LookinUp

I love that they promoted him. He’s a little old and performing. Push him and see how he handles it.

Yeah. Totally agree. That’s not a reputation you want recruiting, but not all recruits are savvy enough to look beyond prior program success.

It’s very hard to remove yourself/have a coach remove you when you feel great and you’re in the middle on an emotional competition. One great arm can win a ton for a team at lower levels. Everyone wants to win. There’s a lot of pressure.

Just because you mentioned him, I decided to look up Kent's minor league stats. Let's just say they're atypical. He wasn't particularly young for his levels and his OPS wasn't great. In fact, he produced better for most of his ML career than he did in the minors. https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=kent--001jef Needless to say, we'd be very pleased if Bannon turned into Jeff Kent. I was actually surprised to see that he's not in the HoF. 55 career WAR is pretty good. 20th all time for 2B.

I was at the game the other day and he was really the only Bowie bat that made a good impression. He lined a double down the left field line his first at bat. Later he lined a double down the right field line. He also walked and generally looked like nothing they threw at him was particularly troubling. I hate to note that it was night and day compared to McKenna. Even when McKenna got his single, it was after he looked over matched swinging through two pretty average fastballs. For some reason the pitcher decided to speed his bat up, hung a slurvy type of pitch and McKenna served it to CF for a single. A confident hitter would have done damage with that pitch. He also flew out to the warning track later in the game and grounded meekly to SS the other two times. Everything he did at the plate looked like a struggle.

There are others on this board better qualified than me to make this point, but it needs to be said. Blaine Knight is an advanced pitching prospect who competed (and excelled/often dominated) at the top levels of college baseball. It is unsurprising that he can dominate Delmarva. His floor is high. However, while the results are nice, the questions about his major league potential remain the same until he does this at higher levels and/or we start getting reports about his command in the zone (high HR rate in college) and improved secondaries, particularly the change up. This guy could max out as not quite good enough, whatever that subjective statement means. He could also take a couple of developmental steps that really make his star shine more brightly and turn into a good or better ML starter. We just don't know from his glowing stats in Low-A ball if that is happening.

Harvey got hit hard today. Gave up 3 HRs, I believe. Not cheap ones either.

I don't know anything about him as a person, but you just hate for a guy with ML talent to have his body fail. I'm really rooting for this guy to get back to close to what he was.

This is the quote from the OH prospect rankings: I'm not sure how much you need to project. His FB velocity is ok, but not dominant. If it takes a tick or two up, it could be a weapon. His slider is is best pitch. With that said, I personally think it's the change that is where he can take the biggest step forward. I keep mentioning the interview I heard with him. He was a confident guy. He really made it sound like the change wasn't as well developed because they just didn't use it much at Arkansas. If that takes a step forward, he'll have 4 quality ML pitches. From there, it's just a question of command to stay out of the middle of the zone.

Bedard/Arrieta are two great examples. Tillman (who may not belong in this conversation), Bundy and Gausman are others. We've had some arm talent in this organization before. We've just been miserable at getting them from the point that someone like Hall is at now to become an actual dominating starter.

The best (and really, I mean worst) is when people refer to MLB Pipeline's rankings. I'm not sure I've ever seen a nugget from them that you somehow missed. Obviously, you have more tentacles into the organization, and more frequent eyes on a lot of these guys, so that helps. Still, you'd expect a publication that so many cite to offer better information, IMO.

You guys are routinely better than the industry on these lists.

Interesting nugget re: travel ball. I can see several pro's and con's of playing it for a pitcher, particularly year round. In MD, even most travel teams get decent breaks. My son's travel coach is really cognizant of wear and tear. They don't play too many games. They do play multiple sports and he's very careful about over-taxing their arms. Hopefully that's becoming the norm.

In a vacuum, I think you're right, we should be "pleased" if Hall turns out like Bedard. It's hard to have great expectations of a kid playing in Frederick. However, in the grand scheme of things, we need someone, and likely multiple guys, to be better than Bedard if our organization wants to take a big step up in competitiveness. We're going against guys like Price, Snell, Sale and Tanaka every year in this division. You can hope to piece it together like Buck was able to do for a while, but that's a really hard way to go. It would be awesome if at least one of these guys turns into a horse for this team.

To put it another way, the O’s will need Mike Mussina types to be perennial contenders. Bedard was never on that level. He was closer to a flash in the pan. We need a horse.

Bedard got us Jones and Tillman, so I can see the case. I’m hoping from much more production from Hall than Bedard ever provided though.

I used to read a lot about how the old Orioles would use their younger pitchers out of the bullpen. If we have to promote Harvey before he has really built up innings, that is always an option.

This thread took a nice turn. We’v Been waiting since Messina for one of these guys to pan out. Hopefully this is the guy. Would be beautiful if Gray Rod also ends up as a 1a to Hall’s 1.

Makes you wonder how a guy slips through the cracks like that. Maybe he wasn't highly thought of, but was just the best of the worst, so to speak. I mean, anyone (within reason) can get a cup of coffee, but this guy has 101 ML games under his belt and is being placed on another ML roster as we speak. His career WAR is -1.3. That's just incredible.

This is bad enough that I worry the players aren't the problem. That's pure speculation, of course, but just about the entire team isn't hitting.

The only reasons I can imagine for ownership to not spend here are: 1. They don't think it's worth it. I think that would be ludicrous given what Elias has stated and his ability to make a data case for this spending being more efficient than free agency, for example. Regardless, this is where we stood under PA. 2. They simply can't get the talent at close to the right price. This is where we supposedly stand right now. Need to build the program. 3. They're being tight everywhere. The reasons for that are they're preparing to sell the team after PA passes or they're just cutting off their noses to spite their faces, which brings us back to #1. Given all that's been said publicly, I really doubt the suns "value" the international market anything like PA did. If they don't spend more/most of the allotment over time, I'd wager it's because they're preparing to sell the team.

As he should be. I get the questions about his future ML value. They certainly have merit. He needs to improve, but he has quality innings under his belt and is good enough now to compete at higher levels. I'd have him in AA, or A+ at a minimum, but I defer to smarter people about where it's best to work on the developmental stuff he's working on.

Per fangraphs, his average FB is 92. That's better, but not a weapon, per se. I'm not expert on what the data means, but his change is what sticks out. https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=16269&position=P

He's still 19 (barely). Has some swing issues, but some nice attributes too. Definitely still at an improvement age, if there is such a thing. Hopefully coaching can get him to target and improve his flaws.

Yep. Takes vision to be a fan of this team. Lol. I like looking ahead though.