Bubble Buddy

booooo. Loved the pies.

Yeah but, this isn't his walk year. So not quite apples to apples compared to Cashner.

I agree here. Honestly, having prepared for a long rebuild (which we still have ahead of us), this season has been really fun to watch the Orioles organization as a whole. Gritty MLB team with some pleasant surprises from a roster of basically no-names, that is outperforming one with plenty of names from last year. Then, IMO, everything outside of the MLB team has gone about as well as you could expect. It feels like most of the noteworthy prospects have showed out. Each and every night it's felt like there's a positive report. We got the best #1 in years and made a significant international market investment. And now all of that is reflected in a top 10 farm system ranking that many of us thought may be a year or two off. I'm feeling good for sure, and this year has felt way better than last year, for lots of reasons.

Still wanted a few of those on the outside corner. Maybe it was the way it was framed, but they were looking good on the TV.

Ain't that the truth. I thought there were at least 5 or so borderline pitches of which he got none. And I was surprised that Palmer/Thorne didn't really comment.

I thought he could put it all together. But the further we get along, the clearer it is that he is just a two pitch pitcher and that was basically the scouting report out of college. And even the splitter isn't the most reliable second pitch. When he has the slider going, he can be dominant. But he's never developed it consistently and doesn't look like he will.

Kinda reminds me of Sandy Leon. Now Pedro is younger, but certainly signs point to him crashing back down, or becoming a huge outlier.

Good little write up on fangraphs. I feel like it just puts some numbers to what we've been seeing. Means may be able to be a #4/5 if no further improvement is made. If he can add an effective breaking ball, perhaps this is just the beginning. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/john-means-changeup-means-business/

Definitely should be encouraging that he's kinda bounced back and is putting up good numbers at AA right now. Struggled a bit end of last year. Hopefully he can keep it up.

How Reputable is MLBPipeline? Nice to see we have 4 guys in there (that I counted, although I think it should be 5 guys if Rodriguez is our #5 guy)

Kevin freaking Millwood. Haven't thought about his season with the Orioles in a long time.

Me too. The experience of watching him rise and then fall off a cliff as a starter has definitely kept me cautious about putting hopes in a young pitcher. I feel like I wait at least a year and a half before setting serious expectations.

It's no joke that this guy now sits at 92 MPH on his fastball. (https://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx?playerid=16269&position=P&pitchgraphs=true&statArr=&legend=1&split=base&time=daily&start=2018&end=2019&rtype=mult&gt1=15&dStatArray=FA&ymin=&ymax=) If the change stays and he can get a breaker over the plate, what's not real about him? It's not like he's up there throwing 88. Sitting 92, with location and a change up could very well continue to play. I'm excited. When Brian Matusz was dominant for that early stretch, his change up was his best pitch IMO. Could pitch backwards, low 90's FB. His breaker is better than Means, but hopefully means can stay consistent with the change up how Matusz couldn't.

I didn't get to watch last night. It looks like he threw a lot more breaking pitches.. And he didn't get shelled? Did they look passable enough? Threw them as strikes?

Also, isn't Keegan Akin a decent prospect? Backend starter type? Struggling a bit in AAA right now, but had a good year last year.

And both of those guys were really legit pitching prospects that have been beset by injury. So barring injury, it's easy to get excited about the kid.

His breaking ball isn't great, but I thought it looked at least average a couple times he offered it up. About 80% of the time it was pretty bad, but he had a couple good ones. Control looks pretty good. FB velocity definitely playable and his control is pretty good too. If he can throw a breaking pitch for a strike, we might have a pretty solid starter on our hands.

Interesting. Felix Pie has his moments with us. That's a good comparison for me to temper expectations.

His first two seasons his FB average was 94.8 and 94.9 MPH. So he was sitting 95. And that was as a starter most of the time. This year it's 93.6. Definitely didn't get the velocity bump out of the pen, which is a bit surprising because a lot of guys do. Projections | Minor Leagues | Regular Season Season Team vFA vFC vFS vSI vCH vSL vCU vCS vKN vSB 2015 Orioles 94.8 92.5 81.3 84.0 77.1 2016 Orioles 94.9 93.2 81.8 83.7 79.6 2017 Orioles 94.1 93.1 85.5 86.5 2018 Orioles 94.1 92.6 83.1 89.9 78.6 2019 Orioles 93.6 92.4 88.8 88.8

Didn't Wright used to hit high 90's every now and then? I feel like I remember in his first couple of starts he was hitting high 90's? Answer is yep. He used to sit around 95 MPH. https://www.fangraphs.com/pitchfxo.aspx?playerid=12586&position=P&pitch=FA&statArr=&legend=1&split=base&time=daily&start=2015&end=2019&rtype=mult&gt1=15&dStatArray=FA&ymin=&ymax= I always thought he'd be some kinda useful out of the pen. But the results were putrid.

I can kinda see it from their perspective and basically what you were saying: 747 OPS in minor league career. Not a big HR hitter. Average OBP. Makes me feel like he's probably due for a pretty good regression. But he's been a great pick up for us and we've got room to see if he can blossom in MLB. From my amateur eye test, his game looks pretty good.

Anybody know how Adam's defense in RF is looking? I feel like he should still have enough speed and arm to make it work out there.

His velocity is up 4 or so MPH right? I mean, he's routinely touching 94. And to my eyes, it looked like he has really good movement on the FB and CH. I'm not sure that his breaking pitch is too great, but a lefty with that velocity, movement and CH? If I didn't know already I would have thought he'd be at least a top 10 prospect in our system.

Here, here. That was a very "businessy move". Salary dump. Which just stinks because if KG was producing this year, we could have gotten way more. He's been pretty healthy his whole career too. Consistent velocity. Just needed to iron out those secondaries. But even then he still did OK.

Does anybody remember when DD was real serious about not letting pitchers use the cutter? I remember it was centered around Bundy. I can’t help but watch him now and feel like he’s turned into what DD feared. Whether it’s as a result of the use of the cutter or not is very debatable. But he has no feel for his curveball and kind of uses his cutter/slider as a crutch. Plus, fastball velo is down. That’s exactly what I remember DD pointing out about the cutter. Saps velo and can lessen effectiveness of other pitches. It might be all due to injury for Bundy. But man, he doesn’t have the velocity, pitch arsenal or control to succeed as a starter right now.