Tony-OH

Tonight's lineup was announced and Ramon Urias rides the bench again as recently promoted Pat Valaika starts at SS. Considering that Valaika was optioned instead of Urias earlier this year, it seems strange with Galvis being out that he's not getting the reps at SS. While Urias has not hit much this year in his opportunities, it seems like this would be a good time to give him some everyday PAs if they wanted to see him in that role. Unless he's dinged up with something, I'm a little surprised he's not starting. It will be interesting to see if Galvis is ready whether he is sent back to AAA or Valaika, who also hasn't hit in his limited PAs this year.

I heard Henderson is working out with the Delmarva group so i expect he will start there this year. Most likely will play a lot of 3B.

Great article explaining Valdez's success. https://www.mlb.com/news/cesar-valdez-s-dead-fish-changeup-analyzed

Santander is a 60 arm, Mullins a 45 (he's shown some throws though that would be 50 on occasion and some that would be 40), Mountcastle is a 40 but can be a 45 or flash a 50 if he can goes to his right and then throws with his long arm action.

Well, it doesn't make a player mentally weak if they need an opportunity to just relax a bit. Hyde has tried to take some of the pressure off him by dropping him in the order. That's a good first step. He's has hit some balls hard of late, but he's slashing .091/.139/.121/.260 in his last 10 games over 36 PAs and his approach at the plate has been pretty bad all year. All the things we saw him do last year he's regressed on. He seems like he's trying to force elevating the ball instead of going back to what made him successful last year. His launch angle is too high this year as he appears to be trying to make up for his lack of power this year by trying to hit those home runs. As most players will tell you, when you go back to just trying to hit the ball hard where it's at, that's when the homers start to come. He can't hack his way out of this slump so he needs to improve on his 4th percentile chase rate and 7th percentile WHIFF rate. Those stats alone tells me he;s pressing and if he can't figure that out at the major league level, then you send him down to work on those very things. I remember when Elias went down to AAA and told Mountcastle he needed to be more patient and he started to walk more often right away. I don't know what he's being told right now by the Orioles hitting coach, but he's regressed back to the hackomatic hitter he was in the minors and he needs to get back to the guy he was last year with a better walk rate, better chase rate and better Whiff rate.

I suggested the same thing in other threads. Sometimes a player just needs to relax a little and right now Mountcastle is pressing due to his awful start. Coming off the year he had last year, there were big expectations and unfortunately he's just gone into a long funk. While he has been a little unlucky has his expected stats show, he's swinging though some hittable pitches which is what he didn't do last year very often. I have a lot of confidence that this is nothing more than a bad streak that is highlighted by being the start of the season, but, if he's OPSing sub .500 still when the AAA season starts, it might make some sense to go back and take a little pressure off and see if he can refind himself there and then bring him back. He's hit the ball hard a few times this series so hopefully it's starting to come back.

It's a little bit of manager speak but Stewart can be all over the place with his throws. He can show average arm strength at times but has also made some really bad throws which is why his scouting reports are all over the place with his arm. Hays has a much better arm. I'd rate Hays' arm at 65 and Stewart 45 due to his consistencies.

I would not be surprised to see Richie Martin get the call. He's been doing well at the alternate camp and can not only SS, 2B and 3B in a pinch, but I heard he's played some CF which gives him the ability go out in the outfield if needed.

While it's a small sample size, I think this point is worth highlighting. If you recall, my biggest issue with Mullins once he established himself as a prospect after his Delmarva season was that his right-handed swing just wasn't good. He was never going to be able to be more than a platoon guy while batting right-handed and trying to fix his right-handed swing I believe affected his left-handed swing. It's rare for a player to give up switch hitting and find success batting only one way, and then finding success facing pitching of the same side. Honestly, I don't know I know of a player who has done this at the major league level and found success like Mullins has so far. I know earlier you blamed the high school coach which I hope was tongue and cheek since any good high school coach would encourage someone who showed success switch hitting to continue to switch hit. The problem was once he hit the minor leagues that the Orioles probably should have addressed this much earlier on. By Bowie it was pretty clear his swing was just not as fluid and he was not having the same kind of EV from the right side that he got from the left side. Saying that, I can't blame the Orioles player development for not changing him earlier for two reasons, one Mullins did not want to stop trying to switch hit, and two, there is no real precedent that I can remember of a player going one handed then becoming proficient hitting the same sided hand pitching. Mullins could actually be the precedent that other teams will use with switch hitters who struggle significantly from one side of the plate (almost always right handed) especially in the minor league system where something like this should be identified and corrected as soon as possible. Keeping two different swings going at the same time is extremely hard to do which is why good every day switch hitters are fairly rare. Saying all that, if Mullins is truly able to effectively hit left-handed pitching long term, his upside goes from 4th outfielder to every day starter. I don't expect Mullins to keep hitting .350, but with his stellar defense in center, if he's able to keep his OBP around .335 to .360 he becomes a pretty good asset in the lineup as well.

Please, please stop bumping spring training threads. Please start new threads with information like this.

Scott has not had his command all year, including spring and unfortunately has seemed to have taken a step back after looking like he figured it out last year. While his stuff can be unhittable and he can work around his wildness at times, he really can't be entrusted in leverage situation with a good team which will limit his value. He can be fun to watch when he's on, but he's maddening to watch when he cant throw a strike. Not sure what he's doing differently from last year when his bouts of wildness were at a minimum, but I hope he can refind it once again. Right now I would prefer to have Fry in high leverage situation over him.

He's still a box of chocolates.

Who were the posters who said Mullins was trash?

What do we think the chances of Hays going on the IL now tomorrow? Hays' body doesn't react well to baseballs.

The alternate site this year are for guys who are heading to AAA.

Yeah, I doubt he would not clear waivers.

Mike Rowe would be awesome is we wanted a local feel. I mean as long as we are going with celebrities who would never in a million years take a baseball PA announcer job.

Roberson has been the backup for Wagner for years. She clearly was next in line if something happened to Wagner. I don't think her being woman has anything to do with anything. She's local, she has experience (17 years with Baysox plus years with the Orioles as a backup) and was clearly available to do the gig.

Well it looks like the Orioles aren't planning on putting Lowther in the rotation yet. Who had Flaa as next guy up? Would love to see if they keep Flaa around or DFA him after he pitches if they need room. Maybe he's had a jump in stuff because I've never been very impressed with his stuff but then again, he might be a guy they know they can temporarily use and then no lose if they DFA him shortly afterwards. Either way, hope he gets into a game before that happens. Congrats to him either way.

Man, I wonder where he got that video from? Would love to get my hands on some of those videos. I'm clearly jonesing for the minor league season to start.

Things Tony cares about with the Orioles: 1. Just about everything else including whether or not they practice the cleat changing mat on the pitcher's mound (that dude was efficient as a NASCAR pit crewmember) 2. What happened to the PA announcer

Baumann and Wells are throwing down in Florida the last I heard. They could bring LeBlanc back as a deep depth innings eater in AAA since they will need to protect the arms there as well. I would be surprised if we see him again this year, but wouldn't be shocked. It's going to be a weird year for innings and we'll see guys in AAA and on the major league squad who's job it is to eat innings in games that are out of reach vs burning through the pen.

Lowther just pitched on the day that LeBlanc was the starter. In theory, he's aligned to start next Friday in Oakland if they want, but that's a tough lineup to make your debut against having pitched one inning of live baseball in what would be about ten days.

I wasn't a huge fan of the signing but I understood why he was kept. His role was to eat innings until the young guys were ready to help eat some innings. apparently Lowther showed he was ready. Add in the fact that LeBlanc's stuff was bad for a AA pitcher, and it was time to make the change.