players' names. I typically can see the players name I remember they played on the other team. Is that cheating? I don't know, but I don't spend more than 10 mins on any of these. I've played so many OOTP games with players from 1975 to 1988 that I have a pretty good idea of where everyone played.

Kjerstad has had a nice season, but I would have liked to have seen a little more game power at Norfolk this year. His .206 ISO at AAA is significantly below Westburg's .272 and Westburg has not exactly lit up his major league stats with good home run numbers. Kyle Stowers (.280 ISO, .420 WOBA) and Coby Mayo (.246 ISO and .383 WOBA) both have outperformed Kjerstad (.380 WOBA) and those two categories in AAA. Kjerstad does lead the organization with a 31.3% LD rate so he's getting a lot of hard contact, he just doesn't lift the ball as much as you would like from a HR hitter. He has the 11th lowest flyball percentage at just 29.4% but his 19.4% HR/FB percentage (6th best in org) indicates when he does get it up, he gets good carry.

Another good statistical start for McDermott but the command was not there finding the zone only 43% of the time and only 39% with his fastball. He did get hitters to chase 40% of the time with a 30% whiff rate on the heater. His slider was his best pitch last night, landing it 52% of the time and getting just a 64% contact on the pitch with a 47% whiff overall. I don't know if the plan was to work on the slider command at the expense of the changeup, but I'd like to see him throw that more than 2 times a game. I'd put this outing squarely in the "C-grade" category despite the good numbers statistically because this would probably not have ended up a good start against major league hitters due to the lack of fastball command.

A little failure might be good because it might give him some extra motivation to make some adjustments this offseason. I think the Orioles knew there were going to need some swing adjustments to get a little more pop into the bat because like many have said, the higher you get up the ladder, pitchers have better control and will attack you in the zone if they don't fear you a bit.

Yeah, he's been a really bad pickup by Elias. It's really amazing how good this team has played with such bad trade deadline work by Elias. Flaherty has been quite the embarrassment and while Elias didn't give up for him, the fact that Verlander, Scherzer and Montgomery have all been good could come back to bit Elias come playoff time. We'll just have to see.

2.55 hits

No kidding. Urias with the "game winner" after it looked like just some more insurance!

Flaherty needs to go to the pen. He's been awful.

Ok, that's the first time all year I've yelled at my TV. Awful, awful appearance by Cano. What an absolute shit performance by the pitching and defense and somehow come out with a win. Maybe this team is on a mission because no way they should have won that game.

Cano has no command.

Cano is frickin' awful right now.

Why is Krehbiel just getting warmed now? Are you shitting me?

Now this is not fun at all. Jesus Cano... GET SOMEONE OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shit call by McCann. Why an outside sinker? c'mon. All he's got to do is stick his bat out.

Haha, I was about to say, This is fun!

Yeah, but the calls look right.

Can't say this game is not a blood pressure game! lol

Lopez is like, I'll just have to strike this guy out because the defense behind me is not very good up the middle.

Good thing the Orioles bats came to play today.

Good freakin' Lord, now the defense is going to suck. Mateo has to make that play.

Hicks has to catch that. Just awful. He can not be playing CF if he's going to be that slow.