Tony-OH

Updated thru May 20th. Some movers at the bottom of the list with pitchers really taking steps forward. Not a ton of hitters really doing well over the last ten days or so.

Just to track last week's update.

With Mayo out for a bit with a broken rib, this is all on hold anyways! Saying that, I'm a proponent of moving Holliday to CF. He has the speed and with Mullins scuffling, he gives them a nice option in 2025 out there or even late 2024 IF, Holliday shows he can play there effectively and Mullins is still scuffling with the bat. I would have have play about 60% there and 40% at 2B.

I'll be honest, wasn't on my radar until this post. I went back and watched his outing and all of your observations are right on in my opinion. Lots of swing and miss and definitely not a195 pounds lol. Has had command problem in past but not this outing. I'll see what I an dig up about him but would be nice to have velo.

He's top ten for me easy. The real question is whether he's the team's best pitching prospect or not? Povich has it right now due to his success in AAA, but nobody brings the stuff that DeLeon brings consistently in the system. He's a taller Cionel Perez with a changeup.

Ha, I know you love your boy! He is improving but while he's "versatile" in that he has experience at a lot of positions, he's not really good at any of them. He reminds me a bit of Rick Short but shorty was a better hitter overall albeit with a little less power than Cook. I still think he's an org guy but he may at some point work his way into a major league bench one day. There are worse guys who played in the majors for sure.

He's a guy that probably needs to be challenged in AA now. I watched some of his outing last night and he gest a lot of chase on the fastball up in the zone. He reminds me of Albert Suarez a bit with the riding fastball, slider, changeup mix. He did walk 3 last night, but he really got squeezed from an inconsistent A-ball umpire at times.

Also, slumps typically get magnified when the team is struggling to score runs, which is something this team has had for a few weeks now.

Catchers are still calling games. Only the catcher can call a pitch to the pitcher, not the bench.

Suarez is not going to shake off Rutschman. He might have experience, but he's still new here.

Any "game plan" that says throw 9 fastballs out of 12 pitches to one batter should be burned unless pitcher is Felix Bautista.

Yeah, it was a rare night off for him, but that pitch sequencing really has me annoyed. I'm watching going, "Throw a changeup!!""""

I guess. I mean, when you see 9 out of 12 pitches being a fastball, you are bound to barrel one up. Just an absolutely abysmal pitch calling.

Hey, what do you know, a changeup. Rutschman owes that run to the team.

Terrible pitch calling buy Rutschman. Why not a change? How many fastballs do you need to throw before he's going to timing something up. I mean, crap job by Suarez not being able to finish France off down 0-2, but still, really, really poor pitch calling.

This was my thought after last season in his scouting profile, "With the Orioles currently stacked with second base and shortstops, they can take it a bit slow and allow him to physically mature in AAA next year if there is not an immediate need. We could see the Orioles giving him the Gunnar Henderson treatment by bringing him up late in August so he's available for a playoff roster, but not giving him enough PAs to lose his rookie status for 2025." In this offseason though, Elias said Holliday had a real chance to make the team and then he went out and had a fairly good spring (though with a lot of whiff). I kind of thought maybe I had underestimated him and knowing that the Orioles have more data than I had, I kinda of came to the assessment that the only reason he was sent back was to game his clock. Then he put up good numbers in AAA and it really looked like that was the reason. Then his absolutely disastrous, almost unprecedented immediate failure at the major league level for a any hitting prospect, not to mention he was supposedly the #1 prospects in all of baseball. Since being rightfully returned to AAA, Holliday has slashed .235/.395/.397/.792 in 86 PAs over 18 games, so not exactly making the Orioles look bad for sending him back. I think sometimes we all forgot that last season he went through a pretty long spell in Aberdeen where he did hit well at all, so it's not like he never had a bad spell last year despite being promoted aggressively by the Orioles. So whether Cal or I or anyone thinks he was rushed or not, what his numbers have shown us is that he's not ready. YET! Holliday still hits the ball hard and he's still extremely young. He's going to be just fine and this blip will be just that, a blip in what should be a long career. But for now, I'm fine with him getting more experience in AAA.

The Giants outfield depth was decimated by injury and they were starting 22-year old Luis Matos (Not not that one!) in CF despite him slashing .218/.308/.355/.663 in AAA at the time of his promotion. McKenna might actually get some playing time there. Good luck to 'ol headband! May his one-handed catches at chest level be successful!

The Orioles have plenty of 8th reliever candidates anyways. Jonathan Heasley (0.60, 0.73 WHIP) and Dillon Tate (3.60, 0.80 WHIP) are on the 40-man while Kade Strowd (3.00, 0.67 WHIP) may have the best stuff of the three. And that's not even considering the Chayce McDermott could still be an option in the pen this year though I think they'd use the other ones first and keep him starting in AAA.

The Orioles ae trying to win a World Series and I guess they've finally decided that they are not going burn an option on a better pitcher just not to lose their 8th best reliever. Baumann is such an inconsistent pitcher, but I don't think there is any chance he makes it through waivers. Saying that, it's the evolution of a winning team that you have to start "sacrificing" serviceable, but inconsistent pitchers/players to move forward. Baumann may have a good year in him somewhere, but he's just so inconsistent that I don't know how anyone can use him consistently in anything other than a mop up role.

https://sports.yahoo.com/cal-ripken-jr-believes-orioles-133210532.html I would have typically seen this is nothing more than an ex-Oriole having some thoughts, but now that Cal is part owner, I find it a bit more interesting.

The MLB uniform and hat designers are absolutely horrible. But if the Orioles win, they can wear there pajamas!

They got to do better for armed forces weekend than that! Yuck.

I just got back from Virginia, but has anyone mentioned the absolute horrid hat the O's are wearing tonight?

You have to imagine with an option, he's the primary option.

He has not options though. I doubt they DFA him, but they might.