Tony-OH

You are missing the point.

I probably should have said they did not live up to their lofty expectations. Bundy was once considered one the best all-time high school pitching prospects by some scouts and has become a 4th starter. That's underachieving. Regardless of their rWAR rankings of all-time, organizations don't hope for Gausman or Bundy's performance when they draft #4 overall. So yes, in my mind they under performed for their draft position.

Who's scouting report is that, Fangraphs? Wonder how they are getting trackman data on prospects?

Or just go back to the balance schedule. Although I like having less West Coast games throughout the year, playing 18 games against AL East opponents is not fair when it comes to the Wild Card which goes by best records after the Division winners. How is it fair that the AL Central teams play each other 18-19 times while the Orioles, Blue Jays and Tampa have to play the $200 million plus payroll Yankees and Red Sox 18-19 times? I'm actually for an East Coast vs West Coast Leagues both with the DH. Make it a balance schedule that would include "interleague games that all teams from one league would play that year." Top six teams in each league advance with the top two teams getting first round byes (similar to football). Three games sets for the first round, five game sets for the next two rounds. No Travel days for three game sets as higher seed (3 and 4) gets all home games. World Series is still best of seven, team with high regular season record gets 4 of 7 games at home (first two and last two).

There's a reason why it's so important to have a healthy stream of arms coming up. The process to find legitimate major league starters is one full of perils and hurdles. It's not surprising that few survive when you look at the odds. Saying that, both Bundy and Gausman under performed for their draft status. I still think Gausman will end up a quality major league reliever if he's ever converted in time and Bundy should be able to stick around as 4th-5th starter for awhile.

Thanks Steve. No need to get too fancy if you don't want to. Most important thing is to give us once place to discuss each player's performance during the spring! If you follow the format of last year that would be perfect.

Agreed. I've been supporting moving Harvey to the pen once he returned to starting and was not getting very good results. Once he moved to the pen and with the velocity bump, it became very clear that was his best role.

I will try to get to this but have a bunch of things to do, but major reputation points for anyone who can build the 2020 Spring training Tracker this year in it's own thread. Even if you don't want to add in the comments for each player, just having all the names built would help. Here's last year's:

Was this even a real question or concern? It was clear last year that the Orioles made the necessary change and it worked. Even Harvey said he enjoyed the new role and felt it worked for him.

I think you bring Akin up when you think he is ready and then you ride him out for at least 10 starts regardless of success. If he's anywhere decent, then you ride him the rest of the way to see how he holds up as a starter. I like Akin, but if the Orioles were a contender, I'd move him to the pen where I think his stuff will play up and be potentially more consistent in shorter stints. Akin is the only prospects that has enough to AAA to be "ready" but Zimmerman could be a sleeper here, especially if he can improve that changeup more consistently. He has some John Means in him.

Considering the competition in camp, I'd say Stewart is an early favorite for a rotation spot. Doesn't mean he's not probably best suited for a reliever spot, but unless Akin steps up and claims a spot and LeBlanc pitches well, I would not be surprised to see him start in the rotation. Barring injury, Stewart, LeBlanc, Akin and potentially Bailey are battling for the 4th and 5th spots.

I used to be against that because of the importance of setting regular season records, but after Barry Bongs sterioded most records out of reach, I'm all for it if it will help the season not end at the end of October.

Yeah, but those top 100 prospects are hard to come by!

Until I get that he was stolen! We'll see what Luke can talk about after he gets a season under his belt. I'm pretty sure he's NDA'd in pretty good though.

I don't know if I'd trade all five for Witt. Witt had questions about his bat and although you can't take too much away from rookie league numbers, his lack of great success there didn't clear any of that up. Mountcastle and Hays alone have a lot of value to me and are much closer to the big leagues with Hays already having success there last September. There are players like Henderson, Hernaiz, Stowers, Rom and Watson that could take jumps next year and fill some of those gaps, even before considering next year's draft. Rodriguez and Hall should both still be top 100 prospects along with Rutschman and with the Orioles drafting #2 overall, you can expect a top 100 prospects being drafted as well.

They stole my top prospect!

Every time this thread gets updated I get scared.

The pitching staff though had been rebuilt almost completely.

Mic drop! Conversation winner in my book.

Well he cares where they believe their farm system rank within their own evaluations. I doubt they are worried where fangraphs ranked them.

I don't think anyone is worried about the MIL ranking over actual performance at the major league level. The OP and many others are discussing the depth of the farm system when they talk about what the Mil ranking will look like. You are looking at this combatively vs looking at this for the discussing at hand. There is not one single person on this board that just wants a top farm system ranking just for the "prestige" but rather because it bodes well for the future. If your concern is over the rankings overall, well those are done to give a little perspective by outside sources. I would agree with you that it doesn't mean a ton either way if prospects perform well at the major league level. The rankings are a guide and a potential indicator, not a guarantee.

Nice win. Terps on a roll. Gotta give Turgeon some credit (yes I said that) for making some adjustments at half defensively.

Weak ass foul call there!

Just turned on the game and Ayala steals the ball then loses it.. Poor guy can't ever anything well when I'm watching! haha

Griffin is one of those players that should be very thankful he was playing an era that did not go by today's statistic metrics. Another guy is Jeff Newman who found a way to get 2290 major league PAs between catcher, 1B and even DH at times despite being an absolute out machine .224/.264/.357/.620.