DrungoHazewood

Plus, it's the new baseball. Outfield is kind of a vestigial position. They don't really play defense, they're there to watch homers and strikeouts, and guys hitting the occasional ball to the rover in the shift.

And this is the Orioles. They've played Trey Mancini in the outfield for 2200 innings even though nobody at Notre Dame, Aberdeen, Delmarva, Frederick, Bowie or Norfolk thought he could handle anything but first base for even an inning. I think it's unlikely that Mountcastle is much worse than Mancini.

My mind starts churning in strange ways on hypotheticals. I want to know what level Davis would have to be dropped to in order to be a productive player. AA? I don't think so. You take a good player in AA and they're still usually not terrible in the majors. I think he'd struggle to OPS .700 for the Baysox. Would he be okay in the Atlantic League? Last year Lew Ford hit .303 with a .768 OPS there, and he was 42. So maybe. I think if he went to Japan he'd still be bad. Korea... I don't know, but probably still not actually productive. You could send him to the Mexico City Red Devils, the Diablo Rojos, and he might be adequate. They're at 7300' in altitude and they score six or seven runs a game. He could probably OPS .800 there, which might be 12th on the team, but would seem respectable. He'd probably be a big star in the Pecos League. The Tuscon team is scoring almost 10 runs a game and the quality of play can't be as good as a decent college league.

Next frontier of sports revenue: R-rated broadcasts on subscription-only channels.

You should experience his mom at a game. She's going to stand at the end of the dugout and let Hyde have it every game her boy isn't in the lineup. Once quarantine is over. Now it's just emails. And Skype. And Zoom. And Teams. Texts. Facebook messenger. Lots of Facebook messenger.

It's pretty rare for a catcher to lead off. Here's the top 10 in catcher OBP (min 1000 PA), and the number of games they started batting leadoff: Mickey Cochrane, 13 Johnny Bassler, 0 Bill Salkeld, 0 Wally Schang, 23 Dick Dietz, 0 Gene Tenace, 0 Roger Bresnahan, 196 Bill Dickey, 0 Rick Ferrell, 0 Pat Collins, 0 I believe that Jason Kendall holds the all time mark for games led off for someone who was primarily a catcher at 463. For comparison, the all time record for games led off is Rickey's 2886, Kendall is 224th.

You can't say that without context. He's a guy who's going to OPS in the low .700s in the majors. You can find a role for someone like that, but only if they can play defense, or run, or maybe leverage a big platoon split. There aren't too many corner OFers who OPS .700 or .725 and just keep getting regular starting gigs.

There are no guarantees, but you can look at the available evidence. Diaz was 22 in the AA Eastern League last year. He had an .807 OPS. His performance was very similar to the Phils' Alex Bohm, also 22, with a .844 OPS in the EL last year. Bohm is playing for the Phils now, and hitting well but in 20 PAs so that's really nothing. Daniel Johnson is a Cleveland OF, had an .872 OPS in the EL but is a year older, he's in Cleveland right now. The Phils' Adam Haseley had an .837 in the EL last year at 23, is in Philly, too. Isaac Paredes is just 21, didn't hit quite as well as Diaz in the EL, but is playing for the Tigers now. Diaz was 4th in the EL in OPS among players his age or younger. It wouldn't be in any way surprising if he was in the Orioles starting lineup right now.

A better outfielder? Sure. I'm pretty confident in saying that. Mountcastle might be a LFer. Mullins is at least a passable CFer.

Yea, the going-in assumption (i.e. prior) has to be that he's just not that good or he'd already be here. But it's at least a tiny bit intriguing that he was the best hitter on his roughly AA-caliber Mexico City Red Devils team at 23.

Einmal Oriole, immer Oriole.

He's the new Mike Squires! Or maybe Dave Stapleton. A little peek into what the Majors would be like if they had rosters the size of NCAA football teams. You could have Brian Matusz on staff just to face David Oritz. Chris Davis to play defense 17 innings a year. Two or three outfielders with absurd arms ad nothing else just in case the winning run is on third base.

It's a near certainty that Diaz is a better defensive outfielder than Mountcastle. He's always been an outfielder. Mountcastle has always been a guy searching for a position. But it is also very likely that Mountcastle is a better hitter.

I remember a post-game interview on the radio with Stone, in what had to be 1988. It stood out because it went on for several minutes and I didn't understand a word he said, it was gibberish. I hesitated remarking about this because maybe English isn't his first language, and that would just be mean. Stone was born and grew up in Missouri, a few hours north of Memphis.

That's fine and all, but the Orioles are playing Dwight Smith, Jr. Who's almost 28 and has spent most of the last four seasons being kind of okay in AAA and not very good in the majors.

I'm not sure it would be much better to assign outsized value to what he's done in a few weeks of AAA plate appearances. If he'd gone 15-for-62 (.241) we'd have 11-page threads arguing that maybe he's just not that good and we need to move on. If he had four more infield hits that could have been classified errors he would be hitting .306 and clearly he's being held back for silly service time issues and this whole game is stupid and keeping the Orioles from the playoffs.

That's not the only way. I mean, thousands of draft picks were determined to not have a future in the majors by watching and analyzing their performances in the minors. But it would be reasonable with Akin to say he's far enough into the gray area that he could improve and become useful in the majors.

Now's the perfect time to trade him for a nugget for the stretch run! Like Jason Grimsley.

Are we sure Urias can't hit a lick? His career pro OPS is .833, although most of that is in Mexico, with some stints in the PCL. Last year he OPS'd .793 in AAA, but being the PCL that was 12th on the team (min 100 PAs) or 19th (min 50 PAs). Was the best hitter on the Diablos Rojos del Mexico in 2017 at 23, OPSing over 1.000. But Mexico City is at 7300' altitude... It's hard to tell when you're in weird contexts. It's like trying to draft that guy from University of New Mexico where they score 23 runs a game.

Cody Carroll has allowed nine hits in two innings. Bubba Harris allowed six hits and five walks in 0.2 of an inning, but 12 earned.

He has nearly 3000 PAs as a professional over the last decade and a .653 OPS.

Most of the top 3, 4, 5 prospects would require a deal that only a really drunk GM would offer hours after a really bad loss.

Hey, he only has the 10th-worst ERA of all time (min 1 inning): Rk Player ERA IP Year Age Tm Lg G GS GF W L W-L% SV H R ER BB SO 1 Harry Wheeler 81.00 1.0 1879 21 CIN NL 1 1 0 0 1 .000 0 6 10 9 4 0 2 Radhames Liz 67.50 1.1 2009 25 BAL AL 2 0 0 0 0 0 8 10 10 2 1 3 Mike Zagurski 63.00 1.0 2018 35 MIL NL 2 0 0 0 1 .000 0 5 7 7 2 2 4 Glenn Sparkman 63.00 1.0 2017 25 TOR AL 2 0 1 0 0 0 9 7 7 1 1 5 Jason Pearson 63.00 1.0 2003 27 STL NL 2 0 0 0 0 0 4 7 7 3 1 6 Mickey Mahler 63.00 1.0 1980 27 PIT NL 2 0 1 0 0 0 4 7 7 3 1 7 Frank Schneiberg 63.00 1.0 1910 30 BRO NL 1 0 0 0 0 0 5 8 7 4 0 8 Jim Garry 63.00 1.0 1893 23 BSN NL 1 0 0 0 1 .000 0 5 8 7 4 2 9 Lewis 60.00 3.0 1890 99 BUF PL 1 1 0 0 1 .000 0 13 20 20 7 1 10 Cody Carroll 54.00 2.0 2020 27 BAL AL 3 0 0 0 0 0 9 12 12 5 3 Our old friend Radhames Liz had that wonderful 2009 season where he gave up 10 runs while retiring three batters. And who can forget Lewis. That was his only major league appearance, for the Buffalo Players League team in 1890. Started, gave up 20 baserunners and 20 runs in three innings, got shuffled out to the outfield in the 4th and was never seen again. Buffalo didn't give up, they lost to John Ward's Brooklyn team 28-16. Not too many major leaguers left that we have no biographical data or even a full name, but Lewis is one of them. And just for completeness, here are all the major league games (since 1901) where a pitcher gave up 12 or more runs in two or fewer innings: Rk Player Date Tm Opp Rslt AppDec IP H R ER BB SO HR UER Pit Str GSc 1 Pat Caraway 1931-07-26(2) CHW NYY L 5-22 GS-3 L 2.0 7 13 10 8 0 0 3 -12 2 Edinson Volquez 2016-06-24 KCR HOU L 4-13 GS-2 L 1.0 8 12 11 3 0 1 1 48 23 -12 3 Bubba Harris 1948-07-04 PHA BOS L 5-19 L 0.2 6 12 12 5 0 0 0 4 Hal Kelleher 1938-05-05 PHI CHC L 2-21 8-GF(8) 1.0 10 12 12 3 1 0 0 5 June Greene 1929-06-05 PHI CIN L 4-21 4-6 2.0 10 12 12 2 1 0 0 6 Jack Harper 1904-07-02 CIN PIT L 2-14 GS- L 2.0 10 12 1 1 0 Hard to top Bubba Harris. Came on for the A's against the Red Sox in a 5-5 tie with two out in the 6th, got out of the inning. Stayed on for the 7th, got one out, and left with his team losing 17-5. The best part is the rest of the season his ERA was 3.00. He threw 92.2 innings, and his ERA went up 1.06 runs on the basis on 2/3rds of an inning. I want to know how you allow six hits, five walks, no HBP, and 12 earned runs. That's somehow 11 baserunners, 12 earned runs.

Top Orioles' catchers age of best season: Hoiles, 28 Dempsey, 28 (although he was better in his 30s than 20s) Wieters, 25 Triandos, 25 Etchebarren, 25 Ramon Hernandez, 30 Elrod, 28 Charles Johnson, 25 C. Joseph, 29 Orsino, 25 Hall of Famers: Bench, 24 Carter, 28 Ivan Rodriguez, 25 Fisk, 24 Piazza, 28 Berra, 31, but his 26-29 seasons were almost the same Dickey, 30 Hartnett, 29 Cochrane, 30 Lombardi, 30 Campanella, 29 Schalk, 21 and 22 tied Farrell, 26 Simmons, 28 Bresnahan, 29 Ewing, 28

He is younger. But catchers don't develop later than anyone else. Everyone (on average) peaks around 27-28. Severino's minor league OPS is about .660. His MLB OPS is .693. He might be a starting catcher for a while, maybe a long while, but it'll be an upset if his final career OPS approaches .750. And he's not a very good defensive catcher.