Tony-OH

The Orioles don't need to protect Neustrom this year on the 40-man roster so that could be a reason to keep him down. While there is a lot of deadweight on the current 40-man, they still have to look if it's worth putting him on there or not. He's been on a heater for the last two months and has hit the ball as well as anyone in the upper minors, but he doesn't have good numbers against lefties so they may want to give him more time in AAA to work on that as well. He's been a nice story this year for sure.

I think Mancini ends up dealt either in the next few days or the offseason. But if they are, it would mean more LF time for Mountcastle.

His command has been off for a while now. His slider has been less of a weapon against AAA hitters and I'd love to see the movement and spin rate numbers compared to the AA ball.

No, Vespi is a 89-91 guy that may touch 92 but his big weapon is a sweeping curveball that is tough to hit from either side of the plate.

The issue may be the playing time at Bowie. Grenier is there and although Westburg is a priority play at SS over everyone right now (though sharing with Henderson), I think Genier has shown at at least defensively that he's a prospect and needs to play SS everyday. Grenier has been cold with the stick of late slashing .205/.333/.301/.635 so they may not think his stick is ready for AAA. At 3B they have Dorrian is a fringe prospect, but one that has put up a decent power and on base skills despite the low average. He's slashing .241/.378/.473/.851 and has improved his throwing of late from 3B. In theory you could send Dorrian to Norfolk and then promote Westburg and have Westburg play 3B when he's not playing SS and then move Grenier to 2B when he's playing SS. Right now they have playing time for everyone at the positions they want them. Personally, I'd be fine with moving Dorrian to AAA and promoting Westburg to AA, but I will say that Grenier is the best defensive shortstop in the system and you want him playing SS almost every game.

Really nice to see Henderson crush a PULL homer.

Yeah, I thought the same thing. For a guy with limited experience there before this year, he looks like a plus defender at 1B.

$164,600 is what I got.

I will be very surprised if Stowers is not playing in the big leagues at some point next year if he stays healthy.

I know you love being snarky, but considering he missed an entire season last year like everyone else and is now doing well in AA in his first full season in the minor leagues and yes, I would consider him a fast mover.

Dan Connolly of The Athletic reporting the bonus at $155,000.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=greene000con Command and simple control has been issue most of his career. Makes me wonder if they took all but 2 or maybe 3 pitches away from him and let him focus on them, how good could he be?

But that wasn't what we were talking about. I agree though, there are alot of guys still on this 40-man that could be DFA'd without any concern for the future, but I would guess most last place teams you could say the same thing about. As for Greene, I don't know what to think. He was really good this spring and looked good last night except for the fact he threw five different pitches in two innings of work. He seems like a guy who could do very well with that fastball and changeup and an occasional slider. For the life of me i can't understand what happened in AAA. Why was he used so infrequently? Why was he stretched out over three and four innings or more when he might have some value for a two innings like last night? I really have questions with the development in the minor leagues right now when comes to some pitcher's usage as well as well as the positional jumping around of actual prospects.

Not sure if that's hyperbole or not, but if it's not, please tell me the 10-15 guys you would DFA before Green?

It is a bit perplexing, no doubt.

I'm not impressed with the stuff. Looks like a time a dozen AAAA reliever to me. Shake a minor league tree and 8 more Mattson's fall out.

Eshleman and Mattson are two guys that could go before either of them. Gutierre and Leyba could also be DFA'd nd we probably wouldn't lose either.

After seven days off, he threw everything a little harder and with more spin rate but his command was off. As Palmer noted last night, command guys don't do well typically with longer breaks between starts.

Urias' lack of range was highlighted in last night's game. He also didn't dive for a ball up the middle that he may have at least knocked down had he dove.

Watkins has no trade value whatsoever. He's a guy who has marginal stuff and has to have his A command to be successful. Now, if he pitches effectively until next year's trading deadline then he would have some value because he'd have a track record of success, but even then, at 29 years old, he's not the kind of arm that brings a big return. He's here to eat innings and make the most of his opportunity.

He pitches backwards, pitching off a mid 70s curveball but does throw 92-95 with the fastball. Mid 70s curveballs tend to not work as a primary pitch in the majors so I think there is some concern it won't work, but I think the Orioles are waiting to see if they move a reliever here at the deadline before bringing him up. He's earned a look for sure though.

It was a nice debut for Pinto especially considering he only has 32 professional innings under his belt. The gun was a little hot so he probably was not throwing 95-97 but more like 93-95, which is fine. His best offspeed pitch is his split change and it appeared he also threw a cutter as well that came in around 89-90 although it was tough to differentiate his cutter from his slider which same in around 86-88 (assuming the gun was hot). The slider flashed average at times, but was not consistent. He also showed a high 80s curveball that was ok. Obviously command is what he needs to work on like most young pitchers. He throws competitive pitches most of the time but once he gave up a hit on a fastball he kept shaking off from the pitch. So much so that the catcher called for a fastball, he shook him off, and then the catcher dramatically put number one down as to say, throw the damn fastball. They then had a meeting on the mound and although Pinto still shook off his catch a bunch, he did throw a bit more fastballs. I will imagine the team will want him to work on his fastball command so we may see some outings where he goes more fastball heavy which could skew his stats his bit, but there is definitely a major league arm in here. At 5-11 there's always going to be a reliever risk and there is some effort to the delivery. At 20 years old though, he's a nice additional pitching prospect.

It's absolutely insane. I wouldn't have believed it until I saw him do it.

I watched the whole game and started a thread on it.