Tony-OH

It certainly explains some of his speed loss this year.

Interesting, i never knew that.

Cowser had a great start to his professional career. The OBP (.476), wRC+ (158) and WOBA (.435) were all very impressive at Delmarva. Next year I'd like to see him tap into his power a bit more, but nothing to be unhappy about right now. Besides, is anyone going to be upset if he can be a .380-.400 OBP guy at the major league level even if he ends up only hitting 8-15 homers a year?

Besides physically being in AA vs Low-A, how is he ahead of Mayo? You can really only judge players by similar age, level, and experience when comparing. Mayo has outperformed Henderson at the same level despite being five months younger and has shown better plate discipline. While Henderson may have the ability to stay at SS, he's probably heading to 3B. Mayo, may be heading to RF one day but for now I'd keep playing him at 3B. I have Mayo slightly ahead of Henderson due to Henderson's WHIFF rate trending in the wrong direction has he moves up and Henderson's errors at both SS and 3B have become a yellow flag.

I think Mayo has a chance to be better than Mountcastle, perhaps significantly better with his plate discipline. I saw a good hitter in Mountcastle with some special plate coverage, but Mayo just looks different.

Basically they are just bringing up guys they can jettison at will. with the offseason up in the air because of the CBA, they don't want to add anyone to the 40-man that they may actually want to keep. If for some reason the players strike or are locked out, those not on the 40-man can still play in the minors.

When Eshleman and his 7.80 AAA ERA gets called up, your statement has become the absolute truth of the situation. This is the year that if you are an org guy at AAA and can maybe provide some length, you got your best chance of pitching in the big leagues. The Orioles have brought up several pitchers that have no business in the major leagues but like you said, it's all about eating innings and not destroying pitchers who may have some actual major league future ahead of them.

I don't have the metrics but that swing is really, really fast. His hip rotation is a thing of beauty.

The final numbers obviously aren't very good, but the finish to the season showed he made some adjustments. Always good to see guys finish strong.

Young is very interesting for me. I need to scout his last few starts, but from what I seen earlier this year, he has a legit four pitch mix and a playable fastball. He's a guy who was screwed over by the short draft and probably should have gone back into the 2021 draft for financial reasons, but he's been the best overall free agent signee though Mundy's injury really put a damper on his year. I like Peek a bit. The curve can be a real nice offering and when the change is on, he's brings enough to think it could play as a backend guy. I need to watch more of his starts down the stretch.

Some people can't help themselves to play the "buuutttttttttttttt" game. Talking about the differences in the stadiums and age difference is certainly poo-pooing the accomplishment. Of course, they conveniently left out how the game has changed with specialized pitching and velocity bumps. The young man set the record. Hopefully AR or Mayo will break it as well.

Its still early but there are some promising hitters drafted for sure. I wish the pitching was deeper though.

If Mayo was a first round pick he'd be easy on top 100 lists. Remember, these guy don't watch all these guys, they can't. They look at drafted status, bonus, and then stats. Take all these top 100 lists with a huge grain of salt.

Why are you and Frobby poo pooing Mountcastle's accomplishment? Did I miss where anyone claimed Mountcastle was better than Ripken or that his accomplishment was better than when Ripken made the record? He broke it, congrats to him. How this turned into people poo pooing the young man's accomplishment is beyond me.

Interestingly, none were true 1st round (first 30 picks) who have outplayed the Orioles actual 1st rd pick of that draft. Mountcastle (36th overall pick - $1.3 mil vs DJ Stewart 25th - $2.06 mil) - 2015 draft Hays (3rd round - $665,800K vs Cody Sedlock 27th - $2.097 mil) - 2016 draft Mancini (8th round - $151,900K vs Hunter Harvey 22nd - $1.947 mil) - 2013 draft Mullins (13th round - $100K vs DJ Stewart 25th - $2.06 mil) - 2015 draft Jordan's later picks tended to outperform his top picks.

Hence why I said "Food for thought" instead of, "Here's proof." There is little doubt Wieters' minor league numbers did not translate to the major league level for whatever reason. We can only hope Rutschman's do.

Wieters was never a huge raw power guy for me. Could he hit some nice shots, sure, but I've seen Rutschman just murder some balls. Saying that, they are probably close, but I think AR is going to bring more game power. Again, I'm of the opinion that AR will be a better overall hitters than Wieters, but I would take a young Wieters' overall defensive game over Rutschman due to Wieters' strong and accurate arm. Rutschman throws well enough but his accuracy has been inconsistent this year at times. It's a fun topic to discuss and I don't think anyone's opinions are invalid here. Ultimately, Rutschman will hopefully be a better overall player than Wieters ended up being at the major league level.

I believe Frobby did this and did see a major difference.

One, almost all of our news from the alternate camp came from the Orioles themselves. We now know they are going to be nothing out but propaganda about their prospects. I heard from other sources that Henderson actually struggled badly at first and then really came around at the end. It's worth noting by that time he was seeing the same pitchers over and over. At 20 years old and with only a little GCL time under his belt, starting off at Delmarva was the right move. He did well, and they promoted him to Aberdeen where he struggled a bit. He made errors, he had a lot of miss, and he struggled mightily against left-handed pitching. He had a hot week or so and they decided to give him a taste of AA. Service time issues has nothing, and I mean nothing to do with Henderson right now. He is on track through the development system and in fact, is ahead of the normal curve by being in AA right now at 20 years old. I agree with you the service time issues need to be sorted out in the new CBA (though I don't have a lot of faith these two sides can put something together that makes sense) but I disagree that Henderson's developmental path this year has anything to do with service time issues. If you wanna argue Rutschman, that's a different story because if not for team performance, 40-man, and service time issues, he certainly would be in the big leagues right now.

It's very rare except for the basketball players to go from high school and be very good in the NBA right away. The NCAA basketball and football seasons have become the minor leagues for these players. NCAA baseball has become a minor league of sorts since most of the players drafted as 21 year olds skip the rookie ball levels and the best of the best can be in AA before that first partial season is out. Baseball has a minor league system for a reason and it works. Arguments can be had for how long a player needs to be a certain level and some organizations are more aggressive than others, but I would disagree with anyone who thinks the minor serves no purpose and players are just in there because of service time. Very few players are held back in the minors for service time issues and hopefully the next CBA will get rid of the "couple weeks after spring training" loophole so we don't see players kept down when they should be in the major leagues.

I think this is where your opinion goes off track. There is value in learning as you go up the chain. At each level they will see better stuff, command, pitch sequencing, and pitching awareness (reading of the bats, controlling running game, etc). Like in anything, if you develop the right building blocks you have a better chance of success when you reach the major leagues. Getting thrown into the big leagues when they are not ready is not good for anyone. I don't think service time will have anything to do with Gunnar spending 2022 in the minors unless he shows up next year and tears up AA and AAA, something considering his struggles above Low-A and his poor hitting against left-handers have shown. He'll be 21 next year. If he has a good year in AA and maybe even gets some AAA time that would put him right on track to break in sometimes in 2023. That seems like an appropriate developmental timeline for him to me.

Just some food for thought, the only time we have them at the same age and level in at 23-years old in AAA but we have to remember Rutschman missed an entire year because of COVID. Wieters in 39 AAA games: .305/.387/.504/.890 with 9 2B, 5 HR and 20-30 BB-K in 163 PAs Rutschman in 30 AAA gs: .330/.425/.528/.953 with 8 2B, 3 HR and 17-23 BB-K in 129 PAs Rutschman has more raw power for me, better understanding of the zone, and is more athletic than Wieters. Wieters had a better more accurate arm and controlled the run game better. As a hitter, I think Rutschman is a better overall prospect and will be a middle of the order hitter. I also think we will see him DH and play some 1B (Mountcastle to DH) a good bit to keep his legs fresh. He'll probably catch in the 110-120 range. While I won't get into the semantics of who was the better prospect since it's really just conjecture at this point, Rutschman's athleticism, work ethic, and overall hit tool gives him the edge in my book. Saying all that, he'll need to prove it at the major league level which will start next season.

It did not. Since they are all AAA hitters, that was not a good matchup for them.

Not at the expense of us getting the 1st overall pick. The only thing we can take solace out of this is it helped us get that pick. Still sucks blowing a game to the Yankees and their obnoxious fans.

The walk an the stolen bases was brought on by himself.