Tony-OH

Walker's EV has increased a lot over the last year or so. He had a 86.2 EV last year and 95.9 this year. i'm wondering what he did over the offseason or if he's just got into some balls early this year. The thought always was that he had below average bat speed so I'm interested to seeing if this holds up, and if it does, what adjustments did he make?

All of this is why I thought he was a similar player as Yastrzemski based off his minor league stats. So far he's out performing his xBA (.247), xSLG (.430) and xwOBA (.314) and his exit velocity is in the 25th percentile all of which suggests he will fall off some after his hot start. He's living off the fastball right now so it will be interesting to see if pitchers make an adjustment and he starts seeing a lot of off speed. He's a slightly below average runner, but he gets decent jumps in LF, throws ok for a LFer but would be well below average in CF. He has a good approach at the plate where he limits his chases off the plate, but again, we will see what happens if he starts getting a steady diet of offspeed. He's pleasantly surprised me so far with his production.

Haha, good point. Saying that, I'm always hopeful that one day someone will run an Orioles netowrk and actually run Orioles content. It's a piped ream probably.

From an Orioles fan standpoint, it would be nice to have a network solely dedicated to the Orioles once again. Maybe even some Orioles specific programming and some minor league coverage.

That's fine, I might have been a bit snarky since it annoys me when people ask questions about things we've already done, especially posters that I know that have read and know where to find these reports. Luke discussed some swing changes, that's not going to change his FV three weeks into a season. I appreciate that folks want to discuss these players, but sometimes people need to realize that unless some kind of major change occurred (like a guy suddenly throwing 98 when he was 92), there's not really going to be any changes to their overall evaluations three weeks into the season. Anyone who starts giving reevaluations based off three weeks is either jumping the gun, or doesn't know what they are doing. I'll apologize for being a bit snarky in my response, but my point is valid.

What is going to change in three weeks into the season? You should know better as a longtime member to be lazy like that. It has nothing to do with being welcome, it has to do with asking for information that is clearly available.

I don't know, maybe you should go look at the top prospect list from last year where we did that already? But hey, just keep asking Luke to do your homework.

I'm not making any conclusions on the new tools/information, but outside of maybe Means, we certainly have not seen them help out very much on this pitching staff.

It's actually quite simple, he doesn't have major league command, and his slider has been downright awful this season.

No, he's not a DH-type, just not going to be a plus defender anywhere unless he makes some improvements. Again, I don't think he's going to kill you at either position, but there will be times when you would have liked to have a better defender.

I had heard he "tweaked something" but the new regime is very close hold on minor league injuries..

I think a nice centerfield angle is the easiest to tell. Some site one time showed which MLB parks had the best viewing angle for judging pitches. Also, sitting behind home plate is decent, though the catcher and umpire block where the ball is received sometimes.

Bannon is off to a nice start. Defensively, I've been less then impressed with his ability at 2B. Maybe won't kill you there but I don't see a lot of lateral quickness and the arm is not great. As for third base, I'll need to see more of the arm but although he can play there, he will be limited on those plays that require a big arm. Nice start with the bat though.

He was missing mostly glove side and just missing, so it's not like he was all over the place. He got a decent amount of swings and misses on his fastball up which suggests good spin rate since he doesn't have plus velocity. His curveball was pretty good though it still rolls up there too much. I still don't understand why he doesn't throw that many changeups still. I didn't see many but I didn't have a radar gun and it could have been just straight changes on occasion. either way, that's the pitch he'll need to pitch in the big leagues and I'd like to see him use it a lot more.

From those videos and from watching his first start on video (not the best camera angle), his changeup is his best off speed pitch right now.

Then he adds in a tweet from Jtrea.. Give me a break

Sometimes my ideas take time to marinate!

Good stuff Luke. I haven't been able to watch last night start so good to see he's trending up. 81 pitches in less than four innings against High-A ball hitters suggests some command/finishing off problems though. Did he have a go too out pitch last night?

With as bad as Straily and Rogers looked last night (stuff wise), Wright probably is not going anywhere right now for no other reason then he can do what he did last night and throw some mop up innings. I was never impressed with Rogers' stuff, which is why he didn't make our top 30 despite the fact that he was about as major league ready as he was going to be, but last night his stuff was NP stuff.

And just like that, Ynoa gets beat around like a bad MMA fighter right after i suggest he'd be better than Wright!

That would be a boring take!

This probably won't come as a big surprise, but I've been of the belief that Mike Wright is not going to be a successful major league pitcher for some time now. I once held out hope if he was converted into a one or two inning reliever that he would throw harder more consistently and when he focused on his change it could be a nice complement piece. This year, the new regime had him ditch the change (only thrown 3) and focus more on the cutter (designated as a slider in statcast) but the results have been pretty horrific since his 1st two outings of the year, including the outing when he was brought in to save the game and was all hyped up and throwing 95-97 MPH vs his normal 93-94. While the cutter has gotten some whiffs (36.4%), he misses too much with the pitch and batters have hit .462 with a .923 SLG against the pitch so far though the expected BA (.251) and SLG (.456) suggest he has run into a little bit of bad luck. The big issue though is without enough change of speed (89.4 for cutter vs 94.1 for FB) or plane, his fastball has been getting murdered for a .833 avg (.441 xBA) and 1.500 SLG (.906 xSLG). It's worth noting that in the 20 sinkers (92.8 MPH) he's thrown batters were 0-for-3 when batters put it in play making it his only successful pitch so far in 2019. While I don't necessarily believe any combination of Mike Wright will be successful, I do think he's got a lot better chance of being better as a sinker, change-up guy with an occasional cutter/4 seamer than this FB/cutter guy. BTW, last year batter put up a .204 xBA against the change and throughout Wright's minor league career his change was his best offspeed pitch. Saying that, if the Orioles are going to run Wright out there as a cutter/FB guy then it's time to cut bait and bring up Gabriel Ynoa and give him a shot at the Wright role. While I don't necessarily believe Ynoa is a long term answer, I did like what I saw in a couple of his outings where he at least showed a 4-pitch mix. Ynoa, sometimes you gotta give a guy a chance!

Annnnddddd back to the subject at hand.... Stefan Crichton is in AAA for AZ. For the life of me though, I never understood what people in the organization, including some people I really respect saw in him. He's a dime a dozen minor league AAA reliever at best.

Great job by @Enjoy Terror on digging up all that information on past players (though I don't understand what the number before the player means). Good to see Rosa still making money. I really wish the Orioles would have brought him up in September for cu p of coffee after so many years in the minors with them. It's an injustice that When Carlos Casimiro has major league at bats but Rosa won't. As for Jones, Arizona is a great place to hit and combined with the chip on his shoulder and fresh start, I'm not surprised he's off to a great start in a new league known more for fastballs than sliders away. Markakis is just a professional hitter.