Tony-OH

It's not quite as bad as Mountcastle playing SS, but similar i guess. I mean, if you willing to deal with some head scratching awful defensive plays at 2B, feel free to play him there because he'll make a nifty highlight reel play at times too. I just rather find him a true home defensively and perhaps LF is the place. Can't hurt his value overall.

Sure, he's made some nice highlight reel plays, but also some of the most little league errors you will ever see. If the Orioles are playing him at 2B mostly still it's because they are trying to sell him as a second baseman. No way he's ever a starting 2B for the Orioles with his defensive woes. Elias has many interesting decisions to make this offseason, but let's hope it's after a World Series Championship!

Keep him in LF. He's not a consistent 2B and has enough bat and speed to be a solid left-fielder. he just needs experience out there.

I like their stat pages especially for minor leaguers where they SW strike percentage and other batted ball data that Baseball Reference does not show for minor leaguers.

Crap, forgot about Urias. You're right, Urias could move to 3B and Westburg goes to 2B. Saying that, I think they are trying to get him as many PAs against lefties as possible to just get him more comfortable. He's going to have nights last night on occasion, especially against a lefty, but might as well get him those PAs against bad teams where they could probably afford him not having a good night. He's improved a bit against the southpaws with more PAs this year so I expect that it will continue unless it's against a tough opponent lefty. Still, he's got a ways to go to go rid of his platoon split.

He actually got a little more money than Maikol Hernandez despite Hernandez supposedly being rated in some top 50 International players available that year. There's such volatility in that process so hitting on one like Basallo is a great job by Koby Perez and his scouts.

I've never been a fan of extending Rutschman past 30/31 years old because he's a catcher. Catcher's just have way too much volatility and while Rutschman's bat should play if he has to move to 1B/DH there's no way I'd give him some kind of huge deal past 30-years old right now. Watching Basallo and Willems develop shows why you just have to keep the pipeline filled.

Irvin is throwing harder than he's ever thrown in the major leagues including in relief roles when he first came up. Irvin is pretty good with 1-25 pitches holding batters to a .250/.319/.346/.665 slash line.

Means was efficient last night and I liked the swing and miss, especially on the changeup which was something I wasn't seeing a bunch of in his earlier starts. His changeup has 3 more inches of vertical drop but 4 inches less of horizontal movement from last year which seems like he's either changed something or it's just how it's working right now. He did get a nice 62% whiff on that changeup.

The issue you have is do you want to sit Gunnar or Frazier against lefties? At least sitting Frazier, Westburg plays 2B vs 3B where he's better. But, it certainly would not hurt to give him a game off occasionally against tough lefties.

The more I watch him behind the plate and look at the numbers, it's not hard to envision him staying behind the dish, especially in some kind of C/DH role with Rutschman. I mean, he's got a better arm than Rutschman, he's very flexible, and he moves pretty well back there overall and he's cut his passed balls down significantly from last year. I'll be honest, he may jump Mayo in the final rankings because as much as I like Mayo, Basallo is out performing him at the same age/level and may actually have a better defensive profile. Now Mayo has the advantage of putting damage up in AAA already so I'll have to look at things closer, but one will be 2A and one will be 2B (3). That plate discipline/power combo is impressive to say the least. Over his last 90 days between Delmarva and Aberdeen he's slashed .317/.446/.599/1.045 with a 46 BB to 43 K ratio, 12 2B, 3 3B, 13 HR over 249 PAs. He's even stolen 10 bases so he's no clog on the base paths. That is about as impressive as it gets.

You know it's a long home run when the outfielders don't move. I mean, the RF didn't even looked like he flinched. Would love to know the distance on that one. He's got the most raw power in the system and that's saying something when the system has Kjerstad and Mayo, both almost 3 and 5 1/2 years older than him.

Gibson has an amazing ability to give runs back after being given a big lead.

I've found it interesting how much second base he's played so far. I need to go back and watch some plays to get an idea of how he's doing there and at 3B.

What's up with you and ban-bets? Why so dramatic over a difference of opinion?

Interesting back story. I really didn't know his whole situation, just what I've seen from his stats and of course his appearances in the big leagues this year. Obviously he's a roll of the dice every time he's out there because you don't know what Fuji you will get. The good news is he's only had one bad appearance in his last 7 games. The thing that stands out to me is he hasn't walked a batter over these last seven games so maybe, just maybe, he's figured something out with the Orioles as he's gotten settled in with this pennant race thing. Last night he was money, but I think the key is we've seen the good Fuji six times in his last 7 games and that's decent consistency. Let's hope he can keep it up because this pen needs him due to his ability to miss bats.

This didn't age well Roy. Fuji is such an enigma because he's a guy with the stuff to do what he did last night, but also a guy that you really have concerns about because of his inconsistencies. The fact that Hall got the save opportunity over him in the 9th shows the Orioles feel the same way. Good Fuji is a lot of fun to watch for sure and with a guy on 3rd and one out in a close game late, outside of Bautista, I'm not sure there's a reliever I'd rather have on the mound than him.

Yeah, there's a lot of movement of late and I didn't catch those when I updated the list.

Couple of big boy home runs too tonight.

Final power rankings for the year...

I got 9 out of 9 with a rarity score of 74. one of my best. It's good to be old for the rarity players. :d

AI gets some things right but why the two mouths? Other than that, I kinda like the mean lookin bird logo though it's obviously too big. Probably can get rid of the orange "bird droppings."

It's the last week of the season for Aberdeen and he likes to give his college guys a taste of the next level. He did this last year with Beavers, Fabian and Wagner. I'm only slightly surprised he didn't give them two weeks.

I don't think there is much chance he sees the big leagues in 2024 unless there is a sudden need late in the year and he's already playing at AAA well. Next year I could see him end the year in AAA, putting him squarely on the radar for 2025. When you look at how Elias will need to spread the contracts around he won't want all these guys having to get paid with a year or two of each other. AA is always an interesting test for young hitters. Mayo struggled a bit his first time through at the end of 2022 but tore it up when he returned. Basallo is ahead of Mayo on the age/level/development right now so Elias may not want to push him too hard, especially since he's still learning to hit lefties effectively. He's been getting better at hitting them, but still with not much pop. Gunnar struggled against lefties as well in the minors for the most part.