LookinUp

I actually was putting Aberdeen in Low A, not high A. I forgot about the change.

Age/level. Already 21 for the full season, came out of the SEC and went to playing in Aberdeen. But 4 months younger than Bradfield! I do like his season, but this level isn't great compared to his college pedigree. I look forward to seeing if he forces his way to Bowie at some point next year.

I get this line of thinking, but I don't buy the idea that they've stopped developing. Somewhere in this thread, someone mentioned Justin Turner as a comp for Norby. I have zero clue whether that's realistic at all, but his calling card is the hit tool. I can definitely see him forcing an opportunity if it keeps developing. We just saw a team that didn't have the lineup depth in the post season. An advanced hit tool is valuable. And Stowers still has big power. I've not given up on him, though it feels like he had about 14 months of going sideways. Still, he was on fire in July and September, and still had an .867 OPS in August. Problem is that k rate is still probably too high.

I'm conscious.

I think they have 20 guys grouped similarly at this point. Maybe only 10. They'll go some combination of organizational need and value. I think we saw that with pitchers last year.

I hope he puts in a ton of time this offseason. I desperately wanted to say he could have an Adam Jones-like profile, but that's really far fetched right now. He'd have to cut the k% by a ton. I hadn't realized Jones k'd less than 20% over his career. I assumed it was in the 25% range.

Hmm. I wonder how many people here would prefer High School Pitcher, High School Bat, College Pitcher, or something close.

It says he's 18. He doesn't look 18. I'd wager he's a late grower. If that's his dad, you can figure on a fair amount of growth based on the very scientific "dad" test.

I'm curious how the difference in age affects prospect status. I know younger is better, but Sosa and Mordan also had really nice seasons on paper. Mordan is the oldest of the bunch (already 19). Still, he played half a season at 18 and ended up with some nice numbers over a decent sample. I like Tavera and DeLeon most from this list. Both have the potential to have really interesting baseball futures. I'd be curious to know more about the other two I mentioned though. I know Sosa's gotten some online love.

I still think of this in terms of process. I think Elias has essentially formed something like an 88-90 win floor, absent big injuries. That said, my personal lesson from the Astros and Rangers is you need hitters that rake. As good and fun as this team is, we have 1 right now (Gunnar). We need 2-3 more to really step up. So that's my definition of success next year. 90 wins + what looks like 3+ total hitters that rake. If we do that, we'll win in the playoffs (eventually).

I tend to agree with the people who think Hall could end up a starter, but maybe not quite yet in 2024. I don't discount that he's still getting better. I think the injuries have really set him back and getting him healthy for a long stretch of time should be priority number 1. The bullpen might be the best place to do that. In time, maybe he becomes more pitch efficient. But I still see a Blake Snell/Eric Bedard type of starter as his upside. Not a guy who goes deep, but a guy who can dominate. I'm not giving up on that, but I'm not forcing it either.

GrayRod "reverting to old habits" would be "reverting" to the #1 pitching prospect in baseball. He's a stud. Just pray for health. I think this team pencils in Westburg, Henderson and Ortiz as the starting infield, keeps Mateo and signs a lefty like Frazier for platoon reasons. I assume they wait for Holliday until the second half, but that's the huge question. I think we hire another Gibson/Lyles type, maybe a slightly higher profile, and rely on our top two to take the next step. I think McDermott and Povich are 2nd half call ups. I think the economy will play into this. I don't expect big spending outside of the elite guys and a couple of teams. The improvement will come from within, and that means 2024 could be a step back from 2023. But maybe we're peaking come September next year, or maybe 2025 is the big year where the young guys are established and peaking pros.

I've posted less just because life has changed some, but this place is still irreplaceable to me. I talk to friends who know baseball and continually am surprised about what they don't know. You start to take for granted what's posted here. There's just so much knowledge being shared. It's a fun time to be an O's fan. The offseason will bring a ton of threads about chasing guys like Ohtani or making mega blockbuster trades that are unrealistic, but behind it all really is a ton of knowledge and perspective. It'll be fun to follow here for sure, and of course the prospect list will be on its way too and we'll start to get hints about guys that the average fan still knows nothing about. I love this stuff. Thanks Tony, and everyone.

I get the feeling they've earmarked certain people as untouchable studs, and those three are part of that group along with Adley, Gunnar. Grayson and maybe even a few more guys.

To me, Frank, Palmeiro, Palmer, Mussina, Britton, Bautista and Jim Johnson are all good answers, but I love the Robbie Alomar answer earlier in this thread. He's the best I've ever seen at 2B. Hated when he wasn't on our team. Loved when he was. And I don't care about the spitting incident. It sucked, but bad things happen.

You got your Kyles mixed up.

I think the larger point is that we're dealing with predictive models. Be definition, they're assigning probabilities to unknowns. Some will perform great one day/season and terrible the next, with no methodological change at all. I do think you're generalizing specialized models a bit as if they're generally worse. The entire point of a specialized model is controlling for more known variables. Now that's often done poorly, but it doesn't necessarily mean they'll be worse. In theory, they should be better if properly constructed. The problem is with people who think they're properly constructing any of these models, but actually don't understand the data like they think. This year the models have poorly represented the O's. If you bet the money line every game, you'd be rich. Next year it could be the opposite, or there really could be an inherent flaw in their methods as it relates to this group of people. I don't know.

I actually *kinda* agree with this. Sports analytics are quite flawed, though baseball's are best as far as I can tell. But there's always context that "data nerds" cannot have because they're not on the inside. Now I don't agree that you can conclude they shouldn't be anywhere near the sport, it's just that you need to know what their information tells you and appreciate what it cannot. Earlier in this thread @DrungoHazewood made a crack about Ryan O'Hearn's transformation relative to the previous 5 years and implied that you'd be stupid to conclude that this is the real O'Hearn but the last 5 years aren't. I think that's a very debatable point because some people really do transform. Look at Matt Olson from the Braves for example. He's not just having a good year, he's totally changed his swing this year. O'Hearn has too. Rodriguez isn't the same guy (by stuff, pitch mix, or experience) as he was before he was sent down this year. This stuff is hard to account for across an entire league, and history. So yeah, generalized models have a hard time accounting for all of this stuff. That doesn't mean it's not legitimate stuff, and it doesn't mean the models are biased, it's just that all should be taken for what it's worth and not oversold as some be all end all data conclusion.

I just want the O's to put something out about McDermott doing offseason work or otherwise being healthy. I don't want crickets. I fear the injury.

You have to wonder how they build the lineup, if different at all. Gunnar's definitely leading off against righties though.

Gotcha. I thought they still did it by league. That still means he cleared every team except for Atlanta though.

Only a slight one. He has reverse splits, so it's not like he's a reliable RH hitter against lefties. Plus his defense has been, well not as good as it had been. But yeah, he's going to be on the roster and likely starting at 3B against lefties in this series. You could argue that Mateo is a better option, but I think the plan is to use him in high leverage late inning base-running circumstances.

They have a lot of lefty pitchers too. Might see someone like McKenna/Urias instead of Kjerstad in this series. I doubt this is easy. They also have a fair number of lefty hitters, which theoretically bodes well for them in Camden Yards. This could be a series where Coulombe, Hall and Perez get some high leverage innings.

Right. He cleared every other team in MLB when Miami DFA's him (had to go through NL first, I believe, then made it to the O's in the AL). Then he didn't exactly show excellence when the O's got him. The truth is that he likes the O's and there's good reason to think that they're the best team to fix him. I guess it's possible that some player development guy can convince his team to offer him a better contract, but it's a small wager for the O's to do what they did and bring him into the fold again next spring. And if he takes a deal with another team, I'm sure we have other guys in our plans either way.

Did you watch the video? It shows: 1. She conspired with friends to get his money. 2. She planned to use sex to get it. 3. She videoed herself looking absolutely fine (physically and emotionally) the next morning. 4. The judge concluded that "no physical assault or non-consensual sexual activity took place", and 5. He says that he never sexually assaulted this woman or any other woman for that matter. Now I've said in this thread that I don't like Bauer, don't trust that he hasn't had other legit issues with women and don't want him on this team, but the man was framed here. Please stop saying that he doesn't deny it. He explicitly does. Just watch the video for yourself.