Tony-OH

It's hard to define his value in just WAR because it's clear this team's turn around directly corresponds with his promotion to the Orioles. Frobby pointed towards it early when he stated "Adley has this blend of humility and confidence that just rubs off on his teammates. You can tell the pitchers just love him." It's like the moment he walked onto the field, shook the umpire's hand, had a few words, got behind the plater and that just kind of looked around the whole stadium and took it all in. He may not ever knew it then, but it feels like he was more saying, "Don't worry folks, I'm here now. It's all going to better now!"

I just like the color scheme with the red accents. But yeah, I'm sure this is an each is own thing.

Whatever. I'm not quite sure how you read Twitter without actually suffering a stroke. If people who live in the city love it, great. This was like so many other ideas that was trying to make a point vs making a good looking uniform. Since this was "city connect" I can understand not going with a Maryland flag theme, though that would have rocked!

The second that heinous Rockies uniform was placed first was the end of that article for me. lol Uniforms are always in the eye of the beholders. Personally, I find these drab and boring. But the people that make these decisions are always worried about virtue signaling vs creating an actual good looking uniform. The Orioles have great colors in black and orange. Ditching the orange is a mistake in my opinion. I'll be honest though, most of these uniforms have been awful. Not "Turn Ahead the Clock" awful, but not going to sell a lot of copies except to those extreme fans that want every jersey bad. So far the only ones I I've liked are the Mariners and Reds.

I wouldn't mind the hat as an alternate away hat if the B were orange. Like a Friday night away hat to offset the O's hat at home.

What we've heard is that Hyde is provided "information" from the analytics department, but has the ultimate say in the lineup. I believe he's given a lineup and unless a guy is banged up or sick or has something that the analytics department can't take into consideration, he's uses the lineup given. It's doubtful, Hyde would rock the boat over a lineup disagreement (if there was any).

But it make some sense in the NFL, because teams have to game plan based on player availability. I'm not quite sure why the Elias regime keeps the prospect injury news as state secrets.

Pinto struggled in his start this week. Aberdeen is home this week so Holliday stays. At best he goes to Bowie the week after when they are home.

#truth!

Reupdated with removing Grayson Rodriquez who graduated. Made a few other adjustments.

Damn, i missed that Grayson just went over the 45 days on an active roster. I'll need to take him off the prospect power rankings.

He's got the weakest numbers between him, Wagner and Fabian. Basically I see these three as similar prospects so they will move up and down around each other due to performance.

Now I see where Frobby got his "Ortiz doesn't run well!" comment. I've spoken with a lot of scouts of my time and there's a lot of "scout speak" in these notes. The thing is, statcast information has really allowed teams to be able to really identify whether a player can do something or not, not just based on the observations of a scout who may see a guy what, 15-20 times a year, maybe more if the team only gives a scout one team (A rarity now from what I hear). Now, I'm not knocking the scout here because other than his wrong comment about Ortiz's speed, I don't see a ton to disagree with him with though as others have noted, there are some pretty generic comments (Again, it's a quick conversation not a detailed scouting report). An interesting side discussion comes from him saying that Ortiz and Cowser "moved the needle" for him. I find that interesting because a lot of scouts won't come off their initial looks unless the players really develops something new. Ortiz moved almost everyone's needle of him once he started hitting what, last June at Bowie? His defense was always the same but watching the healthy version of Ortiz hit has been impressive. Cowser has improved this year, albeit in a small sample size, against lefties. That's the biggest thing for me. He still swings and misses too much on offspeed pitches, but this year he's not swinging through too many fastballs. I agree with the scout that Cowser could play CF right now, but I think he will settle in left field where the cavernous Camden Yards needs that second "CF-type" outfielder. Unless the Orioles plan to trade Mullins, I'd be giving Cowser a lot more time in LF vs CF, or at the very least splitting time. But the Orioles continue to play him almost solely in CF (26 starts) with him getting just 6 starts in LF and 1 in RF.

Watching how the Orioles are handling there non impact prospects (everyone but Rutschman and Henderson) it appears the Orioles are very much aware of trying to keep their prospects under control during this core time. While we understand why Duquette brought up Manny at 19-years old in 2012, let's say they didn't bring him up until he was 21 years old for the 2014 season or even late in 2013 after he would not have lost a season of controllability. The Orioles would have controlled him through his 26 year old season instead of his 25th year season. Now, would Manny had been better developed with a full season of AA and AAA? Maybe, who knows? With Holliday, you have to look at controllability unless the Orioles try to sign him long term. The Orioles have three franchise level players in the organization with Rutschman (control through 29-years old in 2027), Henderson (control through 27-years old in 2028) and then Holliday. This why I don't see him losing his first year of eligibility to at least 2025. That would give them control of him until age until 27 in 2030) Holliday could very well be that guy you lock up after his first season to a 10-year contract though. It's not his thread, but I'd be willing to sign Rutschman through his 32 year season right now. Henderson is still going to be very good, but his inability to hit lefties a bit limits his overall effectiveness unless he can improve on that.

My speed ratings have always been off the eye test. I take everything into consideration from taking extra bases, speed to first, extra base speed, to stealing bases. I don't have the statcast data to go off of and honestly, I'm too lazy to take a bunch of sprint to first base times down and try to average them out. So saying all that, I'm good with calling Ortiz is average to slightly above average runner. But yes, if he's 79th percentile, that would make him closer to a 55-60 runner depending on how you want give the grade. Remember, most guys still get their speed ratings by the scouting scale and was based off times to first base. With statcast, there really isn't a need to use the scouting scale as it's given to you with corresponding percentile's. I still love checking statcast to see if my eyes and year's of scouting experience was on the mark. I will say, if there is one thing I've been a little low on is actual speed. Henderson was definitely faster than I thought even though I think I gave him 50 or 55 speed. I'll be honest, I don't put a ton of time and effort into the scouting grades and the ones I've seen on places like pipeline are laughable at times. I prefer to tell people what kind of player i think the player is and what is best role will be at the major league levels.

That's an excellent question and one that would depends on a lot of factors. Mateo has traditionally been very streaky with the bat over his career with high highs and low lows, so it's best not to judge him during with one of these streaks but to look at him overall. I'm a big believer in Ortiz, but Mateo has shown that he can be an above average and even an elite defender at SS and when his bat is doing ok, he can be a vert valuable player. Ortiz, like most rookies is going to take his lumps at times offensively, but the thing Ortiz brings is very steady defense with flash. If I had to think of a shortstop consistency wise, similar to Ortiz with the Orioles, I have to go back to JJ Hardy. Ortiz has more range than Hardy, but he reminds me more of him then any other Orioles shortstop of late. Mateo, even last year, does make his share of errors and his throwing has been erratic at times this season. So I guess when I look at it, if I needed a SS over 162 games, I prefer the guy like Ortiz. He may not have the arm strength to make some of the amazing plays that Mateo can make in the hole and up the middle (not saying Ortiz can't make these plays, but his arm appears to me a tick below Mateo's plus arm), but he's going to make less errors. With the bat, Mateo has more pop, but is also more prone to long streaks of being a zero at the plate. Ortiz has shown to be more consistent since the second half of his Bowie season last year and he's not a punch and judy singles hitter. So in a month, if Mateo is still slumping and struggling to hit, I would not be against giving the job to Ortiz. The orioles will not lose much if anything defensively and may have a more consistent offensive threat. And since this is the Frazier thread, I still would be fine if Ortiz was the everyday second baseman until that decision was made. but we know that's not going to happen and honestly, Frazier is earning his playing time right now.

I don't think there is a "significant" difference in range between Mateo or Ortiz. I'd have to look at the data provided by Fangraphs and Statcast, but I would give Mateo a slight edge, but not significant. Mateo has the better arm but Ortiz is more accurate and probably about major league average.

Ok, so apparently after 20+ years of you guys knowing my ability to scout, you both decide that you will go with "pipeline" lol and a quote from Roch on his speed. So since you don't believe me, maybe use statcast which doesn't lie. Although only a few bolts were measured, he has 79th percentile running. So while Ortiz has never been a base stealer, he covers 28.2 ft/sec vs Frazier's 26.3 ft/sec good for 31st percentile. He's much faster on the base paths pure and simple. As for range, it's not just footspeed that determines range. first step quickness and reaction times are much more important overall on the infield dirt. Ortiz provides much better range than Frazier, who has been well below average range wise.

Yes, I know we have a lot of Rutschman talk over the board, but I felt this deserved it's own thread. I thought of Frank Robinson when it came to player's who turned a franchise around, but Frank just took a really good Orioles team in 1965 (94-68) and turned it into a World Series Championship team that went 97-63 in 1966. So that's certainly worthy of being revered, and rightfully so, I can't find any player in Orioles history or improved the team by so much over his first 160 games in the big leagues. I suppose you could go back to the 1989 team and perhaps find someone (maybe) because of the big turn around from 1988 to 1989, but it's pretty clear, Rutschman is the single best thing to happen to this team on the field.

Personally, I think it's funny when I read people talking about Hyde bashing. Manager' are always going to be second guessed, it comes with the territory. Hyde does things well, and Hyde does some things not so well at times. Like all managers, he's not perfect nor is he some dummy. He's obviously well respected in his clubhouse. Now does he use too many relievers at times and not allowing his length guys to just that, provide length, yep. Does he pull guys for platoon advantages too early in games at time. Yep. Does he have some weird lineups at times? Yep. (Saying that, I don't believe he makes out the lineups but only adjusts what he's been given when there is an injury or something). But, at the end of the day, the team is winning and Hyde is overall doing a nice job. The manager always does a nice job when the team is winning.

Frazier is on a nice heater slashing .314/.368/.543/.911 over his last ten games. I'm happy that he's playing well offensively overall, but his defense has been much worse than I expected from him and he's one of the slowest Orioles on the team. I also still think Ortiz is a much better player overall than Frazier which still goes back to the lack of need to sign him. But, saying that, I hope the guy continues to play well and I hope his defense evens outs a bit though nothing is going to improve that lack of arm strength. The good news is that overall, his arm while it lacks strength, is accurate. So I know that the pro Frazier people (the few that there were) are going to be running victory laps, and that's fine. But things to remember, Ortiz is a much better defender than Frazier, much faster, and if given the same amount of PAs as Frazier, who's to say he would not be doing as well or better? We also have to think of how many PAs Urias did not get because of Frazier so Urias' production pre injury was out performing Frazier both offensively and defensively. So great, I'm happy that Frazier is doing well, but nothing he does will take away from the fact that Elias signed a player to a position that we did not have a need for and while he's been good of late, He was OPSing .674 just 8 games ago. I hope he continues to do well, but I would not be surprised if this is not his high water mark for the season.

Of course he needs to go to AA next, and I've said in previous threads that I don't see him in the big leagues this year due to several reasons, including 4 legitimate options ahead of him to play SS. He's doing things statistically, including controlling the strike zone that we have not seen in such a young player. Now Gunnar lost his true 19-year old season because of COVID, but at 20-years old (really 6 months older than Holliday), Henderson slashed .231/.343/.432/.775 striking out two times to every walk. At 19-years old, Adley Rutschman slashed .234/.322/.306/.629 with a 27 to 39 BB-K ratio. Between Delmarva and Aberdeen, Holliday is slashing .394/.513/.701/1.214 with an astounding 31 to 27 BB to K ratio. On top of it, he's committed just two errors in 27 starts at SS and has made several outstanding plays that shows his defensive abilities. So while we are used to players going one level at a time and moving more slowly, Holiday appears to be one of those very special players. As a 1-1 pick, but not a consensus 1-1 pick by any stretch of the imagination, it's expected that he would do well, but he's doing historically well right now. They may have to move him to AA soon because pitchers in the Sally League are already pitching around him at times. So if there were no controllability issues, do I think Holliday could play in the major leagues right now? I do. Do I think he would struggle a bit up there because of the jump in competition, sure, most 19-year olds throughout history did. If Holliday can go up to AA and do well this year, I think he truly puts himself on the radar next year. Is there a chance at sometime in the second half of next year the Orioles field a defense of Henderson, Ortiz and Holliday (Ortiz is a slightly ahead of Holliday for me defensive at SS, but I need to see more of Holliday before saying that fully)? I think that's a very real possibility. Now, could they keep him in the minors all next year as well in order to keep him off the 40-man and not have to pay him so close to Adley and Henderson and even Ortiz? Sure. The financial situation can never be discounted. Right now, Holliday is a better player all around overall prospect than Henderson ever was in the minor leagues and Henderson was the #1 prospect in baseball coming into this season. I don't talk in hyperboles and if anything, I'm harder on Orioles prospects than many others that evaluate them. Holliday is looking more and more special every day. He's about as "can't miss" as it gets for a 19-year old in High-A ball.

Two new players drop into the top 30: Wandisson Charles: Did the Orioles find themselves a new gem? 98 MPH fastball, sharp slider and occasional split finger. He might not be the mountain but he's throwing strikes looks at least like "The Hill". Elio Prado: Drops on the scene after controlling the strike zone a bit but really made it due to a lack of performance from others. Yennier Cano graduated as he is no longer a rookie.

Thru 15

It's hard to say because we haven't seen him hit against upper level pitching, but I can say that I've seen him lay off pitches just off the plate and rarely swings and miss. He's 5 months younger than Manny was when he played his "19 year old " season and Manny ended the year in Baltimore and never put up the plate discipline or power that Holliday has already showed. What's he's doing so far has not been done by any Orioles farm hand was was drafted out of high school since I've been covering them.