Tony-OH

Sorry, Elias just traded his defense up the middle for a 5th round draft pick and 5-11 DSL pitcher. There is no one ready to play SS everyday in the organization. Iglesias was the perfect stop gap for this team, but it appears either Elias is not worried about winning this year once again, or that ownership is forcing him to be extremely cheap.

Honestly, Elias must feel he has the full support of ownership for the long time. It's clear he's developing the organization from the ground up, but he obviously does not care at all about winning games at the major league level at this point, and in fact, I could argue he's tanking once again. This team has been awful since 2017 and we're now looking at another year of tanking as Elias collects DSL players. It's just a little disappointing because you could actually start to get excited about the team based on last year, the young pitchers coming up, Mountcastle, etc. Perhaps this is all ownership directed. The team certainly seems like it's doing everything about money and trimming the team payroll and almost all costs. I'm guessing they were afraid of looking like real bad guys if they non-tendered Mancini. My guess is if he shows he's healthy next spring and can be traded, Elias will trade him too.

Why do you think Sanchez has played just 98.2 innings at SS over his 657 games if he has so much ability to play the position? I really doubt he's better defensively then Iglesias.

Looks like Elias plans to tank for another year. I was really hoping for a transition year where the young pitchers get a good defense behind them and they see how things go. They do not have an adequate everyday SS for the major leagues now. Elias must have really liked the Angels 2019 draft because that's their third draft pick they've acquired from the draft. Pinto is a 5-11 right-handed pitcher. Unless he's the next Pedro Martinez, I'm not too thrilled with 5-11 right-handers generally. Pretty clear Elias feels no pressure for his major league team to win at all.

Or it's "He's not worth the tender." Alberto is a fun guy to like, but he's a guy you like a lot better when he's cheap. His defense fell off last year and his empty average offense really doesn't add much to an offense. If the Orioles can resign him to a minor league contract with a spring training invite and give him a chance to win a utility job than I'm good with that. But, with Sanchez, Urias and Valaika on board, Alberto is extraneous.

I'd rather give Valaika a chance at 3B everyday over Ruiz. Valaika showed enough with fairly every day PAs for the first time that I'd be willing to see what he does. I'm pretty done with Ruiz.

True, though he hits like a utility guy from the left side at least. He's 28 so this is nothing more than a place holder. My guess he upgrades the defense enough at 2B that Elias pictures some great up the middle defense behind his potentially young pitching staff.

Only 14 games in his career so I'm going to say not effectively or anything more than a fill in.

I like Sanchez at this price. He upgrades the defense at 2B and has enough utility to be a decent utility guy. He's a switch hitter who hits righties better than lefties. I do think this puts a lot of pressure on Alberto to sign cheaply or the Orioles could move on from him with Urias in the fold.

https://community.fangraphs.com/controlling-launch-angle-to-limit-damage/

When he gets lazy, yes. The biggest problem with Severino is not that he's doesn't block balls well, it's that he gets lazy at times behind the plate, typically in games that are not close. He loses focus at times and can look absolutely awful, which sticks in people minds more than the nice blocks or throws he's made to help the team. I also believe Severino is a decent game caller. I can remember yelling at the TV over Wieters' ridiculous and easy to follow pattern of calling pitches and locations, but Severino actually calls a decent game in my opinion. Now, he does not receive great and his framing has always been negative runs in getting extra strikes but he sets a much better target than Sisco who always drops his glove when the pitcher begins his windup and never fully resets in the location. We all know he throws effectively so that's a plus. Offensively, he took a step forward this year and his xwOBA (.326) was in the 62 percentile of MLB batters even though his wOBA .307 was below the MLB AVG (.317) suggesting he was a bit unlucky last year. Overall, I think Severino is a solid bridge option until Rutschman is ready to take over then he settle in nicely as a back up. Once AR arrives though his price tag will need to come down so if Rutschman does take over this year, this is probably Severino's last year as an Oriole unless he can be resigned for a backup catcher rate.

I think he can be that kind of hitter when it's all said and done but I'm not sure his OBP will be that high. I think he will be better than Mancini overall. Mountcastle is a special kind of hitter who may not be perfect, but has a unique ability to get base hits in an and out of the zone while also hitting for power. Last year Mountcastle got very unlucky with pitches in the middle of the plate where he put up a zone worse .193 WOBA despite putting up a 95.6 exit velocity. I believe that will improve. His power numbers will improve if he learns to lift low pitches more often or starts going with outside pitches more. He hits a lot of hard grounders on low pitches which ends up with a lot of singles and is why his average is so high. For a rookie, he showed only one real weakness with a hole low and away and limited the damage there by laying off that pitch at times. To me, he'll be the best hitter on the 40-man roster and may only be second to a healthy Mancini right now.

As I showed in his scouting report for this year, he has a hole down and away, and although he will chase at times, he showed a decent ability to lay off pitches in his hole. The key though to Mountcastle is he basically murders everything in the zone, especially inside where his quick bat speed gets the head of the bat to the ball effectively. I think he's a guy who may be a bit streaky at times, but who will absolutely carry a teams at times when he's hot. Though of who have always pointed to his poor K-BB ratio as reasons why he will struggle in the major leagues always forgot to mention how high a batting average he held throughout his career at every level. That was his ability to mash pitches in the zone and also showed his elite plate coverage. If he finds a way to hit balls effectively low and away he's going to be an impact hitter for years to come, and even if that remains a hole, pitchers will need to be able to effectively hit that hole because when they don't, they are in for a world of hurt. Mountcastle is an elite bat that will be in the middle of the Orioles offense for a long time.

Seriously, you felt a need to make a post on this? Yeah, it's on the dirt. I was rushing. Good lord..... Did you need clarification or just felt a need to call me out?

An infield arm and outfield arm can be two different things. Infield arms take quick release while the outfield throwing motion typically allows the outfield to wind up a bit. It's how Mountcastle's arm becomes playable in left field after being awful on the grass.

As my scouting report eluded, few think he can stick on the grass as an everyday player due to his defensive shortcoming, particularly the arm. If he can play center field affectively, his value goes up because the bat has the potential to play well.

Lets look at both Santander and Nunez offensively at 26 years old Season WOBA WOBACON Barrel % Hard Hit % Exit Velo XBA XSLG XWOBA XWOBACON Renato Nunez .341 .453 12.1 36.4 86.3 .228 .433 .301 .388 Anthony Santander .358 .404 10.2 36.7 88.6 .286 .510 .338 .378 MLB AVG .317 .370 6.4 34.9 88.3 .250 .414 .321 .376 They are not significantly different though Santander is ahead in the most important OBA and especially XWOBA categories. The key here is defensively value and cost. Santander is a switch hitting plus defensive RFer while Nunez is a DH. If Nunez played any position effectively, he'd be offered arbitration. Santander's issues have been staying healthy and he doesn't walk much, but then again, he doesn't strike out all that much either. Overall, Santander is a more valuable player than Nunez and this is coming from a guy who think Nunez is worth more than obviously the rest of baseball does.

Actually he's the perfect guy for the Japanese Leagues. He might hit 80 home runs in Korea!

At the end of the day, you guys are right. The market dictates the value and the market decided he was not worth what he was going to get in arbitration. Whether his previous production and age suggests he SHOULD be worth that, the market decided it was not.

I'm not going to lie, but that is up there for one of the greatest lines in Hangout history.

Shaw would not crack our top 30.

With the injury histories of Hays, Santander and relative inexperience with mixed results of Mullins and Stewart, I'm not sure we can say that. No Nunez did clear waivers and no one traded for him so perhaps there is something else going on here with him, but the guy has been a pretty productive bat and is just going to be 27 years old next year. Either way, I get what you are saying about Shaw and I agree, I think Elias will end up DFAing him and trying to keep him in the system.

I'm not excited that the team is making moves because guys are cheap, especially when the other option is around $2 million, which should be chump change for major league organizations. I'm just not sure I get this particular set of skills. Now perhaps Elias is going to DFA him and try to sneak him into the minor league system as depth. I guess there are worse guys to do this with, but I really would like to think this is a transition year where the Orioles are starting to bring up guys that will be contributors to a winning future and not place holders.

So if I understand this correctly, the Orioles DFA'd a guy who hits 30 homers a year for a guy who is six months older and has never hit in the major leagues? One scout told me he's Chris Davis-light. Big time raw power, long swing, slow (15.4 percentile spring speed in 2019) and has shown to be a below average defensive 1B and corner outfielder. The only thing in his favor is he hits left-handed, has an option and cheap. I can't figure this one out.

I do think 3B is one of the harder positions to find a good player unless you develop or trade for one because they rarely are found on the DFA or Rule 5 markets. Thankfully, with Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg and Coby Mayo to a lesser extent in the Organization, there are two-three potential impact players who could end up there. In the meantime, I think they will probably end up giving a guy like Bannon an opportunity at some time next year if they don't find a better alternative to Ruiz this offseason or at the end of next spring through DFAs. Ruiz is a guy that Elias had ties to from his Houston scouting days, and if Ruiz was more athletic and could play other infield positions and outfield he could have value as a utility guy, but he doesn't hit consistently enough to be a good everyday guy at the major league level.