Tony-OH

Yes, it would be nice of me to use probably the most important word in the sentence! lol I don't think 2025 is too aggressive of a timetable if he keeps improving like he has this year. Maybe a mid-2025 thing like Westburg.

Kremer is interesting because he's way out performed his expected stats in statcast (.321 WOBA vs .347 XWOBA just to show one), but his stuff grades above average in movement on most of his pitches. He gives up too many home runs, but also has shown ability to get deep into games going six or more innings ten out of his last 16 starts. He's gone more with the 4-seamer as his velocity has ticked up 1.1 MPH from last year to 94.6 MPH and we've seen him up to 97 in the 6th inning of games. He's a pretty solid 3rd-4th starter for me on a good team.

No, that's not too optimistic at all. Alvarez was coming over from Cuba and missed a year, but Basallo has more game power already than Alvarez had even at 20 years old. He's more athletic than Alvarez as well and has a cannon for an arm. At catcher, he's cut his passed balls rate almost in half from a year ago when you look at innings and he's throwing out way more than league average runners. There have been some big catchers and Basallo with his arm and athleticism, I would no longer say he can't stick at catcher. He and Rutschman alternating behind the dish and DH could be pretty special one day. I don't want to put a limit on his potential because honestly, what he's been doing in Aberdeen, a place where a lot of guys struggle is pretty special right now.

Over his last 51 games Norby has really come on with the bat slashing .296/.377/.517/.894 with 14 homers and a 26 BB to 54 K ratio in 231 PAs. Unfortunately he's committed seven errors and watching his errors they are just brutal. He struggles on short hops, just literally missed a soft liner at him and McKenna'd a pop up in the infield that he sat under for several seconds. He seems to make inaccurate throws when he has to really throw hard. He's committed 15 errors this year and has not improved at all defensively since being drafted. I just don't see anyway the Orioles would have him at 2B the way they value defense. He's got Westburg, Ortiz and potentially Jackson Holliday ahead of him on the 2B chart. He's too short to be a first baseman and doesn't have the arms strength for the left side of the infield. I went back and watched some video of him LF and let's just say he looks very inexperienced out there. Hard to tell jumps from the minor league game footage but looks like an infielder playing the outfield. Catches balls weirdly at times and just generally looks like his routes aren't great. He did make this nice play https://www.mlb.com/video/connor-norby-s-diving-catch?q=norby&cp=CMS_FIRST&qt=FREETEXT&p=0 . He's got the speed to play out there, but I think the Orioles have decided he's a guy that's going to get traded this offseason because they are trying to make that glove work at 2B. He will make a flashy play here and there, but some of his errors were downright little league stuff. If I'm the Orioles, I'm making him a left fielder and see what they have with more experience, but they've only started him in LF 3 times since the beginning of August.

Just you're every day 110 MPH laser home run from an A baller. He's going to be pretty special.

This is the role that's best suited for him and he's shining in it. I truly think he'll be a real weapon by the playoffs.

Thanks. I love the fact that everyday 1000s of people see their names so they will never be forgotten around here. As they say, you die two times in life. When you pass initially and when your name is spoken for the last time. As long as the Hangout exists, neither will have their names not spoken or thought about and I take solace in that.

Here's what statcast says about their home to 1st number. In the end, it says it can "filter Home to First readings" but doesn't go into more detail. I think that 4.36 is a little low.

Thanks for remembering them all @Frobby. I've thought about weams often this year and ScOtt during some of the game threads. I'm sure they are all enjoying this season looking down upon us all. Just imagine the big screens up there!

One of the best defensive catches I've ever seen from an infielder.

Part of it is now that we have sprint speed which gives you the average ft/sec he runs during a sprint is a little different then using the old scouting scale that was devised from sprints to first base with a stop watch. I do stop watch guys at times on real sprints to first to get an idea of speed but I also use the "eye test" on how fast they look when they run around the bases for minor leaguers. I haven't done the analysis but I guess you could probably use statcast sprint speed data and measure it up against the scouting charts used for decades and see if they match up. I wish we had the statcast info that we have on the major league players with minor league players but at least now we have AAA statcast game reports. Hopefully MLB will give us more minor league data to work from. Objective Tool Grades Objective Tool Grades Tool Is Called Fastball Velo Batting Avg Homers RHH to 1B LHH to 1B 60 Yd Run 80 80 97 .320 40+ 4.00 3.90 6.3 75 96 .310 35-40 4.05 3.95 6.4 70 Plus Plus 95 .300 30-35 4.10 4.00 6.5 65 94 .290 27-30 4.15 4.05 6.6 60 Plus 93 .280 23-27 4.20 4.10 6.7 55 Above Avg 92 .270 19-22 4.25 4.15 6.8 50 Avg 90-91 .260 15-18 4.30 4.20 6.9-7.0 45 Below Avg 89 .250 12-15 4.35 4.25 7.1 40 88 .240 8-12 4.40 4.30 7.2 35 87 .230 5-8 4.45 4.35 7.3 30 86 .220 3-5 4.50 4.40 7.4 According to Statcast, Westburg's avg time to 1B is 4.36 seconds which would give him a 45 scouting grade. Here's the definition of sprint speed. The red bolded part is why it more useful then home to 1st times. Basically Westburg may be an average to slightly below average runner home to first, but when you expand it out to his running around the bases he's much faster.

The overall numbers though don't show a change between batting 1st or 2nd, so it doesn't appear he's changing his approach. He's hitting too many ground balls vs driving the ball at times this season and is rolling over a bit too much on breaking balls. He's still been productive, just not at the level we thought he might be after last year if he took a step forward. But the sophomore "jinx" has happened a lot to players and there is no reason to think he can't have better season ahead of him. Saying that, he's still having a very good season.

8 pitch save for Cano.. Love it.

That may have been one of the best catches I've ever seen an infielder make. Unbelievable.

Mullins stopped hitting right-handed because he was never good at it, even in the minors. Rutschman has always been good from both sides of the plate though from year to year which side is more effective may switch around. I don't see that as a problem and since he doesn't have huge splits, it wouldn't make much sense to stop him from switch-hitting even if keeping two swings straight all season can be hard for any switch hitter. Adley's hitting whether batting 1st or 2nd has been about the same so I'd say leading off has had a negligible affect on his stats.

I was mainly a catcher who used to steal calls all the time by being a good framer before that was a measured thing. It was part of the game, but so were missed calls on the bases, but no one complains about the right call being made now, do they?

With as much money as these gambling apps are paying to MLB teams to inundate the fans with gambling odds throughout ballgames, at some point there could potentially be a concern for more openness surrounding injuries and availability similar to the NFL. Now the one big difference is that teams can put players on the IL so you know they are not available, which is good enough for the daily gambler. With a 162 game schedule vs the 17 of an NFL schedule, a player missing a few games is a lot less meaningful then whether a QB is going to play or not and besides, players are sat all the time for various reasons and I doubt it typically affects the odds too much (I'll be honest, I don't do sports betting so maybe someone else can attest to this or not). I guess I just don't see the odds changing all that much over player availability with MLB gambling to warrant too much concern over teams being koy with injury diagnosis and availability.

The average arm strength for major league SSs this year is 85 MPH (Mateo is at 85 this year). I don't have the numbers on Holliday, but the eye test tells me he's lower than that. Now can he have a quick release and be like Anthony Volpe who has been rated as an above average SS by every defensive metric despite having a well below average arm (81 MPH avg, 87.3 max), perhaps. As I've said, I will not discount him playing SS at the major league level since he has very good athleticism and quickness and at 6-0, 185, should not out grow the position. There are some hands things he needs to clean up, but so did Henderson his hands have gotten better with professional experience.

In the Coby Mayo thread in the minor league forum there's a conversation about how Orioles minor leaguers have made adjustments to major league pitching. The question mostly delved around how the Orioles minor league hitters are developed with the theory of only swinging at pitches where they can do damage. It makes sense that the "swing at pitches you can do damage on" approach is easier to employ in the minors than the majors because of major league pitcher's ability to throw quality strikes more often. In other words, major pitchers don't throw as many pitches that hitters can do damage on because that's why they are major league pitchers and not AAA pitchers. Adley Rutschman slashed just .176/.256/.257/.513 with 18 Ks and 6 BBs over his first 82 major league PAs making that adjustment, but Gunnar did well over his first 72 PAs slashing .314/.368/.514/.883 before he started to struggle. The question is, was this an adjustment because of the approach taught or just the fact that that every hitter has to make major league adjustments coming out of the minor leagues? Now sometimes those adjustments are right away, and sometimes those adjustments happen after pitchers adjust to the hitter. With so much data available now to teams, teams know what a hitter is good at and what he struggles with at the plate. With Adley they were busting him inside with hard stuff right away and he was unable to get those pitches early on. He eventually made the adjustments and he's been slashing .273/.373/.449/.823 since then though his approach this season has come at the expense of power. After Gunnar's quick start, over his next 209 PAs he struggled badly slashing just .180/.325/.326/.651 with 36 walks and 67 Ks, striking out nearly once every 3 PAs. In Gunnar's case, he definitely was getting himself in way too many two strike counts and pitchers were not making too many two strike pitch mistakes. Getting more aggressive, he slashed .273/.327/.518/.845 over his next 350 PAs with 24 BBs and 83 Ks. It's pretty obvious Gunnar's walked rate has gone way down, but he's offset that with much more power (.326 vs .518 SLG). While Gunnar's OBP is about the same, he's getting more hits vs walks and he's become much more productive. After his slow start to his major league career, over his next 465 PAs, Rutschman slashed .283/.400/.501/.901 with 75 BB and 77 Ks, but then something happened. In his last 505 PAs, Adley has slashed just .264/.349/.404/.753 with 57 BB and 78 K. While the strike out rate has slightly come down, everything else has too, with the most obvious being a drop off in power (.501 vs .404 SLG). Over his last 92 PAs (21 G/20 starts) he’s slashing just .262/.326/.345/.671. The pitchers haven’t changed all that much how they’re pitching him so one theory is he’s just worn down a bit after catching so much during the early and mid-part of the season. He does hit better as a DH than C over his career so far so there is some merit that catching takes a tool on his offense: C (784 PAs) - .259/.361/.416/.777 DH (258 PAs) - .289/.376/.484/.860 So at the end of the day, the two top Orioles prospects that arrived on the scene have adjusted differently to the major leagues. Both have become well above average hitters with Rutschman’s (.344/.360) and Henderson’s (.343/.345) WOBA/XWOBA being well over the MLB average of (.316/.315). Henderson is two and half years younger than Adley and has been hitting better of late, so he has the higher ceiling in my mind. But I also think Rutschman will end up a better hitter than he’s been overall this year. How good? That’s the real question and a different article.

Wow, I didn't realize how much the automated strike zone has helped the hitters. That's a huge jump and explains partially why so many hitters are having so much success in AAA this year. You have to wonder if major league baseball will allow that to come up with such a spike in offense. I've watched the ball-strike challenge during AAA games and they are pretty quick for the most part. I saw one game where they must've challenged (both hitter and catcher) like 20 pitches in a game and the call was overturned in about 16 of 20. That may have been the extreme game but it does take some getting used to. I do think the automated strike zone will help the Orioles more than hurt. With the young players coming up having that patient approach, we've seen way too many bad calls go against Adley, Gunnar and several others this season. Yes, I understand "framing" is a thing, but should it be? I mean honestly, that's like saying your catcher cheats better than other catchers.

No idea since I'm not a doctor, but seems crazy to let a guy pitch who you know has a UCL tear.

Can you find one from a 21-year old in AAA this year? I mean, you can poo-poo his heater all you want, but it also could be that he's made the adjustments. He's not just sitting on fastballs but hitting all pitches hard. His strike out rate is down and his walk rate is up. Everything points to him having made the adjustment to AAA pitching. Now am I claiming him major league ready? I guess that depends on your perspective. Now I'm sure the Orioles have information on how he hits major league quality stuff from AAA pitchers vs teeing off in well, AAA pitchers and that can be a better indicator. Without that data, I gotta go by the stats and what I've seen him do in games visually. We both agree he's a stud, and I still think had he gone to college and developed like he did in the pros, he would have bene the 1-1 pick this year and people would be losing there stuff that a 1-1 pick was doing this kind of damage in AAA already (assuming he was moved up this quickly). Personally, I think he's going to be similar to Kris Bryant but may be a year ahead of Bryant at the same time. Oh, and the thing that may keep him in the minors a bit next year will be Elias not wanting him to come up on Free Agency so close to Gunnar and Westburg/Holliday to a lesser extent. If they can keep him down long enough to gain an extra year and keep him out of Super-2 status all while he gets another 200 AAA PAS, then I could see that as a way forward and would fit Elias' MO.

Holy crap, he made 11 more starts after knowing he had a UCL tear and put up a 7.51 ERA over that time. If Bautista has a tear, I don't think there is any way he can effectively "pitch through it". If he has a strained/slight sprain maybe hey can rehab him and have him ready to pitch a pitch late in September into October, but you do have to wonder how effective he will be. Obviously I'm speculating since I don't have any insights other than what the Orioles have said (which is not much) about his injury. I guess the good news is he's still around and not under the knife yet so either they think it's not that bad, or they don't have enough conclusive evidence there's a tear.

I love how Earl could just come up with that "anger" on the spot. He was a maestro for sure on arguing!

Bradish's pedestrian 13.7 in zone Whiff is probably what holds him back a bit when you start talking TOR. Both his slider and curveball are plus offerings, but his fastball is a well below average offering because of the lack of movement both vertically and horizontally and why he's throwing that more effective sinker more. His change has been an ok pitch for him because he's able to land it more often than not and surprise guys with it since he only throws it less than 10% of the time. His 33 percentile chase percentage means he doesn't garner a ton of chase, but when they do swing out of zone, he gets a top 14 (among major league starters) WHIFF rate of 53.9%. Without missing a ton of bats in the zone though, he's working off of soft contact which mostly comes from his breaking balls. To me, Grayson Rodriguez is the guy with TOR potential while Bradish to me is a solid #2 or #3 guy.