LookinUp
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Posts posted by LookinUp
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Not sure it belongs in this particular list, but I want to see the success of international players in full season ball, beyond Basallo.
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I have a hard time getting too excited over these signings. It's not because I'm not happy about them. I am. I'm thrilled that they seem to be building an legit international pipeline.
But it'll be 2 years before we start to hear anything about these guys, at least. Two years ago we signed Tavera. I still know next to nothing about him.
I'm not complaining, but Tony's reports on players in year 2-3 after they're signed are usually the first time I get a sense of who might be good.
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13 hours ago, Frobby said:
BA did a podcast this week with Jon Meoli about the BA Orioles top ten. I haven’t listened yet but thought I’d post a link. https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/2024-orioles-top-10-prospects-podcast/
Meoli is always good, but they didn’t spend a ton of time on prospects to be honest. Beavers, Cowser and Kjerstad weren’t even mentioned.
A lot about the ML team, Holliday and DL Hall, who is still a prospect in BA’s eyes. Meoli did mention DeLeon, but nothing about recently drafted pitching. They did talk about McDermott and Povich, with predictably mixed assessments.
I could listen to this stuff forever, but this pod just scratched the surface of what Meoli could discuss.
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Agree. I think it's kind of silly not to pencil Mayo in, for AAA of all places, at his primary position.
I think the O's goal should be to have him be the primary 3B too, starting on opening day. Just my 2 cents.
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With the obvious exceptions of losing Rodriguez and Hall, this list is better than last year's. But A LOT of this list is built on hope, and not much is built on production in the minors for the Orioles.
I hope it's a lot more impressive yet again in a year.
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On 12/19/2023 at 9:49 AM, emmett16 said:
Will Cease be traded before or after this thread hits 100 pages?
I’m going with after.
We're at 189. Will he be traded before page 300?
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35 minutes ago, Jim'sKid26 said:
Just as a point of clarification, do you mean positional needs? Or do you mean skillset needs? Or maybe both? Just want to understand your train of thought here.
Yeah. I'm saying that his top 10 might not be a pure math output describing future value. I think we're all saying that every time we suggest he trades our positional depth for pitchers, so I'm not exactly breaking new ground here. On the other hand, our ability to quantify how good guys like Povich and McDermott will end up *might* undersell them relative to what Elias thinks his development programs can get out of them.
Bradish is the example. He was a nice prospect. Now he's better than that. So perhaps Elias thinks his young arms are actually better than public consensus.
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I wonder if Elias is both not including our top 3 AND not sweetening a deal with Povich or McDermott? I think it's possible that he actually loves those two guys as pitching prospects and won't include them.
Really, looking at the talent in this org, my guess is his personal top 10 values guys like those two and DeLeon more than guys like Cowser and Ortiz. I'm just speculating of course, but his lens is colored by the O's needs, I'd think.
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52 minutes ago, Ripken said:
It just keeps getting better over there...
What would Cease and Robert be worth together for Baltimore ? Let's say they keep Holliday but all their other prospects are available do you think a 2 for 7 or 8 very good prospects wouldn't be enough to excite the fan base or jump start this team for at least a run at the Central by 2026 ? Cowser, Kjerstad, Mayo. Ortiz, Beavers, Hall, Basallo, Norby, Westburg, Fabian, Bradfield, Jr., Povich, McDermott, Horvath. That's 14 guys. Take 7 of them and a couple lottery tickets and let's get this party started!
In all seriousness, the White Sox should be thinking about something like this. They could actually get 7 of our guys for those two, but it's probably not including quite the headliners they want, and frankly not 7 of the guys listed above.
They don't have to necessarily do this in in one trade or with a single team either, but they have two guys that you could build a farm system with if you trade them.
The problem is they'd have to agree that they're rebuilding, otherwise this doesn't make sense.
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12 minutes ago, Frobby said:
I couldn’t think of Flaherty’s name when I was doing that Sporcle quiz yesterday. I could picture him, remembered the trade but couldn’t conjure his name. That’s the impression he made. Still, he’d got the potential to bounce back.
Not that anyone asked, but if you want to know how I did on that quiz, note that I forgot Danny Coloumbe, couldn't spell Krehbiel (or whatever it is) or Bemboom for some reason. I just gave up with 3 minutes left and 30% not answered.
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23 hours ago, cnmilton said:
If the Os could acquire Corbin Burnes for 4 years of Kremer, 5 years of Westburg (3rd base for Brewers), and 6 years of Ort8z (Adames replacement at Short), would this deal work? The Os would get a compensation pick after offering Burnes at the end of the season, which he would reject (assuming he stays healthy all year)
I think that's a massive overpay for 1 year of anyone. That's why I'm not particularly interested in Burnes.
Now, if we were like the Dodgers and had an extension worked out, that might be a different story. But we'll just lose these guys to FA if Angelos doesn't sell.
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14 hours ago, Tony-OH said:
Here's a highlight video I put together as a test. If you like it please like it, comment and subscibe to our You Tube channel.
Thanks.
You put all of that together, Tony? That's a ton of work. It's incredible. Thanks!
As for Povich, he's a tantalizing talent. You can really tell that he's an uncomfortable at bat. He works well at the top of the zone. I imagine that he's tunneling the FB and Curve well. Guys are guessing. I guess if all I watched were people's highlights, they'd all look pretty nice, but this kid has the upside to be in our top 5, IMO. As a lefty, he'll fit beautifully in OPACY.
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I'm not sure how meaningful it is, but I like that athletic delivery. I also think his ability to throw the fastball at the knees helps him get chases below the zone.
And that single change up they showed was sick. If he masters that, he's worth watching.
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4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:
Don’t twist my words.
I don’t think any pick should be…but yes, a COLLEGE hitter, coming from an elite conference and elite team absolutely should be ready to be in the majors that quickly IF they are going to be a legit impact player.
Its not that Bradfield still can’t be a ML contributor but if he is struggling to hit A and AA pitching at age 22 coming from a great college, I think that’s a bad sign of him becoming an impact MLer.
He probably can still be a 4th OFer type guy but I wouldn’t think he will be much more than that.
If I had to bet, I’d say that his bat is pretty good this year. I don’t see him failing, but I don’t see him forcing promotions either.
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15 hours ago, Sports Guy said:
If he’s that far away, he shouldn’t have been drafted in the first round.
You think a mid first round pick should be in the majors in 1.5 years? I mean, I know it’s not unheard of, but the Os didn’t pick a fully developed guy. They picked a tool shed that they want to build.
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5 hours ago, Sports Guy said:
Bradfield, if he’s going to be as good as we and the Os hope, should end the year in AAA this year and ready to be the OD CFer in 2025.
I think this is like a 1 to 5% possibility. This is as orange colored glasses as it gets, IMO. You're probably off by 12 months. He has a lot of hit tool work to do.
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15 minutes ago, RZNJ said:
I would argue that Cowser has a higher ceiling than Kjerstad. Cowser could hit .300, hit 30 home runs, walk 100 times, and play better defense. Kjerstad has a higher ceiling in power.
Cowser has a plus arm too, right?
I just think Kjerstad's power is somewhat close to the prodigious category. The rest of the profile is good too, of course, just a bit less defense.
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I might be biased because of his position, but DeLeon is very high for me. Going off of Tony's list in this thread, I'd basically just switch up his #6 and 7, but that's because of position more than any opinion I have about Sosa.
I quickly clicked on Tony's top prospect lists and see that only DeLeon has a ceiling as a TOR starter. All of the rest of our pitchers are #3, mid rotation, lower or too soon to tell. I honestly think that DeLeon is this year's most slept on prospect among posters on this board. Either that or I'm just a kool aid drinker. That's a high possibility though.
As a reminder, here's a snippet of Tony's write-up on DeLeon.
QuoteDe Leon is a 6-foot-3 lefty with plenty of room to fill out his frame who already possesses a mid-90s (94-95 mph) bowling ball of a fastball that has touched 98 MPH this season.
I do think he's a couple of years away. He does have a lot of development to do. Still, I love the upside.
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My best guess is:
1b: Mountcastle/O'Hearn
2b: Westburg
SS: Henderson
3b: Mayo
UIF: Mateo
This is assuming that Ortiz is traded and they likely move on from Urias somehow too.
I can't say I'd do it differently because I think an Ortiz trade might be necessary. However, ignoring the return in a trade, I'm want Ortiz to replace Mateo in this picture. He and Westburg can fight it out for 2B while Holliday grows in AAA.
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58 minutes ago, interloper said:
Yeah this is where I'm at. Also, even in a small sample, sometimes a guy looks like he belongs and sometimes he doesn't. Just body language type stuff. Kjerstad looked the part and Cowser looked like the game got on top of him. Doesn't mean he won't be a great MLer eventually! Just saying. It's more than the 2 home runs from Kjerstad. He confirmed the things I thought about him and Cowser did the same. Now we will see what round 2 looks like for each player.
In support of Moose's position, I also believe in two things pretty strongly:
1. It does take time to transition to a new level.
2. The offseason is when you really get to focus on your flaws from the last year. It's not that you don't in-season, but I'm a huge believer in what hard work can do in the offseason.Cowser's a really nice prospect. If his OBP and power translate somewhat closely to the majors, he's a guy we want around for a long time.
It's just a handicap for an organization that won't do free agency. We are almost forced to trade good players to acquire other good players. So you just have to make those hard choices, a point about which I'm sure most of us agree.
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8 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:
So again, it's not that I'm particularly high on Cowser, it's just that I think the arguments against him are silly due to the "small sample size" that's conveniently ignored when discussing his future as an Oriole.
I'm sure the SSS last year in Baltimore left a bad taste in all of our mouths, but the 107 Ks in AAA did too. He was a 2 true outcomes type of guy last year, and I worry that his approach won't translate to the majors. He had one game in the AAA playoffs last year that was really terrible. That said, I did read @Tony-OH's write-up on him, so I still like Cowser as a prospect. I just don't think he's so awesome that he needs to be protected against a trade like the top 3.
As hitters go, I really want this team building around Gunnar, Adley, Holliday, Basallo and Mayo. Kjerstad is next for me, but not untouchable. After that I think we have a lot of guys that we can use to fill in a great lineup.
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2 hours ago, Rbiggs2525 said:
Sure but I have always been a defender of Mateo because he’s a player with very high potential at times. I was also a person saying he should start every game vs LHP in postseason. He should spend the offseason practicing center field and left field. He could be add value vs LHP at those positions compared to Hays and Mullins. Postseason success means a lot to me personally. That’s the difference between Brooks Robinson and Alex Rodriguez. Not saying Mateo is more than a platoon player.
Mateo had some good runs against LHP last year, to the tune of a .746 OPS. Still, his career OPS against LHP is only .667. It's even lower against RHP.
I think he has a niche spot on a contending team for sure, but forcing him into the lineup against LHP probably won't pay off over time as much as we might hope. I would treat him as a pure bench piece who gets spot starts and comes in late for defense or pinch running.
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3 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:
It was sarcasm. Of course they're aware.
I'm simply wondering if they have some other data sets that they look at that don't necessarily invalidate the statcast information, but place it secondary. At first glance, I agree, the statcast numbers aren't totally impressive and he doesn't miss a lot of bats.
But if the statcast numbers were the only thing to go on, I'd wonder why they'd want to target him, too. There's no way to tell what they're looking at when they're evaluating someone like this, but I'd love to know.
I think their data is a marriage of advanced statcast stuff like spin axis and some insight into mechanical flaws like release point. So while they might see a guy with an 80th percentile spin rate (making this up), they may see the same guy as either maxing his potential already or having more with certain mechanical changes.
2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:Essentially not parting with any of our remaining big four prospects (Cowser (yep, I said it), Mayo, Basallo, Holliday) but giving up the second tier guys who are still plenty good but not identified as key cornerstones for the future.
You are definitely higher on Cowser than I am. I'm hoping other teams really value him though so he can be a headliner in a trade.
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4 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:
I don't think any Orioles official says anything publicly without it being thought through with Elias. They are very deliberate in what they say to the media. There is a reason behind everything they say in my opinion.
And I think that's a good team. These people exude competence.
As a reminder, here's a snippet of Tony's write-up on DeLeon.
Fangraphs’ Ben Clemens: “C’mon Orioles, Do Something!”
in Orioles Talk
Posted
Call me on opening day and tell me the same article applies, and he might have a point. But it's January 18. This reminds me of the people freaking out that a stadium lease agreement wasn't in place last summer. It just lacks awareness of when things actually happen. The offseason seemingly used to hit the ground running at winter meetings. It doesn't anymore for whatever reason. I suppose it's because deadlines make deals. That's certainly what it seems like is happening with a lot of talent out there right now.