Filmstudy

The Cubs have a league-average offense, but they have not hit righties well (.241/.326/.378/.704). The Orioles may get to face 3 consecutive RH starters, which should be their preference now based on the emergence of Henderson/O'Hearn/Hicks/Lester. Cubs pitchers have also been significantly less effective vs LHB (.749 OPS vs .691 OPS vs RHB).

I have been enjoying the ride too, but this looks a lot more like 1989 than 1969 in terms of the inability to beat the living snot out of opponents. This is a team that can't afford to say "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" with regard to any offensive element. They demonstrably need offensive fixing and yes, I know that means they have to answer some difficult questions about who gets demoted/cut.

In 1972, Grich didn't play much in April (he played 4 of the first 18 games), but essentially played every game thereafter, finishing with 133. That was with all of Johnson, Belanger, and Brooks on the team. Perhaps like 2023, Grich had an easy time forcing his way into the lineup with OPSs for Johnson (.655), Brooks (.644), and Belanger (.482) "ahead" of him. It's not the only time this happened with the Orioles, who 2 years earlier brought up Rettenmund with Blair, Buford, and Robinson all ahead of him. For similar reasons, I'd advocate bringing Westburg to the majors and seeing who he should beat out on the fly, as was done with Grich. The main change in the game that makes it difficult is the ratio of hitters to pitchers on the ML roster. It was 16-9 or 15-10 in 1972 and it's 13-13 for a lot of teams today. I'm not advocating the Orioles trade Westburg, but I also don't think playing him in the majors is likely to degrade his trade value and in fact it's more likely to increase it.

Let's start with Ramirez... 1) He'll be 31 in September 2) He's signed thru 2028 3) There is $105M remaining on his contract for 2024-28, for baseball ages 31-35 (he'll be 36 when the contract ends 4) His power production has dropped dramatically in 2023 despite the fact his FB rate has increased 5) His overall offensive production is the lowest it has been since 2015 (age 22) I think the Indians might be happy to offload this contract if they could find a taker to give them some minimal value for it and they are not in contention. My conclusion: If the Orioles like him for the money over the next 5 years, he might be worth a 3-for-1 exchange of truly unknow prospect potential, but not Westburg, Cowser, or GrayRod. Think 1 of Prieto OR Willems plus 2 more hard throwers from Delmarva. I would be seriously concerned about how a contract like Ramirez' would constrain the Orioles from signing Rutschman or Henderson to the sort of extension that will make them career Orioles. Just like in football, where fans are tossing out 2nd round draft picks like they were party favors, I really dislike trading any top 100 prospect and certainly not one that comes with a strong possibility for an over-market priced contract. Bieber... 1) He's 28 as of 5/31 2) This is his worst season since his rookie year with a depressed K rate, increased BB and over 1 hit/IP, but he's still hanging in with an ERA that is somewhat better than the league average. 3) He's making $10M this season and will have his final year of arbitration prior to 2024, which makes the cost of him with a 1.5 year horizon bearable if you can assume he'll maintain his current 110 ERA+. In addition, given the short horizon and age, that's a much smaller risk than for Ramirez. 4) This is where ME and his team come in to see if they can identify WHY he's not pitching nearly as well this season in addition to the obvious "Will he put the Orioles over the top?" My conclusion: Bieber may well be sought after, but I wouldn't trade any of Westburg, Cowser, or GrayRod for him. I'd probably be willing to trade either Rom OR Ortiz plus another couple of live arms from the lower minors. Westburg plus 2 Delmarva arms for both Ramirez and Bieber would be an enormous risk (see Ramirez), but I could get behind it if ME and team have decided he won't be nearly the offensive threat he is now in Camden Yards.

I would be truly upset if Elias made this trade. Giolito is a rental. I think you might be able to get him for Cesar Prieto or Prieto and a low minors arm like Pham. He's not a guy who you get 3 or 4-for 1 because he's only going to be here for half a season.

Looking at the rosters of noncontending teams for players who might be available without trading a mess of talent, there really is not a ton that is a clear upgrade. One guy with a big salary that might be available is Jorge Soler of the Marlins. He'd lose some HRs to Camden Yards, but I'd expect he'd be available for close to nothing since he's making $15M and has a $9M player option for 2024. His OPS+ is 128 now but he almost has to DH. I hear Keith Moreland is also available. Let's hear some other suggestions, particularly for hitters.

Frank Robinson with the chip on his shoulder from just being traded. He's the perfect RHB this team would need to amplify the left-handed punch they have now. I couldn't argue with Jim Palmer circa 1975 either. That was a ridiculous season and IMO the best by an Orioles starter in history in a franchise laden with pitching stars. Maybe more interesting is what lesser player could really help this team...Gary Roenicke would address a need to add power vs LHP, but he'd lose some HRs to Camden Yards. Same issue for Steve Pearce and Benny Ayala.

Definitely some similarities in terms of the logjam of talent at AAA, but that Rochester team was not nearly as deep as Norfolk is right now, particularly with the benefit of hindsight. Baylor played the whole season at AAA (1.011 OPS), but Grich was promoted to the O's after half a season (1.074 OPS), played 30 games with the Orioles, and was in uniform for the World Series. Coggins was the other talent to be on the team with lots of 4A talent in Mike Ferraro, Roger Freed, Tom Shopay, Enzo Hernandez, Tom Johnson, and Bobby Floyd. The Rochester staff in 1970 was bad with a 1.43 WHIP, 4.24 ERA, and 1.1 HR/9. No one graduated to any real ML success although at least 5 of them were on Topps rookie cards (Adamson, Beene, Bertania, Sevrinsen, Scott). John Montague posted a 5.17 career ERA with his highlight surrendering Lowenstein's 3-run HR to win the first game of the 1979 ALCS for the Orioles. The current Norfolk team has Cowser, Stowers, Norby, Westburg, and Ortiz who all have a chance to be good ML players and Jackson Holliday may play there by season's end. The Tides also have plenty of 4A talent to match the 1970 team with Lester, O'Hearn, multiple catchers, Diaz, Cameron, and Vavra. On the bump, the 2023 squad has a lot of rotational ML arms and leads the league in ERA at 3.75. They also have several pitchers with the possibility to post some ML success, including Rom, Watson, Hall and if you want to look backwards, Cano and Rodriguez. That 1970 Rochester team finished just 12 games over .500. Norfolk is 18 over right now and I don't see any way Elias could call up or trade enough talent away to make them a .500 team.

For those of you saying they are giving up on Stowers as a prospect after 2 for 30, would you also have given up on Cowser as a prospect after he went 3 for 30 with no XBH to start the year at AAA?

They used McCann as a PH vs LHP then put Vavra in RF. It was odd to me McKenna was not both the PH and the RF (if nothing else to preserve your backup catcher), but Hyde mentioned something about a back problem. I think the emergency-catcher role is a great way for Vavra to keep himself around. Lenn Sakata seemed to get a long leash with it as well. My concern about Henderson is very minor, particularly since he hit well last season. He's not going anywhere and needs to be in the lineup vs every RHP at a minimum and probably most LHP also. Stowers is the one young player I'm concerned about. He's struggling and not displaying the patience he did in the minors. It's too bad, because he was starting from a good spot after his 98 AB trial in the majors last season.

I failed to copy the link correctly, but here is the correct one for 14+ IP over 14 G by ascending number of baserunners allowed: https://stathead.com/tiny/9n87A

What Cano is doing is fantastic and he's one of the players that makes the Orioles a lot of fun to watch. However, all of the spanfinder searches for success in consecutive games seem to contain an IP limit north of 1 IP per game. The list is completely dominated by 3-out relievers (many closers) if you reduce the IP requirement to 14 IP over 14 games and you find 40 streaks (some overlapping, I believe all with better WHIP) where a pitcher allowed 3 or fewer baserunners and 104 where a pitcher has allowed 4 (Cano has allowed 4): https://stathead.com/baseball/player-pitching-span-finder.cgi?request=1&order_by_asc=1&order_by=p_h&year_min=1901&span_length=14&ccomp[1]=lt&cval[1]=3&cstat[1]=p_h&ccomp[2]=lt&cval[2]=1&cstat[2]=p_bb&ccomp[4]=gt&cval[4]=17&cstat[4]=p_ip I don't want to harsh the buzz, but one of the things I dislike about freak-show statistics is the intentional exclusions to reduce group size.

I'm not saying the comp is perfect by any means, but Zach Britton was a bad starter for 3 MLB seasons then all of a sudden became one of the most dominant closers in baseball for 3 years. His stuff was similar in terms of its movement and ground-ball inducing nature. And I'd agree Britton had at least shown a little something at the ML level prior to the switch being turned to begin 2014. My main fear about Cano is that he can't continue with his current, amazing success without increasing his K rate substantially. Britton had a similar K/IP rate over his 3 top seasons, but still had an opposition BA of .185 and Opp BABIP of .250. Cano currently has .054 Opp BA and .088 Opp BABIP. That's not sustainable, but it suggests to me he could be as effective as Britton was for those 3 years if he continues to induce ground balls at a similar rate.

Agree completely with this conclusion. Clutch performance is a harsh mistress.

Took .750-.799 and I really like the cautious optimism of the board in general seeing that's by far the top answer now. If the question was yards for OBJ and you asked on twitter, you probably get 1000-1099 as the most commonly chosen century.

In case this was not posted above, starting with the inning-ending DP in the 4-run first by Chicago, Grayson's stats: IP: 14.2 R: 0 H: 10 BB: 4 K: 23 Like everyone, I want him to have to work less hard for outs by finishing hitters and reducing pitches per IP, but he looks every bit the top-of-rotation starter we hoped he'd be.

One of the really weird lines from a weird game... Gibson: 4.1 IP, 8 hits, 2 BB, 3 R Bullpen: 4.2 IP, 0 hits, 8 BB, 1 R

Yes, both Cano and Holdsworth had a DP involving an inherited runner among their perfect streaks.

Thanks, you're correct, it was 1976. Here are his game logs from 1976: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=holdsfr01&t=p&year=1976

Prior to Monday night, the Orioles had struck out 0 times in a game 63 times, but it's been highly era-dependent: 2011 to the present: 0 2001-2010: 9 1991-2000: 3 1981-1990: 13 1971-1980: 15 1961-1970: 5 1954-1960: 18

1. He was the youngest player in the American League when he came up in 1972 yet he was traded at age 23 and done in the majors for good at 28. He's since had a lot of time to think about what might have been and whether a portion of his early burnout was the fault of Billy Martin in Detroit. 2. He just turned 70 last May and no one likes milestone birthdays like that. 3. He had a 1.19 ERA entering his final outing of 1975, but blew the save and took his first loss by giving up 4 runs to the Red Sox which bumped his ERA to 2.04. 4. Now, his shining big league moment (retiring the first 22 batters he faced--7.2 innings--for the 1975 Orioles, a team record) is in jeopardy of being surpassed by one Yennier Cano (7.0 perfect innings, retired all 20 batters faced). I thought about starting a Go Fund Me, but I only know that exists from Breaking Bad.

Stathead, the Pivotal Play finder.

This was the Orioles 503rd ever walkoff win: Today's WP was the 3rd time they'd walked off on a WP (6/25/14, 6/26/54) They walked off on a PB (4/20/16) They walked off on a balk (4/28/00) And they walked off on a steal of home (8/15/79)--Eddie Murray stole home on a delayed double steal with Decinces at first and lefthander Guy Hoffman got caught trying to pick him off What a game and a run the Orioles are on now. This FEELS like 1979 in some ways and the Tigers were a big part of the magic then as well.

b-ref.com has it here: https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB-standings.shtml

Pick the 6 Orioles whose 2023 performance will have the most impact on the team making the postseason and give your reasoning if you like. I'll start and add that I'm doing this primarily by variance of performance I see as likely: 1. Mateo--There is plenty of discussion on the board about how valuable Mateo would be with an OBP of .725 or .750 and his variance has to be the most of any player given his play to date 2. Henderson--There will (and have been) growing pains in year 2, both offensively and defensively. We've also seen evidence of a disciplined plate approach that can only help him as a hitter. 3 Rutschman--He's already one of the best players in the league, but we don't know his ceiling yet nor if regression to something below last season is possible. 4. Rodriguez--Better early command and he could be the ToR starter we've all been hoping for, but I can't rule out the possibility he has more time in AAA this season 5. Bautista--High leverage appearances from a high-variance athlete 6. Wells--I'm buying into the hope of a big upside, but it's not a sure thing by any means The Orioles have a deep and talented supporting cast including Gibson, Mullins, Hays, Urias, Mountcastle, Santander, Kremer, Bradish, and pick your relievers (or let Hyde/Elias sift through them to find the hot hands), but I feel those players in aggregate with the remainder of the roster might get the team to within a few games of .500 (maybe .490 to .500) if the above 6 were all .500 WAA players. I'll figure 92 wins to make the playoffs through the back door, which is .568. That would mean the big 6 would have to average a WAA of approximately .513 per 162 for the Orioles to make the postseason.