Otter
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Posts posted by Otter
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27 minutes ago, Moshagge3 said:
This would have been a good day to sacrifice some defense at first to play O'Hearn there and DH Kjerstad. Instead you just know Kjerstad is going to have to come off the bench as PH for Mateo against a tough reliever late in the game. Tough, tough road for Heston.
Agreed. It's not really fair to put a rookie in that situation where he sits for multiple games in a row then has to come in cold and pinch hit against other teams' nasty relievers. That's a tough ask even for veterans, but much more so for a rookie who still hasn't gotten acclimated to major league pitching.
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I do like this idea, mainly because I wouldn't want to trade a top prospect for a volatile and possibly an injury waiting to happen reliever. However, it seems prospect for prospect trades are very rare and I don't see Elias trading a veteran bat for a prospect at this point.
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3 minutes ago, Frobby said:
I will say this: several (not all) of Melanie's foibles were also problems for Fred Manfra, who is in the Orioles Hall of Fame and spent 25 years in the O's radio booth. He had a terrible time describing any play that was at all unusual while it was occurring, and he was awful at distinguishing which fly balls would be homers/extra base hits and which were routine fly balls. I can't count how many times I would curse him for raising his voice as though an Orioles homer had been launched and then say it was caught shy of the warning track, or act as though an opponent's ball was just an average fly ball and then say in a semi-sheepish tone that it had cleared the fence. And, he had a way of sounding a bit too happy when things were going poorly. So, Melanie isn't alone.
Yes, I do remember that about Manfra. But Manfra was a good broadcaster with a good voice and delivery, but bad at describing the baseball action. Melanie is terrible at both.
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The thing that bothers me the most about her is sometimes her tone, inflection, and volume aren't appropriate for the moment. Her voice gets excited during a routine pop-up, but she delivers a late, monotone, and confusing description of exciting run scoring plays. If she was the PBP announcer for an A ball team, it would be ok. But the fact that she's the backup PBP announcer for a MLB team is just embarrassing.
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6 minutes ago, RZNJ said:
Haha. I did catch that DP comment with a man on second. I like her but it’s like they took someone who never watched a game and said “no problem, it’s easy, we’ll teach you”.
I was thinking the same thing last night. It's almost like she's never watched baseball before and knows nothing about the game. Her voice gets very excited during a routine pop up, and then she delivers a monotone poorly timed inaccurate description of a run scoring play.
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26 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:I believe Dan Ford just had his front foot back like that , but extremely closed.
I remember batting like that once in Little League because of that and hit one on the longest home runs I ever hit at that age. Then, I made a couple of outs and ditched it to more of a regular stance. haha....
Anyways, as for Jackson Holliday stance, legs kicks work for some and not for others. The key is to get it down in time and being able to pick up spin and movement early enough. To me, Holliday just got behind in too many counts because of some great pitches on the edges of the strikezone.
I'm not a swing expert, but I've seen the kid hit well against all types of pitches including velocity so i think he's going to be just fine.
He's gotten on base a lot more down in AAA where the automated strike zone helps him with his great eye, but hasn't hot for much average or power since going back down (.242./432./364./795 with a 11-9 BB to K in 44 PAs. The Ks are still a bit high in AAA.
He just needs more seasoning.
I think you make an important point about the automated strike zone in the minors helping Holliday. It seems in the past year I've noticed that rookies with excellent plate discipline seem to get affected much more by the wandering zones of certain MLB umpires. They seem to know the zone better than the umpires and have been rewarded for that in the minors. We saw last year that Henderson struggled at first even though he was still walking, and then got hot when he became much more aggressive early in the count and not letting himself fall behind. I noticed it with Cowser last year, and with Holliday this year. They seem utterly perplexed when umps call pitches three inches off the corner.
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2 hours ago, baltfan said:
One of the most depressing games of the year.
Definitely. And just terrible luck as well. We had a number of hard hit balls right at fielders, and they had a couple bloopers in their two run inning. And they got the benefit of some terrible ball/strike calls.
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11 hours ago, Morgan423 said:
Robo-umps are simply not going to be an optional thing. They're going to have to be incorporated into the game in some aspect or another.
This has been the worst season in memory for terrible ump calls in baseball, and fans all over the league are reaching their boiling point. MLB continues to ignore this issue at its own peril.I'm as upset as anyone that Angel Hernandez, CB Bucknor, and Laz Diaz still have jobs, but I don't really believe this is the worst season in memory for terrible calls. I think it just appears that way because of the data fans have access to now and the fact that social media has really focused on the issue this year. I'm certain that the majority of umps now are incredibly more accurate on balls/strikes than the umps back in the 80s/90s. Do you remember Eric Gregg and Ken Kaiser and Garcia, and many more of the incredibly arrogant and incompetent umps back then?? They would hold grudges and change the zone from game to game or even inning to inning. Again, I'm not excusing the terrible strike zones from certain current umps, and I denounce the fact that terrible umps have no consequences for their incompetence....just wanted to remind people that it's still much better than it used to be.
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8 hours ago, Orioles4Life21 said:
CB Bucknor was surprisingly ok tonight
Yes, after the terrible 3rd strike call on Gunnar in the 1st he was actually better than he normally is. But I loved how Palmer tore into him after that bad call. It's almost as if Palmer was just waiting for the first chance to bash him.
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6 minutes ago, Satyr3206 said:
More arrogant than Hernandez? Joe West maybe. I need a memory refresher.
Ken Kaiser, Garcia....
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28 minutes ago, Malike said:
The panic button should be reserved for the bullpen if they keep up the pace in the past 10 days or so.
Putting Bradish in the rotation can hypothetically help the bullpen by placing Suarez or Irvin in the pen.
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44 minutes ago, Frobby said:
I think the main issue is that Kimbrel is turning 36 shortly and he’s not cut out to make 78 appearances a year, which is the pace he’s on. He did that once when he was 23 years old. He’s only reached 70 appearance one other time, last year, when he tired at the end of the season.
If I’m Hyde, I’m doing my best to limit Kimbrel to 5 appearances every two weeks. If that means someone else has to pitch the 9th in a save situation every so often, so be it.
This. The problem is Hyde doesn't really have any other appealing options. Elias handcuffed him by not bringing in at least one other late inning reliever in the offseason.
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2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:
Not to mention it was a different era.
That said, Burnes doesn’t have the command or control Maddux had..simply put, maybe no one in baseball history has either.
Exactly, completely different eras. And I've never seen a pitcher with the combination of elite control, command, and movement that Maddux had. It's crazy to go back and watch some old videos and see the movement and command he had of his two seam fastball.
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Good points. As for Fabian, good defense but I'm not sold on the bat skills translating against major league pitching. And although Cowser has looked so much better defensively this year, I don't think he's a full-time CF at the major league level. Although I'm comfortable with him filling in at CF.
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46 minutes ago, Roll Tide said:
Just curious, Was Greg Maddux an ace? Age 30-36 he was a clear #1 and his career K/9 of 6. His best seasons were 7.3 and 7.8. As long as his BB/9 runs don’t increase it isn’t a big deal. The credit for the home run yesterday goes to the hitter. The pitch was far from a meatball.
An interesting stats …. Maddux faced around 20,500 batters and only allowed something like 350 3-0 counts ….his BB/9 was 1.8 for his career and under 1.5 from 30-36. After that he wasn’t an ace but a very good #3. And he played part of his career in the roid era.
Burnes doesn’t need to fan 10-12 per 9. If he manages a K/9 per 9 that’s plenty good enough if he can get the BB/9 under 2.0. He’s currently at 1.5 this season and was 1.8 two seasons ago. And 2.6 for his career. But that doesn’t matter when your are struck ing 10-12 batters .
What you say is certainly possible, but using one of the best pitchers of all time (and a true unicorn) as the exception to disprove the rule isn't a great argument IMO.
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17 hours ago, OsFanInOhio said:
Are we deeper at 2nd than cf? What 2b prospects due we have outside norby? Maybe Wagner if he hits enough but can’t handle 3rd? Horvath is more valuable at 3rd or cf as well…I feel like our middle infield depth has actually dried up quite a bit in the last year with westburg and Holliday moving up to the bigs and Ortiz getting traded …
within his own draft class he’s competing with bradfield and etzel who either have higher draft capital or are playing even better.
flexibility is never a bad thing, but I feel like the road to the majors is clearer in middle infield than outfield.
True. But I was looking more at majors and minors depth combined, so we have Mateo/Urias/Holliday/Westburg/Norby that can all play 2B, but mostly just Mullins and Bradfield as legit CFs ahead of him right now.
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3 hours ago, RZNJ said:
Josenberger was our 3rd round pick last year. In 2021 at Kansas he played exclusively in CF. In 2022, back at Kansas, he played exclusively at 2B. He transferred to Arkansas and the SEC for the 2023 season and played exclusively at CF. On draft day he was listed as an OF. Last year at Delmarva he played all three outfield positions with 17 overall including 9 in CF. This year it looks like he’s back at 2B. He hasn’t made an error in 9 games and has been involved in turning 6 DP. So far, so good. The bad news. He’s only hitting .177 with no extra base hits. The good news. In 47 PA he has 11 walks and only 5 strikeouts. More good news. He has 11 stolen bases without being caught. Josenberger didn’t show much power at Kansas but he did smack 10 homers last year in the best conference there is. He’s making a lot of contact and it looks like he’s making good swing decisions. He’s worth keeping an eye on.
Nice summary. I wonder why he's playing 2B this year instead of OF. It seems all the scouting reports were high on his outfield defense, and we are much deeper at 2B than CF.
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I don't think Elias will do this, but if Holliday goes down I'd like to see Norby brought up and given an opportunity to start 60-70% of time at 2B. I know OF is probably his long term home if he stays in the organization, but as long as he can play a mediocre 2B I'd like to see how his bat plays in the majors. However, even if Elias brings him up I suspect he sits on the bench in favor of Mateo/Urias.
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13 hours ago, Sports Guy said:
Interesting to see how big he looks jogging the bases compared to the other team's infielders...
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1 hour ago, Frobby said:
It’s really interesting how this is the second straight year he’s dominated while repeating a level he’d struggled at the previous season. (Though 9 games is a little early to say that he’ll continue to dominate.)
Yes, it's an interesting pattern. But I also suspect it stands out to us since we've become a little spoiled with the fast-moving and precocious prospects we've had fly through our system in the past few years.
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1 hour ago, Frobby said:
After going 3 for 4 with a homer last night, Beavers’ slash line is .343/.400/.486. That’s strikingly similar to last year’s .321/.417/.478.
He’s now at 197 PA at Bowie, around the amount of PA that have been the threshold for promotions to AAA for players who have done well there (Gunnar had 225 PA in AA, Westburg 209, Kjerstad 184, Holliday 164). The Norfolk OF is a bit crowded so I’m guessing they’ll be in no hurry to promote Beavers right now, but if he continues to play well, I think by mid-June at latest they’ll need to make room for him.
While reports on his defense are slightly mixed, my impression is that he’s closer to Cowser’s level than he is to Stowers/Kjerstsd/Norby. That bodes well for him.
Agreed on both counts: that he's getting close to a promotion based on previous handling of similar levels of prospects, and that the outfield at AAA is already crowded. And this brings up one minor beef I have with Elias regarding prospect promotions.....he often is very aggressive in promoting well-performing prospects up through the lower levels, but then is very conservative in promoting well-performing prospects from AAA to the majors. As a result, we may always have a logjam of prospects at AAA which can force prospects into playing off their natural positions, taking turns at DH instead of getting reps at their positions, or even spending time on the bench. I wonder if Elias will change a bit now that AAA is already crowded and slow down the promotions at lower levels.
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5 minutes ago, jabba72 said:
Found video of the triple from yesterday. Looked like a gapper into the power alley.
Enrique Bradfield Jr. rips a leadoff triple | 04/14/2024 | MLB.com
And that was an easy stand up triple...looked like he was just cruising...
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On 4/10/2024 at 8:33 PM, Just Regular said:
First base tonight for the Baysox, looks like his first career game off the grass, at least for the Orioles.
His Swinging Strike rate, notably low last year, down at about 8% (about 80th percentile Eastern League) so far.
Very interesting. Will be interesting to track if this is just a rare occurrence or they are getting him some legit time there. I would have thought Kjerstad would be a much better option for 1B than Beavers, but maybe they tried it and Kjerstad was brutal there.
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Partially agree, but not for the reasons stated. The old left field was way too short and unfair to pitchers. However, Elias overcompensated and now the left field wall is way too long and unfair to hitters. And I do find it strange that Elias hasn't tried to draft or acquire more LHP to mitigate left-handed power hitters taking advantage of the only short porch left in the current configuration.
The best development of 2024 so far?
in Orioles Talk
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Agreed on Westburg. I see him as a more athletic JJ Hardy. He's extremely reliable, consistent, good defense without being flashy, humble, hard-working, and someone who hits a home run but never watches it or showboats and just puts his head down and jogs quickly around the bases. He's the kind of player Cal Sr. would have loved.