dzorange

People are really overanalyzing the promotion of a player that may be on the team for a week. Clearly sending Holliday down wasn't plan A, and neither is bringing up McKenna. If Kjerstad gets sent down when Hays comes back then we have a problem. My main takeaways from this are that Hays is coming back shortly and Kjerstad is going to get Holliday's opportunity in the lineup. Perhaps he runs with it.

That would be really nice and would offset your OPS projections for Mullins and Santander, which I would guess is around .590 and .610, respectively. So between the four of them, we'd average four league average hitters.

It would be amazing and I think those lines are reasonable. Even if just one of these two guys pan out with those lines, it would be such a shot to the organization. It's important to hit on the elite prospects like Adley, Holliday and Grayson. But the Orioles hitting on any of the other prospects is really what takes the organization to great heights. Gunnar's development being an example of that. Hitting on both Cowser AND Westburg in 2024 means that this team is even more solidified as a legit World Series contender for this season. Those slash lines would put both Cowser and Westburg over a 4 WAR over a full 2024 season. If this happens, what does the batting order turn into over the summer?

Witt also did that hitting mostly 2nd and 3rd in the lineup. Holliday won't have as many opportunities to accumulate stats hitting 9th. Although Holliday could certainly make up a lot of WAR defensively. But my point being that hitting 9th will give him less opportunities.

Most likely. But him starting with an fWAR of -0.2 through 18 games of the season and needing a 3.1 fWAR through the next 144 games is the bigger factor for me, I for sure would have voted the under if the fWAR was set at 3.1 the day he was called up.

Maybe, but the other aspect I was considering is how fans travel. Baltimore won't get fans traveling from Los Angeles, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis or Oakland. But they will from the likes of Philly, New York, Boston, Toronto, etc, especially as the O's continue to win and the weather gets nicer. But if the O's can draw 25,000+ locally for an April weekend series against the A's, then I would expect some huge attendance numbers the rest of the season.

If we're going to wait a bit on any Henderson, Holliday, or Rutschman extension... I'd like to see Rubenstein make extending Kevin Brown a priority. If for no other reason than to show that this organization will be run differently than the previous regime, and good employees will be rewarded.

Baltimore has had some tough draws this year. Angels, Royals, Brewers and Twins. I can't imagine these teams draw in general, and especially in Baltimore. Might as well get them out of the way early in the season. Oakland next weekend won't help, but the Yankees should draw some great early season Monday through Thursday crowds. Then I expect the crowds to increase considerably.

A 3+ fWAR the rest of the way seems mighty aggressive. His defense has rated very well on Fangraphs so far as well. It's not going to continue at that rate.

Offensively he won’t. But it wouldn’t shock me if he exceeds what he did defensively in 2021.

Mullins is an absolute luxury in the bottom half of the order and defensively in CF on a team where the young prospects get all of the attention. Good to see him showing off the power to start the season.

Maybe this is a cryptic sign that he's signed Henderson to a long term deal??? Gotta save money somewhere.

Just checked the weather. Looks like no sun today but the guns will hopefully still play.

The expectations are even higher because the O's are coming off of a 100+ win season. Rutschman struggled for the first month or two (clearly not like Holliday has), but the O's had no expectation of winning going into his promotion. He was also hitting in the top six spots in the order. Holliday is hitting last regularly and is 20 years old. I guess my only point here is that the expectations of the organization have grown. Adley and Holliday were both one ones and the #1 prospect in baseball. When Adley got called up, the Orioles started winning. While Holliday has been up, the Orioles are continuing to win. As long as the O's stay competitive, keep throwing Holliday out there in the 9 spot. At minimum he's getting reps defensively at second and hasn't been hurting the team there.

Orioles going with a suns out guns out lineup with Albert Suarez pitching today.