Orioles select SS Richie Martin with 1st pick of Rule 5 Draft

[Frobby]

18 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Right, it's only outfielders and catchers from what I can find. But there has to be some kind of tracking done on infielders?  If not, why not?

They probably do have something (or at least, individual teams do), but it’s harder.     Remember, even for outfielders the public  Statcast data merely track the balls that are caught.   They don’t analyze when an outfielder makes a good play to hold a hitter to a single, or makes a good throw.   

[ChuckS]

They were probably hoping he would hit .220.  No point in sending him back this deep into the season in a lost year but if they knew he was going to be a .170 hitter I doubt he would have been drafted, defensive capabilities aside. 

I'd be surprised if he wasn't in Triple A to start next year unless he really turns it around in the second half. 

[atomic]

8 hours ago, ChuckS said:

They were probably hoping he would hit .220.  No point in sending him back this deep into the season in a lost year but if they knew he was going to be a .170 hitter I doubt he would have been drafted, defensive capabilities aside. 

I'd be surprised if he wasn't in Triple A to start next year unless he really turns it around in the second half. 

If he is still hitting .170 at the all star break I would let him go. 

[Bahama O's Fan]

I think the main reason he was drafted was to shore up the middle infield defense 

[Moose Milligan]

I like Richie, but you can't have two Chris Davis level performers in the lineup and expect to win games.  He's not going to be around much longer.

I'm sure the defensive metrics say otherwise but I think he's a pretty smooth defender.  

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I like Richie, but you can't have two Chris Davis level performers in the lineup and expect to win games.  He's not going to be around much longer.

I'm sure the defensive metrics say otherwise but I think he's a pretty smooth defender.  

Who is expecting to win games?

[Moose Milligan]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Who is expecting to win games?

Hyde, apparently.

 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Moose Milligan said:

Hyde, apparently.

 

He didn't ask the right questions at the interview.

[Tony-OH]

20 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I guess we shouldn't be making definitive conclusions based on a Rule 5 pick's first 350 MLB innings.  But so far he's in no way a major league player, looks a lot more like the guy who hit in the .230s his first three years as a pro.

(Oh, and did anyone else notice bb-ref now includes college stats on the minor league pages?  That's messing me up - at first glance I thought Martin had an .829 in the low minors four years ago, but no... that was at University of Florida.)

I did see that and was so happy. That was the one thing The Baseball Cube had over BB-Ref. 

As for Martin, he's clearly not a major league player at this juncture but I feel his defense is better than his defensive metrics suggest. Still, it would not hurt my feelings if the Orioles went with Villar at SS and Alberto at 2B a bit more.

BTW, Drew Jackson is slashing just .238/.340/.377/.717 in AAA.

[Tony-OH]

11 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I like Richie, but you can't have two Chris Davis level performers in the lineup and expect to win games.  He's not going to be around much longer.

I'm sure the defensive metrics say otherwise but I think he's a pretty smooth defender.  

I'm not sure that is really part of the "process" this year. Obviously the manager and the coaching staff and the players want to win every game, but this season was never about that for Elias. It's about evaluations and trying things to see what will help in the future.

Martin still could develop into an everyday SS at some point or at least a utility guy. With his speed, I could see him playing CF along with 2B effectively.

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, Tony-OH said:

I'm not sure that is really part of the "process" this year. Obviously the manager and the coaching staff and the players want to win every game, but this season was never about that for Elias. It's about evaluations and trying things to see what will help in the future.

Martin still could develop into an everyday SS at some point or at least a utility guy. With his speed, I could see him playing CF along with 2B effectively.

I don't disagree about that from Elias' perspective.  However, I think we've seen enough of Richie to know what he is.

Perhaps there are some advanced metrics/video items that they're seeing to make them think he can become an effective hitter.  You can't teach speed, though...like I said, I like Richie and I hope he can figure it out at the plate enough to become a utility guy and carve a nice career out for himself.

[BohKnowsBmore]

15 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I don't disagree about that from Elias' perspective.  However, I think we've seen enough of Richie to know what he is.

Perhaps there are some advanced metrics/video items that they're seeing to make them think he can become an effective hitter.  You can't teach speed, though...like I said, I like Richie and I hope he can figure it out at the plate enough to become a utility guy and carve a nice career out for himself.

With all due respect, you appear to have one of the quickest trigger fingers on “knowing what someone is” of any poster on this board. 

[DrungoHazewood]

16 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I did see that and was so happy. That was the one thing The Baseball Cube had over BB-Ref. 

As for Martin, he's clearly not a major league player at this juncture but I feel his defense is better than his defensive metrics suggest. Still, it would not hurt my feelings if the Orioles went with Villar at SS and Alberto at 2B a bit more.

BTW, Drew Jackson is slashing just .238/.340/.377/.717 in AAA.

Agreed about the college stats.  Now that it's there, just for a few days, I've used that multiple times.  I'll have to investigate to see how far back it goes.  (Partial answer: not back to the 80s, no Pete Incaviglia college numbers.  Not to the early 2000s - No Markakis.  2013 might be the current start date.).

The "Drew Jackson return was idiotic" posts seem to have died down while he's OPSing almost 100 points below the PCL average...  

[DrungoHazewood]

55 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I like Richie, but you can't have two Chris Davis level performers in the lineup and expect to win games.  He's not going to be around much longer.

I'm sure the defensive metrics say otherwise but I think he's a pretty smooth defender.  

You know, especially on a slow Friday, that's a challenge.  Most exposure of < 50 OPS+ players on a winning team.  Or maybe just most sub-replacement starters on a winning team.

I started looking.  No progress, but did note that the 1984 Rangers were amazing.  Their 5th-best starter was Dave Stewart, who was a heck of a pitcher, and they still only won 69 games because they had six different position players with 250+ PAs and less than -0.5 rWAR.  Four starters with a .613 OPS or less, plus backup catcher Ned Yost, 4th OF George Wright just cleared that but was a -13 fielder, and and utility guy Jeff Kunkel.  

[Moose Milligan]

23 minutes ago, BohKnowsBmore said:

With all due respect, you appear to have one of the quickest trigger fingers on “knowing what someone is” of any poster on this board. 

Sure.  After watching Orioles baseball for pretty much all my life, it just becomes obvious when guys are what they are.  I'm not saying I'm like @wildcard when I'm making way for a guy in the rotation after two good starts but it's obvious to me when a starting pitcher like David Hess, Yefry Ramirez or any number of the AAAA types we've had over the years just aren't that good.  They have middling stuff.  They can't command their pitches in the zone.  They don't have a true dominant pitch where they can make someone swing and miss if they absolutely have to. Lately I've been giving @wildcard a hard time and @Can_of_cornand I and some other posters have been making jokes about SSS and what that means.

But overall, yeah, I'm tired of seeing a guy like Hess or Yefry come up.  You can look at practically any Orioles roster over the past 20 years and find guys like this.  Tyler Wilson comes to mind immediately, a college pitcher who had a nice, easy motion but had extremely average stuff on his best day, that guy got hammered every time out...just like Yefry, just like Hess.  I recognize that we have to look at these types to see if they can turn things around, but odds are...nope.  And while I recognize that we have to give these guys chances, it sure doesn't mean I have to like watching them pitch and it sure doesn't mean that I'm NOT going to say that I don't think they've got the chops.  Put it this way, do we REALLY need to see another David Hess start to understand what we have here?  Speaking strictly for myself, I don't need to see another David Hess start.

So look at Richie Martin.  He was picked up in the Rule 5 and we knew what he was right away, an all glove/no hit SS.  Has he done anything to disprove that?  Has he gone on a hot streak to make anyone think "Damn, Richie looks like he's got a good approach going, he might be able to polish himself into a major league hitter"?  Has made improvements as a hitter so far this season?  

Or does he swing and miss too much?  How many fastballs have you seen him swing through this year?   Does he usually look overmatched at the plate?  Does he swing at pitches out of the zone too much?   Or does he make solid contact but have a string of bad luck where he's just hitting line drives to defenders?

Richie does do some things well, I think he's a good defender and he's got great speed.  I think there's a chance he could fashion himself into a .220 hitter and be a utility guy, just like Tony said. 

But saying Richie Martin is a great glove/no hit type of guy is stating the obvious, we knew what he was billed at when we picked him up.  He has performed as advertised, I think there was just some type of question if he was going to be a .200 hitter or a .250 hitter.  Even as a .250 hitter, is Richie Martin good enough to be a starting SS somewhere in the majors?  Maybe, but he'd always be on the fringe.