Tony-OH

Something happened to Fry in August where he totally lost his control. He was throwing strikes at 62% with 20% strikes looking at 10% strikes swinging through august 2nd. Then from his August 4th until he was demoted at the end of the month, that fell to 49% strike rate with just 15% strikes looking and just 7% swinging. He walked 15 over 5.2 innings while only striking out 3 in those 10 outings. Something was not right. His spin rates and velocity were the same in August as any other month, so he basically just got the Steve Blass yips. The fact that it doesn't get much better in Norfolk suggests it may have been more mental than anything else. Either way, I'm not sure the Orioles need to tender him as I doubt a ton of teams are going to want to take him on unless they know the yips are gone.

As for Kriske, I'm not sure why he was DFA'd earlier. If you wanted to sneak a guy through waivers and felt this timing would be easier, why would they not have tried Hunter Harvey now instead of earlier when he was scooped up?

I can't see them DFAing Santander. I think they can sign and trade him if need be, but I think he's more likely to be moved at the trading deadline especially if Stowers is ready to take over.

Fry is the only one that might not get tendered. I think the others are tendered.

Well, it appears that Elias is going to use his 20 round Amateur draft to go after mostly college guys and use the Dominican Academy to develop the High school age and younger talent. The cream of the college draftees should be ready for High-A shortly into their first full pro series so Low-A will be mostly International players and the lower level/younger (20 year olds) college guys.

Could be. I just think in the big game of things, they should employ the people and own the equipment that driveline uses and ensure their best prospects are developing under their eye. At the very least, sign development contracts with Driveline and other performance houses that they trust and have the pitching instructors track their progress. Maybe they are doing some of that, but Holt's answer made it seem like they give them things to work on but then it's up to them to make it happen. That seems shortsighted to me.

I'm just surprised the Orioles don't have their own Driveline type of program for their pitchers. Seems strange to hear Holt say that minor leaguers have to come up with their own programs or have to go to Driveline or some other facility. Seems like the organization should have these facilities and programs and be able to monitor all of their pitchers.

That's 50% more than most of us!

I don't think how a team performs win-loss wise has a ton to do with whether managers are brought back. Anderson was one of the old school guys.

Urias is an interesting player who had a real good under the radar season last year. He put up the 2nd best WOBA (.341) on the team behind Mullins (.372), and his xWOBA was .343 suggesting he wasn't lucky. He put up a 115 wRC+ with above major league average EV, Barrell %, and hard hit%. He was 27 years old so he's in his prime, so there's no reason to think he will have a significant decline. The problem is he's a below average defender pretty much everywhere you play him on the infield. He's got a below average arm that makes him below average coming in on balls from SS and turning double plays. Statcast really didn't like him at SS where he was -5 OOA at SS and -2 OAA at 2B. Fangraphs has him at -3.9 UZR/150 (basically he costs the team almost 4 runs over 150 games) and -3.2 UZR/150 at 2B. Baseball reference has him at .04 dWAR which is a surprise, but dWAR is the weakest evaluations of defense for me. Personally, I think he's decent enough at 2B defensively and should go into the season as the every day 2B. Now, I do think they should take a look at Mateo but I like him as more of a super sub utility guy.

Sure, but the key piece can't be in A-ball, especially a pitcher. The Orioles need to compete in 2024 so the key pieces would all need to be ready to play productively by then. That's the real difference when you are ready to compete. You can't be trading for guys 3 or 4 years out as the key piece when trading away productive major league talent.

I would love to see that study done with different types of hitters. In other words, players with poor K/BB ratios, players with a speed tool vs big slow power hitters. I'm pretty certain teams have been doing these studies internally which is why players like Adam Jones have to go to Japan to finish playing because the models show he's not worth the investment at his age and skill set.

It really depend on the return. Elias has not proven yet that he can acquire impact level players that are ready or nearly ready. Grant it, he never had a Mullins or Means to a lesser extent available to trade, but his trading is still an unknown when it comes to acquiring closer players. Jahmai Jones and Tyler Nevin were guys that were close and nether look like they are part of a the future here and are both probably 40 level players. I believe in Mullins more than you, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't move him in the right deal. But these deals cannot be for more lottery tickets, but for ready or nearly ready players.

I probably didn't state that clearly enough. What I meant was that speedy guys with some pop generally don't decline as quickly as those first baseman type skills. Usually the more athletic guys can maintain their game longer and then you start to see a bigger decline in the mid-30s vs the first baseman type that generally start to decline quickly in the early 30s. Again, I'm speaking in generalities here. By looking at statcast, an argument can be made that guys starts slowing up from about 23 years old speed wise.

Mullins will be 28 with a skill set that does not typically decline until the mid-30s. I think the plan is to compete for good by 2024. If that's the case, I'm fine with that. Means is a guy I'm not going to just get rid of, but if I can get a good return with a young ready or nearly ready starting pitching prospect as a key part, then I would be ok with moving him.

One, this board has many different opinions that vary greatly so don't generalize the board as anything. Two, if you hate the board so much, feel free to not come back.

Looks like his fastball works well up in the zone: https://www.mlb.com/video/00u7jzgkdtP9kH55c356/reels/cionel-perez-fastball-strikeouts The slider is inconsistent but he got some swing and miss for K's, but only 8 over his major league time. https://www.mlb.com/video/00u7jzgkdtP9kH55c356/reels/cionel-perez-slider-strikeout His changeup is not very good, 88-89 and straight. https://www.mlb.com/video/00u7jzgkdtP9kH55c356/reels/perez-changeup

True. Everyone should be available, FOR THE RIGHT PRICE. I believe Cedric is for real, and like with Means, I would need a young ready or nearly ready replacement, that would have to be part of the package for Mullins.

This is a true statement which is why the organization is being built from the inside. As I've said, until the organization has a series of talent coming up from the minor leagues to play or trade for established talent, we're not ready.

2021 wasn't about winning at all and in fact you can make an argument about how they promoted guys that Elias did everything not to win. First, you had innings limits on pitchers because of the missed year. Then you had the weird split spring training and other than Mountcastle, he didn't have legitimate "impact" prospects ready. On the pitching side he thought he had Kremer, Akins and Zimmermann ready, but Akin and Kremer crapped the bed and Zimmermann couldn't stay healthy. I've been saying for years that Akin is going to be a reliever and still think so, only Kremer was a giant disappointment in my mind. Lowther was handled awfully then he had the shoulder discomfort and didn't throw well until September when he was in a starter's routine and was used every 5 days. When he needed to promote guys, especially pitchers, he didn't bring up prospects until he finally gave Alex Wells and Lowther a chance, but the cast of guys he brought up weren't major league pitchers. This year I think Lowther will be treated like a starting pitching prospect that he is, Tyler Wells should be given an opportunity to start, and hopefully Zimmermann will be able to stay healthy. Grayson Rodriguez is close to being ready if he's not already, Rom is not far off, and now they have Baumann and Bradish ready, though I think they both are relievers. With Rutschman ready, and Stowers close, he has two potential impact players ready. So I guess I just see this as more of a true evaluation year. Other than 3B, we have have legitimate players at every position. Pitching wise, this team is not ready so I won't argue there, but I don't think this team is ready to start signing bigger named pitchers until they know what they really got. Plus, I'm not sure I see the pitcher(s) that will be good now and more important, in 2024 when I think they SHOULD be legitimate contenders.

Elias proved last season that anyone who thinks he still slow rolled prospects just wasn't paying attention or had their mind made up. Too much was made of players being started at lower levels then some fans thought they should after missing a year due to COVID. However, it was clear that Elias prefers guys get off to good start at perhaps lower levels then quickly move them up, sometimes up two more levels. I thought he was very aggressive with promoting everyone but Rutschman, who still ended up with a decent amount of AAA PAs. Could Rodriguez have been given a promotion late in the year to AAA to get a taste of the balls up there? Perhaps. But I think Elias preferred to have him get the first positive season down and start him at AAA next year.

Well, we're not talking about 2021, just moving forward right? I don't think most of those are starters, but I do think Lowther will end up a decent 4th, 5th guy, Zimmermann might be a 5th starter. I think Bradish, Baumann, and Akin could be impact type relievers and Kremer might be better there as well. T. Wells has the stuff to be a 3rd or 4th start of he can maintain his stuff through 100 pitches. But I guess I look at 2022 as the year where we find out what these guys roles should be moving forward. Then we add pithing talent in 2023 and 2024 since Rom, Pinto and maybe Young are the guys with a chance to be starters up here in 2023 and 2024.

Can I ask what you consider a "competitive team" to be in 2022. And what do you think it takes for a 110 loss team to become a competitive team in one season? How do they even do that? Who do you think they need to sign to make the Orioles competitive in 2022? The Orioles are going to be competitive year in and year out when the system starts to develop productive every day major league players. The system has developed Mullins, Hays and Mountcastle, and now Rutschman will be here in 2022. Stowers and Rodriguez should be ready by some point in 2022. The next blast of guys are probably looking at 2023 and 2024 (Cowser, Henderson, Westburg, Vavra maybe, Mayo and maybe the 2022 1st round pick if he's pone of the college SSs) So in 2022 we have: 1b: Mouncastle 2B: Urias/Mateo SS: Mateo/Urias 3B: Hole.. Guttierrez I guess LF: Hays CF: Mullins RF: Santander until he's hurt and Stowers takes over ? Rutschman If we get improvements from most of these guys that's not the worse lineup.. Pitching though is a disaster: SP: Means The next four will be filled by some combination of: T. Wells (if they give him a shot),Lowther, Zimmermann, Akin, Kremer, A. Wells, Bauman, Bradish and G. Rodriguez) I'm going to assume the team will smarten up and put Lopez in the bullpen where he has a chance to actually proved value. Even if they added in a Matz, this team's starting pitching still looks very suspect. The bullpen as well even if Bautista comes up and does well and Baumann and Akin can go to the pen and pitch well there. I just think this team needs 2022 to figure out the roles if any of their pitching and hope that some break through while also hoping the younger players in the lineups continue to improve. With improvements, I could see this being a 72ish win team without free agents. 2023 would be the 82-85 win year, and 2024 would be when they should be expected to compete, and that's when they have no reason not to spend.

I can remember talking and interviewing Schmidt many times over the years. He's very cerebral and not much for giving good evaluations of prospects. He's the lone survivor of the old school guys so he must be embracing the new ways. I was actually shocked he was still with the organization.

I do think the talent is better as a whole, but take anything from Blood as org speak.