Tony-OH

Yeah, I have to imagine it will be heavy Yankees and Tampa for a bit, and I'm sure strength of schedule is a big part of their predictions. Who knows? I honestly didn't realize the Nats were doing so badly.

Not saying they will be wrong, but funny how fangraphs has the Orioles finishing the worse out of all these teams.

Actually Hammonds is a pretty good comp for Hays so far. Lots of talent, struggles to stay on the field unfortunately.

When Mullins first came up he put up career highs in Barrel % (3.0%), hard hit (28.9%) and xSLG (.326) but he tried to elevate too much (LA on fastballs went to 24 degrees) and that caused a lot of flyouts and his xBA to fall to .173. Strangely enough, pitchers haven't really changed the amount of breaking and offspeed pitches to Mullins and he primarily sees fastballs which tells me they don't think much of his bat speed. His LA on fastballs is way down to 3 degrees due to the bunting, but I don't have anyway of judging his launch angle when not bunting. The last two seasons pitchers have actually thrown him 3% more fastballs than that first season where he had some success. I haven't had time to look to see if they are pitching him more in or out or up and down to determine what they are doing differently, but what I can see is that despite his work in the offseason, his numbers look very much like last year but with bunt hits. As four scouting reports, it really goes to show how little information we really have when it comes to scouting minor leaguers, particularly hitters. When they get to the majors, we now have a lot of information to be able to guage what is really going on and how pitchers are pitching to them and how successful they are against certain pitches. I feel like if I had minor league statcast info, I could much more accurate on my scouting reports but we have to go on what I see during my video work and what I hear from other scouts and baseball people. I actually get giddy when new pitchers come up because I can then get actual pitch movement information and see if it matched my eye test from the minors. So far I've been pretty good. Most of the information we need to accurately gauge what is happening is within the baseball savant site, it's just a matter of analyzing it correctly now which is still a work in progress.

He's below average in every major offensive statcast metric: Barrel %: 2.2% vs 6.2% MLB AVG Hardhit%: 21.4% vs 34.8% xBA: .173 vs .250 xSLG: .231 vs .416 xWOBA: .227 vs .322 K%: 28.4% vs 21.7% BB%: 8.1% vs 8.3% The bunts are nice, and they've propped up his average and OBP, but his numbers look very similar to last year when he was a disaster at the plate. Also, while still very fast, his sprint speed his dropped for the 3rd straight year. His arm looks stronger this year though. I don't think his "hot streak" is sustainable.

I hope I don't go to hell, but if I do, they are going to be playing that song in that Iphone commercial on loop.

Scott looks like a guy who figured it out.

Think Mountcastle was looking slider there. Tough night for him.

When Nunez gets hot he gets white hot!

That's that Wojo slider that works well...

Velasquez can play SS and CF, something Herrera can not.

People who disagree with me have a hard time getting that. I was not being political to be political, I was explaining my reasoning. Either way, I'm completely fine with the people that no longer want to post here because of the situation. It's totally up to them and I will wish them well as long as they don't try to be all dramatic and make it personal.

Dram queens will be dram queens on their way out. I was disappointed in some people that upvoted it but it is what it is at this point. People can stay or go, it's totally up to them.

Take this with a grain of salt since I just pulled video and watch about four innings of work from him in one start. He's a tall, lanky left-hander with an 88-91 (off video radar) fastball, a decent slider and straight change (83-84). He's a low ceiling strike thrower who doesn't look like he has the swing and miss stuff at the major league level. His slider is his best pitch and has more horizontal movement than depth. Not sure how that will play at the major league level. I'd have him behind Zac Lowther and Alex Wells in the Orioles prospect rankings judging by what I saw. Probably behind Zimmerman after the improvements in velocity that we saw from Zimmerman this spring.

How is that different from what baseball has basically become even before this year?

There has been a noticeable difference this year and it seems to be because he has more arms and doesn't have to burn through his bullpen and use the Norfolk shuttle like in years pasts.

Lots of great points here Frobby. I would like to re-emphasize that the extended roster has certainly helped the bullpen cover up for the starting pitching that typically struggles a 3rd time through an order. Hyde has been able to get these starters out fairly quickly with the added arms in his bullpen. It will be interesting if MLB keeps these expanded rosters next year if order to keep more teams competitive.

The lack of heath of Iglesias this yea has hurt the team no doubt. Valaika is ok as an occasional fill in but is exposed as an everyday SS.

The Orioles may want to try and play an actual SS there, it's important.

It's almost like Mountcastle can hit or something.

Pretty sure mine was solo too!

It's hard to say of course and at 13 years old, I was no scout so I can't say how he would have done, but I'm betting he would have been a better option than Todd Cruz that year. I remember Gulliver a bit and remember being him while playing wiffle ball because had to bat left-handed. Speaking of that, I once hit a monster home run in wiffle ball while being Wayne Gross. Crazy that i can remember that. Probably because it landed on the roof of the house that no one thought we could reach. haha

The Todd Cruz thing as one of the weirdest thing the Orioles ever did and it goes to show you how much baseball has changed. Cruz had that great arm and was a plus defensive third baseman, but the Orioles had Glenn Gulliver in AAA who slashed .309/.464/.472/.936 with an amazing 117-37 BB-k ratio. On top of it. Gulliver had plus dWAR ratings in his short chances at the major league level at 3B though I don't remember much about his glove. While the Orioles did win the World Series that year, so it's hard to fault them too much, they clearly would have been better with Gulliver at 3B rather than Cruz. But, Gulliver didn't hit for power and third baseman's clearly had to hit for power back then and Cruz did hit 16 home runs the year before so clearly he must've been a better option lol. Gulliver is one of those guys that probably would have produced had they stuck with him instead of trading for Cruz who was a -0.4 WAR player despite his 0.8 dWAR. Gulliver is a guy who was under appreciated due to his lack of power and mediocre average, but he was an on base machine in the minors (.413 in 2925 AAA PAs) and a guy who probably would have gotten more of a shot in today's baseball.