Tony-OH

Objectively speaking, Schmidt probably deserves the overall nod.

Hence using the OPS+ that adjust to league norms for the year.

Nettles and Grich belong in the Hall of Very Good, but as soon as Harold Baines made it in, it sure does make it hard to say guys who produced 30+ more WAR over their careers don't also belong in there.

^^^^^^ This^^^^^^^^^^^ Saying that, Beltre was a better overall hitter than Brooks though he played in a different ERA with smaller ball parks than Brooks. Even adjusting to the League, Beltre's 116 OPS+ dwarfs Brook's 105 OPS+. As good as Beltre was defensively, Brooks has a huge advantage in dWAR (39.1 to 27). Brooks played 111 more games at 3B and committed 48 less errors. So no Cal, Beltre was not the best defensive third baseman of All-Time. if we start talking about the best overall of all time, Mike Schmidt and maybe Eddie Mathews because of his bat come into the conversation, but for defense, there should be no doubt Brooks Robinson is the best there ever was over his career. Obviously I'm biased because I'm an Orioles fan, but I'd take Brooks overall because of the extreme defense at 3B. Saying that, Beltre was an amazing player and will be in the HoF on his first ballot.

Here was the conversation about velocity: What he was saying is that velocity is only one part of what makes a fastball good or not. With Rapsodo and TrackMan, they now know how much spin is on the pitch as well as movement (exact vertical and horizontal movement). Obviously command of the pitch is very important as well, and now they have data on that as well when it comes to where a pitch has more success with his pitches. This is why you see a lot of high spin with true backspin fastballs being worked higher in the zone with success. A lot of good high school pitchers are going to Perfect Game and other evaluation camps where these measurables can be taken giving scouts much more info than sitting behind homeplate with a radar gun.

I think what Elias was saying is that you have to pay attention to the high school market because of the upside talent that be acquired; however, he understands the volatility of selecting a young player without college stats to help evaluate.

Thanks. I will definitely admit the "kids" out there doing podcasts have a better feel for that portion. I just don't have any interest in taking all the time it takes to put it together. With Michael gone, I'm basically a one man crew outside of the people that volunteer to do some basic moderating and of course Chuck doing his game reports and minor league summaries. I'm not really looking to expand my reach necessarily, though being on 105.7 weekly certainly helps and I imagine that will continue as long as Bob is still on there! I really need a hard charging person who wants to collaborate and bring new ideas to the site, but I really haven't advertised.

I'm not going to lie, I read this thing four times before realizing it almost turned my brain inside out trying to understand what you are talking about here!

Thanks Jammer. Whether I do less or not won't stop the forum from being here! I realize what the community is to a lot of people. On another note, my last kid that I coached in High School who is still playing is playing for the Minnesota Twins farm system. I continue to root for him from a far and on Facebook. It was always fun reading about their college "Careers" and I'll miss that connection. This time of year is usually tough anyways, but we always had spring training to get us talking and interested about the new season. Instead we have bickering, proposals and walk outs. This whole situation just shows me how little either side cares about the fans. I mean, I knew it already, but I liked the facade that they at least faked liked they cared. I realize only spring training games are being cancelled, but honestly, it's taken the zest out of my love for the game, a game I've loved since my childhood. I have lots of interests outside of baseball and I find myself more and more looking at this as "work" vs stuff I like to do (the scouting portion and discussing players with other baseball nuts here at OH). I'm in my early 50s now and got to decide is it worth putting hundreds of hours into this for what? Even die hard Hangouters who have been here for years will read something on one of these others sites that completely contradicts something I reported in detail about and people will be like, "Well isn't that interesting." So honestly, why spend all the time I do when even the closest people to the Hangout still act like some snot nose kid's opinion, who can't even get simple and easily researched facts right, matter because he writes for a National publication? Now I'm not bashing them because I get that they want everything they can read, but it was just eye opening for me to know that no matter how much time I put into things, no matters how much experience I have, people are always just going to wander to National sites and act like they know more or even as much as what they get here. So as of now, I'll be honest, I'm not excited about the new year or even the minor league season. I'm sure I will still do some stuff, but I do think last year was probably my last year of spending all the hours watching video and doing analysis like I did. It's just not worth it when you just get lumped in with some kid who probably spent 10 hours writing up his list and gets just as much credence from some people. We'll see when the minor league season starts how it goes, but for now, this is where I'm at.

Please clear your cache and then tell me if you get the google popup anymore. I replaced all the google adsense code on the site with updated code that hopefully will eliminate this problem.

Thanks D, but I know some people do appreciate what I do here. This Owners/players stuff has me beaten down a bit. I spent a lot of money to move things over to new servers and then baseball just gives us all a big middle finger. Then, all we have is a bunch of BS to talk about including what baseballhqprospectussuperscoutgraph.com has to say about a prospect list when we've beaten that to death by December. It's all good though. I'm sure I'll snap out of this when the minor league starts up and I have some baseball to watch and players to evaluate. I just have to decide whether it's worth all the time I put in last year for a sport that could give two squats about us.

Oh I know D. I was talking more in general than directly to you. It just bothers me when guys write for sites like that, who at least used to have a good reputation, just screwing up easily researched facts. These kinds of comments highlights what the prospect evaluation scene has turned into. These sites pop up all over the place and then they just get some fan to write up comments from information they "borrow" from other sites. They don't really understand how to evaluate and very few have any experience in doing anything but looking at the stats and reading stuff they found on the internet, and then putting a list together. Most are just regurgitated from other sites and the scene become a self licking ice cream cone when it comes to rankings. Now I know there are some guys out there that do have some experience and do a good job, but most of them cover multiple teams or even all teams, and it's possible to put the amount of time you really need to put in to put these lists together accurately in my opinion. So does it bug me a bit when I see people talking about these lists and suggesting they must be more accurate because they agree with other rankings, many of which are the same because they are using the same information from the same sites. Now I've learned long ago that if people want to discuss stuff let them, but if my work and list is considered equal to these sites then I'd prefer them to just leave my list out. I'd put it this way to people, imagine putting in hundreds of hours of work into something, only to have your work be considered equal to some guy who can't even get the positions right because they have a "named site" behind him. It's honestly frustrating and makes me sometimes wonder why I put all the hours in when people just go, "But Site X says this and that more closely aligns with site y and Z." Insinuating they must be right. I know we've ran out of things to talk about, but between the labor strife and knowing that your work just gets dumped in with these sites, like we're all equal, makes me seriously question why I do this.

I just went ahead and merged the two Lockout threads so we have all info in the same thread. We'll keep it on O's talk since it gets the most eyes on.

Mountcastle is a terrible LEFT FIELDER.

Let's be honest here, how much can you put into an assessment that is more worried about being noticed for a creative writing contest than being accurate? "The lumbering slugger is far from graceful when he’s stuck in a corner outfield spot, but as a second-division first baseman who can high-five Trey Mancini as they take turns between right field and the cold corner, he’s reasonably tasked. " Mountcastle with his 75th percentile sprint speed is far from "lumbering" and played 24 games in Left Field last year and has never played right field in his professional career. Mancini hasn't played Right Field since 2019 and split time between 1B and DH last year. Nothing annoys me worse than these guys who don't even do the least amount of research when they write for a National Prospect Evaluation site. As fans I get that you guys want as much information as possible and read everything you can get your eyes on, but that's just pure embarrassing and would make me question anything that writer has to say about the Orioles.

Well they are their main demographic for fans.

Sure, if your upside is fill in at 2B if Urias, Odor and Mateo all get hurt, then yes, I agree. I don't really care what his scouting report said a few years back because A) It's a MLB.com scouting report which is questionable at best B) He's had 417 major league PAs slashing just .216/.284/.376/.660. His expected stats are also well below average XBA XSLG XOWA XWOBA XWOBACON Long .196 .317 .285 .260 .316 MLBAVG .246 .407 .317 .316 .369 Defensively he's been mostly below average at 2B according to his stat cast info and his jumps are poor in LF where he covers 3.3 ft less than average per second. For comparison, Dwight Smith Jr., who was one of the worse defensive left fielders I've seen on the Orioles in some time, was -2.2 and -2.4 ft/sec than average in his two years in LF. If Long plays a big role with the Orioles in 2022 or beyond things have gone very badly or Long has suddenly matured as a player.

Honestly, I have the other opinion that it would look really, really bad. Like the area was just carved out and won't flow with the rest of the park. But I'll wait to see it complete before having a final opinion on it.

While I do believe both sides have healthy sized egos and appearing to "win" is important to those ego's, let's be real now, this is all about money and greed. As Barf once said, "It's not about the money, it's about a sh!tload of money!"

That was supposed to be 2004, which I think you knew.

I hope you are right, but I think you underestimate the amount of greed on both sides. I also don't think either side cares about the fans in the least bit for no other reason than we are the ones that ultimately pay all of their fat pay checks. That doesn't mean every player doesn't care, because I do think there are good guys out there that do (Mancini and Mullins immediately come to mind), but the more money they make the more they separate themselves from the common fan. You have guys like Scherzer that are so out of touch with the common man that he literally thinks his $40 million a year self should be talking in the press about the unfairness of baseball players making at minimum, ten times the average salary of what their fans make. Now I'm not going to get into the economics of professional sports, nor do I care whether a Billionaire or Millionaire has more money in their pockets, but it's completely out of touch to be crying in the press when there are fans out there really struggling with all of the inflation going on in this country.

After what the MLBPA pulled in 2004, the owners can never allow a possibility of a mid-season strike again. As far apart as they are in their positions, a lockout made the most sense from their perspective. While I've been critical of the MLBPA, and rightly so in my opinion, the owners have to realize that they need to get more money into the hands of the producing young players if they want a system that won't force them into signing mediocre middle aged players for insane amounts.

I agree. Right now, they are just thinking, we'll miss some spring training games (which honestly are too many and go on for too long) so they have no interest in moving off their positions. I do however think mediation could help.

Neither side is interested in resolving this thing. We're going to miss games this year at the very least. It's childish and embarrassing on both parties.

They must think our system if really weak if a five and dive starter is #7.