luismatos4prez

If we're talking about guys defying the peripherals, remember Miguel Gonzalez? 3.82 ERA and 4.70 FIP over 580 IP in Baltimore.

Substack is awesome. I always thought Meoli was way too good to write for the Sun.

I'm holding out hope that the Lyles signing indicates a willingness to spend a bit and put out a less embarrassing team in 2022. I really think Mullins, Hays, Adley, Mountcastle, Santander, Mancini, Urias, Simmons, Odor isn't a bad lineup. It's not good, but it's ML caliber. Replacing Severino, Valaika, and Franco with Adley, Simmons, and Odor is a 5 win upgrade imo. The starting pitching will still be terrible though.

My hope is the OD SS is not part of the organization yet. As I've mentioned before, a 2 year deal for Andrelton Simmons is what I'd like. Jose Iglesias reunion is a weaker option. Someone floated the idea of trading for Paul DeJong too which I don't mind. Urias can play 2B and Odor/Gutierrez can fight it out for 3B with the loser getting cut. Mateo makes the team as well.

I'm guessing Mateo is the utility infielder on OD. Jones is going to have to fight for ABs in Norfolk.

There are dozens of high quality streams out there even for an Orioles-Royals game on a Tuesday night. They're not particularly "legal", but they're good.

The team had a lot of character and great rivalries in the early 2000s with Gary Williams. They have neither now. Maryland Basketball was electric in the Juan Dixon/Steve Blake/Drew Nicholas days.

All good. I feel the same way. They've been on the wrong side of the tanking vs. rebuilding line and Lyles is a weird move.

I'm not any more confident in Mr. Elias than you are. He hasn't demonstrated any ability to build a winning or even mediocre team. What moves would you recommend Mr. Elias make so we don't start the year with Keegan Akin as the #2 starter?

The Orioles didn't even have to guarantee Harvey a penny. It was a minor league deal, so we can assume nobody else wanted him. It doesn't make much sense to me, but it seems Lyles was in more demand. I guess going 6 innings per start is valuable even when you're throwing 5 ERA ball. I'd be pretty content with 180 IP of 5 ERA from him. Even if 7M is too much, the ML payroll is still barely above Max Scherzer's salary this year. And if there were better cheaper starters who wanted to come here, Mike would have signed them instead.

Just another Matt Harvey. I'm neither happy nor sad. Mike probably had to overpay to get even Lyles to come to Baltimore. I wonder if the labor situation and the PA's anger towards cheap, non-competitive teams prompted this move. Doing nothing again would have looked really bad. After the lockout, overpaying another SP will be necessary as well. Zach Davies, Chris Archer, and Matt Harvey are some options.

That depends on what defensive metrics you look at. Baseball Savant's OAA lists him at +16, which is very much in line with his typical outstanding fielding (5th overall out of all fielders in baseball). DRS had him at +15 which is a bit of a drop off from his standards but still excellent (3rd overall out of all fielders in baseball) UZR had him at -0.1 which is unimpressive. Middle of the pack at best. What do you make of all that? I really don't know. But JJ Hardy was still playing great defense when he was 33 until injuries got him. Cal was still playing SS at a high level through 34. Simmons is only 32.

My(probably naive) hope is they sign Andrelton Simmons to a 2 year deal this offseason so SS isn't a concern next year. Westburg/Vavra/Jones/Urias/Mateo/etc can battle it out for 2B/3B next year. If they're going to spend next year, it would have to be on starting pitching. DeGrom, Bauer, Clevinger, Eovaldi, Walker, and Syndergaard are some names that jump out. The payroll will be like 40-50M again next year so there's no reason they can't afford one of these guys.

Strong defender according to Baseball Savant (+8 OAA last year at 2B, +1 at 3B) but below average according to DRS and UZR. No idea what to make of that. Not a good hitter at all (career 80 wRC+ vs LHP, 88 wRC+ vs RHP) He's only 27 still somehow but I'm not seeing the upside here.

Perez just signed with the Pirates. Elias probably offered him a minor league deal with a deferred salary.

At some point, you shouldn't own a baseball team if you can't afford baseball players. If all the players are tendered a contract, the payroll will still be less than Max Scherzer's salary this year. I'll be very upset if they take additional cost cutting measures.

Someone make a flow chart for answering the question "Will the Orioles make X move?" this season. Does it involve acquiring a player that makes more than the minimum salary? Yes -> Get real. No -> Probably still too expensive.

I'm pro pitch clocks. Go back and watch a game from the 60s. They pitched the ball, caught it from the catcher, and got back on the mound. Keep the game moving. The players should be complaining about non-competitive teams (i.e. ours) and service time manipulation. Both require a new system. I would support 1) a salary floor (maybe 80M or 1/3 of the luxury tax), 2) a new way of deciding the draft order (maybe all non-playoff teams are randomly chosen for spots 1-20), 3) and an age-based Free Agency system (maybe everyone becomes a FA at 29, a stud like Machado can go to arbitration way more than 3 times)

I totally agree with the sentiment of this post. But I'm naively hoping they'll extend Trey, not trade Means, sign a ML SS, and 2 ML SPs. I'm ready to be disappointed.

He's a goner.

Well alright then. He's got my attention. 5/21 whiffs is strong, tops out at 98 like Tony said, and that change-up for the first strikeout looked very nice.

Having 2 rookie catchers for the young pitching stuff isn't ideal. I think signing a glove-first veteran to work with Adley and help the young pitchers makes sense.

Garrett Whitlock was all over the lists I read and he had an outstanding year for Boston, too. It's hard to complain about the results from last year, but getting him and Wells in the Rule 5 would have been awesome.

Some interesting guys there, though I can't imagine Mike would take a catcher. Last year before the Rule 5 draft, I read a lot of articles that detailed the best prospects available. I don't think Sceroler or Wells were even mentioned. It's very unpredictable. This year, I think I'll just wait and see who Mike takes and then look them up.

The Gillaspie pick stunned me. He did have some good strikeout and walk numbers this year, but do we really like him better than Vespi? I think there's a >50% chance Vespi gets taken. I hope we're not seeing Vespi threads all next year a la Pop.