Ross Grimsley: Orioles Are Two Starting Pitchers Away From Contending In AL East

[Moose Milligan]

I don't think Castro makes a good starter next year.  That said, I'm willing to let the guy try because the other options, as it stands, aren't great shakes.  

I doubt we do anything significant in the offseason.

[ChuckS]

27 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I don't think Castro makes a good starter next year.  That said, I'm willing to let the guy try because the other options, as it stands, aren't great shakes.  

I doubt we do anything significant in the offseason.

Yeah, I keep hearing Castro as a starter could be an option but I don't think he has close to the command needed to be a reliable starter.  Best keeping him in the pen.  No reason not to stretch him out in Spring Training though see what he has.  I just don't see that experiment being successful. 

[24fps]

12 hours ago, 25 Nuggets said:

...and good luck acquiring them!

All it will take is spending more money than PA has ever previously spent on a starting pitcher for a longer period of time.

For the other pitcher it will require trading Baltimore's "generational talent" for someone worth seriously considering.

 

Piece of cake...

[sportsfan8703]

I like Castro, but if you're going to try him as a SP; you should probably try Brach as well. I think we'd see a much sharper Brach with his three plus pitches working, with him being on a starter's schedule. It's too much for him to have all three going at once, 100% of the time, out the pen, when he has not idea the next time he's pitching. 

Id like to see Brach every 5th day with the luxury of having a throw day in between. 

[tntoriole]

2 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

I like Castro, but if you're going to try him as a SP; you should probably try Brach as well. I think we'd see a much sharper Brach with his three plus pitches working, with him being on a starter's schedule. It's too much for him to have all three going at once, 100% of the time, out the pen, when he has not idea the next time he's pitching. 

Id like to see Brach every 5th day with the luxury of having a throw day in between. 

One difference is that Miguel Castro was a starter for the first three years and even into some of 2015 in the minors.  Brad Brach has never started a minor league or major league game ever. 

[wildcard]

I think Brach as a starter is worth considering.   He was a start in college.  He knows how to get major league hitters out.   The O's are in desperate need of starters.  Instead of trading Brad for a starter, make him a starter.

[Can_of_corn]

This is the same Brach that has visibly wore down under a reliever's workload the last two seasons right?

Folks think he could handle a starter's workload?

[PAOriolesFan]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

This is the same Brach that has visibly wore down under a reliever's workload the last two seasons right?

Folks think he could handle a starter's workload?

Brach is a pure reliever for me. Not a viable option. David Hess could be an affordable option for a 5th starter, I know his numbers weren't eye-popping at AA, but he had a very good second half. Maybe start him out at Norfolk and see what happens? 

Regardless of what they decide to do with the #5 spot, two veteran arms are a necessity at this point.

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

This is the same Brach that has visibly wore down under a reliever's workload the last two seasons right?

Folks think he could handle a starter's workload?

The two gigs are a bit different, since one involves pitching every 5th/6th day according to a pretty regimented schedule, while the other involves pitching at irregular intervals, sometimes pitching 4 times in 5 days, other times only pitching once in a week.   So, I would not necessarily say that the fact that a guy who wore down a bit from heavy use as a reliever couldn't convert to being a starter. 

That said, watching Brach's herky-jerky delivery and knowing that he's never started a professional game, I'm very doubtful that he'd be a good starting pitcher.

[wildcard]

4 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

This is the same Brach that has visibly wore down under a reliever's workload the last two seasons right?

Folks think he could handle a starter's workload?

Brach pitched in 71 games last year.   He seem fine at 65 this year.   Being a starter is very different.  30  starts,  4 to 5 days between starts.     The question is can he go  through lineup 2 and 3 times with his stuff.  I think there is a chance he could.   I think stamina is a secondary concern.  He is a strong,  in shape guy.

[theobird]

Thinking that we are two starters away from being a contending team is extremely naïve. I will be very disappointed if this team goes into the offseason with delusions like that. It is past time to rebuild this team the right way. It is absolutely time to rebuild, not re stock for a run that isn't going to happen.

[Il BuonO]

13 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I don't think Castro makes a good starter next year.  That said, I'm willing to let the guy try because the other options, as it stands, aren't great shakes.  

I doubt we do anything significant in the offseason.

Same old, same old?

13 hours ago, ChuckS said:

Yeah, I keep hearing Castro as a starter could be an option but I don't think he has close to the command needed to be a reliable starter.  Best keeping him in the pen.  No reason not to stretch him out in Spring Training though see what he has.  I just don't see that experiment being successful. 

Command is not a prerequisite for a guy early in his career, stuff is. There are any number of guys who had questionable command when they began (Ryan, Johnson, Palmer). Castro has good stuff. He may not work out but he is head and shoulders above the rest of what they have as available pitching to fill out the rotation. Well, except maybe for TTTP.

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, theobird said:

Thinking that we are two starters away from being a contending team is extremely naïve. I will be very disappointed if this team goes into the offseason with delusions like that. It is past time to rebuild this team the right way. It is absolutely time to rebuild, not re stock for a run that isn't going to happen.

Why is it so naive?    We were a playoff team in 2016, and this year we weren't primarily because the starting pitching went to hell in a hand basket.   I'm not saying that was the only issue with the 2017 Orioles, but it was by far the team's biggest problem.     If you add up Tillman/Jimenez/Miley/Hellickson (as starters) you get:  85 starts, 17-38 record, 4.89 innings per start, 6.74 ERA.    Replace 60 of those starts with two decent major league pitchers, and you've gone a very long way towards putting the team in contention.    I'm not saying they'd be on par with Cleveland or Houston, but it's a team that plausibly could win in the high 80's/low 90's.

Getting the two solid major league starters is the issue.

PS -- I'm not arguing against rebuilding as potentially a better long-term strategy.   I'm just saying I don't think contending in 2018 if we added two solid starters is far-fetched.

[24fps]

58 minutes ago, theobird said:

Thinking that we are two starters away from being a contending team is extremely naïve. I will be very disappointed if this team goes into the offseason with delusions like that. It is past time to rebuild this team the right way. It is absolutely time to rebuild, not re stock for a run that isn't going to happen.

If you're a MLB front office executive, why is it delusional to define your job as putting the best team possible on the field each season?   2018 is coming up, not 2020, or 2022.

Presumably rebuilding "the right way" involves several consecutive years of dreadful baseball.  What I think is naive is expecting the majority of any team's fans to tolerate that ordeal unless the necessity is painfully obvious, which is not the case here.  Right now I think the number of people who think a rebuild is appropriate for the current Orioles team is roughly equivalent to the number of people who post on Orioles fan sites divided by half.  

[OrioleRedenbacher]

Internal options are tricky because of workload concerns.  Hess had the most innings in the system at 160.2.  But that's a month before the season ends.  Everyone else was about 10 innings less than that - which is fine to get us to September - but we don't know how any of them would do over that last stretch, which might be the most important depending on the race.  It would've been nice to have a few of them pitch into September (not even starts, maybe just a few innings every couple of days).  Of course, there are 40 man concerns there and they probably haven't finalized who they're protecting.   But if you're not protecting somebody and exposing them to the Rule 5, you probably feel pretty good about them making it through waivers.