Tony-OH

He allowed five runs in his first 17 pitches. I'd say that;s bringing nothing to the mound.

You and me both. Loved me some Saigon Kick and Tora Tora!

The man was once worth 4.9 dWAR in a season. He was special. I wish I could have watched him in his prime. I only remember the guy at the end of career, and barely at that.

Damn, up 5-1 and the Orioles lose 7-6. Tough one, but the Mets defense and pen were just better.

Harvey does not look on his game tonight.

Yes, I'm old school, but I think Tate wins a lot of friends in that dugout if he drills Nimmo there with two outs and no one on after Stewart and Mountdastle were hit the inning before.

That's the plate coverage I was talking about in his scouting report. the ability to cover the low and away and still get hits is part of what will make Mountcastle's bat special.

Yes, I think it's clear Peter Angelos was a big problem for a lot of GMs.

You can have that opinion of course, but we've beaten this thing into the ground for years here. DD rebuilt the starting staff and brought in many players for the team to take that jump forward. Was Buck a big part of this, sure. Was MacPhail's trades, especially the Bedard trade that brought Adam Jones and Chris Tillman part of it, sure. Regardless, the guy in charge at the time gets the credit just like they take the blame when things go bad. Duquette had as much or more to do with the winning rosters than any of the other two. Regardless, that's all water under the bridge. I think we're all happy Elias is doing his thing here now.

Hyde has shown to be a great communicator with his players and really does a good job is seeing those things and knowing when they need to be addressed.

As I always say "Actions speak louder than words." That can be twisted into "Results speak louder than opinions." Duquette had his hands tied in ways that no other Orioles GM has probably ever had when you add in Showalter and then the Brady situation. Before the Toronto situation basically neutered him, he was building a consistent winner. Who know what happens after the 2014 season and if that never goes down? Saying that, I'm glad Elias is here now and has installed the technology and analytics while putting a new found emphasis on international scouting and signings that was never done under the Duquette regime.

Excellent well thought out post. I wanted to highlight what I feel is the major difference in the Duquette regime (and use that loosely because of the things you mentioned in you post which were spot on) and Elias regime. The development system with the high speed cameras and analytics is already bearing fruit with guys like Akin, Kremer and Mountcastle and we also have to look at the improvements of guys like Severino. Akin and Kremer are both working in the upper portions of the strike zones with their high spin rate four seamers and although it's just one start, the Orioles looked like they took away Kremer's awful changeup and replaced it with a cutter. Akin looks like he ditched his curveball and has gone to just a three-pitch mix and his changeup has improved to the point it looks like his best offspeed pitch similar to Means. I'm betting a lot of this is based off the information they were getting off those cameras and analytics and that is huge difference. I'm on record that I think Duquette was good as certain aspects of being a GM and I think we also have to give some credit to Gary Rajsich who drafted a lot of this talent that we see arriving (Akin, Mountcastle, Harvey, Hays) and having success with more in the pipeline (Rodriguez, Hall, Lowther, Rom, AHall). As for the Bundy trade, I think Elias took the gamble that Bundy was at his highest value with his price tag increasing. We obviously still don't know what the Orioles have really received in the 4 pitchers acquired for him, but I don't think I would have any in the top 20 prospects and that's a little disappointing. You brought up a good point about the parks he's been pitching in and Anaheim is much better than Camden Yards for him as well, so it's doubtful he would be putting up the same numbers. His pitch selection has moved more slider heavy which started last year as well with the Orioles, but it's not like his stuff took a huge step forward. I'm not going to say Elias gave Bundy away until we see how the pitchers he acquired develop and even if he did, there's not a ton of evidence that suggests he would put up the numbers he's putting up this year pitching in Camden Yards and against the AL and NL East teams.

I think it was a situation of sending him down to work on something vs they liked those guys more than Stewart. DSJ and Williams are stop gap/AAAA/up-down guys at best. I was really surprised by how poorly he played the outfield last year. I'm not sure what was going on or whether he was struggling to adjust to the balls coming out of the upper decks, but he really looked poor defensively and although he's never been plus defender in the minors, he never looked that bad. Stewart is probably always going to be .250ish hitter who draws a lot of walks at the major league level, so his power was going to decide whether he can stick. He's probably a middling 18-25 homer guy but if he can walk enough, he could be a .780ish OPS guy. Either way, this is the year to give him all the at bats he can handle to see how he looks and then next year, when we hope Mancini is back, he'll need to bring his "A" game because that outfield/DH situation is starting to clog up with Mountcastle, Hays, Santander and Nunez and Mancini needing DH/1B.

Plus his ratio of home runs (4) to hits (5) has to be some kind of record as well for that amount of hits.

Nice research Ken.

This is why I don't see Davis back next year. either he's going to do the right thing and retire, or the Orioles will just eat the rest of the contract . With Mountcastle, Akin and Kremer up and it seems that Elias is willing to turn to the next phase of the rebuild, giving the young guys a chance and offset them with some low priced talent like Iglesias for positions where they don't have anyone ready. Next year is the year I think the Orioles hope to be mediocre with a chance to surprise in 2022 if guys like Rutschman and Kjerstad are up and ready to contribute.

Maybe someone can dig that Ubaldo pothole in the Bowie parking lot as well? Just to make sure Davis doesn't see a roster spot again this season.

I'm interested to see how what the repertoire looks like and spin rates on the fastball and curve. He started to improve his slider last year in the AZ Fall League so I want to see if that's still part of his game. His changeup with quite firm and straight last year as well. It will be interesting see what the had him working on and if he looks different.

The changeup has really improved and he's getting plus fade on the pitch while getting a 43.8% whiff rate some far. That matched up with his high spin rate fastball that he's used very effectively up in the zone has given him a 1-2 punch to get batters out (similar to what Means did last year). It's seemed that they have shelved his curveball and gone to a strict slider and although he's been a little inconsistent with the command of the pitch, he hasn't made many mistakes with it either. The BB rate is a little high but I like the quality of the stuff that we've seen. It's never been about the quality of stuff with Akin, but the consistency of command with his pitches. We saw a little bit of that with the walks, but he's been able to limit mistakes so far and that high spin rate fastball and fading change is a great place to start with stuff wise. I'm glad to see the Orioles giving him and guys like Kremer a chance now over the last month of the season.

Glad to see this. I heard he had been looking good down there and glad to see him get the first of hopefully many chances.

Maybe his 45/40 speed was much higher? I typically took speed ratings based off what I heard and saw, but not off direct timing.

Yeah, that's kinda why I said that. I've always said he was a good athlete, but even I've been a little surprised by his sprint speed. No surprise at all by his plate coverage and ability to hit so far though.

His foot speed though had nothing to do with why he couldn't stick at shortstop. His arm strength and action was why.

Anybody still think Mountcastle is a slow clog on the bases?