Tony-OH

You can't possibly think this is true, can you? The Orioles did not trade away Hernaiz for a guy who will battle for the last spot in the bullpen. He's in the rotation to start the year barring an injury. Barring Injury, the rotation will include Gibson, Irvin, Kremer, Bradish and Grayson Rodriguez. Wells and Voth will go to the pen.

BLUF: Elias acquired a legitimate left-handed starting pitcher for a tweener prospect that plays a position of organizational depth. Analysis: The first place I go to when the Orioles acquire a big league pitcher is Baseball savant to look at his stuff and on first look, if you go by his 2022 percentiles it doesn't look very good. But when you look at the results, things look a lot better: The next step with to try and figure out how he has success and what jumped out at me was how much success he has with a low spin rate 90.7 MPH 4-seamer. He actually gets his best WHIFF rates from the pitch, but how? From what I see he gets 99% active spin and that must allow that pitch to play up. Consider Bruce Zimmermann's 4-seamer is about 1 MPH faster but has just an 81% active spin despite having almost 400 more RPM on his spin rate than Irvin. Zimmermann's fastball is absolutely creamed by major league hitters and he has just a 12% whiff rate. Irvin also sinks the ball about 1 mph slower but they come out of the same "tunnel" so one kinda stays on plane more and the other sinks. I think that helps that 4-seamer play up. The curveball and change are ok, but nothing special. Occasionally the curveball gets real good break horizontally and others times not as much which makes me wonder if he's doing that on purpose or sometimes it just backs up on him. Last year he pitched very well against lefties (.638 OPS) so I'd imagine teams will use righties against him which should help him with the Orioles cavernous dimensions in left and left center. He slots in the rotation this year and gives them more innings that they can count on a bit. We have to remember that Grayson may only have 100-120 innings to give this year and Wells might be better in a relief role overall, so I'm good with giving the rotation that left-handed mix. You can read more about Darrel Hernaiz by clicking on his name, but in summary, he's a tweener guy for me who has a little upside to be a starter, but has to develop more consistent game power to move into a starter role. Then, where does he play because he doesn't have the arm strength for SS and has accuracy problems everywhere on the diamond. Could he put it together at 2B and become a guy, perhaps, but he's worth getting a cheap major league starter who should give the team 180 innings of average major league pitching out of the rotation. I don't know much about Kyle Virbitsky but when I take a longer look I'll let you know. Overall, I like this trade as it improves the team, but it pretty much closes the door on the Orioles bringing in an impact starting pitcher this offseason.

For this year? That's a deep, deep sleeper pick since there is no indications he will make the opening day roster with the current personnel on the 40-man and his struggles at AAA last year.

It's a great question. From all indications the Orioles are very profitable whether they win or lose as long as they keep the salaries down which is what they've done. I don't personally think John cares whether the team wins of loses as long as it suits his ability to feel important and make money.

Well the one thing that's openly obvious, the money being spent on the major league team is judicious at best. Their $48,841,666 projected payroll for 2023 is 28th of 20 teams. not exactly a liftoff. I'm just going to remain as consistent as possible on my feelings on ownership. Whether it's Peter, Georgia, John or Lou running things it's still an Angelos. As long as it's an Angelos running things the organization will be run on a shoe-string budget until it's sold. There will be no "lift-offs" or trading for big salaries like they did in Houston to take that next step. The number one goal for every Orioles fan should be that this team is sold to an owner that will actually want to pay for a 1st class product that Orioles fans deserve. They hired the right guy to rebuild the franchise from within with Elias, but I don't believe he's been given the funds to take that next step and he won't as long as the Angelos family drama continues as owners of this franchise.

When real contenders have a real offseason with real major league impact acquisitions, they usually don't need 30 page threads on DFA signings. But this is the Orioles and we are Orioles fans. That's not in the cards for us. My biggest concern over the Orioles offseason is it told me the situation is one of these: A) Angelos gave Elias a budget that was way under what he was expecting after he gave the liftoff statement B) Elias was caught by surprised by the market, overwhelmed and outmaneuvered by franchises fresh with MLB TV money who were able to use that to add impact talent. C) Elias is so risk adverse that he's unwilling to go over two-year contracts and is unwilling to add potential impact players unless they come with limited risk (rare). Oh, it also tells me his major league scouts and talent advisors felt it made more sense to spend on Frazier and Gibson rather than Bassitt and Westburg/Ortiz. Not really sure any of these make me feel good about the Orioles taking the next step without doing it almost solely by drafting a developing impact players from the farm system.

Maybe print off the top 75 prospects list as well. That should give you the best names to look for in 2023.

I just wish the Rogers center would put grass in so it isn't garbage watching the game on TV. Between the Blue Jays and the Rays, the AL East has the two worse stadiums to watch games in within the AL.

Personally, I think that those big pull hitting left-handed hitters will see the greatest bump. I can't sit here and give a number, but I do think we'll see a rise on left-handed hitters with high averages. Now the one thing people need to remember is that "shifting" is still going to occur just not as extreme. SS or 3B can still play up the middle on left-handed hitters, just not a few steps over while the 2B plays shallow RF like in the past. Same with pull hitting RHB. 2B may still be playing up the middle as long as they have both feet on the right side of the bag (at least that's what I think I read). So honestly, the biggest difference is on the 2B/3B no longer allowed to play shallow right field.

Some of my favorite memories of my own baseball highlights came from throws from the outfield to home and 3rd. Love that as well obviously. That Shelby throw may have been the highlight of his Orioles career and was certainly a throw Bumbry was not capable of making.

This was what people said last year with Odor. We shall see. I'm hoping the Orioles will be buyers at next year's trading deadline. If they are sellers again then things did not go as planned.

Are we just talking RHPs? I think Trace Bright has some real potential to take a big leap next year. Carlos Tavera #31, just fell off the list but if he stays healthy, he's a real sleeper. Juan De Los Santos #34, can really bring it but needs a swing and miss offspeed pitch, but the arm strength might really play up if they move him to relief. Cade Strowd #38, really looked like a different guy when he came back off injury. Command is still an issue for him but he can really spin a curveball and his fastball was sitting 96-98 in some late year outings.

I think everything about Frazier is prove it as well, but if there's one thing I expect is for his defense to still be above average. At the end of the day, "We shall see!" Regardless, if Westburg is tearing up AAA and playing a decent 2B (where he should be getting most of his time this up coming season) the Frazier signing will still look questionable, especially for the dollar amount.

Don't question The Frobby's methods. Lol

I kinda understand why he's stayed away from press for all these years after listening to him lately. Reminds me of the Lincoln quote, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."

And here we are in the offseason where it's so boring, we have to bring up a conversation that we had beaten the horse to a bloody pulp! As the owner of this place, I say bravo @wildcard! At the end of the day, we all hope he does well now regardless of how we feel about the deal. Saying that, if Westburg and/or Ortiz tear it up in AAA for the first two months, the conversation will get quite loud once again. Regardless, I think everyone expects him to be a good defender. That was never in question.

#3 2020 Prospect: Ryan Mountcastle - LF/1B - Orioles Hangout

I think after the World Series is the best time, but honestly, if it went away I'd be fine.

The timing of the WBC is awful. I'm not fan of it overall, but making it during spring training is ridiculously stupid. Nobody but die hards in the US really cares about this fake world teams anyways, but when you start messing with teams ability to prepare for the season it really becomes what it is. And that's a moneygrab by MLB.

I don't recall anyone complaining about Diaz. It was the redundant O'Hearn and his $1.4 million contract that made us head scratch. I'm fine with Diaz as AAA depth and even O'Hearn as AAA depth, just think his price tag and the fact you could have had the very same player with a split major/minor league contract vs unnecessarily grabbing a depth piece for that price tag. But hey, the Orioles ae clearly rolling in TV money, so why not throw $1.4 on a AAA depth first baseman? Personally I would have preferred Bassitt, Westburg and Diaz as AAA depth instead of Gibson, Frazier, and O'Hearn as AAA depth, but I'm just some internet dude.

I've always wondered that as well, especially since the knee is not always defined. Also, is the system going to call it by the strike zone definition in the rule book. "The Strike Zone is that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the bottom of the knees. The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batter's stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball."

Yeah, I agree in the sense that this robs Rutschman of some of his defensive value.

Raymond Sosa. Thomas Sosa is the hitter they signed last year.

You have to like the athleticism, soft hands and the quickness of the arm. Can't tell much about the bat from these videos, but I like the way he flows there at SS.