deward

Not that I don't want to see Elias make an effort to reinforce the bullpen, but I think it's far too pessimistic to argue that the current roster can't win a WS. If you assume full health by October (a big assumption, of course), then a team that can roll out Burnes/Bradish/Rodriguez in a short series, with this lineup, and Kimbrel to close (again, assuming he stays healthy and doesn't wear down) certainly has a chance. Clear holes that COULD prevent a World Series run sounds more accurate to me.

Once upon a time, Suarez was rated the 9th best prospect in the Appy League and as high as the 12th best prospect in the Rays system. He also did get parts of two seasons in the majors with the Giants. I know he's been bouncing around Japan and Korea for the past few years, but he wasn't completely off the radar earlier in his career. Reality may well catch up to him soon, but pitchers have weird trajectories sometimes.

The occasional clunker is inevitable, hopefully he gets them all out of the way before October.

It's every game now...why has every ump turned into Angel Hernandez??

I think you're underestimating the value of an OPS around .800 in the current offensive environment. From a quick glance at BB Ref, it looks like Santander was 6th in OPS in all of baseball among players whose primary position was RF (a couple of spots lower if you include guys who spent time in RF, but it wasn't their primary position). I think Cowser and HK both have the potential to exceed that, but it's certainly not a given that one or both actually does so, especially this year.

Better than Santander is a higher bar than some people seem to think. HK or Cowser will have had a really nice rookie year if they can accomplish that.

Are you talking about the one he hit into the Crawford boxes in left? I don't think he hit one out to right in Houston. Unless you're talking about a college game maybe.

There's a piece on The Athletic today where they interviewed Holliday, Hyde, and Fuller about his struggles (subscription required) https://theathletic.com/5437515/2024/04/23/jackson-holliday-orioles-mlb-career-bad-start A few snippets:

I think Elias' MO is always going to be to squeeze the max potential value out of every asset. If Kjerstad isn't playing well enough to wrest away more than 10 ABs/week from the other players on the roster, then I don't think he stays up. Especially when he'd be tying up a bench spot with a player who can really only play one position in the field. He's going to have to earn a bigger time share to justify his spot.

Ideally, sure, but in a situation where you assume that you're only getting 5-6 years from that player before he leaves, I can understand trying to manage their time so that you get the maximum impact out of it.

Might depend on how long they expect Kjerstad to stay up. Beavers has over 200 PA at AA now, with a .915 OPS, so I'd say he's earned a promotion regardless. Certainly no reason to let Burdick or McKenna stand in his way.

I had to go look at the replays of last year's home runs, because I couldn't believe Brown hadn't already used that. He probably missed his chance since the first home run was an Apple game.

I seem to recall Kjerstad sporting gear emblazoned with Silent J during spring training; I think he's had the nickname since college.

Mounty is also home grown...

Really well.

Kjerstad also hits lefties very well.

This might have been covered already somewhere in the 54 pages, but what I'm most disappointed in is his approach so far. I can't find any minor league spray charts, but he seemed to me to be spraying line drives all over the field in the highlights that I've seen, but in the majors so far his contact has mostly been to the pull side (see below). I would have thought that someone with the bat control he's demonstrated at lower levels would have been making more an effort by now to get out of this by poking some hits to left. That's the biggest argument for me in favor of sending him back down for a while, is he just doesn't look like he's going up there with much of a plan for success.

I wouldn't be counting on Basallo just yet. He's not lighting Bowie on fire right now. Not that he can't or won't get going soon, but next year would be an aggressive timetable for a 19 year old.

Same, same. It feels borderline miraculous that it's worked out this well so far. And now look at what Dylan Beavers is doing in Bowie....

The old Bill James rule of thumb used to be that if a hitter performed well at AA at the appropriate age, then his odds of having a big league career were pretty high (not an all-star necessarily, but a regular). I don't know if that still holds, but all of these guys have passed that test at both AA and AAA. Having none of these guys wash out in the lower minors is definitely not the outcome I would have originally predicted, but this seems to be where we're at.

I think he was guessing something else and just got fooled. It was frustrating that he didn't swing at a hittable pitch though. I would think we're another week or so away from him going back to Norfolk for a bit, if he doesn't show signs of improvement.

As recently as early last year, I would have said that it wasn't likely, just based on historical outcomes. Based on right now though, doesn't it seem possible that all of this current premium group at AAA is going to succeed? I fully expect Holliday, Kjerstad, and Mayo to become long-term regulars. Even Norby seems like a good bet to have a career somewhere. You can't account for injuries, but I don't see any performance-related reasons not to expect that outcome at this point.

I'm not sure what you're defining as "fetishization" in this context, but the track record of prospects deployed recently has been pretty impressive (leaving Holliday aside for the moment). For a club that hasn't yet established that it's going to operate as anything other than small-market, I can understand people valuing 5-6 years of those guys vs a lesser number of years of whoever they'd bring back in trade. Some around here have mentioned the "fantasy" of a home-grown line-up, but it's already nearly in place - swap out Santander and ROH with Kjerstad and Mayo and you're there. Like I said elsewhere, I'm not opposed to trading someone like Kjerstad for the right return, but I'd very cautious about it until Elias shows that he can backfill this currently group of prospects as effectively as he built it, and/or Elias and Rubenstein prove that they can deploy some financial resources to extend/acquire talent.

Would you be proposing the Holliday/Skenes deal if Holliday was off to a hotter start?

Which prospect has the crowd been wrong to be excited about, so far?