Tony-OH

I get it, and it's understandable that no ones wants to see a guy get knocked around, but he's only in the big leagues because this team needs someone to eat innings.

Not sure I understand. He literally was brought up to be a long guy. He's here to try and eat innings in games just like this.

I'll need to go back and watch him. I stopped watching after Peek was taken out.

One thing to note on Mundy is he's a 20 runner on the 20-80 scale. I mean he might be one of the slowest guys I've seen in a long time. I timed him at 4.7-4.8 going to first base. That might make him a 10 runner if that was possible. Not surprisingly his only steal was on the back of a double steal against the Frederick Nationals when Gunnar Henderson stole 3rd. As hard as hits the ball, I'm surprised he only has 6 GIDP so far. His lack of speed will keep him at 1B or DH and yes, he'll be a base clogger a bit.

Hey really threw the ball well last night. Didn't get a ton of velocity readings from the announcer but did mention a 93 MPH fastball. He commands the fastball pretty well and uses up in the zone well for swing and miss. Last night the curveball was his dominant strikeout pitch. He looks to throw it with two different shapes one more of a 12-6 and another that gets more horizontal movement but not a slider. Heard 73-74 for velocity readings on the pitch which is a little slow but certainly has nice hard break at times. The change did get a few whiff, but he misses arm side a bit still with the pitch. Certainly gets decent drop and fade with the pitch. Overall, he pitches quickly and has a nice repeatable delivery. He throws strikes and some a nice aptitude for pitching. He probably needs to be challenged with High A ball hitters to see if they will chase that fastball up and curveball low or not. If I had any concern is that I didn't see a ton of swing and miss in the zone so it remains to be seen whether his stuff plays against better hitters.

It will certainly be a lot easier to rebuild if the Orioles top prospects actually do well, particularly Rodriguez and Hall because this team needs impact starting pitching badly. I can see you point that the team under current ownership will probably never pony up for a big free agent or trade for a big contract pitcher since they've been reluctant to do so before, but we don't know yet whether they will be willing if Elias presents ownership with a solid core. Lets's say it's 2023 and Rutschman as at catcher, Mountcastle at 1B, Henderson is at 3B, Westburg is at SS, Mullins in CF, who ever they draft this year is ready (assuming they go for a college guy), Rodriguez and Hall are part of the rotation and all they really need is one more ace pitcher? Maybe they will spend to get that guy, particularly if it's at the end of a long big deal that may only have 2-3 years left?

Excellent thoughtful post with facts and stats to back up your opinion.

Peralta has now had a couple of bad starts of late. I'm going to have go back and see if he's coming out of his delivery again or what because earlier in the season he was repeating nicely. wonder if something is bothering him? Also wonder if a move to the pen might be in his best interest.

Plus the lack of power. Can't be a poor defensive 3B and not hit for power.

Rutschman did not miss that homer. That was a rocket. Would love to have seen the EV on that one.

Another loss where a poor defensive play was the key to the loss. The one thing Elias has probably learned in all of this losing is the importance of a good defensive ball club. While Stewart's dive/fall showed he's willing to be 100% effort into a play despite his lack of footspeed and burst, the fact that he didn't have enough baseball wherewithall to know the situation and to pull up and field that on a bounce kinda shows where this team is right now. So he gets an A for effort, and an F for execution and and F for field awareness. With a runner on first and two outs and the game tied, you don't go diving for a ball unless it's to cut it off from going into the gap, where the run will surely score. In this situation, if he holds up, fields it on the hop, it's 1st and 3rd with two outs and the score still tied. Basically it was poor risk management by Stewart. Good players understand when to go for those dives and when to let them fall because the alternative is much worse than the single. It's all about the situation and in this case, Stewart did not take the situation into consideration or if he did, he choose poorly in his acitons.

I'm fairly certain he was referring to their trash can system that should have gotten several of their players suspended.

Will it? Why? Why is it going to be fun to watch a guy get his brains beat in no matter what he's throwing up there? I'm not saying he's going to get his brains beat in anyways, but I just wasn't overly impressed with his knuckleball. He's a great story and love seeing a 33-year old guy get his first call up, and I'll be rooting for him, but I think he's a guy you can probably DFA pretty easily if it doesn't work at the major league level. Either way, if he can at least eat innings with a sub 5 ERA he'll provide some value.

Amazing how good you can look when you aren't asked to pitch back to back games in less than 24 hours.

Sometimes you gotta know when to let up and field a ball on the bounce. Just way too overly aggressive for the situation. It's a lack of baseball IQ.

This falls under the category of "shoulder shrug". While Jannis may be able to eat some innings, I will be surprised if he finds success at the major league level. His knuckleball doesn't miss many bats and when I've watch him, it has a pretty true downwards break each time vs that knuckleball that jumps all over the place. He'll throw his 87-89 MPH fastball to try and keep batters honest, but nothing jumps out to me that he's the next Wakefield. Saying that, he's a knuckleballer so who knows? As for Sceroler, he just didn't bring the upside that Wells does and his command was not good enough. I was little surprised he made the team out of spring training but thought why not? If the team is willing to keep running out Harvey as a starter, why not see what Sceroler could do. Sceroler is one of those high spin rate guys that doesn't haver the command to make the stuff work yet. Maybe it will improve at some point, but he just wasn't worth keeping all year and then a 40-man spot next winter.

That will come if he can get his BB% back up to where it was last season. He's going to have to hit .300 in order to get his OBP to a respectable level if he's going to not walk. Saying that, the more he starts hitting balls out of the park the more the walks should come.

Beat me to it. This team is starting Steve Wilkerson, Maikel Franco and Pedro Severino almost everyday. The lowest ERA of any current active starter is 5.95. The bullpen has three relievers with an ERA under 4.07. Pat Valaikia has the most PAs at 2B and has a .529 OPS. No outfielder has an OPS over .700 besides Cedric Mullins. Outside of that we're probably just cursed. lol

I think the only way they will put Wells on the IL is if he really does tweak something or they are worried about his innings, but it doesn't appear his innings load will be that bad for a starting pitcher.

Sure must be fun when you know your team is playing the Orioles. I take some solace in the joy my team gives to other team's fans.

Well he's not wrong. Awful throw by Hays in there as well.

Yeah, he'd been around for awhile. Seems like they used him more as an org guy to fill a position of need in AA vs there was some break through. Once he struggled badly it was pretty clear it wasn't going to last long. Ferguson was Buck's son's draft pick. He was very raw but had some tools, just ran out of time.

Updated with some lower end movement.

At the end of the day, DD got what he could for a guy who was a three month rental. If Kremer ends up a back of the rotation guy and Diaz can become of something of value, that's not the worse thing in the world. It would be a better return had Elias not lost Pop for no reason.

I sure hope not. Rutschman should be up here and starting next year. He'll be 24 years old and will have a full season of minor league ball under his belt including I'll assume half a year of AAA. The Orioles would have him under team control from 24-29 years old. No reason to play any other games with him after this season.