Tony-OH

Wait, more people want Davis than Mayo playing 3B? Did I miss a poll or are you referring to the "X" opinion loons? Mayo is going to be just fine and I for one would not be happy to see Davis playing 3B and Mayo in AAA unless Mayo was about to put up historically bad numbers to start his career. Even then I'd rather see Urias than Davis at 3B.

Yeah, I said the same thing in the Grayson thread. I honestly wasn't thinking about Grayson when I quoted that post. But I agree, that's the most likely scenario.

I've a big of a supporter as they come with Mayo, but if you recall earlier this year, I said major league pitches will go after him with breaking balls because he had a high whiff rate with them in AAA. Sure enough, they've done just that throwing how over 50% breaking balls including a lot of slider. Now I think Coby will make the adjustments and will begin to hit the mistakes, but there is no doubt that is something he needs to fix. It's been 12 PAs so I wouldn't take too much out of any of this other than it's obvious what the scouting report is on him and obvious that his 71.4% whiff rate against breaking balls says the scouting report is right. Now he made some adjustments to AAA breaking balls and certainly showed he could hit the mistakes at times. Now, we have to see how he adjusts with major league breaking balls.

Davis' defense at 3B is pretty bad outside of 2023. I can't imagine them sending Mayo down to keep Davis. the only reason to do that is to try and maintain Mayo's rookie status for next year.

I don't necessarily disagree that Soto deserves any trust. Would I had rather had Akin in that spot, absolutely. I'm just saying between Burch and Soto, it's Soto's job to get that out.

Hyde does tends to go a little too platoon heavy and does not always fully consider the pitcher involved and how he's been pitching of late. Saying that, Soto was coming off a good outing and his job is to get batters out. He failed miserably in doing so. I think the move is still defensible because Burch has allowed lefties to hit .349/.388/.476/.864 off him this year. If he was kept out there and a lefty hit a bomb off him, everyone would be asking why not Soto? Sometimes a guy just ha a bad night. Unfortunately for Soto, he's had two in his three games with the Orioles.

I guess they did have interest since they signed him. I'm hoping it's for minor league depth and not to send Mayo back to AAA.

I assume this is minor league depth because I don't see a role for him on the major league team.

Agreed, once Burnes was acquired, the team looked to have pretty good starting pitching depth. I still wish they would have signed Bassitt a few years back like I wanted them too. But I think that was an Angelos thing more than an Elias thing.

I'm going to imagine this brings Akin back up with Suarez staying in the rotation.

Well written and expresses my thoughts as well. The Orioles need to do a better job of identifying guys that are most likely heading to be relievers if they focus on two pitches vs trying to take guys and continue to use them as starters while using 4 or 5 pitches, 3 of which are not good. I really think once a guy hits AAA he should be developed in the role that they think he will be used at in the majors.

Haha. He is for me, but if you want to track him, feel free. I've watched some of his at bats this year and he is not impressive at all. Just a situation where he probably peaked at 14-15 years old and now the Orioles have to eat that money and move on. He might survive the year because Griff O'Ferrall is the only infielder that should be coming from the draft class since it's doubtful they will throw a high schooler (Layton) into Low-A the year he was drafted. Though they sent Anderson De Los Santos back so he could in theory play the 3B Hernandez has been playing.

Who goes for him though? Akin had to go because of numbers and because he had an option. So who goes if he comes up and Soto goes to "mop up". I think the Orioles are going to live with Soto right now, but he will probably have to do some mop up work for a bit. They certainly aren't going to give up on him after two bad appearances.

Actually Moises Chace who went with Johnson may end up the better prospect and big league player. Johnson didn't do a lot to impress me this year and while he was pitching better of late, he has to hope that cutter becomes the "fastball" that he needed because that fastball was flat and hittable.

Just that he's not "under the radar" but a failed prospect having a decent week. I mean, feel free to talk about anyone that you want, I just think there needs a be a bit of a rational thought process behind being an "under the radar" guy. Like Frobby has been on the Van Loon kick. that's fine. He's performing well at AA and he very well may have added something that i still can't see, but to me, he' a legitimate "under the Radar" prospect vs a guy who has shown us his entire career that he can't hit or really field all that well and then had a good week.

Tough break for the him and the Orioles. I don't know much about this injury but have to imagine that he's done for the year. This is what AI said about Scapula Stress reaction. A scapular stress reaction is a rare repetitive motion injury to the shoulder blade, or scapula, that can cause bone marrow edema and a noticeable decrease in velocity. Symptoms include: Shoulder pain Stiffness Reduced range of motion, especially when lifting your arm over your head Weakness Grinding or snapping sounds when moving your shoulder Winging of the scapula Drooped or forward tilted posture on the affected side The only immediate treatment is to rest and allow the bone time to heal. If left untreated, it could lead to a stress fracture.

It was the right move, just Soto was unable to do his job. I don't know if he's just stressing to impress his new tam or what, but when you blow 2 of the 3 games you pitch in and have a 54.00 ERA in them, that's not a good way to earn the trust of your manager or new team. This move has backfired on Elias already. I think the idea was probably right that Soto can miss bats, and supposedly dominate lefties, but they demoted Akin despite him doing this so far this year: Looks like the guy that would have been a good bet in yesterday's game vs Soto.

Yeah, good point, I forgot to add Coulombe who was a huge loss for the pen. Hopefully he'll be back by the end of September though. Sure could have used him last night because Perez would have been in the Soto role.

I love your passion, but you are way off. This is about as small a sample size as you can get and he's never, ever hit. He's got a slow bat, can't recognize spin, and is a bit of defensive car wreck pretty much everywhere he plays. His career .175/.291/.249/.540 slash line tells us a lot more than 31 PAs.

Josenberger has been doing very well of late, but I need to see him in AA before getting too "excited" about him. We've seen guys find AA as a stumbling block offensively so hopefully he and EBJ will get some AA PAs this year and see how they look.

Suarez has really been a life saver for this team considering they found him on the scrap heap of foreign league available players. While not earth shattering, Suarez has been good overall based on his 4 pitching runs value overall. He's a solid 5th starter but he's a 5 inning guy who is going to have some clunkers when has command is off. Outside of a terrible July, he's been pretty good and hopefully last night showed he's ready to get back on track. He's a two times through the order, 75-pitch, guy so there is going to be some solid bullpen work needed when he pitches.

Obviously losing Grayson for a significant amount of time, which looks likely based on the reported injury, is going to be tough to overcome. The Orioles will have lost Bradish, Means, Wells, and now Grayson which meant 4 of the 5 projected starters or depth starters are now out with significant injuries. With already losing Bautista last year, the Westburg and Mateo injuries this year, and this team has really gotten beaten up with injuries. The post that showed that Suarez has actually pitched similarly to Grayson as a starter this year does give me some hope that it won't be a knock out punch, but it does make it unlikely this team is going to win the Division now. Suarez did pitch well last night, but he's pretty much a five inning starter that still going to have some real bad games mixed in with his good ones. I guess we need to see how long Grayson is going to be out before getting too upset, but yep, this is certainly a gut punch.

Peguero is most certainly just a fill in because his defense is solid. He's basically filling to role that Noelberth Romero filled earlier. It has nothing to do with prospects status and in fact, suggests the org does not consider him a prospect by an org filler.

Absolutely, and it's not sustainable. After Basallo, I'm not sure who the impact hitting prospects are at this point. Perhaps someone from the new draft will be that guy or perhaps an international guy will pop, but I'll be honest, I'm struggling to find the guys to get excited about after Basallo (excluding this draft class). So that means what for the future? I really think Elias has to start drafting pitching higher in the draft and go for some high risk/reward high school arms. Rajsich was not afraid to do that and he ended up Grayson and DL Hall. Elias has been swinging and missing on a lot of college bats the last few drafts, or at least they have not really jumped out us like a Westburg, Cowser or Kjerstad. Now Horvath helped get Eflin, but Haskin, Wagner, Beavers, Fabian and even Bradfield to a lesser extent have not exactly wowed. I look at this team and see a lot of Elias drafted players, but I see a lot of top 1st or early 2nd round talent. If he's going to keep using his 2nd-5th round selections mainly on college bats, he's going to need to hit on them more because he's going to be lower in those rounds.