LookinUp

Appropos of nothing, I heard Hyde talking about Young on 105.7 this AM. Either he or the radio guy mentioned that Young wants to get into coaching.

You may be right. When I have seen him say controversial things, he seems to have a good rationale from my perspective. I don't follow him loyally though.

Ehh. Law isn't a likable person, but he is a really solid baseball analyst and a very independent thinker. I don't get the sense that all of the stuff he says to anger various fanbases is contrived at all. If he think's Adley's lower rated than the last two 1-1's, it's because that's his very real impression...and I personally take that impression seriously. At least he did say he hasn't seen him yet this year. That leaves the door open for new/updated impressions.

Actually, I think there are doubts about his ability to hit AAA pitching too. If he's the guy we had last year, he won't be good enough. If something else was happening, maybe there's hope. It's nice at least that today's HR came off of a bona fide ML pitcher.

Don't base Fantasy Baseball decisions on spring training. Well, you can, but I wouldn't.

I think that's generally a perfectly reasonable approach to the draft. I want my #1 overall to be an Orioles HOFer though. 10+ years with a statue.

If I believed Vaughn would have the better bat, I'd be really tempted to take him. First, I want the better bat. Second, and I may be wrong, but I do have the perception that catchers peak for shorter windows. Third, I bet we could save draft slot $$ by taking Vaughn and then targeting other upside guys later in the draft. Truthfully, I have no idea how I'd handle it though. I plan on learning something from how the Orioles approach this, for sure.

Definitely think he's a bounce back candidate. So, 0.0 WAR?

Right. I think some people confuse "accepting that we'll lose now because we're preparing for a time when we can win" and "trying to lose now, period." I don't think the Orioles are trying to lose. I think they're trying to win with a roster and financial management perspective that is focused on 2-3 years in the future. Understanding that, playing Davis (if he continues to be terrible) is contrary to our plan, not a fair part of it.

I hate to say this, but the best way to get any good settlement with Chris Davis might be to make him play, be terrible, be hated by fans and teammates, and finally get so down that he's willing to accept some kind of settlement offer. I'm not even sure what such an offer could look like, but if it's like last year, he'd probably be willing to give up some money to get out of that situation.

That would be really good (to the point of really hard to believe) for all of those guys to end up next year at those respective spots. I do think others also have a chance to make that jump. Also possible guys like Mountcastle, Diaz, Akin and Hays lose their eligibility. If not, we could potentially load up the back-end of top 100 lists.

The strong odds are he'll be terrible and gone. However, he had a five year stretch putting up 1.7, 6.5, 1.7, 5.3 and 3.3 WAR. He wasn't always a complete and total stiff. I'm not predicting a turn around, but I'll be rooting like hell for the 5% chance that Crush can bring some joy to OPACY this year.

Haven't you all ever heard the phrase "Hope springs eternal?" It's spring freaking training. Stop with the Firestone doom and gloom. Drink the offseason kool aid.

I want 2 WAR from him this year. An every day player who is at all passable can get there, or close. That's what I want. I hope it's not the pipe dream most probably think it is.

How many pitches do they usually get when they enter a game? Five is not substantial. Was that meant to say five more than normal?

I know you know this, but to the sporting industry, the breaks and lengths of game are features, not bad at all. They allow more commercial revenue. Baseball has too many games and too many stoppages, but that's part of the reason why it makes so much money. Any changes that break that up, or contract teams, are missing the point. The game isn't frequently exciting enough. That's what drives people away. Some of your ideas (and others) about limiting the roster for pitchers are what I like the most in this thread. Bring the strategy back and try to limit the max-effort 1 batter 100 mph guy who has become increasingly hard to hit. The other stuff makes great academic sense, but poor financial sense, all things being equal.

Nitpick, I think this has more to do with MLBs revenue sharing model than it does the salary cap. With NFL-style revenue sharing, everything would be different.

Fair enough. Poorly phrased by me. I still don’t understand how scouts expected that out of him if they saw him live. My guess is people got caught up in the numbers and the hype, and that better scouts had more reasonable projections. What stunk is that fans were led to believe he was something that he was not. He never had the contact ability of Mauer, so the power was good, but didn’t play as much as we were led to expect. If instead Wieters was projected as an average or better OPS guy with above average D, he’d probably be much better liked by O’s fans. Instead, he was a let down. That’s really not fair to him.

I definitely remember some publication set probabilities that equates to 50% likelihood of HoFer. My guess is it was an extrapolation of his scouting grade (e.g., 80 = HoF). I don’t remember the specifics but definitely remember being taken aback and telling my father about it. I’d wager we discussed it on this site and that it was when he was in the minors, not pre-draft, if you’re looking for proof.

All of this is true. It's also true that I was at his first ML game, saw his first ML at bat, and immediately came away surprised at how over matched he looked. Maybe his swing wasn't technically slow. Maybe it was long. Or maybe it was late pitch recognition. I don't know. I just know that he was billed through the draft and then through his minor league career as a HoF hitter and it was obvious to me from the first day I saw him that he was not (unless there was an injury or something I didn't know about). The guy never had an OPS above .778 except for one injury shortened year where he started out on a tear. Yes, he ran into some home runs, but he was a #6-7 hitter billed as a #3 guy. I also readily admit that a lot of his value came on defense, but I'm skeptical about dWAR in general and specifically about the value Wieters supposedly added since he wasn't a pitch framer and stolen bases are exiting the game. I'm not killing the guy or the pick. He turned out pretty good, but even though he was 9th in WAR out of Frobby's 54 year look back, I can guarantee that the other 45 teams were hoping for more out of their #5 pick.

I once read a projection that Wieters was 50/50 to be in the hall of fame. Then I saw him hit. Slow swing. Very slow swing. Makes me really wonder how he ever posted the college and MiL numbers he did.

Random thought: I was just looking at the number ratings in the OP of this thread. Man, an evaluator would really have to have some cajones to grade someone as a 75 or 80. I suppose certain tools, like speed, could be graded there, but I can't even imagine a prospect being graded that highly. Not Harper. Not Machado. Trout maybe?

Any sense of where either of them would slot into our system?

Every player has aches and pains. The DL gets used all the time for marginal issues. Hell, the Os could declare his problems mental (thinking attention issues) and put him on the DL. It would probably be correct, or at least defensible. The more important part is having a plan to identify and approach the issue. I would rather not have him in the middle of a swing rebuild while on the 25 man roster, but that’s probably exactly what will happen.

Really? I think Davis would accept that given the fact he knows he’s stealing money at this point, particularly if he believes in a plan to rebuild his swing. I’m not talking about some demeaning roster move. I’m talking about creating and executing a plan aimed at saving the guy’s career.