Brooks The Great

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.

There certainly is a way the move is made in less than a month or two. If Gunnar were to get hurt in late April, for example, then Holliday would be called up. So I completely disagree with you when you say there's no way the move is made in a month or two if Holliday begins the season in the minors. But yes, barring injuries, it will be longer than two weeks. If the IF group of Gunnar, Westburg, and Urias stays healthy, there's a possibility Holliday gets the Gunnar treatment. Late August callup in order to preserve his rookie eligibility to have a better chance to place in the top 3 ROY vote-getters in 2025. Which is another secondary - yet not totally insignificant - factor that people who think Jackson is making the OD roster may not be considering.

It's never an exact date - the date changes from season to season because it's based on the top 22% in service time of the players eligible. But it's usually in June.

If they keep him down for 2 weeks, and the team is off to a good start and healthy, I think they would keep him down even longer to surpass the Super 2 deadline.

Yes he does. An extra year of Holliday is extremely valuable to any organization, especially this one. If Holliday gets sent down, that'll be the reason. I think it's quite possible that I'm wrong and he makes the team (with no injuries or trades), but I think Elias will ultimately feel that using Westburg at 2B and Urias at 3B for 1-2 months will be worth gaining the extra year of Holliday.

Mayo and Kjerstad are still playing regularly, but they're most likely not making the team. I think Holliday starts the season in AAA. The service time consideration is the #1 factor with him which will keep him from the Opening Day roster in my opinion. He'll be sent down in the final cuts, but he'll make the team if Gunnar, Westburg, or Urias get hurt, or if Urias gets traded. So he'll be playing regularly until the end of spring training.

We're getting to the point where regulars are going to be starting most of the rest of the way for spring training, so I think Westburg starting at 2B today was telling. Elias and Hyde are clearly in love with Urias and Mateo, and Urias/Mateo are going to make the team. In my opinion, that's more of a certainty right now than Holliday making the team. It's been Elias's MO to hold on to mediocre veteran favorites he acquired off the scrap heap until the bitter end, whether they're free agent signings or waiver wire/Rule V dumpster dive claims. Odor, Frazier, Voth, Baker, Mateo. O'Hearn will probably wind up in that group this season. Urias is an exception as a waiver wire claim that has provided considerable value exceeding any of those in that aforemetioned group. However, he's a veteran, and he's an Elias/Hyde favorite. He's making the team, and I believe Mateo is as well. Having both of those guys on the team makes less sense if Holliday is the OD 2B, although Mateo could theoretically function as a backup SS/5th OF if Cowser makes the team (which I believe he should, and will) and McKenna is DFA'd. Not only that, but Elias will usually elect to delay starting service time clocks as long as he can, and as often as he can. I disagree with how long Elias has stuck with mediocre vets, but there's certainly a case to be made for keeping Holliday and any elite prospect in Baltimore as long as possible, especially with Boras as Holliday's agent. If there are no injuries to the infielder group of Gunnar, Westburg, and Urias, then I expect that Elias is going to send down Holliday to AAA in order to gain an additional year of service time. Westburg deserves a shot at regular playing time, and he's going to finally get it. And Urias is going to get a good amount of at bats until Holliday gets called up to play everyday - unless Urias gets traded before Opening Day. Mayo is essentially in the same boat as Holliday, and I believe he's just as MLB-ready as Holliday is. I've thought Holliday was going to start the year at AAA since the end of last season. I still believe that to be the case. Ortiz getting traded significantly increased the chances of Holliday heading north with the team, but at this point, I think only an injury or an additional trade makes it happen. I could certainly be wrong though, and would be glad to see Jackson play every day at 2B starting Opening Day. But ultimately, I think having the extra year of Holliday is the best-case scenario for the organization.

I doubt Daniel Johnson makes the OD roster if Cedric Mullins is healthy, but I hope his minor league contract allows the O's to finally DFA McKenna. I'd much rather have Cowser make the OD team, and then have Cowser slide over to LF with Hays in CF and Johnson as the 4th OF (and potentially Mateo as the emergency backup-backup-backup CF) if Mullins has to spend any time on the IL this season (which I assume he probably will). I hope we never see McKenna in an Orioles uniform for a regular season game ever again.

Why do you think he won't be the high average, high OBP hitter the Orioles drafted? There's no statistical evidence to back up that conclusion - in fact, the evidence points to the opposite being true. In 399 plate appearances in AAA last season - after Cowser's swing was "re-worked", as you pointed out - Cowser had a .417 OBP. And his OBP throughout the entirety of his minor league career has been excellent. Cowser has been the closest thing in the minors to Juan Soto-level OBP since Cowser was drafted. If you don't think he's going to be able to be the high OBP guy we drafted, I think that's because you're putting way to much stock in an extreme major league SSS last season where Cowser was never given an opportunity to play every day. Cowser's BABIP of .175 in the small sample size of 77 at bats strongly suggests he was merely unlucky in 2023 at the MLB level, but regardless of whether Cowser was unlucky, struggled, or some combination of both, his 16.9% BB% was very good for a rookie's first stint in the majors with sporadic playing time. I think Cowser will be the high average, high OBP the Orioles drafted. And it's going to be frustrating seeing Ryan O'Hearn take at bats that will come at the expense of Cowser early this season.

Seriously. What's the point of giving DH at bats to a career 4th/5th OF with no options remaining? I get it, spring training doesn't matter. But why not get a couple extra looks at the several prospects that fit in the team's long-term plans?

I'm on the same page. Platooning is great if you're poor, like the Rays. They pull it off well because of their analytics, development, and some minor league depth. But they do it because they are a small market, low budget team. Players get platooned because they obviously have more pronounced flaws from one side of the plate. But the goal of any team should be to have as many star players at as many positions as possible in order to win a World Series. Star players - or any valuable player - aren't going to get platooned. The Braves and Dodgers are examples of having star players at almost every position, and the Orioles have the talent to be on the Braves/Dodgers side of the platooning spectrum this season. On the opposite side of the Rays. Hyde and Elias really irked me last season because they loved platooning mediocre vets like Frazier, Mateo, Hicks, and O'Hearn (yes, Hicks and O'Hearn produced for stretches, but I believe those were merely lucky/hot small sample sizes) when they had several talented prospects at their disposal who not only may have outproduced those vets in the short-term, but could have also gained some valuable experience to establish themselves as non-platooning stars/valuable players in the medium-to-long-term. I'm sure someone will point out that the team won 101 games last season as a reason for why Hyde and Elias platooning was successful. But to me, maximizing your talent is always the most efficient approach to winning games, and Hyde and Elias didn't do that as well as they could have last season (and in 2022 as well, when Jordan Westburg could have helped the Orioles make more of a push to the playoffs by replacing Rougned Odor).

Such a joke that Jeter won so many Gold Gloves. He's a good example of why that award is actually mostly an award for offense in disguise.

Considering how Elias stuck until the bitter end with scrubs like Odor, Frazier, and Voth, it's a lock that Urias and Mateo will be on the OD roster. I don't like Mateo as a player at all and would have released him last season to give Westburg and Ortiz more playing time, but, unlike Frazier and Odor, I can understand the value that Elias sees in Mateo's speed and defensive versatility. And Urias has actual value to any team. The only way Urias and Mateo aren't on the Opening Day roster is if one of them is traded (no one will want Mateo except perhaps as a throw-in, so it would likely be Urias getting traded) or one of them gets hurt.

I just don't think Elias will decide to convert him to a reliever to that degree if he's pitching decently as a starter. Nor should he. I think Elias and the organization need to see if Johnson can fulfill his upside projection as a rotation arm, and this season will be critical to evaluating that. If Johnson has trouble consistently going deep into games or he gets hit much harder the second/third time though a lineup, that's a different story. But I think Johnson will get a couple months worth of starts in the minors to see whether that's the case.

He could also start during his time in the minors, but get called up to the O's to pitch out of the pen in the second half. Not sure if that's what you meant by converting him to a reliever, but it would be a good way to leverage his skill set for this season while also keeping his innings down coming off of TJS. Then he could be treated as a starter for next season (if he pitches well as a starter in the minors this season).

I think Gunnar's gold glove caliber-defense is what will make it tough for any other Oriole to be more valuable than him over the next few years. And yes, his combination of offense and defense will put him in the AL MVP discussion if he stays healthy.

Not surprising, considering that post was coming from one of the board's biggest trolls. He's the king of horrible one-sentence takes. His ratio of incorrect and inflammatory opinions per typed words in posts is atronomical.

I love Tim. I met him at Dempsey's (now called Superbook) after the Orioles lost Game 1 of the 2014 ALCS to the Royals. I mentioned that I was doing some sports writing at the time, and asked him if he would be willing to do an interview with me about the Orioles during the offseason. He graciously agreed and gave me his contact info. The transcribed interview was published by Tony here on Orioles Hangout, although the article may no longer be up. Tim Kirkjian is pure class.

Someone probably already mentioned it, and surely some of the news articles have, but Rubenstein went to Duke undergrad also. So the incoming future majority owner of the O's and one of the future minority owners are Duke guys.

Plus more full time at bats and more at bats in general from your young players who showed offensive impact in the minors. Westburg alone playing every day and not losing at bats to Adam Frazier, who was a complete black hole at the plate the final 2+ months of the season (0 home runs and garbage OPS+), will improve both the offense and the defense. Cowser and Kjerstad will provide superior depth in case Santander or Hays get hurt, and I like Kjerstad's chances to provide similar or better production to what O'Hearn provided in O'Hearn's DH/1B platoon at bats last season. Then there are Jackson Holliday and Coby Mayo, who should both debut in 2024. And that's not considering Joey Ortiz, who quite possibly has a better bat than either Ramon Urias or Jorge Mateo (and is also likely the best defender of the three, especially since Mateo's defense regressed last season). As long as Hyde doesn't give too many at bats to Mateo, Urias, or O'Hearn, the O's offense should easily be significantly better than it was in 2023. And the defense will be quite good, especially in the infield.

Trading one of the best young players in baseball for a pitcher that will generate less overall value just because the team needs a starting picher - when starting pitching can be acquired in other ways - is a bizarre argument. Gunnar just produced a 6+ WAR season, and he has upside for more. Neither Kirby nor Strider have surpassed a 4 WAR season. Me saying that Gunnar has the best chance for a Hall of Fame career is a straightforward and concise way of expressing that he has not only been a considerably more valuable player than either Kirby or Strider, but that he will continue to be more valuable, and that the Orioles shouldn't trade him for a pitcher. And I have no doubt that they won't. I can see why you're one of the most antagonistic and least liked posters on this board. You offer up terrible takes with a confrontational tone.

No chance. Gunnar has the best chance of the three for a Hall of Fame career.

Not sure why you group Mateo and Santander together. One is a legimitate middle of the order bat who plays every day, the other is a scrub who's going to be fighting to be on major league rosters the next few years.

Just because it's low on the priority list doesn't mean Elias shouldn't do it at all.

The Orioles have never had a farm system as stacked as this one, and it's stacked with predominantly hitters. Previous history doesn't apply to this situation. All it takes is to find another team with a need for MLB-ready position players that has more pitching in its farm system (or young controllable MLB SPs) by comparison. There are a few (Marlins, Guardians, Mariners come to mind), so I don't think it would be too difficult for Elias to find a trade partner if he wants to land an upper level pitching prospect or two.