Tony-OH

Harvey did not graduate.

As for the OP, barring any trades, I think the opening day outfield will be: LF: Stewart CF: Hays RF: Santander I think Mason Williams has a good chance of being the 4th outfielder. I see Mountcastle playing a lot of LF in spring and in AAA to start the season and by mid-late April, he will come up and play LF. Diaz will play everyday RF for Norfolk next year. His arrival will depend on his performance as well as Santander's performance. By the way, don't give up on Muillins yet. He'll start next year as Norfolks' CFer. He could see more time in Baltimore in Williams role or in CF if Hays misses time.

Hmm, interesting take. So you are going to go with limited scouting eye data over hard facts? As someone who watched him in the minors and this year in the majors, let me tell you, Stewart is not good defensively. As he's gotten older he's lost a little athleticism and honestly, there were plenty of takes by scouts who didn't think he was a very good defender in the minors. He always played pretty decent when I saw him, but I'll take statcast data over any scouts eyes when it comes to outfield jumps, routes and foot speed. I do not expect to change your mind though. Afterall, you still don't think Elias has full control over his allotted international money because he "hasn't spent it all" yet. You be you though!

Well let's check the statcast: Players: Reaction Burst Route Feet vs AVG Feet covered Stewart -1.0 -2.5 -1.2 -4.7 29.1 Smith Jr. -0.4 -2.4 0.0 -2.8 30.8 Mancini -0.1 -2.2 -0.1 -2.5 30.9 So by pure metrics, Stewart was worse than Smith in the outfield and Mancini was better than both though only marginal better than Smith. He was actually much worse than I recall watching in the minors so not sure if the upper decks messed him up some or not, by Stewart by just about any metric was awful defensively.

Your friends must've hated you! I was one of the older kids on my block so dominated as well. We used to play in our one friend's yard that had a fence that ran diagonally in the outfielder from left to deep right. That meant the younger kid on the other team that hit left-handed had a home run advantage and evened it out a bit. Of course I would switch hit so I could hit it out left-handed as well. They would usually throw the lefty though and forced my Ken Singleton to bat right handed so I would try and go the other way for homers! I hit a number of home runs as Joe Nolan though because when I would announce the lineups, I would make sure it was full of lefties to take advantage of the short porch. Nolan, Dwyer, Lowenstein, Crowley and of course Eddie and Singleton were my guys at that field.

Guys, when it's slow, we let more stuff stay in the Orioles section. Ex-Orioles news is fine to talk about here during this time of the year. Not much else to discuss until we start putting out the prospect list stuff.

We were pretty hard core whiffle ball guys, though we did use electrical tape at one point on the bats and the balls to give them more weight and make it more like baseball. Even played whiffle ball up to my mid-30s against my brother in law and his friend in his large back yard. Of course I also played actual men's baseball up until my early 40s when I decided to coach and scout more instead of play. As kids though, I had plastic helmets of most of the teams so we would use them and play as those teams. We would flip to see who would be the Orioles and then the other had to pick another team. I typical choose the A's because I liked the helmet and they had that outfield of Rickey Henderson, Dwayne Murphy, and Tony Armas. I would bat whatever way the player did and was a pretty good switch whiffle ball hitter, but never was able to convert that to real baseball unfortunately. We actually would keep stats of our players sometimes as well. I still remember hitting a "monster" left -handed home run as Wayne Gross that landed on the neighbors roof. It was one of the reason I was excited when I heard the Orioles had acquired Gross a couple years later.

Nope, those sound like jerk things. Being a douche typically involves a person who acts like they are smarter and better than everyone else. I have no idea what Mike Mussina is like now. He might be the perfect gentlemen. I have no issues with the man besides being the only drafted and developed Orioles All-Star to ever sign with the Yankees in his prime. A man who gave up an opportunity to leave a legacy for a few extra bucks and because he didn't like the pressure of being a number one pitcher. A man who could have gone down as one of the greatest pitchers in an organization, only to become a another cog in the wheel of the Yankees. I know he has his fans here and that's fine, fans can have any opinion they want of players. Some fans don't get that there are players out there that could give two squats about them and it's always been about them. I understand that and accept that about fans. At the end of the day, Mussina will always be a traitor and a non-Oriole to me. I'm happy he's not in the HoVG (Very Good) wearing an O's cap. And before anyone start rehashing the old "It's Angelos' fault" excuse, I don't care. I know the story inside and out and it doesn't change my mind that the guy turned his back on a chance to have a legacy, a chance that very few players ever get a chance for, and he choose money, even when he was being offered enough money for four generations of Mussina's to be comfortable. And now back to Chris Ray. Always liked the guy and hope his beer making is going well if he's still doing that!

Must be the douche factory of Pennsylvania.

Not to get off subject here of this great nostalgic offseason post by the OP, but any argument that doesn't resolve to Steve Kline being their least favorite Orioles is wrong. This guy bashed his new teammate and fans in the first week he was an Oriole. Joking aside, Terry Mathews is certainly in my top 5 as well without putting too much thought into it!

We will know if the O's "won" the trades when any of these players are helping a future contending Orioles team. I would say there's a good chance of that happening between Kremer, Diaz, Pop and Bannon.

I just meant at SS, not that Villar was being platooned.

Starts in Aug Aug 2nd - Toronto bullpen game Aug 3rd - SP- Pannone is a swing starter Aug 6th - Yankees bullpen game Aug 7th - Paxton (Legitmate LH starter) **** Aug 12th - Paxton (Legitmate LH starter) **** Aug 14th - Happ (Legitmate LH starter) ****) Aug 17th- Rodriguez (Legitmate LH starter) ****) Aug 24th - Montgomery (Below avg LH starter) **** Aug 25th - TB opener, but main pitcher was Beeks, LHP Aug 27th - Corbin (Legitmate LH starter) **** Aug 30th- Skoglund (Below avg LH starter) **** Starts in Sep Sep 1st - Duffy (Legitmate LH starter) **** Sep 2nd - Yarborough (Legitmate LH starter) **** Sep 3rd- 2nd game of DH - Bullpen game for TB Sep 5th - Allard - (rookie LHP) ******* Sep 6th - Brook (rookie LHP) ******* Sep 8th - Minor (Legitmate LH starter) **** Sep 13th - Norris (Below avg LH starter) **** Sep 16th - Alexander (rookie LHP) ******* Sep 21st - Sheffield (rookie LHP) ******* Sep 28th - Bullpen game for Bos Sep 29th - Rodriguez (Legitmate LH starter) **** Basically he was platooned with Villar. On the year Martin slashed .243/.298/.345./643 vs LHP and .170/.217/.296/.513 against RHP

Perfect name for two irrelevant programs that are going nowhere.

Walks don't always equate to command. I can see guys who walk very few and still don't have good command.

You get the sample you get. I just wish we had statcast information available to us from the minors. Until then, we do it like we always have and it's mostly be traditional scouting and interviews of other scouts and baseball people.

Think i saw the 13th and 26th.. Thanks

Worse part of Hall being at Frederick for us is the lack of video available since the Keys and most other Carolina League team don't have video for their games. I have to wait until he gets to Bowie next year to have a better feel for his command.

Villar is 28 years old and has a skill set that tends to age pretty well. If the right deal is there then you deal him, but there's no reason Villar can't still be a good player in 2021-22 when it will start to matter. I'm not saying you build around him, but I think it's a no-brainer that he will be tendered and on the team next year if they don't get a great trade offer this offseason.

I haven't seen him play but the stats and how he's been played in the majors suggests he's more a 3B than SS. Saying that, I'd give up Givens and Sisco for him and try him at 3B.

You may want to go and reread, because that's what I said.

Potentially, it would depend on who is available. It's doubtful though that many legitimately ready SS are available in that draft. I could see Elias pulling of a trade here since honestly, there's not a legitimate upper tier level starting SS in the system right now unless you want to go down to the GCL where Gunnar Henderson most likely ends up a 3B and Hernaiz is so far away it's hard to tell yet.

Martin slashed .279/.315/.397/.712 over the last two months of the season but Hyde did a good job of making sure he had good matchups. I think he goes back to AAA next year, but that will depend on whether the Orioles want Villar playing SS everyday next year. If Martin hits well in the spring, he could still break camp with the Orioles since the team is better defensively with him at SS and Villar at 2B. Elias could watch the waiver wire as well but it's doubtful many teams are letting go legitimate major league SS's.

Sulser is a high spin rate fastball guy who works well up in the zone but has an inconsistent slider that doesn't have enough velocity separation from his fastball (6.7 MPH separation) . Looks similar to Evan Phillips but with a fastball that plays better because of the spin rate.

Bautista does have a nice arm, but his command is way below average and his lack of dominance despite the extreme velocity at his advanced age for the level gives me pause. Perez is a similar profile. Both are arms that you want in the system and if you wanna put them on and get rid of some dead weight on the 40-man and then push them up hard next year to see what you got then ok, but this team is still going to be doing the DFA dance next year with pitchers so not sure they want to risk losing one on waivers when it's tough to see them making the jump to the big leagues next year anyways.