Tony-OH

I do not expect him to play this year but would be pleasantly surprised if he was able to get into some GCL games by the end of their season. I think we're looking at an entire year of strength and conditioning that will hopefully have him ready by spring 2022. BTW, he's been on the Shorebirds 60-day DL since the beginning of the season so nothing to that.

He's been a mover this year for sure. The fact they moved him all the way up to Bowie already shows what they think of him, though they did need to clear up space in Aberdeen for Westburg. I like Ortiz defensively at SS even though his arm is not going to wow anyone. If he puts up numbers at Bowie he will continue to climb the rankings.

From the few velocity reports I've gotten from broadcasters his velocity is still in the 89-91 range and the team is using him in short stints vs stretching him out like others. Neither are good signs for him. I haven't been overly impressed with the stuff in the few games I've watched him this year. He was a guy we hoped would be starting and would have gotten a velocity bump by this time. We'll keep an eye on him but I'm putting a lot into the roles that the organization is using them in right now. It's very hard to be considered a prospect in the low minors while being used as a one or two inning guy unless they have high velocity.

Yeah, I'm just updating the thread for now. Need to remove the link, thanks. Cullen is updated in the depth chart though, just didn't mention him.

Hit his 7th home run to left-center on a high fastball and then turned on a fastball and just missed a home run to RF in his next AB for his 7th double. I think we'll see Henderson get the promotion to Aberdeen in the 2nd half of the season which would put him at Bowie to start 2022 at 20-years old. Westburg was promoted to Aberdeen and Ortiz to Bowie as they are three primary SS plays right now.

Updated with recent promotions: Grayson Rodriquez - SP, Joey Ortiz -SS, and Johnny Rizer-OF to Bowie Jordan Westburg - SS/3B, JD Mundy-1B to Aberdeen TT Bowens -1B to Delmarva

Zimmermann and Kremer graduated from the list and we have lots of movement in the bottom of the list once again. Updated as of May 31st.

Well, I'll be honest and say I've seen more video of Rutschman catching than Maverick and I wasn't necessarily scouting them for their defense at the time. Rutschman comes with the scouting reports of being an outstanding defensive catcher and from what I've seen, his framing, and leadership with pitchers looks top notch. His throwing has not been great this year overall, but I don't see that being a problem. I like Maverick defensively but his game calling needs work. Maybe he's told ahead of time what to call or what to work on with his pitchers, but there have been several times I can recall watching games and being frustrated by his insistence to keep using the same pitch in the same glove location too often. Again, without know what they've told him to do, this has stood out to me. I do think Handley does a good job of presenting strikes and seems to have a good relationship with his pitchers. He also throws very well, probably a hair better than Rutschman. Maybe they are 1A and 1B vs 1 vs 2, but they both are above average defensive catchers from what I've seen.

He's made some adjustments on the inside pitch and that has allowed him to start having those pulled bombs. Basically he closed the hole in the swing and is seeing the ball very well now. It's nice to see him putting up some numbers, striking out less, and walking much more. I've also seen a lot less swing and miss in the zone which is a good sign as well. Let's hope the new collective bargaining agreement will adjust the service clock situation. I'd love to see teams have control of players until their 27 year old season (as of June 1st) no matter what. This way, every player has a chance to play in the majors earlier and they all have a chance to become a free agent as they enter their prime years. If a team likes a player, sign them past that 27th year. MLB teams would now be able to make those decisions on whether it makes sense for them to get their experience at a minor league level or major league level without the concern of losing those to free agency too early. If the team is bad, why not let DL Hall and G. Rodriguez pitch in the majors to get that experience? If it doesn't start their clock, why not? Wouldn't it be more fun to watch Rutschman catch Hall and Rodriguez at the major league level this year?

Serious question, Besides the 1-22, 1988 April, have the Orioles ever had a worse month than 5-23? I wonder if this was the worse May ever? If I have some time I'll try to research but maybe someone has the answers.

While I understand the connection to the old thread, this would have been a great new thread. I spent five minutes wondering why the May record was so good until I realized it was from 2011. Good info Frobby, but consider starting new threads with information about this year.

While I was quoting you, I really didn't mean you per se. Your comments are usually well though out so I apologize if I came off as suggesting you were naïve. We are the same age so we grew up with a team that was always in contention until the late 80s. We've seen our Franchise go from the proud underdog to a MLB joke. We are the butt of memes and GIFs and JOMBOY just put a whole video on how Lance Lynn was just embarrassing the Orioles hitters with pitches right down the middle. I've been doing this for a long time and it's just tiring. I'll always be an Orioles fan, but even I find it hard to watch the games nowadays. I spend more time paying attention to the future.

Well at least they can't say they only play poorly at home. Now they play poorly everywhere against everybody.

That fan base was 5 years away from having World Champion to cheer for. The fan base now is a over a generation away from a fan base that was used to a competitive team year in and year out. I get the orange colored glasses some of you are wearing, and there are players in the minors that are exciting, but the point is that this organization has not put a major league product on the field since 2017 and honestly, we have nothing to go off of that the current ownership will pay for major league players or that the Elias regime can identify good major league quality players. I'm happy to see the organization push some prospects up, but they are going to have to be pretty aggressive because I don't think the fan base can deal with another two years of awful teams. Again, the fact that the young players have been mostly disappointing this year, has made this year so painful. If the team stunk but Mountcastle, Kremer, Akin, and Zimmermann to a lesser extend, were doing well, it would be easier to take. When you look at Mountcastle's statcast numbers, it time to start being concerned. I looked at top hitters and then looked back to their first couple of seasons and could not find a guy like Mountcastle. The lack of development at the major league level makes me concerned about the coaching staff as well but maybe these guys just weren't that good? I do see some good things happening on the farm but until they come up and perform well at the major league level, they are nothing more than "prospects".

The lack of development of the players we hoped would be the beginning of the resurgence has really been the major downer. I feel bad for Hyde because he does seem to be a good baseball man, but it's hard to know how much say he has in roles of his players and pitchers. All we know is this team is a disaster and although we all signed up for a rebuild, it's been pretty ugly and we're now in the 3rd season of Elias tenure and the major league team is the worse in baseball still. Not increasingly getting better, but sadly uncompetitive. Last year, although a shortened season, we saw some promise in Means, Mountcastle, Scott, Santander and Hays for the future. Hays has been hurt twice, and outside of Means, the others have all under performed with Santander being hurt as well. Regardless of whether the organization turns into a perennial winner or not, they will always have the stain of being an embarrassment to baseball for at least 4 season straight. Grant it one of those seasons was not under Elias' tenure, but the fact he decided to go into this season with such a poor squad shows he really doesn't care about putting even a decent product on the field while he rebuilds from the inside. At some point he's going to have to actually care about the major league product and soon because the fan base has withered to the point that fans just don't care or discuss the Orioles outside of the die-hards. And it's hard to be a die-hard when your team has become irrelevant.

Hunter, while nauseating at times because of the blind homerism, was actually a pretty competent radio game caller.

Rutschman overall, but Maverick is second for me. Cumberland is not awful defensively but he's not a good defender either.

I've heard that as well and was shocked every time he's said it.

Nice recap. Here are some other stats to consider: He's seeing 63.6% fastballs which tells me pitchers have figured out his bat is slow and they are just throwing heat by him. He has a poor 31.8% whiff rate on fastballs and has an awful 82.8 EV on them. He's probably starting to cheat on them so when he does swing at breaking or off-speed, he's not hitting them either. Add in his 11th percentile framing ability, and I honestly don't understand why he's still at the major league level. I'd probably give Cumberland a look. I don't think he's a long term solution, but why not give him a shot?

The other show has dropped on Valdez. It was a nice story while it lasted.

Sisco is awful in all aspects of the game yet the Orioles keep him on the major league roster.

Remember when the lame ass local media was gushing over the bullpen and holding up Holmes as some kind of genius? Name me one guy you feel good about in that pen outside of Valdez and Valdez has not been that great either.

BTW, I just want to emphasize here that I'm not anti-Elias at all. Just pointing out the facts that most of his attempts to bring in "undervalued" guys has not amounted to much.

Perhaps, but I personally think Lopez could have value as a reliever and that value could have been maximized and potentially used in a trade instead of just filling innings. If you think he's just cannon fodder to fill innings this year, then I can understand your support for their use of him. But for me, everything should be about the future and if we could have maximized his value and then moved him for prospects that could one day help a competing Orioles team, that's his best value to the franchise. There are plenty of fodder guys in AAA that could just fill innings including Konner Wade, Conner Greene, Spenser Watkins and Mickey Jannis.