Moose Milligan

Hard to say. I feel like if Akin was the best one of the group he'd be in Baltimore right now. IMO, they all profile as 4th or 5th starters, IE guys that are fungible. There's not a name on this list that can't easily be replaced. Put me down for Lowther, I guess.

Well, as much as I was hoping Vlad Jr would be a bust...it doesn't look like that'll be the case. He's off to a monster start after losing 40 pounds this past offseason. 3 homer, 7 rbi night last night against the Nationals. Touched up Scherzer for a Grand Slam. .360/.484/1.177 OPS so far this year. Don't get me wrong, guys like Vlad Jr are great for the game....just wish he wasn't in the AL East to terrorize us for years.

Even thought I was poking fun at you, I don't necessarily disagree here. He's young, making very little and we have depth behind him....depth that can probably adequately play a corner outfield spot, too. I don't even know if in 2-3 months of lackluster performance he'd still have enough stank on him to where people wouldn't want to deal for him because of what you mentioned...young, cheap, and he has upside. And with the way teams are laying into analytics and advanced development, there's probably a team out there that thinks they can tease out better performance than what he's doing right now.

Lol, SG you're a proponent of trading everyone.

Connolly in The Athletic today (where's @TonySoprano been?) penned a column about the possibility of sending Mountcastle down if he struggles through next week and the minor league season opens up. Might not be the worst idea ever. He did remind us that Markakis was scuffling through May in his rookie year with a .599 OPS and then took off and finished at .799. I'm not sure what to make of his slow start. I feel like he's hit some loud outs lately and it's in the nature of the game for those to turn into hits after awhile. His walk ratio, which I think surprised everyone last year, is down to 4.7% from 7.9%. To say that he's struggling right now would be putting it mildly. If they sent him down I wouldn't be too upset about it although I think he should probably stay up in Baltimore and try to iron out whatever issues he's having here.

Just going against the grain from the common theme, I hope he continues to pitch this well for the rest of the season, we don't trade him and bring him back next year on a 2 year deal with an option for a third. And that he's a rotation anchor for the next .500+ team here. Yeah, I said it. I'm here to represent it.

The new Mitch Williams. I was looking forward to seeing him this year as I thought he'd turned a corner last season. But he's backslid. I'd look to put him in lower leverage situations against weaker parts of opponents lineups the next few times out to see if it can get him back on track.

What if he turns into a 4 win player though? Is he a guy you keep for the future team we're building here? I'm aware anyone can be traded for if the price is right but if this really marks a turnaround for the guy, you have to wonder if he's a good piece worth keeping.

In some ways, better than I thought they'd be (Team ERA, FIP, WAR, BB Rate, Relievers ERA). In other ways, about where I'd have expected them to be.

SG!!! What do you think we could get for him in a trade?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Also, he's walked as many times as he did in the short season last year in 60 less plate appearances.

He's dazzling right now. Starting to wonder how much of this is for real vs. how much of it is a hot streak to start the season. But it'd be a great thing if this turns out to be real. Not saying I expect him to hit .350 but if he's locked into making himself our starting centerfielder for the next few years, that's a great thing. I've often wondered how many major leaguers need to find a small adjustment in order to go from below average/average to great. We saw it with Jose Bautista. Max Muncy comes to mind. I hope Cedric is one of those guys...and it looks like all he had to do was give up hitting from the right side.

Nah. Chris Davis is still lurking somewhere.

Great outing against the Yankees tonite.

Ya'll see Hays looking at his hand in the dugout? What are we betting he doesn't go out on defense in the bottom of the 6th?

This makes the Zach Pop release hurt even more. For awhile, I dreamt of the Orioles having "Pop Flaa" on the roster. Oh well.

I'd be totally down. NSFW language

I know you like to make snide remarks at people who don't share your world viewpoints, but if that was really the case then the timing here doesn't make sense. If they wanted to fire him simply because they wanted to promote a woman to the role and be "woke," firing him immediately before the home opener doesn't make too much sense. They had all offseason to do it and properly set up whoever would be replacing him. There are rules/laws in place that you have to have documented proof that you tried to correct an employees behavior before firing them. So if the conspiracy theory you want to float is that the Orioles played up their sensitivity to his tweets and gave him warnings to stop tweeting in that manner, sure. But he still apparently kept doing it after he was warned not to, so it's not like he made an effort to change what ended him getting canned. And, SG, FWIW, I got into a pissing match on here with @PaulFolk after they hired Melanie Newman after I stated my preferences on women in the broadcasting booth. I'm not trying to be "woke" here, but I doubt the Orioles are, too.

Strasburg has ace level stuff and can be amazing when he's on the mound and was fantastic in their 2019 WS run...but he's just not durable enough. The rest of the guys mentioned are or have been durable. IMO, he's the one in that list that's unlike the others.

I agree, top 10 pitchers in the game. Someone that can throw a gem nearly every time out.

Per Connolly in The Athletic this morning:

Careful, Froberto Clemente! I got lectured last week that baseball isn't played that way anymore! Can't expect starters to go past 5 innings anymore, 6+ is murky waters! Anyway, this goes with the earlier tweet in this thread. Small sample size, I know, I know...

We win! Bring on the MFY's!!

I'm so excited to see our next average prospect, too.

Eight reasons the A's won't continue their winning streak, lmao, Palmer is cold.