Tony-OH

True, and I think this is the year where they try to win. But we know this team is coming off a 52 win season so even a 20 games improvement would be a lot and that still makes them a 90 loss team this year. No amount of free agent signings will help that. The only reason to sign a big free agent is if you feel they are the guy you can build around and you have no one in your system that is coming up in the future. The Orioles right now can legitimately say they have legitimate starters or high level (close to ready) prospects at C, 1B, 2B, 3B, LF, CF, RF, two starting pitchers and plenty of potential relievers. They may have a SS but we still need to see if Henderson (will he get too big or will his hands not improve), Westburg (arm strength concerns as an everyday SS), or Ortiz (will the bat play?) can stick there as an everyday guy. What this team really needs is some starting pitching and hopefully this year will be the year they find out who if any among Zimmermann, Lowther, T. Wells, A. Wells, Akin, Kremer, Bradish and Baumann can be part of that future rotation.

Absolutely, any twitter information is fine. just cut and paste the link to the tweet and it will show up.

I had elbow soreness every spring when I caught. Lots of throws back to pitchers in bullpens.

C'mon Rob, tone it down a bit. You are better than this reply.

But if you want to talk approach, maybe make a thread and keep it in there instead of spamming every minor move with your disgust. This move by itself is just a minor depth move. It's no big deal one way or the other.

I think you missed the sarcasm in that title!

Ok, if saying I'm ok with signing a super utility guy to a minor league contract is your definition of defending it, then sure, I'm defending it. lol You crack me up sometimes. Norfolk needs some depth guys as well and a guy who can play just about every position decently is not a bad guy to have in the org. Now if we signed him to a major league contract and Elias said he's going to be the everyday "fill in the blank" I'd have issues. Otherwise, it's just a depth move which all teams are making. Every signing does not need to "move the needle" to be ok.

Are we defending it or saying it's an ok depth move? You don't have to poo-poo every small move because it's not the splashy one you want.

Super utility depth. Not the worse guy to have in the org for a "break glass in case of emergency" guy.

I think we'll see him by May as well. He's the best starter they have right now.

Somebody needs to get through to him that he should focus on the slider and maybe one other offspeed pitch. Guy comes in for one inning and throws 5 pitches.

Nope, his save percentage last year was not good.

Updated with comments for every player in camp as of 3/14.

Transactions 3/14 - Signed Robinson Chirinos (C) to one year $900K contract to fill 40-man roster.

The best news the Orioles could have here is that Correa signs with the Astros for a one year contract. This would allow them another year to see if they think Henderson, Westburg or Ortiz can be an everyday major league SS. There are defensive concerns with both Henderson and Westburg at SS and Ortiz needs to prove it with the bat over a full season. So if they access all three are not the option, maybe the Orioles will be more inclined to give a big offer to Correa in 2022-23 off season. If one of those three step up, then you save that money for pitching.

Lopez was 96-98 in relief last year and struck out 10 of the 33 batters he faced in that role. Small sample size for sure, but if that's garbage, I wish the Orioles had a lot more garbage pitching for them in the bullpen this year. So pitching him at closer over a guy with a career 68% save percentage is insane? You and I have different definition for insane. I don't know if Lopez can handle the pressure of being a closer because it's really tough to know until a pitcher does it at the major league level. But I do know and have shown in a previous post that Sulser pitches much better in non save situations than save situations. It's not INSANE to suggest another option over him because he's struggled in his chances with that role.

This is a very small sample size, but: Split G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR SB CS BB SO SO/W BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB ROE BAbip tOPS+ sOPS+ 1st PA in G, as SP 25 224 194 23 53 9 1 4 0 1 24 50 2.08 .273 .368 .392 .760 76 7 5 1 0 0 0 .350 79 118 2nd PA in G, as SP 25 212 184 28 52 11 0 12 0 0 23 38 1.65 .283 .373 .538 .911 99 7 4 0 1 2 0 .296 110 143 3rd PA in G, as SP 20 85 76 18 31 8 0 3 0 0 6 14 2.33 .408 .447 .632 1.079 48 0 1 0 2 0 0 .459 150 176 1st PA in G, as RP 8 33 31 3 6 0 0 2 0 0 2 10 5.00 .194 .242 .387 .630 12 0 0 0 0 0 0 .211 44 74 I've already discussed the jump in stuff in relief in my previous post.

I'm assuming that "another infielder" would be a third baseman since Kelvin Gutierrez is the current odds on favorite to be the opening day option at 3rd baseman with the current members in camp. Now with Westburg, Henderson, Ortiz about year or so away, they really could use a one year option. The problem is, that guy is not really out there. That leaves the door wide open for Rylan Bannon or Patrick Dorrian to get a chance this season. Gutierrez and Dorrian might make a decent platoon, but Gutierrez is the best defensively of all three so right now it looks like him unless his offense is a zero. Gutierrez is one of the most extreme groundball hitters you will see in the majors so I'm guessing they've been working on him to hit the ball on more on a line with lift. It'll be interesting to see what he looks like.

I've heard early reports that Darell Hernaiz and John Rhodes have come back stronger and looking good.

He's certainly worth a minor league contract, but I think he may have burnt some bridges with his comments about the Orioles medical staff last year. As for him being DFA'd before even looking at him at spring training, makes you wonder whether he was healthy or whether he didn't pass his physical.

I agree. It's very doubtful someone that is in the BBWA would make something up. However, in this climate of trying to get information out on Twitter first, the days of doing due diligence and checking multiple sources before reporting a "rumor" is pretty much gone. Not saying he didn't do that since I don't know him at all, just saying that the landscape has changed.

I would not be hugely surprised if we start seeing these one year deals so these guys can get going for this year and then have a whole offseason next year to get their worth.

I don't think you know that for sure. I've never heard anything about his makeup other than good things. I think it had a lot more to do with he just gets fatigued after 50 pitches. His walk rates sky rocketed up after 50 pitches so even though he had good velocity, his ability to command starts to flutter as he fatigues. I think he's a classic example of guy who's been pigeon holed into a role he wasn't set out to do because the stuff suggests starter because of the amount of quality pitches he can throw. I think he's going to surprise some people out of the pen, the place I was hoping they would move him to all year last year.

Or was he fed information by an agent in order for the NY teams to see it so they can squeeze more money out of them? Maybe this guy is the new Jon Heyman? The other thing everyone needs to remember is this is a guy who had elbow surgery in October and won't pitch until June at the earliest. He's a wild card on what he looks like in his return.

I agree with everyone that it could be Sulser's job to lose, and Lopez's ability to stretch gives him some value in that long relief/piggy back role, but I really think Lopez's stuff plays at an elite level in one inning stints. Now can he be consistent? Can he pitch on back to back days if needed? Those are questions I wish we would have found out last year though he did pitch in back to back games twice last season as a reliever before getting shut down due to the ankle injury. Now Sulser's changeup became a real weapon for him last year garnering a 34.1% WHIF rate and that does give him a strikeout weapon, but when Lopez went to the pen, he showed the ability to miss bats as well. In Lopez's first BP outing he got a .4 MPH uptick in velocity on his sinker and 4-seams to 95.8 MPH and his sinker got an inch more horizontal movement giving him a 75% WHIFF rate on the four swings against the pitch. In his second outing the wow factor showed up. He was throwing 1.5 - 1.6 MPH faster on his sinker and fastball respectively and touched 98 MPH while averaging 96.8 and 96.9 respectively. He had a 40% WHIFF rate overall in that outing. By his 4th outing he was averaging 97 mph on his sinker and getting 3 inches more horizontal than his season average. This horizontal movement really gave his sinker a different look. I don't have his total WHIFF rate as a reliever but looking at the game logs they were all higher than he was as a starter overall. He basically got about a 1.5 MPH bump in velocity on his sinker (basically ditched the four seamer by the end of the year), got 2 inches or more horizontal movement, and made his other pitches play up a bit WHIFF wise. If he can stay healthy, I think he has better overall stuff than Sulser. Add in the fact that Sulser has blown 32% of his save chances, and pitched to a 2.52 ERA in non save chances vs 4.66 in save chances in his major league career, and I think Sulser is a better setup guy than closer as well.