TT: Time to demote Smith Jr. and bring up Stewart

[wildcard]

I want to see Hays in  CF  in the near future.  

Mancini is going to play right field vs righties with Davis playing 1B vs most righties.

Santander plays most days.  In left field vs righties and right field vs lefties.

That really only leaves left field vs lefties.   That is probably Wilkerson    Stewart is a lefty batter so I don't really see how he gets at bats.

I am fine with keeping Smith as a bench player the rest of the season and using his option next year.

Stewart needs someone to get injured or traded to open  up space.  I am fine with not seeing him until the rosters expand.

 

[Tony-OH]

15 minutes ago, atomic said:

I think I read we have two open 40 man spots.  But I have no problem DFAing even if we don't need the spot.  I guess the reason you thought he didn't have options is because he hasn't been optioned this year.  When most people would have optioned him by now. 

Smith slashed .293/.365/.467/.833 in 104 major league PAs with Toronto. I honestly figured that he's a guy you DFA only if he's out of options, but clearly Toronto was taking his awful defense into consideration.

[Tony-OH]

1 minute ago, wildcard said:

I want to see Hays in  CF  in the near future.  

Mancini is going to play right field vs righties with Davis playing 1B vs most righties.

Santander plays most days.  In left field vs righties and right field vs lefties.

That really only leaves left field vs lefties.   That is probably Wilkerson    Stewart is a lefty bats so I don't really see how he gets at bats.

I am fine with keeping Smith as a bench player the rest of the season and using his option next year.

Stewart needs someone to get injured or traded to open  up space.  I am fine with not seeing him until the rosters expand.

 

I don't see Hays coming up until he has at least 300-400 AAA PAs under his belt. Elias is in no hurry to bring guys up before they have put their time and mastered a level. Plus, I think the Orioles want to see how Santander handles CF over an extended amount of time.

[DrungoHazewood]

23 minutes ago, atomic said:

You have to reward your guys that have been with your organization a long time over DFA guys from other organizations.

Why don't you give opportunities to the better players without regard to how they were acquired?

Either way, it's time to give Stewart an extended look.  Smith got his 15 minutes of glory, but he's 26 and has a career AAA OPS of .750.  He was always a sub-.700 player with poor defense in the majors.

[DrungoHazewood]

5 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Smith slashed .293/.365/.467/.833 in 104 major league PAs with Toronto. I honestly figured that he's a guy you DFA only if he's out of options, but clearly Toronto was taking his awful defense into consideration.

And that he never hit that well in the minors.  He has nearly 2000 PAs in AA/AAA and an OPS 100 points lower than what he hit in Toronto.  They knew that would eventually come back to earth.

[wildcard]

3 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I don't see Hays coming up until he has at least 300-400 AAA PAs under his belt. Elias is in no hurry to bring guys up before they have put their time and mastered a level. Plus, I think the Orioles want to see how Santander handles CF over an extended amount of time.

If Hays gets his batting average to 300, his OBP to 350 and is OPS to 850, I think he gets called up.     I think the Santander/Wilkerson in CF is just until Hays is ready.  JMO .   You could be right.

I think Elias looks at Hays as a CFer  and he really wants to improve his middle of the field players.  He values good defense in the middle of the field.   I think Hays is a better CFer than Santander or Wilkerson.  

I think Elias looks at corner fielder differently.  He expects more offense from the corners.  I think that is where he sees Santander.   Santander may sub in center but he is a corner outfield IMO.  

I think Wilkerson is a utility player with 2B being his best position.  He too can sub in center.  If Villar gets traded I think Wilkerson gets a lot of time at 2B.

 

[atomic]

20 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Why don't you give opportunities to the better players without regard to how they were acquired?

Either way, it's time to give Stewart an extended look.  Smith got his 15 minutes of glory, but he's 26 and has a career AAA OPS of .750.  He was always a sub-.700 player with poor defense in the majors.

If they are really good players you give the better player the call up first. But we aren't talking superstars.  We are talking about guys from other teams that got DFA'd.  You should give your own guys who had success the first chance. 

[Tony-OH]

1 minute ago, wildcard said:

If Hays gets his batting average to 300, his OBP to 350 and is OPS to 850, I think he gets called up.     I think the Santander/Wilkerson in CF is just until Hays is ready.  JMO .   You could be right.

I think Elias looks at Hays as a CFer  and he really wants to improve his middle of the field players.  He values good defense in the middle of the field.   I think Hays is a better CFer than Santander or Wilkerson.  

I think Elias looks at corner fielder differently.  He expects more offense from the corners.  I think that is where he sees Santander.   Santander may sub in center but he is a corner outfield IMO.  

I think Wilkerson is a utility player with 2B being his best position.  He too can sub in center.  If Villar gets traded I think Wilkerson gets a lot of time at 2B.

 

I'm not quite sure you are grasping what's going on this year. You are still thinking like the Orioles are in contention and Elias is trying to bring up the best guys he has to win.

This year is about evaluation and development. I'll be very surprised if we see Hays before September regardless of whether he's ready or not.

What good long term goal does it serve to bring up Hays? Let's say the Orioles win two more games then they would have without it and end up one game ahead of Detroit in the standings. For those two ins, you want to have the 2nd overall pick vs the 1st? 

Let Hays put up some great AAA numbers this year and then be ready to compete for a spot on the team in 2020.

[mcloy]

Would love to see Santander and Stewart every day, with Hays hopefully joining them in the next few weeks.

[atomic]

27 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Smith slashed .293/.365/.467/.833 in 104 major league PAs with Toronto. I honestly figured that he's a guy you DFA only if he's out of options, but clearly Toronto was taking his awful defense into consideration.

He also has a .747 OPS in the minors.  A .777 OPS at age 25 in Triple A in 305 at bats.  A .743 at age 24 in AAA.   He only had a 100 or so at bats in the majors before this season.  Before this season Norfolk was a very pitcher friendly park.  

Looking at the Stats Dwight Smith probably looked like a mid .700 OPS guy in the majors at best.  You would think Yaz would hit a little worse but better defense would be expected to better.  

[MurphDogg]

They DFA'd Broxton and brought up Kline after Saturday's game. They could easily return to a 12-man pitching staff and bring up Stewart (or Hays) without sending down Smith.

I have been beating the drum for weeks that it is time to see what Stewart can do and Smith definitely shouldn't be standing in his way.

[Tony-OH]

5 minutes ago, atomic said:

If they are really good players you give the better player the call up first. But we aren't talking superstars.  We are talking about guys from other teams that got DFA'd.  You should give your own guys who had success the first chance. 

If all things are equal or close to equal, then I absolutely agree, you give your drafted and developed guys first crack. Besides Broxton and the pitchers they have acquired on waivers, they are looking to go as young as possible with the evals which is why I think they wanted to look at Smith Jr. over Yaz.  

I do wonder though if they properly took into account Smith's lack of defense and underwhelming AAA numbers. Smith is actually an interesting case for Elias/Sig's evaluation methods early on. Do they learn from Smith's failures and Yaz's success so far? 

[atomic]

12 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I'm not quite sure you are grasping what's going on this year. You are still thinking like the Orioles are in contention and Elias is trying to bring up the best guys he has to win.

This year is about evaluation and development. I'll be very surprised if we see Hays before September regardless of whether he's ready or not.

What good long term goal does it serve to bring up Hays? Let's say the Orioles win two more games then they would have without it and end up one game ahead of Detroit in the standings. For those two ins, you want to have the 2nd overall pick vs the 1st? 

Let Hays put up some great AAA numbers this year and then be ready to compete for a spot on the team in 2020.

Hays already has played 20 games in the majors.  Does it really make a difference in service time if they bring him up in September as opposed to start the season next year?

[MurphDogg]

5 minutes ago, atomic said:

Hays already has played 20 games in the majors.  Does it really make a difference in service time if they bring him up in September as opposed to start the season next year?

It does not. Unless they are going to wait until mid-June 2020 to bring up Hays, the service time die is cast. Tony's worry that Hays may help the Orioles win and get the #2 pick instead of the #1 pick is a valid concern, but it is, in my opinion, too cynical of a reason to deny him MLB at-bats.

[wildcard]

9 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I'm not quite sure you are grasping what's going on this year. You are still thinking like the Orioles are in contention and Elias is trying to bring up the best guys he has to win.

This year is about evaluation and development. I'll be very surprised if we see Hays before September regardless of whether he's ready or not.

What good long term goal does it serve to bring up Hays? Let's say the Orioles win two more games then they would have without it and end up one game ahead of Detroit in the standings. For those two ins, you want to have the 2nd overall pick vs the 1st? 

Let Hays put up some great AAA numbers this year and then be ready to compete for a spot on the team in 2020.

As I said, you may be right.  

I just  think Elias sees Hays as more of a long term solution than Stewart.   Therefore if Hays is playing well at AAA he gets promoted.   Elias is filling holes and CF is a hole.  Santander and Wilkerson are not long term solutions in CF.  Hays is.

This is not about winning games.  The pitching will keep the O's losing a good number of games.   This is about developing the long terms players.   Hays in CF is a part of that.  JMO