Brooks The Great

When does Aberdeen typically announce lineups before night games? I was going to go to the game tonight, but not if Adley's not playing.

Those are all disappointing, but the starts that Westburg, Henderson, Haskin, Prieto, Norby, Rhodes, GrayRod, Bradish, Rom and several other players have had is quite promising.

Does anyone know if Gunnar did the double gun holster after his second home run? The video on Twitter cut off right before he would have done it (as he did after his first home run).

MLB makes so many bad decisions, this was yet another one. A lot of boring baseball being played league-wide.

That A's lineup tonight was a joke. They've just been obscenely lucky with RISP so far. Lots of crappy minor leaguers up and down their lineup. Still, glad to see what hopefully is an organizational shift in results due to analytics, philosophy, and development. One can hope. Perhaps the analytics department saw something in Lyles and he and the coaching staff have been able to capitalize.

Obliterated a home run tonight, with a major league bat toss right after.

Get Vavra's bat in the O's lineup, or at least on the bench. Cut Odor. Odor should have never made this team.

Lopez is best used as a 2-3 inning guy when you're up 3+ runs or down a couple runs to keep the game close. Not a high-pressure situation guy, definitely not a closer. Frustrating that a mediocre tactical manager like Hyde will keep trying Lopez out and cost us a few games in the process. But I guess that would help us get yet another high draft pick. Bautista and Baker are our best closer candidates.

I was almost as disappointed in the Cowser draft pick last year as the Kjerstad pick the year prior, and I have to admit, it's pretty rough seeing Lawlar and Watson - both players I preferred to Cowser that Elias and co. passed on - just crushing early on. Cowser is a talented player and was a "safe" pick to save money for later rounds, but I hope not taking BPA in the first round in back to back drafts doesn't come back to haunt us. Elias did a great job drafting Westburg, Mayo, and Baumler (and Haskin) in the 2020 draft, but I think he could have still saved money, wound up with the some of the same later picks, and drafted a far better player in the 1st round by going with Hassell, Walker, or Veen. We seem to have some nice depth pieces from later on in the 2021 draft, but are guys like Rhodes, Williams, Trimble, and Willems really worth passing on elite talents like Lawlar and Watson? I think the answer will turn out to be "No", and I think 2020 will be viewed in hindsight as a worse mistake (Kjerstad) than 2021 (Cowser), but we'll just have to wait and see how it plays out. Not feeling great at the moment.

Really does look a lot like Hunter Pence swinging the bat.

I stated last season that Westburg profiles as the O's future 2B, with Ortiz and Gunnar as SS's and Mayo at 3B. A great problem to have would be if Ortiz sticks as a major league SS, moving Gunnar to 3B and Mayo to RF.

True. The irresponsible part is the riding the motorcycle either way, though.

Reading between the lines, it seems very possible that Tatis fractured his wrist in a motorcycle accident and kept the injury quiet until now. Super irresponsible of him if so, and I'd be looking into voiding the contract if I'm the Padres.

I'd take Myers in a salary dump if the Padres include Hassell. Hassell is going to be a stud, wish we had drafted him (or Veen, or Walker) instead of Kjerstad. Taking on Myers to add Hassell would be a great move and wouldn't cost us all that much money. We can buy out Myers for a measly $1 million next year.

I think MLB is going to have to give up on the international draft. Which would be a huge win for the O's. Just my completely amateur opinion.

Agreed. Such a great value, even if OF is fairly deep in the organization.

I never addressed you or quoted you, what are you talking about?

Likewise. The people taking shots at Pearl Jam are merely outing themselves as people with mediocre taste in music.

Owners agree to universal DH and getting rid of draft pick compensation for free agent signings (if I am understanding correctly). Love the universal DH. I'm optimistic about a deal getting done fairly soon, those were pretty significant concessions and show that at least progress is being made.

In your first paragraph you said that you don't think that the universal DH impacts Mancini's value "at all", then in your second paragraph you explain a scenario in which the DH specifically does impact his value. The universal DH can only help Mancini's value, bottom line.

This makes a lot of sense if the underlying philosophy is that pitchers are the most effective the first time through the order, and much less effective the second and third time through. Even with a pitching staff utilizing openers, the guys throwing the most IP are facing the opposing lineup that second and third time by default. That's the most common way to accumulate more innings than a 1-inning specialist/reliever.

I never said anything about why he started late, or that the O's didn't handle him well (they did, all I said is that they took things slowly). My point is that Mayo didn't face tough competition. That's not his fault or the O's fault, but we have to take the level of competition into account when evaluating his performance.

He played in the postseason as well. Also a super small sample size, but he made the jump. So let's dismiss the jump to double A. Gunnar still made a major jump from low A to high A. Mayo wasn't challenged at all. That was by design because the organization wanted to take things slowly, but the quality of the pitching Mayo faced needs to be taken into account. Henderson's season was more impressive to me.

Glaser makes a great point, and that's why I rank Gunnar Henderson ahead of Mayo (they are my #3 and #4 O's prospects). Henderson faced the two most difficult jumps in the minors - low A to high A, and high A to AA - in the same season. And he overcame slow starts after both of those jumps. Mayo didn't face difficult competition at any point during his season. His numbers were awesome and he flashed plus power along with great advanced metrics, but Mayo is going to face significantly tougher pitching in 2022. Interested to see how he fares. Henderson also projects to potentially play a premium position - SS - along with 3B. Mayo projects as a 3B and perhaps corner OF, even though he's athletic and has good speed for his size. I prefer Gunnar slightly, but as I've said multiple times on this board, very excited to have both.

It's a good time to start following the O's again. Even though the past few years have been terrible, our farm system is full of promising hitters, and we've finally built an infrastructure in the international market. I truly believe better days are ahead for the franchise. And Peter Angelos isn't going to live forever. Get to know the team's farm system. I think you'll enjoy following our prospects as several of them get promoted to the major league team over the next few years.