Filmstudy

The Carolina Mudcats pitchers have thrown 810 pitches in the first 4 games of the series against Delmarva, 202.5 per game (22.5 per inning). Let's hope these guys don't each find the level of pitching they can't hit at some point over the next couple of years.

.401 team OBP in the 15 games since the call up (entering Fri night): 527 AB 154 H .292 AVG 12 HBP 6 SF .401 OBP

I've taken to watching each Delmarva game on MILB. You're exactly right about the plate discipline approach which is the most striking thing. Fun to watch each AB using the 15-second fast forward feature. 12 more walks tonight (Thursday) against pretty good Carolina team that threw 196 pitches (21.8 per IP). They had 8 hits tonight but of 9 runs, only 4 were RBI. It seems like whenever the opponents make a mistake there are runners on base (4 WP and a 2-run error with 2 outs tonight), because there are ALWAYS runners on base with this team. Since the mass promotions, Delmarva has scored 121 runs in 126 offensive innings. If anything, the OPS numbers above significantly understate how good this offense is, because they've hit relatively few HRs and their team OBP must be close to .400 since the promotions. And BTW, Delmarva pitchers struck out 19 Carolina batters in this one as well.

Correction... Those 1996 Orioles actually scored 67 runs in 7 consecutive games (Aug 10-16, 1996). The 67 runs were scored over 61 offensive innings. Said otherwise, the FIRST 7 games together for the 2021 draft class (plus Mayo and a couple of others) is a better run/inning ratio than any 7-game stretch in Orioles history.

A follow up on the Shorebirds offense... The Baltimore Orioles have only once scored 65 runs in 7 consecutive games (Aug 5-11, 1996). They scored exactly 65 and did it in 64 offensive innings.

Good first game vs Salem, a 9-4 blowout with 14 H and 7 BB for Delmarva. Salem pitchers threw 185 pitches tonight (20.6 per inning). Since the mass promotion from FLC, that is now 65 runs scored in 59 innings with 42 walks. They have a modest 7 HR over the past 7 games.

In the late 1980s when people started referring to OPS, I was infuriated by it. If you're going to add 2 things that don't have the same relative value, why not just add fielding percentage and batting average! Now I'm more amazed that the baseball public is still willing to accept OPS as a critical comparative statistic. OPS+ is better, but it's still just normalizing the total of the 2 elements and not trying to weight OBP (and inherently outs used) properly. STATS INC did a lot of good things to make baseball information public, but I think their annual was the first place I saw OPS. wOBA is explained here: https://library.fangraphs.com/offense/woba/

I noticed Ryne Ogren was in the lineup for Delmarva. He's 24 and an infielder who converted to C this season. Here is his minor league record: https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=ogren-000ryn He looks to me like a Willy Yahn type player the organization can move to any level to fill a gap. Assuming Creed Willems hits in the FCL, would we expect to see him in Delmarva this season?

You beat me to most of this... Since the 2020-21 draft players arrived from the FCL: Tues: Del 10, Frd 1 Wed: Del 3, Frd 1 Thu: Del 11, Frd 9 Fri: Del 17, Frd 1 41 runs in 33 offensive innings the last 4 days. The @shorebirds have drawn 30 BB in these 4 games and have a .435 team OBP this week.

NM, I found Roch's tweet above. This doesn't quite explain the entire set of FCL promotions.

Did anyone create a list of the players in the organization who were released of put on injured lists to make room for the large wave of promotions?

Completely agree. I've been checking in on Delmarva nightly only to see how Hernaiz has been hitting, but the influx of new draftees seems to have pushed him to the bench.

Colton Cowser now has 5 straight multi-hit games to start his pro career 11 for 16 (.688) including 3 2B, 1 HR, 7 R, 7 RBI. Considering he's almost 21, how soon should he be headed to Delmarva or Aberdeen?

Remarkable. That 1948 opening-series sweep cost the Red Sox the AL pennant. They finished the regular season tied with the Indians and famously lost the 1-game playoff when Joe McCarthy decided to start 8-7 Denny Galehouse over Mel Parnell and others. I'll be perfectly happy if history repeats itself in 2021.

Thanks for the tweet-worthy thought, @now

In terms of slow, slower, slowest, the recent pitcher he reminds me of is Sergio Romo. But Sergio Romo maintained an impressive K/BB ratio for many years and Valdez has done it for the last 9 innings of his career. Incredibly, Sergio Romo is just 2 years older than Valdez.

I appreciate you researching, but you should certainly expand the range in both directions, not try to find the first wining percentage at which there was a 5% occurrence of a 10-7 start. That's statistical cherry picking. Also, do you think it's compelling that 1 of 46 teams that finished with a winning percentage between .320 and .339 began the season 10-7? That observed probability is actually 2.2%, lower than the 2.3% expected from random binomial draws of a .325 team. If we assumed .330 was the average win percentage of the group, we'd expect 2.5% to start with a record of 10-7 or better with games decided by random draws. DH, you obviously have some understanding of the math involved here. What level of statistical significance are you looking for? And how would you propose modeling in what we know from observing the 2020 Orioles to beginning-of-season expectations?

Good to see the math approach. First step in determining if the model is reasonable is to determine if .325 can be a reasonable estimate for a team that goes 10-7 in the first 17 games. The chance of a .325 team going 10-7 or better in the first 17 games of a season is only 2.3%, so I'd argue we've already seen a level of statistical significance that the Orioles do not truly have a team with .325 talent. Said otherwise, the hypothesis that the Orioles are a .325 winning percentage team can already be rejected at the 90%, 95%, or even 97.5% confidence level. Taking another approach, you have the Orioles jumping from a .325 expected win probability at season's beginning to a .450 winning percentage as a playoff team. That doesn't seem unreasonable, but after 17 games of a 60-game season, shouldn't the Orioles have already "credibility graded" towards whatever they will be entering the playoffs from .325? It's not an uncommon approach in actuarial work to have a standard you begin with (.325 is probably reasonable) and another based on actual experience to allow such grading (10/17 might be reasonable). If you use something like that you'd estimate their current win probability at .325 X (43/60) + .588 X (17/60), which makes the Orioles a .400 (.3995) expected win probability team from this point forward. That feels like a more reasonable number based on what we've seen so far from this team. If I plug that back into the binomial theorm, I get: 30+ wins: 23.6% 29 wins: 10.4% 28 wins: 11.9% Based on projections I'm seeing, the Orioles will probably be in with either 28 or 29 wins, but let's say it's 30, since the September Effect will split haves and have nots after the trade deadline. As I understand the playoffs, they would then face (probably) the 1 or 2 seed in a 3-game wild card series. In a way that's an ideal format for a bad team (toughest opponent in shortest series). Then 7 game series the rest of the way.

This is in stark contract to Fangraphs including the 8/13 win: https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds Where the Orioles are shown with a 16.0% chance to make the postseason, worst in the AL East. Further fascinating is that Fangraphs estimates their probability of a WS win at 0.0%. For that to be true (assuming rounding is handled normally), they would have to have less than a 1 in 320 shot of winning the WS if they make the playoffs. In my estimation, the Fangraphs model is not granting credibility to 2020 play at a fast enough rate nor capturing the chance a team like the Orioles may make decisive moves to improve via trade, promotion of Mountcastle, AR, a pitcher, or just jettisoning some less productive players. In the mean time, Why Not enjoy the underdog role, ponder the significance of each passing game, and party like it's 1989.

For the season now: 49 IP, 25 H, 13 BB, 59 Ks, 0.78 WHIP, 4 HRs, .148 opp BA. Rutschman did allow a steal while he was pitching, so we know he can't hold runners on (sarcasm). Anyone looking at his stats would note terrific progression from 2018, so some of the "no progression" comments must be qualitative. His age dif is -0.4 for Aberdeen this season, so he's still a little young for the league.

On June 27th, the Orioles had a 3-25 record in games decided by 5+ runs. Since then, they are 8-6 in such games. The stretch began with the most lopsided consecutive shutout wins in MLB history on 6/28-29 and included the longest streak of consecutive multi-HR games in MLB history. Fans of the 1916 Giants could probably relate, but they are all gone now.

Rebuilding means the question must be asked for each player...Can he contribute to the next Orioles champion (or contender if you like). Villar will probably be at least 31 when the Orioles next contend (assumes 2022 or later). At that point, he won't be nearly as good a player and he's just an average player right now (.500 162WAA this season). I think part of the misunderstanding of Villar's value is in difficulty of using WAR arising from its arbitrary replacement level. The 1.7 WAR means only that a team that would otherwise play .294 ball would improve by 1.7 wins given his contributions to date. An otherwise .500 team would not improve at all with Villar (per 162WAA). BTW, in terms of 162 WAA, Mancini and Villar are virtually identical (Villar .500, Mancini .499) and both are 28, but since Villar plays on the left side of the defensive spectrum and the Orioles have a logjam of LF/RF/DH/1B, it probably makes more sense to keep Villar of the 2.

I agree entirely with the notion that wins later are worth more than wins now or in 2020, so I think 10 for 8 would make sense and 10 for 10 would be terrific. However, I think there is some overvaluation of Mancini here (meaning in the thread i general, not from @Can_of_corn who I believe asked a hypothetical question. He's a likable player, but he has a decent but unspectacular OBP, plays on the far right of the defensive spectrum where the Orioles have accumulated a logjam of players, and has negative defensive value. What's worse, his OPS is his strongest category and most of that 1) comes from slugging and 2) isn't park adjusted. WAA162 provides a better estimate of Mancini's value and by that metric, adding Trey to an otherwise .500 team makes them a .498 team over 162 games. He's also 27 now, so it's optimistic to project future growth as an offensive player from this local high. Mancini is inexpensive, which I'd love in a sport like football with a hard cap, but I don't like the idea of his salary ballooning with arbitration on a bad team while his value depreciates and he holds a spot which could be used to test some of the logjam players. He could play a supporting role on a champion, but not a lead role. For the Orioles, I don't believe there is hope he'll do either before the sand runs out.

Not in his case specifically, but it's a due diligence item for prospects born outside the US. If you saw Brooks play, then you know about all the BS with ages from the Dominican Republic that messed up expectations for a generation of position players. My original post was a legitimate question, not an accusation.