Tony-OH

I'm fine with surely guys who perform well. Hell, I rooted from Albert Belle. But he made himself the key voice of the rich, elite players who tried to destroy the negotiations at every turn and for that, I hope he's never an Oriole. I'd rather always root against him, no matter how good he is on the hill.

Trimble had a nice home run off a mid to high 90's right-hander. Wasn't incredibly deep but he got it over the fence.

You missed the point.

Literally the only good thing. lol

I'll be honest, most of my dislike from him comes from his ridiculously selfish comments during the lock out this winter and spring. It has nothing to do with any kind of inside knowledge of his personality. I know I'm not giving him credit for buying some dinner for his minor league teammates when he makes an unGodly $198,000,000 since 2015. Again, people can like him, I'm fine with that, but I will never ever like someone who tried to keep the players not playing because he could afford it. He could have cared less about the players who could not. He could have cared less about the fans. All he cared about how he could get more money and how other elite players could be paid like him.

He's a jerk in every sense. He did everything in his power to try and destroy this season due to his own greed. He cares less about the game, fans or anything other than enrichening himself with the most money he can. He's a turd and I don't want to have to root for him.

True that. I dislike him as a person, but he's a pheromonal pitcher who understands the weakness of his opponent.

If he's here by 2024 I will be shocked. I think he's a guy Elias will move this offseason. He's the exact opposite hitter the organization is training.

As much as I want a #1, I don't want anything to do with the King of Mercenaries on this team. This team has been a well gelled unit and they don't need a guy who cares about himself, Justin, and Verlander.

I would have not for the little league swing Mountcastle took on strike three. I don't tip my cap to a pitcher who throws a pitch so high that only the most embarrassingly undisciplined hitter would swing at the pitch.

Just a totally embarrassing swing by Mountcastle. I'm about done with him as part of the future. He just doesn't have the plate discipline and Hyde is doing no one any favors by batting him 4th.

Its weird that they are batting him 9th behind obvious non prospects. I'm sure it's some kind of ease him in thing, but I've not been impressed with the lineups at the minor league level at times this year. Prospects should be getting the most PAs and should be at the top of lineups over org guys.

Wagner has been out since Wednesday August 24th when he went 2-for-4. Anyone know why?

Its crazy to think it's almost 20 years ago at this point.

When a hitter immediately turns around and looks at the catcher, you know he hit the mitt or a string or something. Adley looked like he got his hand caught in the cookie jar (he would be a bad poker player) but the replay showed no movement of the glove so it probably was just a string or just nicked something. Either way, I doubt it stopped the ball from going much further or harder.

While we need to calm the jets a bit on college players doing well in A Ball, I will say this group of Beavers, Fabian, and Young are way more athletic with better swing decisions than previous draft classes, especially last year with Trimble, Rhodes and Williams all looking to have limited ceilings. Now saying that, they are off to some nice starts to their careers especially Young and Fabian who did not have good college seasons. Young definitely has some pitch recognition issues that I've already seen and Fabian was overwhelmed by a pitcher who was throwing in the high 90s in one at bat, so we have a ways to go before claiming success yet. I will say even Hobbs has a nice set up at the plate and Retzbach reportedly has some of the best EVs on the team in BP though I'm not sure about his catch tool in the games I've seen so far.

Well, in the sense that they were both left-handed and threw hard yes, but Hall has a totally different repertoire. At his best, Riley was a 94-97 t 98 with a hard 12-6 curveball and a very limited straight change. Hall is a 95-98, t 100 with a plus change, slider and curveball with both horizontal and vertical movements. He also is way more mature than Matt was while in the minor leagues.

Since I love using film room on baseball savant, I decided to show all the contact that had 94 EV or more against Kremer last night so everyone can decide for themselves. Personally, I think you guys are arguing over symantics a bit when it comes to "hard hit". Hard hit is defined by anything velocity hit 94 MPH or harder, but it does not constitute a barrel which is much more important because it includes launch angles. RZNJ is right in that most of the "hard hits" were into the ground, popped upish, or ended up routine outs outside of Altuves's two and one of Tucker's hard fouls. I think there was another Tucker hit that was pretty hard but right at McKenna. Kremer's GB% has increased 7.2% and his flyball rate has decreased 10.1% so some of that hard contact is going into areas where there's a better chance of getting the player out. Here's all nine hard contacts last night. https://www.mlb.com/video/00u7jzgkdtP9kH55c356/reels/kremer-hard-hits

Thank you, I appreciate it. I've always just done what I thought was best and always had good people to help me out when I was in away while serving with guys like Rich Legendre, John Doman, Scott Hoffman pulling big roles while I was in Afghanistan and Iraq and then of course Michael Williams for so many years before his passing last year. While it's clear the new organization leadership and PR department does not appreciate me or the Hangout, I'm more proud that Hangouters like yourself do. In the end, that's what this site was always about.

Actually there's a story in my book about kebabs when I went out on a HUMINT mission in the Bamian province. I do love them, but the funny part was when the little kid came in from outside with the Naan for the table. He had the dirtiest hands you ever saw and when he put the Naan on the table, we all went in to grab the middle pieces! lol

Apparently your book does not understand launch angles.

I agree this is the key to next year being a legitimate competitive team all season. I like what Kremer has done and Bradish has been able to dominate mainly with two pitches thanks to his plus slider, but Wells is probably more of a 4th starter type, Watkins is a 5th starter at best and we don't know what Means will look like when he returns. Saying that, this is Kremer's thread so at the end of the day, I think he's in the opening day 2023 rotation.

Really disappointing outing for him last night and I think his chances of being one of the two players the Orioles can add in September is getting worse and worse. He's getting behind just about every hitter and he's not really dominating AAA hitters. I don't see him as being ready the way he's pitching right now in anything other than a mop up role. Since the Orioles put him through that weird one inning start on July 22nd, he's pitched to a 9.90 ERA with batters slashing .302/.398.558/.956 including his one strange start with the Orioles. He's walked 15 in those 20 IP and struck out 30. He's pitched a total of 83 IP this year after throwing 31.2 last year so they may just have him finish off the year in AAA and send him home for the year. If they could expand the roster past 28 it might make some sense to have him around for some mop up work to see if he can figure some things out, but right now the command is not there and there's no consistency from him.

They may be just using him in relief the rest of this season but will try him next year. It was hard to see what he was throwing with the camera angle available in the feed, but he's got a nice smooth repeatable delivery and looks built like a starter so I wouldn't be surprised if he's not starting next year in Aberdeen.

I think without a doubt he will be better than Benítez was with the Orioles, but Benítez was much younger when he arrived on the scene. Bautista seems to have a very good head on his shoulders and doesn't get too caught up in the moment like Benitez struggled with earlier in his career. Now will he last as long as Benitez did or accumulate the 17.5 WAR he did over his career, that depends on his ability to stay healthy. Benitez had a very under appreciated career in the major leagues that was marred by the beaning of Martinez in the playoffs with the Orioles.