DrungoHazewood

The follow on questions are: what is a normal performance on poorly hit balls, what is Mountcastle's performance, and is that repeatable or mostly luck?

Why? It impacts almost no one (Gregg Jeffries and... ?) and it would be cool to see someone like Mountcastle get votes in two straight years.

Pitchers whose Oriole careers were most like Asher Wojciechowski: Alex Cobb Kevin Millwood Steve Trachsel Fernando Valenzuela Calvin Maduro Josh Towers Sid Fernandez

JD Drew had an interesting start to his career where he tried to avoid the draft by playing for the independent St. Paul Saints, where he had an 1.110 OPS. Then in his first MLB stint the next year he hit .417 with a 1.436 OPS in 14 games for the Cards. Fred Lynn had maybe the greatest start to any career, ever. In 15 games in '74 he hit .419/.490/.698. Then of course was MVP and ROY with a .967 OPS in '75. Stan Musial hit .426 as a 20 year old in '41, in 12 games. Then got MVP votes in each of his next 16 seasons, and 18 of the next 20..

Also: Craig Wilson started his MLB career with the White Sox going 22-for-47 (.468), with a 1.256 OPS. His career lasted another 126 games with a .624 OPS. Shane Spencer famously broke in with the Yanks hitting .373/.411/.910 with 10 homers in 27 games in '98. 1.321 OPS. He'd never again have an .800 OPS nor play more than 119 games in any MLB season. Bill Madlock hit .351 in 77 at bats in '73, then finished '74 3rd in the ROY. Geovany Soto had cups of coffee in '05 and '06, then in 60 at bats in '07 he had an 1.100 OPS. Then was ROY in '08. And was never really the same afterwards.

So... some of the best years by someone who appears to have still been a rookie by modern standards the next year: Gregg Jeffries had a .961 OPS in 29 games in '88, finished 6th in the ROY voting, then played not nearly as well but finished 3rd in the '89 ROY. Steve Lombardozzi (recent O's player's Dad) had a .908 OPS, worth 1.7 wins in 28 games in '85. Then was really mediocre the rest of his career. Corey Seager had a .986 OPS in 27 games in '15, then won the ROY and was 3rd in the MVP the next year. Joe Mauer had a .308/.369/570 line in 35 games in '04, but was less good in his real rookie season in '05. Dwayne Hosey broke in at 28 with a 1.026 OPS for the Red Sox in 24 games in September '95. He'd play 28 more major league games in his life, but had some success in Japan and indy leagues. Joe Jackson played five games in each of 1908 and 1909, then in 20 games in '10 he hit .387/.446/.587, which was actually worse than what he'd hit in what we'd probably consider his 1911 rookie year (.408/.468/.590). Butch "Warm Front" Davis hit .344 in 33 games for the Royals in '83. The rest of his MLB career, including a brief stint on the Orioles, was .205/.243/.332. And no list would be complete without The Magnificent Lew Ford, who hit .329/.402/.575 in 34 games for the '03 Twins, before getting a tiny bit of down-ballot MVP support (but no ROY votes) in '04.

An .871 in Norfolk in 2019 is the equivalent of a .559 in Dodger Stadium in '68.

I want to see him named 2020 Oriole Most Valuable Player (MVP), and then next year win the AL Rookie of the Year (ROY). Yes I'm spelling out acronyms because I chastised @interloper for his use of indecipherable acronyms earlier today. I plan on posting at least for a while like I've had my tech editor review everything. Also, I need to go run a query for best seasons by someone who was still eligible for the ROY the next year.

I once had to deal with the OPP on an epic baseball trip around the Great Lakes and Midwest, after an unfortunate incident where I hit a bear with a rental car about an hour north Sault Ste. Marie.

Every time people start using acronyms like that I'm going to start suggesting random, nonsensical guesses at what they are. Like here it would have been much clearer if you'd written out "LF appears to be the easiest way to get Red Munger to the majors this year and with the foot speed it was a decent idea to have him add Canadian Orienteering Federation as a thing he can technically do." I'll give you LF.

So far Nunez has hit a little bit better as a DH than when playing the field. If that continues long term that's a little bit of information in his favor. Most players hit a little worse as a DH, which is one of the reasons that overall DHs don't hit any better than 1B/LFers who have more defensive responsibilities.

Stewart turns 27 in November, and a month ago his career OPS was like .710. In over 2000 minor league PAs his OPS is .790. He's charitably an average fielder in an outfield corner. I think the reasonable conclusion on him is that he might be a decent piece for a while. Nobody should be penciling him in as a solid starter long-term. Less than a month ago people were talking about Stewart's time on the Orioles being essentially over. Maybe he should get one more shot, but he's shown us nothing.

I won't argue that point at all. But MLB is unique, or nearly so, among major sports in that it controls/owns/directs 95% of the professional baseball in North America. Football and Basketball have huge, (mostly) thriving NCAA organizations that are independent of the fully professional versions of the sports. Hockey has minor league systems but with more independent teams and less levels and the addition of Canadian junior hockey and college, if I understand things correctly. And soccer around the world is made up of pyramids of overwhelmingly independent clubs that not only have league affiliations but play in numerous other competitions, and promotion-relegation demands that even 6th-tier teams operate on their own. In the 1920s baseball decided it was better financially to buy up entire teams rather than pay the Orioles $100,000 for Lefty Grove. There were as many or more minor league teams a century ago than today, but they just weren't owned or directly controlled by MLB. And people actually cared about them as teams, and went to games because there were good players in great pennant races. Not because you might one day see their cleanup hitter playing a little bit in Detroit.

Sounds like you're describing someone with limited experience in the outfield. Hopefully he improves over time.

You kids and your text-typing.

What are the stabilization points for Statcast data?

I don't think he'll be non-tendered. But I also don't see him as a big asset. He's just kind of an average-ish DH with limited defensive ability. At some point the Orioles need to sort through a bunch of 1B/DH/corner OF types.

Who is MC?

I think I said that chronic injuries are a separate case, and major things like TJ are obviously a pretty big risk even today. But I'm not convinced that someone can be snakebitten by injuries and that has any predictive value. If you tear your ACL this year, and sprain your ankle next, it doesn't mean you're going to get another injury in the near future. Edit: Or basically what Frobby said in his last post.

I think the Rangers and A's knew better than put any weight on 60 or 70 PAs spread over several years. They were willing to let him go on waivers because he hadn't hit particularly well in the minors and is defensively limited. A pretty good definition of replacement level is a DH with a league-average bat. Nunez is a DH who can stretch to play first, who has a slightly above average bat. That puts just a bit of value between him and the waiver wire.

There are more RH batters by about 55/45. So you'd think there would be a few more balls hit to LF than RF. Looking over the past decade it looks like RFers out-hit LFers by maybe 25 points of OPS. To, you could infer that LF has slightly higher defensive responsibilities because it's harder to find an equal hitter who can also cover with the glove. But that may not be strictly true if managers just default to putting their worst defensive outfielder in LF, and better all-around players want to play right because it's seen as slightly more prestigious. Also the standard defensive spectrum and generally accepted positional adjustments have RF ahead of LF.

In the space of a couple months in 2018 Nunez netted the Rangers and A's zilch.

You can say that about a lot of things that eventually turned out to be not so obvious. Would be nice if there was a comprehensive injury database. Otherwise we're guessing.

Are you sure of that, and is that consistent across different broadcasters?

There's probably a good book or at least a feature article that could be written by interviewing guys like Rickey Henderson, Julio Franco, Jamie Moyer, Willis Otanez, Cesar Valdez, etc. Ask them why they played for so long in so many places, moving almost constantly, signing deals for $5000 a season, playing winter ball in Caracas, going to Korea or Japan... Henderson made $44M in his MLB career, but there he was in '05 at the age of 46 playing in an indy league for probably $2500 a month. Of course that's not representative of everyone in MLB. Or maybe even most. There are players who retired in their early 30s when they could have played another 10 years. Mike Mussina stepped away after a healthy 20-win season.