Frobby

My guess is that Sig has had this stuff for years. I think it will be interesting to track players’ career arc on this stuff. You figure that players’ bats get slower as they age. But do they compensate with shorter swings? How does square up percentage change with age? Now Fangraphs has something to do.

This is a rabbit hole one might dive into and never emerge from. Fast swing? Short swing? Squared-up percentage? The variations and trade offs are endless.

You can see on the Orioles chart that Gunnar has elite bat speed but isn’t sacrificing too much in square up percentage. For most Orioles, it’s a trade-off.

Here’s an interesting chart that on one axis has bat speed and on the other has percentage of balls squared up. Adley is in the upper left quadrant, meaning below average bat speed but high percentage of balls squared up. The most extreme player in that quadrant is Luis Arraez, who has the lowest bat speed and highest square up percentage of anyone on the chart. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/bat-tracking Here’s a copy only showing the Orioles (for some reason it appears twice and I can’t delete the redundant image): https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/bat-tracking?attackZone=&batSide=&contactType=&count=&dateStart=&dateEnd=2024-05-13&gameType=&groupBy=&isHardHit=&minSwings=q&minGroupSwings=1&pitchHand=&pitchType=&seasonStart=&seasonEnd=&team=110&type=batter

This isn’t specific to the Orioles, but I figured it belongs here since we’ll all be citing these measures soon enough. Baby has a new toy! https://www.mlb.com/news/what-you-need-to-know-about-statcast-bat-tracking?partnerId=it-20240513-9833659-mlb-1-A&utm_id=it-20240513-9833659-mlb-1-A&lctg=67326645

What’s he doing playing for the Ironbirds?

Mayo is by no means untouchable. We’ve seen teams trade top 10 overall prospects many times, and Mayo isn’t quite in that league. Not saying we will trade him. Not saying we’d trade him without getting a star player in return. But he could be traded in the right deal.

I did a search, and you’re right. I stand corrected. I still say it’s more about his “vibe” than his skill set. I like the Grich comp too.

Santander is at .093. But yeah, that seems really extraordinary. I assume it won’t come close to holding up over a full season. Last year, among our players with 100 PA in losses, nobody hit worse than .170 (Mullins). Gunnar was at .179.

I think I was the first one to make a Hardy comp several weeks ago on April 10 in this thread. And to quote what I said: ”He has a JJ Hardy vibe. Not exactly the same player, but same kind of guy.” I stand by that 100%. It’s mostly about his demeanor and the way he carries himself than it is his skill set.

For the second consecutive start, Kremer was bothered by a blister in the middle innings. With Grayson eligible to come off the IL on Wednesday, I wonder if the O’s will IL Kremer to give his hand time to heal fully and kick the can down the road regarding who will leave the rotation.

The Mothers’ Day crowd was about 5,000 less than last year. Maybe because some folks traveled from Pittsburgh last year.

3 scoreless from Suarez today, saving the rest of the bullpen.

After 27 games and 80 PA, Cowser had a .439 wOBA and a .390 xwOBA. Now, after 38 games and 116 PA (excluding today), he’s at .372 wOBA and .370 xwOBA. So, you can estimate that in the last 11 games before today, Cowser has about a .223 wOBA and a .326 xwOBA. So, (1) he was a little lucky over the first 27 games, (2) his quality of contact was nevertheless very good during that period, (3) he’s been quite unlucky over the last 11 games, (4) his quality of contact has been significantly down over the last 11 games, and (5) though his quality of contact has gone down, it’s still decent (.326 xwOBA would equate to roughly a .730 OPS with “average” luck).

Point 1 is incorrect. Slot was $8.846 mm. There was some talk that Jones wanted full slot, but who knows. Jones signed before Holliday did and got a few hundred dollars less.

Through 20 home dates (Friday night’s game), attendance stood at 484,310, a 22.4% increase over last year’s 395,651. If 22.4% held for the year, that would put attendance at 2.37 mm, a 400 k increase from last season.

I don’t care at all, TBH.

Now that I’ve got the BB-ref box score; Santander 2nd inning strikeout following a lead off double: -4% WPA 3rd inning strikeout with runners on 2nd and 3rd and two out: -7% 5th inning ground out with a runner on 3B and two out: -6% 8th inning solo homer to tie the game +33% 10th inning walk to load the bases with 1 out +11% Total WPA: +27% Westburg 2nd inning 2 out RBI double +15% 4th inning single with a runner on 1st and nobody out +11% 6th inning fly out out with one out, bases empty -3% 9th inning lead off single +7% 11th inning game-winning RBI single +19% Total WPA: +49% Westburg gets my Game Ball, though many players made good contributions to that win.

Small correction: Mayo turned 22 in December. Still pretty young for a guy with nearly a full year of AAA under his belt. I have mixed feelings about trading him for a relief pitcher, even a dominant one. I just feel a good player who has 500+ at bats in a season has more impact than a reliever who throws maybe 70 innings and faces 300 hitters or so. At the same time, I’m really unclear where Mayo is going to play. He may have to be a good player for another team.

My guess is at least two of them will. Don’t ask me which two.

Two more dazzlers for Cano yesterday, one fielding a grounder and one covering 1B.

Gotta hand it to him, he called balls strikes in all four quadrants.

That picture of Elias makes him look like someone just asked a group of people “who just farted” and it was him.

It’s not complicated. If Mullins starts hitting well, he’ll play almost every day. If he continues to hit poorly, he won’t.

I hope the fans on that White Sox forum absolutely choke on there derisive remarks about Ortiz for the next six years. Hall has been disappointing, and it’s not just his role. His velocity has been way down and he’s just not crisp at all.