Tony-OH

Hey, what about Encarncion in CF? The weather though looks sketchy tonight down there so I would expect some rain delays or a suspension at some point.

Looks like it's slowed up some and may not be out until around 845 now. i could see the them calling this an going to a double header tomorrow where they get an extra pitcher from the taxi squad.

Reading that 1st piece, I think there is very little doubt Pujols is older than his listed 41. Does this look like the arms of a 21-year old? This was a picture taken in July of 2001 when Pujols was supposed to be 21 yeas old.

Letting him walk is why the Cardinals are a very good organization year in and year out and have been to the playoffs six times since letting him go after they won the World Series in 2011. Meanwhile the Angels spent $240 million for Pujols to slash .256/.311/.447/.758 (108 OPS+), 12.8 WAR going to the playoffs once and never winning a game with Pujols on the team. Basically the Angels made the ultimate mistake of paying a guy for who he was, not who he was going to be when they signed the 32-year old Pujols to that 10-year contract. The Angels are a perfect example of a team with a lot of money to spend who can't put it all together around the best player in the game Mike Trout.

I've been impressed with Vavra's ability to go the other way and his willingness to just get on base vs trying to hit every ball out of the park. He seems to understand his offensive game from the three games I've watched him. Haven't seen him challenged in his one game in CF, but he's a little stiff at 2B and his arm strength is slightly below average from what I've seen. I'd like to see him at both more before making an opinion about his defensive abilities though.

Good for him. Despite his struggles on the mound, I always heard Ubaldo was a good guy and good teammate. Congrats to him.

It's part of the reason I decided to try doing power rankings and expanding it 40 plus bubble players so everyone can kinda see how players move around lower on the list and know who to maybe follow a little closer.

Aberdeen was on the road and their games were not on MiLB so had to follow it through the boxscore. He had a very nice first outing. I look forward to seeing him pitch soon.

The video on his outing was all jacked up where it would slow down and speed up at times making a very hard to see the movement and velocity. The curveball looked good from what I saw but we kinda knew that coming into the year. I didn't hear any velocity comments from the announcers and i got frustrated with the crappy MiLB video problems so didn't want the rest of the game.

Yeah, heard that and saw that he went with the pitch a bit.

He's one of the youngest on the team so it's not really a slight for him. I'm just glad to see him make the team and get into that SS/2B/DH rotation.

He very well may by making adjustments, but I'm just telling you what I'm seeing, not making any proclamations about his future. I see a guy with a lot of miss in his bat in the PAs I've seen him this spring so far between major league spring training and now his three games. There is little doubt Rutschman comes with the tools to succeed. What will remain in doubt until he has success at the major league level is whether he can handle professional velocity, movement and command. There is a lot of miss in today's baseball so I'm trying to not take my historical bias with swing and miss and make too much of it with Rutschman, but I've seen him miss a lot in three games, especially against guys with good velocity. The swing path that Rutschman uses is going to generate a lot of fly balls, weak ground balls and Whiff because it does not stay in the hitting zone very often. Both of his extra base hits were oppo yesterday, which is fine, but I'd like to see a guy ambush some good high velocity fastballs and hit some hard line drives. I'd like to see him show the ability to get the barrel to a good inside fastball and pull it. These are things I haven't seen yet and things I generally look for when watching hitting prospects. I'm not saying he can't do that, I'm saying I haven't seen him do it yet. One thing to remember here is that I don't look at Orioles prospects from an Orioles fan point of view. I learned a long time ago that you make a player prove to you they are going to be a good/great major league player rather than assume he will or hope he will. Of course as an Orioles fan I hope that Rutschman becomes the impact catcher we all want him to be, but the scouting side of me says, "prove it." We have a small sample size to go off of right now and he's not getting promoted anytime soon so we'll have a lot more time to make a full evaluation. When I see him do things that makes me think he'll hit in the big leagues I'll report that as well, but I know people are going to get upset with me when I don't say everything is flowery and perfect with Rutschman. Sure, if it makes people feel good by saying, "No worries, he'll be fine," go right ahead, but that's not how I scout. As Shawn Pender (Orioles assistant scouting director under Demacio) once told me, future major leaguers should stand out to you. They should be the best player or one of the best players on the field in college or the minor leagues. With that mind, there is no doubt Rutschman's receiving skills stand out already. He's going to be a no doubt plus receiver. The bat has potential because we know about the raw power and he does have a pretty good eye at the plate which will help him with more experience, but he'll need to prove he can make good consistent hard contact and be able to cover the whole strike zone, including the inner half, because professional scouting reports will get out and if a hole or weakness is discovered, it will be utilized against him.

He did, and it was noticeable once he faced a pitcher who was throwing in the mid 90s, that's when he's been swinging through pitches. Still a small sample size for me to get too concerned about him hitting velocity, but so far when I've watch his PAs, and I've watched every one this year, he's not making good contact on high velocity fastballs. His homer came on a first pitch 88-90 MPH fastball that he hit opposite field. The double was another high lifted shot that ended up down the line oppo. I bet his launch angle is very high right now and with his swing path it seems like he going to hit a lot of flyballs or swing over pitches and hit weak ground balls. I don't think he lacks bat speed, but his swing path has a lot of holes in it and unless he can make some adjustments he's going to be a very high strikeout player at the major league level. Defensively though, and it's worth mentioning here, he's been outstanding. He receives very well and it appears his framing is good since he's gotten many close calls to go his pitcher's way. Lots of energy back there and seems to call a good game though I'm not sure if he's calling all pitches or not since he seems to look in a lot to the dugout. Either way, he's everything they said defensively and would be the best defensive catcher we've had here since a young Wieters (though Wieters was never good at game calling).

First look at the free agent signee. Tall (6-6), lanky right-hander with four-pitch mix. Announcer said the fastball was 93. Showed the ability throw all four pitches for strikes. Hard to see the movement on the pitches from the home plate camera view, but he got a decent amount of swing and miss. Definitely worth keeping any eye on.

First impressions: I watched Smith's start tonight and the first thing that stands out is his command of his slider. He really can use that for strikes and to get batters to chase. It's his best pitch overall and although his stuff overall is average at best, his ability to command a solid average major league slider around the strike zone and just off really helps his stuff play. According to the announcers he was 91-92 with his fastball and that looks about right. It plays up a little with batters looking for the slider, but he'll need to be fine with the pitch as it doesn't have great velocity or movement, though he does get some arm side run. I only saw a handful if changes and he did throw a couple good ones. Smith doesn't look like he has the raw stuff to be more than a 5th starter, but his command may help him maximize that projection. Worse case he looks like a Paul Fry like reliever though Fry does throw a bit harder. He'll be interesting to watch pitch this year to see if he has this command more times than not.

I'm not overly concerned yet, but I would like to see the K's come down significantly.

I will say after strikeout filled spring training, it's not a good sign to see him strike out in 5 of his first 10 AA PAs. I'll be honest, he has huge holes in that upper cut swing and I'm not sure why this hasn't been addressed at this point. They had all spring and alt camp to watch this swing and it appears to be a one plane upper cut swing with lots of holes. He swings through a lot of pitches both fastball and curveballs. Maybe it's a timing issue, but his timing must have been off all spring so far because he was underwhelming in spring training and now has started off with a lot of miss. I've watched his PAs and they have mainly been against guys throwing 93 mph and above. Just something to watch as he continues.

He turned a nice 3-6-3 DP in yesterday's game. Looked natural over there so its good to see he should have a place to play when they want to give him time off from catcher.

I'm not saying whether the Orioles did this or not, but understanding "what makes a guy tic" should be very much into the scouting process when you are dropping that kind of money on a guy. Statcast numbers and statistics are great, but good scouting gets to know a player well in all aspects.

Saw that in spring training as well. I have to say that I'm not a fan of his significant upper cut swing. Looks like a lot of holes in that swing so far that pro pitching has found. Hopefully he'll make the adjustments.

It would not surprise me if he's kept down and rehabbed as long as possible and then Wells will come up with something and the same thing will happen while Sceroler will return. My guess is the plan is to work them onto the 26-man roster for the minimal time they need to keep them and using minor league rehab as a way to get them some innings.

If Lakins is pitching in high leverage situations, you may not have a strong a bullpen as some think. Lakins is fine as guy you bring in during the 6th or 7th inning to eat some innings if the team is up or down by a bunch, but he doesn't have the stuff to be a high leverage guy. A few good outings should not have changed the role he belongs in really. Sulser has thrown the ball much better than Lakins and has proven when he throws strikes, he can be very effective. Scott, Lakins and Armstrong have really struggled with their command this year. Plutko has been a nice surprise so far and Fry has been money on most nights. Lakins is just not commanding the ball like he needs to to have continued success and he doesn't have the stuff to get away with a lack of command.

Not sure if you've looked, but is this lack of runs scored and allowed down across baseball?

I saw that as well. Pretty crazy of Rodriguez is touching 101 in a start. He's going to another level of [prospect status if he starts pitching in the upper 90s.