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LookinUp

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Posts posted by LookinUp

  1. 20 minutes ago, Bemorewins said:

    I do not disagree with any of the bolded.

    The first sentence, would probably be less of an issue with Holliday and others if we would make serious financial investments in the club's longer term future in the form of extensions.

    I hope that changes under new ownership.

    If we were just talking about Holliday, I'd agree. However, he comes after Adley, Gunnar, Rodriguez and Bradish. Following him are Mayo, Basallo and lord knows who else.

    Long story short, they're not going to be able to pay all of these guys to stick around even if they have a large influx of money. I personally think what we're seeing is this org extending the competitive window as much as possible knowing that they won't be able to do it by paying guys big extensions.

  2. 53 minutes ago, jamalshw said:

    That's the thing that makes this so weird. If he comes up in a few weeks and ends up top-2 for ROY they don't get the extra year anyway...nor do they get a pick if he wins it now. 

    I hate this decision. That said, I suspect Sig's sexy models say an extra year of Holliday and Mayo in 2030 (or whatever year it is) is more valuable than the #34 draft pick in the 2025 draft. 

    Unless this really is just a gaming of the roster for the first series of the year versus LHPs. I doubt that though.

    I do wonder if this is also an indication that the O's have approached either of these two in particular about extensions and not finding common ground.

  3. 45 minutes ago, emmett16 said:

    Huh?  McKenna is a career .5 WAR player in 447 ABs.  In a little over double that Urias is a 7.6 WAR player.  He's far above McKenna and not close to a scrub.  Urias shows up and puts up numbers consistently on both sides of the ball.  McKenna is a defensive replacement who is prone to being an airhead at times. 

    McKenna is a career 74 OPS+ vs. Urias 106 OPS+ 

    Your last comment checks, I'd like to move on from him also, but let's not treat him like he's chopped liver. 

    Yeah, I should have been more clear. I don't equate McKenna and Urias in terms of value on a sheet of paper. However, for this team, I'd argue their place on the team provides negative value on paper when considering the people they'd be keeping from the team.

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  4. 27 minutes ago, interloper said:

    I think it's just that McKenna is a DFA candidate, and Urias is not. He is, however, a trade candidate. So who knows, they may yet send him out to get Mayo in. 

    I know he's not a DFA guy, but he's a guy that I'd be motivated to trade. Someone would make a deal. You're not getting premium value, so it shouldn't be hard to agree on a profile of a guy and make a trade.

  5. It just feels to me like this board is giving Urias much more credit than he's worth. I like the guy, but he's not far above McKenna in my personal book. He's a useful non-scrub.

    I don't see any reason to keep him over a guy who is ready and seriously profiles as a future stud.

    • Upvote 1
  6. 4 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

    Hitter every time. It is tough to ever consider a pitcher as a #1 prospect.

    Just look at the pitchers who have been Baseball America's #1 prospect since 1990:

    Daisuke Matsuzaka, Josh Beckett, Rick Ankiel, Brien Taylor, Todd Van Poppel and Steve Avery.

    The hitters who have been BA #1 prospects since 2010: 

    Jackson Holliday, Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman, Wander Franco, Vlad Guerrero, Jr., Ronald Acuna, Andrew Benintendi, Corey Seager, Kris Bryant, Byron Buxton, Jurickson Profar, Bryce Harper (2x) and Jason Heyward.

    Profar and Benintendi are the only players on that list who aren't bonafide stars (besides Holliday and Franco due to extenuating circumstances). Generational pitching talents flame out regularly. Best case scenario they win you a World Series first like Strasburg, but often times they don't.

    Josh Beckett in 2007 is the type of guy you dream on. His career was just good overall, but he was a dog in the playoffs for that team that won the World Series.

  7. 26 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

    “Hopefully late April,” to me sounds like “but probably late June.”

    I’m not banking on anything from Means this season. If he gives some good innings along the way, that’s a bonus. 

    He was much better than I expected last year. I know it was a small sample size, but a really low WHIP, also a really low K rate. I'm sure the numbers were about to normalize.

  8. 38 minutes ago, Orioles0615 said:

    I would take having Skenes over someone like Cowser or Kjersted but not Holliday. 

     

    I am sure Skenes will have TJ surgery eventually 

    I think this is a good point. I'm asking for a comparison between a just turned 20 #1 prospect in baseball, not a #20-40 level prospect. I'm sure people who say "always take the hitter" are referring to similarly tiered prospects.

    I still think I'd go with Skenes and accept that he'll pitch 1/5 days and miss 2 of 6 years due to injury. I just love that he'll likely be a workhorse starter who helps the bullpen and needs fewer runs/less defense behind him to be successful, and then you have him for the playoffs too, in theory. 

  9. 56 minutes ago, Frobby said:

    This is a hard one for me just due to our personnel.  We can have a very good infield for the next 5+ years even without Holliday.   Really good starting pitchers are never a surplus item.  So, in a vacuum I’d rather have the hitter for the reasons others have given, but in this case I’d take Skenes.  

    I'll continue to be a contrarian in a weird kind of way, but I really think the O's have a bunch of arms on the ML team and in the minors that have good starter upside and team control.

    In addition to Rodriguez, Bradish, Irvin and Kremer, I personally like our chances of getting a couple of starters out of McDermott, Povich, Johnson, DeLeon and Bright a lot. It feels like most of them will be ready for some role in the majors by the end of 2025. Maybe not DeLeon. Then last year's draftees, most notably Baumeister, will follow.

    Maybe that's not enough arms. I don't know. I'm just saying the cupboard isn't bare.

  10. Skenes is about 1.5 years older.

    Paul Skenes is 21 years old. Turns 22 in May.

    Jackson Holliday is 20 years old. Turns 21 in December.

    Personally, I'd take Skenes. I think he's the top prospect in baseball. I might have a different answer if the choice was Gunnar. I'll decide that after I see responses here.

  11. 18 hours ago, Oriole1940 said:

    This statement sums up what the Orioles situation really is right now.  As I said the other day,  one or more trades are begging to be made.   Hope you agree ME.

    If I were a GM with a middling team that doesn't want to tank, I'd be looking to trade with the O's. You have to think that it wouldn't take much to get Elias' attention for Urias or O'Hearn, and I bet we'd definitely listen on Mountcastle at least.

  12. 3 hours ago, interloper said:

    2. It's not Holliday vs Mayo. Mayo will be in AAA unless there's a Urias trade.

    I think it's Mayo v Mayo's Contract v Urias.

    I'd love for the O's to get a sense of Mayo's openness to signing an extension and trading Urias. Otherwise, I think they'll just play the service time game with him, which I think stinks because I think he's every bit as ready as Holliday. I also think he'd have a chance to win the ROY award and net the draft pick.

    With that said, we already have a super version of Urias on the team. His name is Jordan Westburg and he's a huge upgrade. Urias is holding this team back. He can be a good player and great guy and that statement can still be true. He should be moved and the Mayo/Holliday era should begin.

  13. I accept that swing changes take real time, but would have hoped that he came to camp this spring with an obvious new swing. It's kind of disappointing that he didn't. 

    That said, his other skills are tantalizing. We wait and hope that the swing develops enough to be passable in the majors.

  14. 12 hours ago, ThisIsBirdland said:

    People have apparently seen too many instances of rehab not working to even entertain the possibility that this may have been a minor tear where surgery wasn’t the right course of action. There’s also a self-preserving benefit of keeping expectations low when you care about something as much as many of us do on this subject. 
     

    The Os have been communicating the entire time that this rehab program had a high enough chance of success to likely allow Bradish to meaningfully contribute this year. That doesn’t mean it will work out but the pessimism amongst the fanbase hasn’t matched the communications from the team or Bradish’s throwing program IMO.

    For what it's worth, I also assumed the worst, and still fear the worst. I fear he has some weakness in the UCL that will be realized when he's throwing with essentially max effort over 80+ pitches.

    I assume the O's saw the injury, treated it and are reimaging (not just relying on his physical/verbal feedback) to assess the degree to which it's healed. I'm not sure how perfect that science is, but all of this combined with him throwing off the mound makes me think it was very minor and they have a decent feeling that it has been treated.

  15. 31 minutes ago, CaptainRedbeard said:

    Trace Bright’s Statcast numbers were very impressive. Full arsenal, great spin rates and tons of whiffs. I’m excited to see what he does this year, definitely a breakout candidate. 

    I haven't given any thought on where he would actually rank on my personal rankings, but it would be pretty high. I wonder how he compares to Chayce McDermott stuff wise. Seems like a similar type of profile to me.

    [EDIT: I see @Tony-OH has him at #21 (before the Ortiz trade). I was surprised he was that high. That's actually pretty aggressive and appropriately so, IMO. I definitely wouldn't have him lower, but our top 20 is ridiculous right now so I think he fits right where Tony put him.]

  16. 2 hours ago, jabba72 said:

    Was just about to post this. I guess its positive news in an otherwise dreary situation.

    Or...it wasn't as bad as we feared from the start.

    We really know next to nothing about this injury. Would it be weird for the O's to be overly cautious from the start, thus alarming people? I don't really think so. Is it possible this still ends in TJ surgery. Yes. 

    I just think there's a wider range of outcomes than we've been entertaining. I believe that because I kind of doubt he'd be throwing off the mound already if this was initially very serious.

  17. 42 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

    While I can appreciate the effort you and your son are putting into this, the fun level has to be taken into consideration. When playing a sport becomes work at the youth level, and you are tracking how many throws he makes a day, does it start to lose the fun? 

    Perhaps not with your son, but I'm betting many kids have no interest in this. At some point the science has to be weighed with the fun factor, especially at the Little League level.

    I certainly don't know the answer to any of this so I'm not saying what's right or wrong, but I did coach kids at many level including high school and there always has to be a fun factor in there.

    I saw kids start to take throwing really serious at 11/12 years old. Certainly by 8th grade. It's the kids that take this seriously and have goals of pitching in highly competitive environments (top travel, top high schools, eventually college). For that type, arm care is really starting to take off.

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  18. 12 minutes ago, interloper said:

    Yeah I'm very, very far from venturing into "getting my hopes up" territory. But I guess it's somethin'. 

    I think it tells us his issue was originally very small or he wouldn't be throwing off a mound. That doesn't mean his elbow will hold up. I think it means they think his issue might have been addressed by the treatment and they are on step 2 (with flat ground being step 1) of starting to test it and building him up.

    I think this is really good news. Not over the moon about it, but throwing off the mound is a substantial development.

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