Wright scratched from start tonight, brought up for Friday

[Frobby]

We seem to do a good job of turning our starting pitching prospects into good relievers

I think the bullpen was always Wright's most likely destination. It's too soon to give up on him as a starter, though.

[atomic]

Yeah too bad the Angels aren't AAA hitters.

Seems like he had some success against them in the past and Jiminez has not so that is probably why Wright will start.

[Tony-OH]

I think the bullpen was always Wright's most likely destination. It's too soon to give up on him as a starter, though.

Perhaps, and when he flashes you a good start it makes you wonder, but at the end of the day, we have a ton of innings between the majors and minors to go off of and the one thing Wright has never been is consistent with his stuff as a starter. He is the prototypical candidate to be converter into a reliever.

I don't know if he has the makeup to be a late inning guy, but I do think he could be a solid 6th-7th inning guy on a major league team. The question, can he pitch on short rest effectively? I realize the Orioles haven't had the luxury of trying to find out with him in the minors due to their lack of SP options, but at some point he's going to to have to make the conversion IMHO.

[cridolphi]

Out of curiosity, I went back and looked at Wright's minor league performance to see if I could find anything encouraging based on what we've seen so far in the majors. Well, I'm encouraged. If you start in 2011, his first year, he went from Rookie to A-, to A, and got smacked around in limited time in A ball. In 2012, they started him in A+, and he mastered it, then promoted him to AA and while he was pretty bad. In 2013, he started back in AA, and he mastered it and got promoted to AAA for one start. In 2014, he started in AAA and struggled. He started back at AAA in 2015, and mastered it. What does all of this mean? Well, it took about 24 starts between Rookie and A ball before he was able to master A. He struggled for 12 starts in AA before he was able to master that level. He struggled for 26 starts in AAA before he mastered that level. He has made 21 starts in

Baltimore so far, so I'm going to be encouraged that we should see significant improvement soon.

[cridolphi]

Out of curiosity, I went back and looked at Wright's minor league performance to see if I could find anything encouraging based on what we've seen so far in the majors. Well, I'm encouraged. If you start in 2011, his first year, he went from Rookie to A-, to A, and got smacked around in limited time in A ball. In 2012, they started him in A+, and he mastered it, then promoted him to AA and while he was pretty bad. In 2013, he started back in AA, and he mastered it and got promoted to AAA for one start. In 2014, he started in AAA and struggled. He started back at AAA in 2015, and mastered it. What does all of this mean? Well, it took about 24 starts between Rookie and A ball before he was able to master A. He struggled for 12 starts in AA before he was able to master that level. He struggled for 26 starts in AAA before he mastered that level. He has made 21 starts in

Baltimore so far, so I'm going to be encouraged that we should see significant improvement soon.

I looked a little further to see what changed each time he improved at a particular level. When he mastered A, it was largely due to lowering is walk rate significantly. Since then, his walk rate has gone back up, and been a consistent 2.5 or so. When he mastered AA, it was an increase in K rate. In AAA, neither his walk rate or K rate really changed, but his WHIP went way down, so it was giving up fewer hits. So, learning how to pitch to poor contact is the only thing I can really come up with.

[OFFNY]

At least Wright is doing well at the AAA level.

In his 3 starts at AAA-Norfolk after being demoted from the Orioles' date=' Mike Wright has:

[b']IP:[/b] ]llllo 20.67

ER: ))).ll 2

ERA: ool 0.87

WHIP: )l 0.919

[PaulFolk]

You'd willingly pay money to watch Ubaldo pitch? Seriously?

If I already had the tickets ahead of time, then sure, why not? The O's are 7-3 in Ubaldo's starts at home (admittedly, sometimes in spite of him, not because of him). Not to mention they're 31-13 at home overall.

[backwardsk]

Ubaldo's starting.

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[leapinghorsered]

Ridiculous to have Ubaldo start again. Unless they are turning Wright into a bullpen guy

(and Buck says they're not) it makes no sense to bring him up and not give him the start.

If he wasn't going to start in Baltimore tonight they should have left him in Norfolk to start.

I have nothing to base this on, but it feels like Buck and DD are not on the same page regarding Wright.

Buck seems to think Wright should be in Norfolk ( I think he actually said he wanted Wright to make a few more

starts), and DD has always seemed to want to keep him in the rotation. This makes a lot of sense, DD is taking a ton

of heat for not addressing the rotation in the off-season- if Wright becomes a serviceable member of the rotation he looks

slightly less incompetent.

[SurhoffFTW]

Ridiculous to have Ubaldo start again. Unless they are turning Wright into a bullpen guy

(and Buck says they're not) it makes no sense to bring him up and not give him the start.

If he wasn't going to start they should have left him in Norfolk to start.

I have nothing to base this on, but it feels like Buck and DD are not on the same page regarding Wright.

Buck seems to think Wright should be in Norfolk ( I think he actually said he wanted Wright to make a few more

starts), and DD has always seemed to want to keep him in the rotation. This makes a lot of sense, DD is taking a ton

of heat for not addressing the rotation in the off-season- if Wright becomes a serviceable member of the rotation he looks

slightly less incompetent.

Yeah I don't get it. Seems like they are bringing up Wright with the expectation Ubaldo is shelled and pulled by the 3rd inning. In which case, why not just start Wright? You'd still have Ubaldo for long relief...

[Redskins Rick]

Yeah I don't get it. Seems like they are bringing up Wright with the expectation Ubaldo is shelled and pulled by the 3rd inning. In which case, why not just start Wright? You'd still have Ubaldo for long relief...

So you start Wright and he is shelled and you bring in Ubaldo for long relief?

Pretty much a coin toss as to which way to go.

[SurhoffFTW]

So you start Wright and he is shelled and you bring in Ubaldo for long relief?

Pretty much a coin toss as to which way to go.

Why bring up Wright if not to start him?

[Frobby]

Why bring up Wright if not to start him?

Probably just to have some extra length in the bullpen, with Ubaldo and Gallardo going back-to-back. But I agree it's a somewhat odd move, especially considering what Buck said about Wright the other day.

[Redskins Rick]

Why bring up Wright if not to start him?

Probably just to have some extra length in the bullpen, with Ubaldo and Gallardo going back-to-back. But I agree it's a somewhat odd move, especially considering what Buck said about Wright the other day.

Maybe like what Tony-OH said about Wright might be better suited for a reliever has been heard by the brain trust.

[Aristotelian]

Why bring up Wright if not to start him?

Gives us a backup plan to keep Ubaldo on a very short leash. I am OK with Ubaldo as he looked decent the two previous starts and was sharp early until being undone in part by a bloop single and poor defensive play.