7Mo

Fredi has a catcher's background. Maybe there was a disagreement with coaching there. Totally speculating.

I disagree. Potheads are a lot easier to get along with.

"The biggest project the Orioles have tasked Rogers with is improving his slider, a pitch he has thrown less often than any other in his repertoire each of the last two seasons. Most notably, Rogers has raised his release point with the pitch by over two inches. While that takes away from his extension — how close to the plate he releases the ball — it also allows the pitch to break more before it reaches the batter. So far, the results are striking. Opponents are hitting .167 against the pitch while swinging and missing a staggering 48.1% of the time. Over those three quality starts, nobody has touched it. While Rogers’ overall velocity has been down a couple of ticks, Ramsey attributes that to the difference in intensity of pitching in Triple-A compared to the majors. The Orioles are hoping continued tweaks to his delivery can produce improved fastball velocity, which could set up the slider to be a true wipeout pitch." https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/09/17/orioles-minor-league-report-trevor-rogers-triple-a/

That seems to require that Dominguez would be the better contributor.

A little bit more: The Orioles under Elias generally are selective in signing minor-league free agents. They don’t like releasing such players in spring training, and prefer their draftees to get the bulk of playing time in the minors. Elias, though, said he entrusts Snyder and his pro scouting group to handle minor-league deals for pitchers. Special assignment scout Will Robertson and pro scouting analyst Ben MacLean, in particular, vouched for Suárez, Snyder said. “We are always conscious of the difficulty of finding starting pitching. And we saw flashes with him over the years,” Snyder said. “He had been working in a length (role), throwing strikes. He had gained some velocity, starting in 2018 in relief, and sustained that a little bit in Asia. He (also) improved his secondaries. “We sold him on an opportunity in spring training, that we would give him some rope. We didn’t promise he was going to make the rotation. We didn’t make any promises. If anything, we undersell things. And I think in the long run, that really helps us. When we say we have an opportunity, it’s a legitimate opportunity.” Signing Suárez in September enabled the Orioles to bring him to their fall pitching camp in Sarasota, Fla., where he met their high-performance, training and coaching staffs. Assistant pitching coordinator Adam Schuck and minor-league pitching coordinator Mitch Plassmeyer developed a plan for him. A number of other coaches also worked with Suárez, helping him tweak his delivery so that he wouldn’t need to make adjustments while trying to make the club in the spring (Plassmeyer is now the major-league team’s assistant pitching coach). “He opened our eyes from the stuff that was coming out of his hand,” Hyde told reporters when the team summoned Suárez to replace the injured Tyler Wells. “You see 96 and you see him throw his fastball by guys with life, and then the secondary stuff he was throwing for strikes also. And he kept doing it every five days. We were excited about it.” Suárez was excited, too, telling Greenberg even after he got sent down, “This was my favorite spring training in a long time.” In Snyder’s view, Suárez returned from Asia as many pitchers do, more refined in his approach, more advanced in his craft. He also learned to pitch in front of large crowds, making the majors less intimidating than perhaps they once were. It’s only two starts. But the Orioles appear to have nailed it again. “They saw something a lot of people didn’t,” Greenberg said.

The addition of Suárez, announced by the Orioles as one of seven minor league deals on Dec. 30, was the kind of offseason transaction that elicits little more than a yawn. But for Mike Snyder, the Orioles’ director of pro scouting, the move was years in the making. He first identified Suárez as a possible target in the fall of 2017, while preparing for the Rule 5 draft. Mike Elias was a year from becoming the Orioles’ general manager. The Orioles continued to monitor him. Snyder wanted to sign him in the fall of 2022. But Suárez returned to the Samsung Lions with a seven-figure guarantee — a better opportunity than any major-league team was willing to give him. What changed last year? Suárez suffered a left calf injury in early August. The Lions, facing a Korea Baseball Organization cap on the number of foreign players they could carry, released him to replace him with another import, Taylor Widener. Snyder, seeing an opportunity that had not existed previously, contacted Suárez’s agent, Peter Greenberg. “He’d been trying to get Albert for maybe the last three years. But the market in Asia moves very quickly,” Greenberg said. “He would always come to me early in the offseason here, but Albert would already have signed back in Japan or Korea. (Last year), though, he came to me and said, ‘I’m not going to be late this time. I want to try to sign Albert.’” Snyder’s timing finally was right. The Lions wanted Suárez back, Greenberg said, but at a reduced salary in the $700,000-$800,000 range. Suárez was tired of being away. He is married with three children, ages 11, 8 and 4. The family lives in Katy, Texas. He had made decent money in Asia. He was ready to return full-time to the U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5440749/2024/04/24/baltimore-orioles-scouting-albert-suarez/ It's not exactly what you asked for but close.

I'd like seeing Scott + Tyler Anderson and Kevin Pillar. I'm also watching Dylan Carlson who seems like an Elias type guy to me and the Cards are gonna dump him.

2 bad outings in May but otherwise, he's been good for 2 months.

3 time All Big 10 Veteran of the year.

I think you're correct. I watched a roundtable discussion a couple of years ago of about 6 active GM's and they all talked about the constant texts exploring deals. I think it's SOP in today's market.

They were teammates with the Padres in 2007.

Jon Heyman says 3/75.

It makes sense. He pitched at Univ of Missouri, he lives just outside St Louis and his wife is a Mizzou grad and from the St Louis area.

I agree that those guys could be weapons in the pen but previous Elias moves make me guess they'll be given every opportunity to start.

192 innings certainly has value. But that's spending roughly $10M to tell Irvin, Wells and DL Hall that they're likely in the bullpen, where they don't want to be. I think they bring in a guy for significantly less than $10M who they think they can fix who could start, but without the commitment so there's a fair competition between that signee and the 3 above.