Filmstudy

Let's start by taking a look at who the Orioles got for Lopez last year... 1. 2 pitchers who were both at high A (I state because of the high risk of such pitchers due to injury/ineffectiveness) 2. Both mid-range prospects in the 11-14 range within the Twins system if I recall, but neither a top 100 guy 3. Lopez was among the game's best relievers with 2.5 years of control (Bednar has 3.5), at a similar age, but with no previous record of success So I think it's fair to say the prospect package sent should be more than the value of McDermott and Povich at that time Let's look at Norby by himself 1. At AAA, just turned 23 2. Top 100 prospect (MLB pipeline makes him the 4th best 2B prospect in the game) with 2023 OPS of .795 and MILB career OPS of .841 3. Position player, so the risk of disappearance due to injury is much lower than with Povich or McDermott I don't want to simply state this, so I'll ask it as a question...Setting need aside, would you be more excited to have Norby in July 2023 or McDermott/Povich in July 2022?

It's a lot to give away for Bednar, who has 2023 plus 3 arb years of control. I really dislike trading position players for pitchers (particularly 3 for 1), because of the greater injury risk. I think Pittsburgh would jump on this in a second despite the fact Bednar is a hometown Pitt boy.

Barlow is 3 years younger (30 vs 33). Does that concern you when you are ponying up trade capital for both years?

Who do you think the Orioles would need to trade for Flaherty? And is the plan a pure rental or aspirations to re-sign?

Legitimate question and the Orioles still have some young arms that are getting stretched out. The best chance for another top 3 starter is probably still Grayson, but he's also most likely to hit an IP limit. I have no issue with a trade for a starter, but I want it to be a lefthander for reasons given above.

Nope, that's just a part of it. It's about being able to match up vs a LH lineup as well. Right now, this team is naked to a tough LH lineup. I know the platoon split does not look like too much right now, but I don't believe that will hold up, particularly against the better LH bats the O's will face in the postseason.

I see folks like Giolito and I like him, but I don't see him bumping Wells down a peg in the postseason rotation order. In one sense, he's a good add to replace a starter who is struggling or reaching an innings limit. The problem I see with acquiring him is that he's ANOTHER RHSP who does not address the team's need to deal with a heavily LH offense nor is he a guy who can take advantage of the dimensions of Camden Yards.

Does anyone have an issue with this guy talking about Wells, Bradish, and Gibson while the video shows nothing but rockets are being hit off them? If you're going to say Wells is a ToR starter, then show some Ks! It's like someone wanted to put in a subliminal message to underscore that the Orioles starters suck.

SteveA this is not directed at you, because I know you know this, but I'm going to expand on this. Whether or not the RS/RA is a direct input (looking backwards) or based on current lineup, the Orioles recent blowout wins are a huge relief and bear fresh positive portent. Said otherwise, the biggest problem with the Orioles before 5 games ago was their inability to score runs in sufficient quantity to outslug their opponents when necessary. Over just this last week the lineup has finally been improved significantly with playing time to Cowser (who himself has yet to hit much), playing time to Westburg (over Frazier/Mateo), the return of Mullins, and no significant drop off in offense from the rest of the order. Are the Orioles capable of winning close games? Sure, but each time they win a nail-biter they tax their bullpen for potential use the next day and they are not deep enough there to rotate a lot of quality (few teams are). It's a lot more repeatable to throw in a 4+ run win every 4-5 days where you can use some relievers a little farther down the totem pole. A great example is the best Orioles RS team of all time, the 1969 Orioles (109-53).. Record in 1 run games: 35-21 (.625) Record in games decided by 5+ runs: 30-8 (.789) The 2023 Orioles are still 5 games better than their pythagorean projection going into the All-Star game, but I feel a lot better about the quality of the lineup sustaining a taxed bullpen in the 2nd half.

All for this. Let him fail forward including 2 weeks in AAA at the end of the season if he warrants it. At a minimum, 2 month at AA will give him some things to work on for 2024.

Irvin in the bullpen as the long man also flips RHP to LHP to gain platoon advantage to much of the opp starting lineup. If you don't have a decent LH starter, that might be the next best thing.

3 things about the arms Seattle may or may not truly be offering... 1. They are pitchers. So future controllable years have less value that hitters at similar ages due to the much higher risk of injury. 2. While the controllable years and possibly the expected improvement are reasons to pull the trigger, none of them have been particularly dominant in 2023 despite solid WHIP numbers. Miller is ERA+ of 102, Gilbert 106, Woo 100. That's in part a function of Seattle being a good pitchers park for years now. 3. None of them address the primary concern for the Orioles, which is the need for LHP to take advantage of OPACY configuration. I deal with this all the time with twitter fans who suggest Ravens trades that include massive amounts of outgoing draft capital. My response always is that you can't trade that away like party favors. If I were Elias, I would not give a rats ass that the Orioles have "too many" position players and not enough starting pitching in terms of how I'm going to look at valuing the bounty of young position players they have to trade...each one MUST bring back full value. If Ortiz/Norby/Prieto/Westburg/Cowser/Kjerstad/Mayo were with almost any other organization, they'd be labeled as untouchable. The Orioles have the luxury to consider trading 1 or even 2 of them, but they can't afford to have their pocket picked.

I'm new to leverage stats as they apply to baseball. Are they adjusted to league averages for the situation? It occurs to me that some high leverage situations may be more or less likely to result in a hit/BB due to a faltering pitcher or platoon advantaged relief.

This. I don't think we've examined the possibility of a 6-man rotation enough. That will probably get trimmed to 5 fairly quickly with injury/ineffectiveness, but temporarily allows a little better management of innings for the young arms. There are multiple candidates for demotion/DFA in the bullpen which has had a shocking can/cannot divison in 2023. Specifically, Bautista, Cano, Baumann, Coulombe, and Baker have combined for a 2.60 ERA and all are at 103 or better ERA+ The Others who have pitched for the O's this year but are not among the current starters have combined for a 5.68 ERA. They are a collection of 4A pitchers who have been pretty well sifted through for value: Voth, Perez, Akin (1 start), Zimmerman, Gillaspie, Vespi, Givens, Hall, Garrett, McKenna*, Lester*, Bazardo, Vallimont. Of those, I don't think there is a true 2023 difference maker waiting to emerge, but I'd love to be wrong.

The Orioles have continued to extend their unswept streak through the Twins series including series of: 5 games: 1 4 games: 13 (16 above was incorrect, but the probability calculation was based on the correct 12 at the time) 3 games: 48 2 games: 6 Considering only the series of 2+ games, if the games were each coin flips, the chance to avoid a series sweep over that time would be .000123 (approximately 1 in 10,000). At the end of the Twins series the Orioles will have played 216 consecutive games since they were last swept. From the work of u/dontich, the record since 1950 is 234 games by the 2004-05 Braves. The O's next 6 series are 3,3,4,3,3,4 games vs the Marlins, Dodgers, at Rays, at Phillies, Yankees, at Blue Jays respectively. .So, if the Orioles can get through the 4-game series with the Jays without getting swept, they'll have the "modern" record.

John Lowenstein had been a 91 OPS player career prior to Balt and 112 the year before Jim Dwyer was 91 career prior to 1982 and 112 the year before Melvin mora was 79 before he got to the O's and 31 with a 91 OPS+ career when he had his breakout season I know baseball does not have perfect control groups by any means, but none of these 3 were as bad as O'Hearn at the same point. That said, I'll continue to enjoy the ride.

I don't want to be negative with how important O'Hearn is to the Orioles lineup right now, but I can't think of too many instances where a 30-year old (July 26) suddenly learns to hit the way he is doing now. In addition, he's not walking, which is probably going to catch up to him when pitchers start challenging him less in the zone. I'd love to have him be the exception to the rule. He had an 83 OPS+ in 1071 ABs prior to this season and is at 139 now. So while I think a platoon of Mountcastle is appropriate, I think it's more likely Kjerstad is the guy with whom Mounty will eventually be paired and that might come as early as late 2023. Looking at the lineup right now. The Orioles seem very prone to LH starters and I think they may still need a big RH bat at the deadline (maybe the Cards would look to dump Goldschmidt's salary without requiring the return of a lot of prospect capital?).

Who do you interview after this 8th inning leads to the win? All of Rutschman, Santander, Hicks, and Westburg are reasonable candidates, but no one is an obvious choice.

High-quality ABs vs Duran, even among the outs. Got to the Twins closer for 34 pitches. Henderson saw 8 pitches starting with 3-0 and Duran finally K'd him, but right there I was thinking he's not going 2 innings today (8 pitches, 8 total for Duran) Rutschman dribbled a 2-1 pitch up the 1st base line and hustled for the single (4, 12)--good effort after 2 big outs earlier in the game. Santander came back from 1-2 with 3, 2-strike fouls before lacing his 3-2 single to center with Rutschman running to set up 1st and 3rd (9, 21) Hicks got behind 1-2 then took a ball low to make it 2-2 before punching a hit to center to tie the game (5, 26) Mullins took a strike, then missed to fall behind 0-2 and still got tremendous wood on the ball where Kiriloff temporarily saved the game with a diving stop to rob Cedric of extra bases (3, 29) O'Hearn took 3 straight balls then an intentional ball 4 (3, 32) Westburg took a low strike and was then hit by Duran's 2nd pitch to force in the winning run (2, 34) Pagan relieved Duran and Mateo took him to 3-2 before striking out (6, 40) I always say the drama in baseball comes primarily from the walk (or fear of it). That was dramatic baseball even though it might require a little too much understanding of the game to be used for a movie.

Great report. He threw another 1.1 innings today with no baserunners. Assuming he can keep up his effectiveness at close to the current level and given some of the holes in the bullpen, I would not be shocked if he was out there by the end of July. Charles will turn 27 in September, so there should be no issue with a desire to manipulate service time. When they do bring him up it will be to catch lightning in a bottle, not with concern over control of his age 34 season

Legitimate issue for sure in a 5.72 runs/game environment. Does this mean we need to cut some slack for the pitching prospects at Norfolk?

Legitimate issue for sure in a 5.72 runs/game environment. Does this mean we need to cut some slack for the pitching prospects at Norfolk?

I like these. How about O'Hearn as 1979-83 John Lowenstein or 1983 Jim Dwyer. I really like him as a pure platoon player and I think he could work well with Mountcastle. The problem is a 1B platoon is a big roster-spot hog in today's game.

Tonight's win will extend the unswept streak to 200 games after tomorrow. The longest streak I found was the Braves, who went 221 consecutive games between sweeps in 2003-05. Also I have no doubt with longer series in the early part of the 20th century there were a longer streak or 2. Yeah, they play some very good teams the rest of the month and the streak won't last forever, but they also have a 9-game homestand and no scheduled 2-game series until late September.

I recall seeing a brief graphic regarding this during an O's broadcast this season, but... It has now been well over a season since the Orioles have been swept in a series of 2+ games. The last time it occurred was 5/13-15 2022 at the Tigers, which also happens to be the series immediately preceding Adley Rutschman's callup. SInce that time, they have played series of: 5 games: 1 4 games: 16 3 games: 44 2 games: 5 1 game: 3 times (lost 2 of 3 of those single games) Considering only the series of 2+ games, if the games were each coin flips, the chance to avoid a series sweep over that time would be .0002975279 (less than 3 in 10,000). I'd like to have a way to compare that against historic streaks, but I don't know how to do it with Stathead. Can anyone think of a method?