DrungoHazewood

It was an understatement. But BABIP and batting average takes many hundreds of at bats to stabilize. Pretty much any non-pitcher on a MLB roster could go 17-for-49. Todd Cruz had a .589 OPS for his career, the O's had him play third down the stretch in '83 and he was frankly terrible. He started that season going 20-for-59. Everyone remembers David Newhan, a career .692 OPS guy, hitting .400 for about six weeks. Valaika's career OPS stands at .686 today. That's probably a reasonable projection of what he'll do going forward.

As much as I like Palmer, he pitched mostly in a pitcher's era, in a pitcher's park with an epic defense behind him. If anything you could argue that his performances weren't as good as his raw numbers. Clearly a HOFer, but probably in the 30-50 range in all time starters.

That's a good point. Corn is right, short career. But his peak is about as high as anyone's. Koufax is similar, but had an even shorter peak and pitched in the best pitcher's environment of the past century. I imagine Tom Seaver or Clemens or anyone on the list would have looked pretty unhittable on a giant mound in Dodger Stadium with a knees-to-shoulders strikezone.

I wait until they've gone through the line and gotten their pizza, then just demand that. I'm not wasting my time queuing up with the rabble and talking to the lunch lady.

I think Valaika could be a nice Flaherty type player for a few years. With short benches it's nice to have someone who can at least fake playing 4-5 positions and not be a zero with the bat. There's no harm in being optimistic. But I take issue with over-the-top, magical, nonsensical optimism. Going three-for-eight doesn't warrant a thread on someone's Cooperstown credentials.

You do understand that if you're 23 years old and you're OPSing 1.257 you're going to get called up, right? Even if you're playing Albuquerque arena baseball. There were 32 PCL players 26 or younger who OPS'd at least .952. Here's a list of players who had a .952+ OPS, were 26 or younger, and had 383 or more PAs: Jared Walsh Taylor Ward Seth Brown Roberto Ramos Isan Diaz Younathan Daza Pat Valaika Of course even that is tilted unnaturally in favor of Valaika because Albuquerque is one of the best places to hit in the league. The PCL as a whole had an otherworldly 5.85 runs a game, but Albuquerque was at 6.4. That's higher than the run context of almost any MLB team since 1900. At the height of the steroid era the majors scored 5.1 runs/game. The Rockies have never had a year where they scored/allowed 6.4 runs per game. The 1930 Phils, a 52-102 team playing in a tiny park with a comically bad pitching staff in the biggest offensive year of the 20th century may be the only team in the last 120 years to see 6.4 runs/game. So just to scale Albuquerque to PCL standards you'd have to knock 30, 40, 50 points off Valaika's numbers. Then you get a list of 15 or 20 comparables using your criteria, ignoring half the league. I've spent enough calories on this. If you still wish to believe that a 26-year-old utility player is going to be a MLB starter because he hit 200 points above his normal AAA level in a very extreme environment, go for it.

It's certainly not a lock, and I wouldn't personally pick him. But it goes something like this: The shortlist is Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Clemens, Lefty Grove, Seaver, Maddux, Johnson. Maybe you could make some kind of case for Kid Nichols, Pete Alexander, Christy Mathewson. Young, Johnson, Grove, Nichols, Alexander, and Mathewson played 90-120 years ago when the league was segregated, only had 16 teams in the eastern half of the country, mostly didn't have affiliated minors, almost no foreign players, modern scouting and analysis was all but unknown, and pitchers clearly paced to try to throw a complete game all the time. I would argue that it's almost impossible to say someone from that era is comparable to a top pitcher from the past 50 years. All of them were able to save their best stuff for the key moments of games. Walter Johnson and Grove probably threw in the 90s, but they almost certainly weren't throwing 98 mph for 300-400 innings. An average MLB fastball in 1915 was probably about 80 mph. Clemens has the PED stuff. Maddux and Johnson have almost as good a case as Seaver, possibly better. Johnson I think you can eliminate because he just wasn't that good until he found his control at 30. Maddux was never a huge strikeout pitcher, and relied on his defenses more than Seaver. I'm also a little wary of 260 ERA+es from Maddux that really are only possible in a very high run environment like the 90s. For Seaver to have a 260 in 1970ish he'd have had to have like an 0.70 ERA, which is essentially impossible. So after all that you're left with Tom Seaver. Personally I'd pick Clemens, but I get why others wouldn't.

I hope he's the new Rogers Hornsby. I just don't put outsized faith in 100 at bat samples and seasons at 6000 ft altitude with superballs.

You mean the guy who was selected off waivers three times in four months?

I'm sure Pat Valaika thinks that if he puts in another 10 minutes a day in the cage he's going to win the Triple Crown. Baseball players aren't paid to be realistic. But 26-year-olds with .759 minor league OPSes in ridiculously good environments rarely become major league regulars. Look at the Albuquerque Isotopes, pick some random years. You'll almost always find a journeyman player like Matt McBride or Tim Federowicz or Alex Guerrero or Nick Buss, or Jerry Sands or Elian Herrera, or Justin Sellers, or Trayvon Robinson OPSing .888 or .930 or something on their way to a .649 OPS in the majors.

He was also blocked by the fact that in '19 he hit .190 with a .572 OPS for the Rockies. And in '18 he had a .683 OPS in a hitter's paradise in Albuquerque, and a .460 in Colorado. And in '17 he had a .749 in Albuquerque, although he hit okay for the Rockies (.817 OPS, a few points higher than the team average).

I'm not sure what your point is. That Taylor Ward and Yonathan Daza probably aren't going to hit in the majors? Jace Peterson had a .930 something OPS last year. It means nothing. Pat Valaika is a guy who's going to OPS .700 if things go right. He's a decent utility infielder, maybe he could be someone's second baseman if they didn't have other good options.

You continue to argue that he should be promoted on playing merit and potential, when we all know the schedule is largely dictated by when he will probably have maximum value for the major league team. If he was signed to some kind of 10-year, super team friendly contract he'd be starting in RF for the Orioles today.

Jim Palmer threw 182 minor league innings at 18-19 before he was in the majors for good. Walked 190 batters in that time, and threw 32 wild pitches. Today he'd have spent another three years in the minors instead of winning the World Series. Dave McNally went straight from Class A Elmira to the majors at 19 and never spent another inning in the minors. Wally Bunker had 19 wins for the O's at the age of 19. Milt Pappas was up at 18, threw 135 innings with the O's at 19. Jerry Walker had a complete game shutout for the '57 Orioles, he was 18, debuted about a month after graduating high school. Boog Powell, Wayne Causey, Brooks, Dave Nicholson, Ron Hansen, Andy Etchebarren, Paul Blair, Lou Piniella... all made their debuts with the O's at 20 or younger. Brooks was in the majors the year he graduated from high school. I'm all for getting talent to the majors as quickly as possible. Hopefully the next CBA lets that happen.

That's the fun of the draft. It's a nihilist's dream. Unless you pick Ken Griffey Jr at #1, everyone is always stupid and wrong.

He needs to be mad at service time rules, not the Orioles' GM's optimizing his behaviors concerning those rules. Service time rules are the only reason 75% of the top 100 prospects over the age of 19 aren't in the majors. In the decade before free agency it was common for 19, 20, 21 year olds to come to the majors with minimal seasoning.

Nah, I was pretty into 1990s Primus, and even have some Fabulous Frog Brigade stuff, but haven't paid that much attention to what he's doing lately. My kids are probably the only ones in their middle school who are into (hell, have the slightest inkling of) Mr. Krinkle, Tommy the Cat, and Jerry was a Race Car Driver.

Last time I was in Cooperstown Primus was due to play at the Ommegang Brewery in a few weeks. I seriously thought about driving back up. Couldn't get anybody to go with me.

On average everyone loses half of the trades.

Billy Hamilton v1 was a legit Hall of Famer. The one we have now is v2. If you want the full Drungo, the O's actually had a Billy Hamilton in the minors the year I was born. Kind of looked like a poor man's Dalkowski. And there was yet another Billy Hamilton who played in the mid-level minors a century ago. Not to mention the 5th one who played a bit for Cal State San Bernardino in '13...

I prefer to think he was afflicted by a defixiones agonisticae. We'll have to consult with an Oracle to figure out from whom.

Probably. But Forbes doesn't take the owner's word for it, they do some estimating of their own. In any case, there is hidden revenue among all teams. So it's still likely the Orioles ratio of payroll to revenues was among the highest in baseball in '16.

If you're a utility guy you're probably lacking somewhere. Usually it's the bat. But it doesn't have to be. He could be a Ty Wigginton type utility guy. All I can really be confident in saying about his defense is I don't think he's a starting shortstop in the majors.

Don't conflate the teardown part of the rebuild with future phases where they're moving towards contention. Most of the action today is still offloading more expensive short-term assets while collecting pieces who could be valuable in a few years and surrounding them with an environment where they can have the best chances to succeed.

He only has a few hundred innings in the majors at any one position, so any metrics are going to be of pretty low confidence. The Fangraphs numbers have him as average-ish at harder-than-average positions. So I'd rely more on scouting than anything else right now.