Brooks The Great

Completely disagree. Westburg was easily the organization's best option at 2B starting in July of 22, and Odor was awful the entire season. The team was in playoff contention until the final week - Westburg could have easily made a difference in the team potentially making the playoffs. The way Elias handled Odor in 2022 and Frazier last season was terrible. It was losing baseball roster management with both of those guys from the time those contracts were signed until the final day of the season, when both should have been benched/released much sooner. Cowser is being handled in the same irresponsible manner in favor of inferior vets. Norby is also being wasted in Norfolk when he could be helping the major league team right now. Play your most talented players available.

Keep Cowser and Kjerstad, they're both going to be so good for us for several years. Basallo is untouchable. Urias could possibly net a middling reliever or low minors pitching prospect. Move him for whatever you can, he's completely expendable with Holliday/Mayo coming and Norby major league ready (even though Norby might wind up playing more DH and RF for the O's than 2B). O'Hearn and Mateo are worthless. McKenna and Vavra even more worthless - no one even bothered to claim McKenna on waivers. The time to move O'Hearn and Mateo would have been during the offseason or spring training as spare parts in a bigger trade. Hays I'd move at the trade deadline for really anything of value. Time to move on and get more playing time for Cowser and Kjerstad. Norby has clear trade value. Move him for value any time you can, but in the meantime, he should be helping the Orioles RIGHT NOW at DH, RF, and 2B. The Kemp signing was a pathetic joke. Hopefully Mountcastle takes another step forward this season and maintains his plate discipline gains from last season. So far, so good. He'd have significant trade value in the offseason if so, and I'd move him for MLB-ready pitching or a prospect package.

Rain out would be a good thing with Ragans on the mound and Hyde rolling out Mateo at 2B against lefties.

I love Westburg, and it's a travesty that he was screwed over each of the last two seasons by Elias and Hyde and not given a chance at everyday playing time when he's been our best 2B option both seasons (starting in the summer of 2022). I'm glad that he's (hopefully) finally going to get a chance to play everyday to show what he can do. He never got consistent playing time last season due to Elias and Hyde's nonsensical commitment to platooning with bad players and not cutting bait with the sunk cost of Adam Frazier's awful contract. Almost all good hitters need regular playing time to get into a rhythm and reach their hot streaks, especially rookies. Gunnar and Adley both struggled immensely for one or two months straight early in their careers and were given the opportunity to learn and adjust by playing every day. Westburg and Colton Cowser haven't been afforded that same opportunity, but I hope they both get their chances - right now for Westburg, soon for Cowser. The fact Westburg has very good opposite field power makes him particularly valuable to this team in Oriole Park. Can't wait for Holliday and Mayo to get promoted so we can stop giving at bats to guys like Mateo, Kemp, O'Hearn, and even Urias.

Not sure how you can say there's no role for Norby when you're pointing out the configuration that would much less frequently apply to Norby, which is Adley DHing against lefties. Norby serving as the primary DH against LHP (with Adley at C) would be an important role and much more frequent, and I think everyone is going to see this team's weakness there exposed until Holliday is promoted or until Cowser finally gets more playing time (I'd prefer Cowser DHing against LHP to Mateo ever starting as well).

It's not good that I have to explain this, but I will. Yes, I would have rather had Norby at DH in Game 1, BUT with Westburg at 2B. As I would every game against LHP that Adley doesn't DH. So I wouldn't be platooning Mateo whatsoever - he should strictly be a pinch runner and late game defensive replacement in CF and at 2B/SS. And a terrible player like Tony Kemp wouldn't be on this team. In games where Adley DH's, I'd put Norby at 2B and Westburg at 3B, or I'd have Norby on the bench where he would be a much better pinch-hitting option for Mateo for the rare games Mateo would/could start at 2B.

More practically, this is why it was a mistake not to bring Connor Norby north with the major league team to take most of the DH at bats against LHP.

The O's have the ability to be a rare team that combines both approaches to wear opposing pitchers out. OBP is scarce as it is, but once this lineup finally includes Holliday, Cowser, Mayo, and Kjerstad regularly, starting pitchers will be racking up their pitch counts and getting destroyed in general. This is eventually (by end of August most likely, and certainly by 2025) going to be a high OBP team with lots of power. I also think pitchers are going to adjust to Gunnar and pitch around him more, so his OBP is going to go up a bit. He's too good of a hitter not to adjust and has always been patient, so I expect him to find a good balance which involves more walks. Really excited to see what kind of a season he turns in.

That's because he is. He's the biggest troll on the board, and he only communicates with primitive posts usually limited to 2 sentences or less which are almost always wrong and/or meant to antagonize. I hope Tony bans him. He's a loser.

Adding Norby to the Opening Day roster as the primary DH against lefties would have been a far superior move to having Nevin make the team. Norby faring well in that role would increase his trade value more than playing well at AAA for the third time would. More importantly, Norby at platoon DH would have made the Orioles a better team to start the season after Elias sent down Holliday and Mayo in order to gain additional control for them.

Elias and Hyde's infatuation with McKenna is really mind-blowing.

I honestly believe that Norby should have made the Opening Day roster. He's major league ready, and he would fill a role immediately as the primary righty DH until Mayo and Holliday are called up. The O's Opening Day lineup is quite possibly going to feature someone like Jorge Mateo as the DH, which is pathetic. It may end up being Westburg at DH and Mateo at 2B, but Mateo shoudn't be starting for this team, period. The only other realistic option is O'Hearn, but he was used almost exclusively in a platoon role last season, and expanding his role to a more everyday one - even on a short-term basis - is counter to Elias/Sig and their analytical approach. I'd trust Cowser in a DH role against LHP more than O'Hearn, Mateo, McKenna, Nevin, or anyone else who's not one of the prospects that were just sent down to AAA, but Elias and Hyde have made it clear that they don't trust Cowser outside of a platoon role, and they're going to give those at bats to a far less talented player (if Westburg is in the lineup at 2B and not DHing against lefties). Which will be a mistake. Norby on the team would have been the right roster decision to provide a better lineup against LHP early in the season.

Yeah, most likely the correct take.

Agreed. He should have already had a bunch of starts next to Gunnar by now. Two straight games on the bench when he could have easily started at 2B alongside Gunnar for one or both games is not indicative of someone starting the season with the team.

I honestly think Elias has already made the decision to start Holliday in AAA to start the season. If that's the case, Holliday will stay with the big league club through the end of spring training in case there's an injury. Everything in Holliday's usage the past week or so does NOT suggest a player who's going to make the Opening Day roster. Opening Day is next week, and he's been on the bench each of the past 2 games. Furthermore, he hasn't been getting very many starts at 2B alongside Gunnar when Gunnar is playing SS. If Elias were planning on having Holliday start the season on the major league roster, he would have gotten Holliday way more reps with Gunnar in games by now. I'm really surprised that a majority of posters on the board have seen Holliday's recent usage and still think he's going to make the OD roster. I could easily be totally wrong and have interpreted Elias's intentions completely incorrectly, but, over decades of following baseball, this isn't how any teams I've watched prepare a rookie for his first Opening Day. If Wong doesn't opt out, that solidifies the decision to start Jackson in AAA because that means Elias has informed Wong that he's making the team. If Wong opts out, the team could also still decide to put him on the roster and inform him of that by Saturday. So we should have some more clarity soon.

Hopefully McDermott is an option later on in the season. Very few teams outside of the Dodgers have any kind of SP depth to withstand multiple injuries to top starters. And not even the Dodgers qualify at the moment, because guys like Dustin May, Kershaw, and Buehler are all currently on the shelf. If/when 2 of those 3 come back, then the Dodgers are pretty much the only team in baseball that could absorb multiple SP injuries. But the simple fact 3 high-end SPs like that are currently out for them illustrates how difficult it is in general to keep pitchers healthy.

25-49%. I think Jackson starts off the season in AAA, and even if he makes the Opening Day roster, Wyatt Langford wins ROY by a good margin.

Welcome to Orioles Hangout, where a bunch of trolls and losers with too much time on their hands will read too much into one word or sentence (if not completely misunderstand what you write or just be flat out wrong about what they think) that you post and go to war with you over it. I completely understood what you meant about Mullins/Bradfield and it's a completely reasonable thought, by the way. But only here will you unwillingly get into an argument with someone over the semantics or interpretation of it.

It doesn't really matter what other teams do, because very few teams have 3 potential starting infielders (Gunnar, Westburg, Urias) that are all capable of playing 2B, SS, and 3B like the Orioles do. That versatility is what will make it possible for Wong to make the team as a backup 2B specialist, for lack of a better term. Mateo being able to play CF makes McKenna very close to obsolete, especially if Cowser makes the team, which I expect he will.

I disagree with pretty much everything you said. No, Wong is not blocking Holliday because Wong would not be playing every day. He'd just be a backup 2B. A bench 2B isn't ever what Holliday's role would be on this team. Wong would be blocking Holliday if the team awarded the starting 2B job to Wong and sent down Holliday as a result. But that's not what would be happening. WESTBURG is technically blocking Holliday. Urias is also indirectly blocking Holliday, much more so than Wong is. Wong would not be blocking Holliday whatsoever. That's not subjective, that would be the truth if the scenario of Holliday starting the season in AAA winds up occuring. Sending Holliday back to the minors is a move to win as well, because doing so nets the team an additional season of control which will more easily help the Orioles build a winning roster in that future season. Elias truly wants to win by keeping Holliday down, he's just willing to sacrifice 2 weeks up to a few months in order to do so. It would be a cost-benefit analysis calculation where Elias feels the organization wins by making that decision, if that's the decision he winds up making. If Holliday gets sent to AAA, that won't be the reason an extension doesn't get signed.

He's the backup 2B. He would play very occasionally against RHP. If the team feels Mateo can play CF adequately as the 3rd/4th CF on the depth chart behind Mullins, Hays, and Cowser, then McKenna gets DFA'd (as he should).

Frazier and Odor were worse because Westburg was blocked by both and would have been a significant upgrade to both (Odor only really blocked Westburg for 2 months or so, but it may have made a difference in the Orioles making the playoffs). Wong won't be playing every day and he won't be blocking anyone, not even Holliday, because Holliday would be getting sent to the minors primarily due to service time considerations.

Bradfield is certainly in the most ideal development system as a hitter from an analytics and coaching standpoint. As an aside, I think Kenny Lofton should be a Hall of Famer. I know some people have brought up Lofton as a comp for Bradfield. I think there are much more likely outcomes where he's Michael Bourn or Terrance Gore. Guys who have value, but maybe not at #17 in the first round given there were other players with premium talent and upside available (Nimmala, Brock Wilken, Colt Emerson, Colin Houck, Chase Davis). To me, the Bradfield pick was the first time Elias specifically drafted for positional need, as the organization is obviously lacking CF depth at all levels.

I agree with this. And I think Wong has a better chance than most O's fans expect/want. Wong fills the crappy veteran 2B role previously held by Adam Frazier and Rougned Odor because of "experience", except he'd fill it in a backup capacity instead of as a regular strong-side starter.

It's all about injuries with pitchers. And a majority of them get hurt. Stephen Strasburg had the same amount of hype - even more so - and he may have actually wound up one of the best pitchers in decades if it hadn't been for injuries. I still remember watching Strasburg's first start, he was absolutely electric.