CaptainRedbeard

Yeah. He’s not particularly exciting but he’s the best right handed OF for AAA depth with options right now. I was a little surprised they DFA’d him. If Norby is decent in LF he’d be a better option if we need a RH corner OF at any point, but Burdick has CF ability and presumably much better defense.

I believe they’ve already optioned him and Povich, unless I’m misremembering? They are going to keep McDermott on the SP development track, but by the back half of the year once he’s built up enough innings, I expect to at least see him as a RP. Unless he’s in the MLB rotation, which could definitely happen.

Akin actually pitched much better in the second half of 2022 by peripheral numbers, but his BABIP literally more than doubled from .186 in the first half to .407 in the second half. His August-Sept K/9 was over 10.5, BB/9 2.5, FIP and xFIP each well under 3.00. Really, Akin has only had terrible batted ball outcomes since the middle of 2022, and his K, BB and HR rates have been excellent. And since he didn’t pitch for most of 2023, that still comes out to a small sample of about 50 IP over those 1.5 years, where batted ball outcomes are extremely volatile and not predictive - as evidenced by this being the same pitcher who had that .187 BABIP in 53 IP in the first half of 2022. Believe it or not, the Fangraphs Depth Charts (50% ZIPS and Steamer) actually project Akin to have the best FIP of all Orioles RP, and second best ERA behind Cano. I wouldn’t go that far, but there’s no denying that there’s a lot to like in Akin’s more predictive numbers if he is healthy again.

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.

Too bad for too long? He was great in 2022. He was hurt in 2023, and even though he gave up a ton of hard contact (probably while pitching hurt) and had the horrible ERA in ~20 innings, he still had much better peripherals and really good K/BB rates. I was sick of Akin in 2023 too but he looks fully healthy now and Hyde is raving about him. I think he’s almost a lock to make the team as the 3rd lefty since he can also go multiple innings (in his 2022 role), the only way he doesn’t is if it’s a numbers game and they decide they want to keep both Webb and Teheran (which would leave Tate as the only optionable arm in the pen, so I don’t think they’ll do that…I think they let Teheran opt out and/or DFA Webb).

If you look at the log of Baumann’s velo on Fangraphs, last year his velo peaked early and really wore down as the year went on. He was used a lot and it was his first year as a RP, so not surprising. Early returns are that the off-season did him a lot of good. He’s certainly got a big arm and we need somebody to step up, hope he’s able to do it.

McDermott has a little Kremer in his motion in how he straightens his front leg earlier than most and swings it, so I can see that as a point of comparison. But that’s pretty much where they end. McDermott’s upside profile is basically Bradish with better fastball qualities. The spin rates on McDermott’s distinct slider/curve are exceptional. Those are going to be lethal offerings. If he can get his command to Bradish-level (big if), he could be even better since the fastball should play better. He could also definitely benefit from the split/change coming along to help him with lefties.

Urias is a much better player than Mateo. But, if they are going to eventually have all of Gunnar, Holliday, Westburg and Mayo on the team, with Mayo playing some 3B, Mateo could still serve as a pinch runner/defensive replacement (e.g. at SS, pushing Gunnar to 3B and Westburg/Mayo to 1B, or in the OF). It’s not a critical role or anything, but Mateo could contribute more in that capacity than Urias would with a roster spot in the same situation. With those 4 guys we really don’t need another player to make starts in the infield, and especially so if Norby is still going to be around in AAA or ultimately carving out a right bench bat LF/2B role. They need to trade Urias eventually, but Mateo could still hang around. The problem is Hyde still likes to make sure every bench player still gets a handful of starts, so if they keep Mateo he’s going to end up starting way more games than he should. If he’s a good CF maybe it will be there and not in the infield, which wouldn’t be as bad.

Agree on the position players, although Kjerstad has not impressed this spring. Him, O’Hearn and Stowers are probably all very close in terms of “right now” and Kjerstad has all the upside. On the pitchers Cionel Pérez has been horrible this spring but has done enough the past 2 years that he should still be included, over Baumann, Suárez or Teheran. Especially considering Coulombe is the only lefty in your pen. Also if we’re putting McDermott in the pen for this exercise, Povich could be in there too.

Definitely got the good version of Povich today. He was consistently hitting 93 with the fastball (threw some slower too, so probably averaged 92) and got a number of whiffs up in the zone with it. Used the cutter a lot too and it looked effective, as well as the offspeed. Not pinpoint command but good enough. Wasn’t facing a MLB lineup pitching at the end of the game, but looked like a MLB SP today.

He was a SP in the KBO in 2022 and 2023, so it would just be keeping him as a SP.

He’s going to need a much larger sample given he won’t be optionable if they add him to the roster. He could make it if there are some more injuries but I don’t think they are going to DFA somebody or lock up another roster spot until they’ve seen him dominate in AAA for at least a little bit. If he pitches the whole Spring Training like he has so far, it will be interesting though. I would be surprised if he is an early cut. They also need to decide whether they want him starting or trying to max velo as a reliever.

This is a common joke and it is funny as long as nobody is taking it too seriously. It’s also funny that a number of the non-white Orioles have names that could just as easily be preppy white guy names - Grayson, Anthony, Cedric, Danny. To go along with Gunnar, Adley, Jackson, Heston, Jordan, Austin, Ryan x2, Kyle, Tyler, and every “C” name possible: Colton, Connor, Corbin, Cole, Craig… When all of your prospects are from the draft, a lot of them are going to be white guys. Just a byproduct of the state that the Orioles’ system was in when Elias took over. The international program is now fully up and running starting with Basallo, this won’t be the case going forward. There’s a ton of international prospects in the top 30 now.

Really feels like there is a push to get this done before Opening Day. Would be very cool to be able to introduce the new ownership to an Opening Day crowd. Now, is there also a push to get this done before Snell and Montgomery sign…just a coincidence? Even if it might not be final yet, is ownership committee approval enough that Angelos is comfortable with Rubenstein effectively signing off on the increased budget for Snell/Montgomery, even though Angelos is still the one signing the dotted line (and bearing the $ if the sale somehow didn’t go through)?

Yeah I’m actually surprised Fuji wasn’t worse. He was brutal to watch sometimes. I think it’s because Fuji threw a lot of pitches on the edges and out of the middle of the plate when he was throwing strikes. He looked unhittable when he was on. A lot of non competitive pitches but not a lot of horrible meatballs. Anecdotally, I think that’s why Baumann had only a bit better Pitching+ grade than Fuji, he wasn’t nearly as wild out of the zone but my impression was he was quite prone to serving up some center cut fastballs and cutter/sliders.

Stuff+ measures the quality of pitches, not how good of a pitcher they were, because it doesn’t consider location. So the classic archetype of a “great arm but no idea where it’s going” guy will grade well by Stuff+, but be a bad pitcher. It’s more valuable for gauging upside, and the Orioles and other teams that are good at picking up RP for cheap and making them way better target guys with good stuff that they then try to harness better with mechanical or approach adjustments, or ability for spin (which goes into Stuff+) and they tweak a pitch or teach a new one. There is a Location+ too, which just grades location. For example Fuji was 122 in Stuff+, but 94 in Location+. Baumann was 114 and 98. Webb was 114 and 104.

Webb is really, really strong in the pitch models. By Stuff+ his fastball was 134, second on the Orioles behind Bautista at 135. His slider also grades well and he’s tied with Baumann at 114 overall in Stuff+. PitchingBot is similarly high on him. I don’t disagree that Webb is a dime a dozen type, but he fits the mold of guys that the Dodgers and Rays (and Orioles!) pick up off of waivers and turn into a much better RP than they’ve been in the past. For every one of those success stories there’s a host of guys who don’t work and the churn continues. I’m not saying Webb is going to be one of those successes, but so long as he looks healthy in Spring Training I don’t think he’s reached the point yet where it’s onto the next one. I’m betting the Orioles kept him and are trying to tinker with him some more with the benefit of the offseason and Spring Training in a way that they didn’t have the ability to do on the fly after picking him up midseason.

I think this is all correct, except Webb will probably make it somehow, either by optioning Akin or by letting Teheran potentially opt out. They do have Tate with an option if they ever become desperate for a fresh arm and need to cycle through the Norfolk shuttle, as an alternative to a DFA for Baumann/Webb/Teheran. If they don’t add anybody they are badly going to need one of the RHP to step up. Means could conceivably come back soon and push Irvin or Wells back to the pen, which could help. Would be even better if they added Snell or Montgomery…

Agree with this. If Mayo and Westburg are here, there’s only so much 2B/3B/SS to go around so Mayo is probably going to play a fair bit of 1B even if he is still playing 3B. Maybe he or Westburg will play OF too, but at this point that will probably a next offseason consideration if Mayo looks like a legit 3B this season. Mayo can stay concentrating on 3B but mix in enough 1B to make him an option there. Plus, long term 1B is one of the easiest positions to find a guy outside the organization who can give you ~1 WAR pretty cheaply. Very hard to find really good 1B but easy to find those replacement level or slightly better types. High level true 1B prospects are pretty rare. If you’re going to have one position that isn’t covered by a prospect, that’s by far the best one.

I did the third option, but it’s more that I think there a big positives and negatives to either approach. If they think he’s ready to be a 4+ WAR player right now then they probably should have him on the Opening Day roster. The additional 2+ wins now and the ROY pick probably outweigh the additional year of control. However if they think he’s more like a 2 WAR player right now, the smart thing would be to send him down until we pass Super 2. I think he’s probably more like 2 WAR than 4 WAR, but the Orioles could easily conclude that he’s much better than that right now.

I just don’t think Lorenzen is very good. He was a 4.55 xERA, 4.46 FIP, 4.68 xFIP last year. The projection systems think he is something like a 4.60-4.80 guy. He’s 32. He doesn’t even have a long track record of being a durable starting pitcher. They already signed Teheran. I don’t see what Lorenzen offers that he doesn’t, and I don’t even think they really need Teheran. Why bother spending any amount of money on Lorenzen when we have a huge amount of pitchers that could probably offer something similar?

Nobody really knows what the Orioles current budget is or “should be.” But there’s plenty of reason to think they should be able to spend more on this year’s team than they are currently, regardless of the profits that have already been extracted during the rebuild years. From a baseball perspective the stars really have aligned for the Orioles to sign one of Snell or Montgomery to one of these 3 year deals with opt outs after each year. It will not constrain them in the future as their core starts going through arbitration and they want to retain/extend them. And from the perspective of the players, Snell and Montgomery should want to come to Baltimore. Being LHP with the wall and a good team it checks all the boxes for a short term destination to try to re-enter free agency. The Orioles clearly have a need for another SP and every other team with that need is up against luxury tax considerations that should actually allow the Orioles to offer a competitive deal on par with what the big market teams would offer. If Snell/Montgomery land the 5+ year deal they’ve been looking for then you can’t really fault the Orioles. But the Orioles should be in on them if they are considering short term deals, and there’s every reason to think they could land one if they are actually willing to expand the payroll further.

I meant that his lack of options and being a NRI hurts his chances of making the Opening Day team, just because adding him to the pen locks up another spot in the pen that can’t be optioned. I think they’re likely to have one guy who can be optioned the first time they need a fresh arm, like Baker/Zimmermann/Akin. If Suárez had an option he could take that initial spot or be in that mix for the next replacement cycling through. If Suárez is anywhere near as good as he looked today it won’t matter, they’ll make a spot for him, but the fact that he doesn’t have an option likely works against him in that it’s probably easier to get a shot as part of the Norfolk shuttle crew.

He’s not on the 40-man roster, he’s signed to a minor league contract. So they can put him in AAA without exposing him to waivers. Higher profile minor league contracts can have opt outs, he could have one but I doubt he does.

Whew. This dude has a MLB fastball. Average velo 96.3. Spin rate 2452. 28 pitches, 17 swings, 10 whiffs. I’m with RZNJ, I don’t know how Elias found this guy or how he’s throwing 3 mph harder at age 34 than when he was last pitching in the MLB in 2017, but I want to see him in short relief. It’s a shame, I think he has no options so he’s probably ticketed for AAA no matter what, but I think we’re going to see him in the majors this year. And potentially much more than anybody would have expected.