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    • I think Mountcastle is the foremost person hurt by Walltimore. I honestly think we need to reconsider what type of right handed batters we throw out there. More Luis Arraez or someone with high OBP. I could see Mountcastle having a revival somewhere else. But not sure it’s really working here anymore, even though he was solid last year. 
    • Who is the real MOO bat though?  I can't think of one other than Soto available.  I am all in on Soto, but I don't think the Orioles will even sniff him.  Absent Soto, who do you look to acquire? I agree that it is time to move on from Tony and Mounty, but I do think you are a little harsh on Tony.  He has won a number of games for this team in the clutch.  He is just prone to cold spells.  
    • OK, there won't be 30 making actual bids but Burnes is free to sign with any team at the highest price. There is one very big reason he won't sign with us, which is money. We do have payroll flexibility but that evaporates if we put $40m/year in one player. I would love this if it happens but my expectations are very low. Even if we are "one of the favorites", say the final four, we only have a 25% chance. Probably lower if any of the others are in larger markets. So I have to agree with Roch's assessment. 
    • In that case the question could be do we pay Mountcastle 6-7M or do we pay a AAAA guy league minimum and use his money on RP. The purpose of keeping Mountcastle was the hope he would eventually break out and have a career year. He’s regressing offensively and the odds of that breakout are shrinking. 
    • With his season now over, curious what happened to the version of Cowser we drafted. looking at his scouting report coming out of Sam Houston State, the concern with him was would his power translate to MLB while his plate discipline and ability to draw walks being a plus. Certainly were concerns about the strikeouts but nowhere near the concerns of someone like Honeycutt.    He finishes the year with 52 walks and 172 strikeouts, with a 30% K rate. He was near the top of the league in strikeouts for most of the year.  is this purely his issues with off speed pitches? Can this be improved or do we accept the awful strikeouts and laud the plus defense.
    • I want to also address the Harper point. I'm talking about RISP, not "late and close". We can talk about high leverage/late and close in a diff convo, but strictly RISP: Bryce Harper 2023: 272/.803 2024: 331/ 1.122 2023 was a goofy year for Harper coming off of Tommy John. He looked good in April, but was a disaster in May/June before finishing the season on fire that year. I don't think he's a good case study for your example. Besides, I'm not talking singular player performance. I'm talking as a team which is far less susceptible to SSS and "chance". FWIW, I do think luck somewhat plays into this.  But let's look at this as a team. 1,298 AB with RISP for the O's this year. A 251 BA. Last year they hit 287. That's a 36 point difference. Yeah, only 3.6%. But let's look at what 3.6% means with that many AB. That means: 47 extra hits. I don't believe that 47 hits explains "luck" or "chance". Maybe for certain hitters in certain situations. There is an element of BABIP here. In 2024, it was 317. This year? 289. So, if we truly believe 300 is league average, they were a little unlucky this year, and somewhat lucky last year. But we are still talking about a dramatic dropoff. Now, is that because of playing more rookies this year? Because of the injuries? Very possibly. And in a 2 game series that can rear its ugly head. But there was nothing unlucky about yesterday or the day before. They just came up completely empty. Maybe the only unlucky situations were Ramon and Westy rips being caught.
    • I mentioned this once before but if you follow high end D1 softball the game has changed dramatically because the pitching is so dominate.  The theory is, you aren't going to score a bunch of runs by stringing singles together so most top programs only recruit athletes with game changing power or speed.  The speed aspect is important because you can turn a single into a double by stealing so now it only takes 2 hits to score a run instead of 3.   The O's lower minors seem to be stacked with guys that can steal bases so maybe that will be the change in philosophy moving forward.   It is just a thought but maybe the organization see's the pitching trend that is dominating because of the bullpen usage and OBP and runs scored across the board are down.  So stack your team with power and or speed and not much else matters.
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