Montanez on the bench...again

[Mike B]

Yeah, and we are better off for it.

Good point. Obviously the point that Girardi and his 220 million dollar payroll are not getting it done either.

[Waryn]

Guess who was still on the bench in the 8th with RISP and Cintron coming up

[Mike B]

Gotta love the Jon Knott and JR House guy of the year.

Interesting point. For every Guthrie there are 100 Knotts, Houses and remember the people choice of 2006, the mamoth Walter Young. Let's hope Lou is closer to the Guthrie side of the equation.

[J.D.]

I agree with you. I don't think theres even a 1% chance Montanez becomes as good as Markakis. And I said in a previous post that you have to take the AA numbers of a 26 yr old with a grain of salt. But they should at least give him an opportunity to prove himself.

You were saying Montanez needs to prove himself at AAA first. I'm just making the case that you can successfully make a transition from AA to MLB without having to dominate AAA first.

You can, but your odds aren't very good if you've been given the opportunity at AAA and failed at it (more than once, if I'm not mistaken). Generally, the guys that are able to make that transition are superlative hitters.

Here's the thing that keeps getting lost, though. Trembley has every intention to play him more and work him into the rotation when Montanez feels comfortable playing left field. Tell you all what... if it's September first and Montanez is still struggling to get at bats even though he's hitting well in his limited at bats, I'll be upset about it. But until then, I'm not ready to jump to outrage about it.

[TommyD4207]

You can't have it both ways. If we know that he's incapable of playing CF due to his minor league play, then we should also by correlation know that he IS capable of playing LF by his minor league play and we shouldn't need to figure out if he can handle LF in the majors.

The only person that's even remotely saying he isn't capable of playing LF in the majors is, ironically, himself. I haven't seen anybody hear say that he could only be a DH.

And no, I really don't think there's a ton of mystery about if he'll be able to handle LF.

But I think when someone CAN'T handle something in the minors, and you assume that they pretty much obviously can't handle it in the majors is a lot different than somebody who CAN handle something in the minors and assuming he can in the majors. Do you not see the logic behind this?

The reality is that he has played CF at Bowie this season and although he's not a great CFer, he's been acceptable there by all accounts.

What? By whose accounts is he "acceptable"? Yours? I haven't heard any reports that he's passable out there.

Certainly he's not going to be asked to play CF with any regularity - that's Adam Jones' territory. But the evidence from Bowie suggests that he can play CF in a pinch. And if he's to be considered the O's 4th outfielder next year, then he better be able to step into CF in the event Jones gets hurt.

What evidence supports it? The fact that he merely played? That proves nothing. Gary Sheffield played SS in the minors, is that proof that he'd be an acceptable SS solution for us?

And if coaches are so certain about what players can and can't do, how come they are so consistently wrong with their personnel decisions? Why did Melvin Mora get stuck at Utility Infielder for so long? Why was Scott pigeonholed as a part time player? Why was there any question about whether Brian Roberts or Jerry Hairston was the better solution at 2b?

Gauging whether or not a guy can play CF or not is a lot different than distinguishing whether a guy is a good long-term option for you. One is a lot more cut and dry, and you know it.

This is an apples and handguns scenario at best.

And what are you saying exactly? That we should never trust player evaluation types? What you just named were a couple examples over the years, should our minor league scouts be discounted completely? If so, who should we replace them with? You? These guys are human, they're gonna make mistakes, but since they're professionals, I trust their judgement on a guy's CF play in the minors.

The fact is that Trembley may or may not have ever seen Montanez play CF when he was coaching him. Maybe the question of him playing that position never came up. If he never asked him to play the position, how could he have effectively evaluated his ability to do it?

Trembley may or may not have seen him play CF when he managed him? What, does he have a habit of watching games blindfolded that I was not aware of? Does he have such poor vision that he's not able to see what goes on in the OF?

But whether or not he's able to play CF well or not isn't the question. Who cares if he plays a below average CF for the next few months, the point is to get him playing time and at bats. His potential starting role with the team is either in LF or at DH. In both cases his primary contribution would be with his bat, not his glove.

Who cares if he plays a below average CF? What are you talking about? Should the Orioles be playing him at SS while they're at it? Hell, let him pitch and catch while he's at it. If it's only his bat you're worried about, what have we got to lose?

So playing him in CF now could tell us two things - 1) Can he play an acceptable CF and therefore be considered an emergency backup at that position

It would tell YOU two things. The Orioles have already evaluated him.

and 2) Can he consistently hit major league pitching

Well, no no it wouldn't. Even if he played every game for the rest of the year, that'd be what, 150-200 AB's? That's too small a sample size to decide if he's consistenly able to hit Major League pitching or not.

Those two things can help Trembely determine if he can play a role with the O's in 2009 and beyond and what role that might be. Sitting him on the bench helps us determine nothing valuable at all.

No, we'd have two things happen:

1. We would have Montanez play to a level that would likely be nothing that Trembley has never seen before in the OF.

2. We would have to make an evaluation based off a small sample size of AB's.

But as long as you're happy, I guess that's all that matters.

[bluedog]

The only person that's even remotely saying he isn't capable of playing LF in the majors is, ironically, himself. I haven't seen anybody hear say that he could only be a DH.

And no, I really don't think there's a ton of mystery about if he'll be able to handle LF.

But I think when someone CAN'T handle something in the minors, and you assume that they pretty much obviously can't handle it in the majors is a lot different than somebody who CAN handle something in the minors and assuming he can in the majors. Do you not see the logic behind this?

What? By whose accounts is he "acceptable"? Yours? I haven't heard any reports that he's passable out there.

What evidence supports it? The fact that he merely played? That proves nothing. Gary Sheffield played SS in the minors, is that proof that he'd be an acceptable SS solution for us?

Gauging whether or not a guy can play CF or not is a lot different than distinguishing whether a guy is a good long-term option for you. One is a lot more cut and dry, and you know it.

This is an apples and handguns scenario at best.

And what are you saying exactly? That we should never trust player evaluation types? What you just named were a couple examples over the years, should our minor league scouts be discounted completely? If so, who should we replace them with? You? These guys are human, they're gonna make mistakes, but since they're professionals, I trust their judgement on a guy's CF play in the minors.

Trembley may or may not have seen him play CF when he managed him? What, does he have a habit of watching games blindfolded that I was not aware of? Does he have such poor vision that he's not able to see what goes on in the OF?

Who cares if he plays a below average CF? What are you talking about? Should the Orioles be playing him at SS while they're at it? Hell, let him pitch and catch while he's at it. If it's only his bat you're worried about, what have we got to lose?

It would tell YOU two things. The Orioles have already evaluated him.

Well, no no it wouldn't. Even if he played every game for the rest of the year, that'd be what, 150-200 AB's? That's too small a sample size to decide if he's consistenly able to hit Major League pitching or not.

No, we'd have two things happen:

1. We would have Montanez play to a level that would likely be nothing that Trembley has never seen before in the OF.

2. We would have to make an evaluation based off a small sample size of AB's.

But as long as you're happy, I guess that's all that matters.

Montanez didn't play CF for Trembley. Ergo the fact he never saw him play CF.

Yes I've seen him play CF twice this year at Bowie and both times he was acceptable. Not special, but certainly capable.

If he hits well against Major League pitching for 150 to 200 at bats then by definition he's consistently hit major league pitching for 150 to 200 at bats. I didn't say "can he hit major league pitching for the rest of his career". If you are trying to claim that watching a player over 200 at bats in the majors gives you no additional information about his ability than having him sit on the bench for 2 months, then you have no idea what your talking about.

As for player evaluation types, I'm obviously saying that they are sometimes wrong. You can't simply trust their opinions 100% of the time. You have to actually let the players play to determine whether or not they will succeed or fail. Isn't this patently obvious even to the most simplistic of minds? The fact that two scouts often will have widely differing opinions about a player and both of them can't be correct proves that some scouts are simply wrong. This is basic logic that even my 4th grader can handle.

And I can name dozens of players annually who are expected to succeed at the major league level who don't or who are expected to fail but succeed wildly or who under or over perform expectations of baseball professionals the world over by a wide margin. The examples I mentioned above are just three that I could come up with off the top of my head without research, but I could easily drop another 50 on you without breaking a sweat.

I think its a huge joke that you or anyone else thinks the O's system (of all organizations!) are a model of successful player evaluation! I guess the 11 years of losing isn't at all a reflection on our ability to scout talent?

This is the same club that can't find a single competent player in its own system or via trade or through free agency to play shortstop for the big league club and who clearly overestimated the ability of a long list of candidates including Bynum, Cintron, Fahey and L Hernandez. So where exactly did they prove infallable in their player evaluation on that front?

And if they are comfortable running players out as starters at the most critical defensive position on the team who are so obviously incapable of playing the position well, then how in the world does that justify not playing Montanez in CF? They knew that all the guys they've tried at Short this year had absolutely NO history of success at any level above A ball as quality starting shortstops and yet they did it anyway!

So give me a break. If they can play Bynum at short, they can play Montanez in CF for a while and see what happens. At least with the Montanez scenario we have a chance at seeing a solid offensive player in CF reglardless of his defensive prowess. That was never a possibility at SS.

[bluedog]

Guess who was still on the bench in the 8th with RISP and Cintron coming up

Yeah -- this actually made sense tonight as the O's didn't have a guy to backup Cintron at SS since Trembley wanted to give Castro another day to heal.

I'd have loved to see Lou in there, but Trem called it right in this case.

[bluedog]

Interesting point. For every Guthrie there are 100 Knotts, Houses and remember the people choice of 2006, the mamoth Walter Young. Let's hope Lou is closer to the Guthrie side of the equation.

Did Knott or House ever even come close to the kind of season that Montanez put up at Bowie this year?

[Roll Tide]

Here is how I look at it... if we traded for a 26 year old former #3 draft pick who was hitting .335/.385/.601 in AA we would all want to see him play everyday. There would be little discussion about his age or his previous year's stats... am I right?

This is so true!:wedge:

[Anonymous]

Did Knott or House ever even come close to the kind of season that Montanez put up at Bowie this year?

And, one might add, did Knott or House ever come close to Montanez in their defensive prowess at their respective positions?

I have to admit I'm a bit confused by the entire premise that Lou can't play CF. All the reports we've had by Tony and our minor league reporters point to Lou being a decent defensive player who's played rather well in LF, where he's most suited, but also that he wouldn't embarrass you in either RF or CF.

Sounds good enough for me. What have we got to lose? We may lose a game? Who cares? The upside to getting him more playing time, meanwhile, can conceivably be enormous.

[ON BASE %]

Last year Kevin responded very nicely in the cleanup spot. Besides you are talking about crap that happened within the first month of the season, last time I checked Millar hasn't batted cleanup since.

He was given a chance, failed to produce and was moved out of it.

And he is a thought guys: Luis was only playing CF when he HAD to in the minors. So maybe, now this is a long-shot opinon here, perhaps there was a REASON for that?

There is a reason why Nick Markakis wasn't a shortstop, but we have never seen him fail at short - HELL by that logic let Montanez play right and move nick to short, how do we know he can;t play it - we have never seen it!

Markakis at short for 09 and Montanez in right START PRINTING PLAYOFF TICKETS!

Every coaching staff makes some questionable roster moves, but this would mean basically most of the minor leagues for three different organizations have been wrong since 2000.

Since Markakis is a left handed thrower that's probably not a fair analogy. Yes, I detect the sarcasm but that seems a bit over the top.

I detest Payton's hitting as much as everyone else but I wouldn't play Montanez in CF. As McLovin said earlier we've got to give the pitching staff a chance. That being said, I've grown tired of the repeated Scott benchings. Scott needs to play nearly every day from here on out. And if Scott's achilles needs a rest then he can DH an Montanez can play LF. And my heart wouldn't be broken to see Millar and Mora get a few days off down the stretch.

[TommyD4207]

Montanez didn't play CF for Trembley. Ergo the fact he never saw him play CF.

Probably saw him in Spring Training, perhaps?

Yes I've seen him play CF twice this year at Bowie and both times he was acceptable. Not special, but certainly capable.

Two games isn't nearly enough to gauge CF effectiveness IMO.

If he hits well against Major League pitching for 150 to 200 at bats then by definition he's consistently hit major league pitching for 150 to 200 at bats. I didn't say "can he hit major league pitching for the rest of his career". If you are trying to claim that watching a player over 200 at bats in the majors gives you no additional information about his ability than having him sit on the bench for 2 months, then you have no idea what your talking about.

I guess I fail to see the significance of 150-200 AB's in the grand scheme of things. David Newhan hit MLB pitching effectively for 200-some odd AB's. It's pretty meaningless, if you ask me.

If he hits MLB pitching effectively for 150-200 AB's, that'll be well, good, but it still won't mean a darn thing IMO.

As for player evaluation types, I'm obviously saying that they are sometimes wrong. You can't simply trust their opinions 100% of the time. You have to actually let the players play to determine whether or not they will succeed or fail. Isn't this patently obvious even to the most simplistic of minds? The fact that two scouts often will have widely differing opinions about a player and both of them can't be correct proves that some scouts are simply wrong. This is basic logic that even my 4th grader can handle.

Where do you draw the line, however? When a player himself admits that he's no good, I'd say that's a decent spot to draw the line. If we just assume that they're wrong, and go against their advice on a whim, well, you probably won't do so well. You have to have reason to believe he'd be effective, outside of just being curious about IF he'd be any good.

And I can name dozens of players annually who are expected to succeed at the major league level who don't or who are expected to fail but succeed wildly or who under or over perform expectations of baseball professionals the world over by a wide margin. The examples I mentioned above are just three that I could come up with off the top of my head without research, but I could easily drop another 50 on you without breaking a sweat.

Indeed you could, but those are the xception, rather than the rule.

I think its a huge joke that you or anyone else thinks the O's system (of all organizations!) are a model of successful player evaluation! I guess the 11 years of losing isn't at all a reflection on our ability to scout talent

So we should completely discount everything they say, correct? I haven't even said that I would call them a model or anything. I just said that I trust their abilities to gauge a CF's abilities. If you really think they're that inept, well, to each their own I guess.

Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, the old regime is no longer in power. MacPhail cleaned house this offseason. I'm much more inclined to trust the new guys. The fact that they had sucked for so many years means nothing to me.

Lots of teams have had crappy regimes and then had great player evaluation. Since Dan Duquette was bad at player evaluation, should we just assume that Theo Epstein isn't any good. I mean, so many years of bad evaluation, the Red Sox clearly don't stand a chance.

This is the same club that can't find a single competent player in its own system or via trade or through free agency to play shortstop for the big league club and who clearly overestimated the ability of a long list of candidates including Bynum, Cintron, Fahey and L Hernandez. So where exactly did they prove infallable in their player evaluation on that front?

Wow, now I've gone from saying the team is a model to infallible. You can't make this stuff up.

Number 1 sign that you're losing an argument:

1) You start inventing cute little opinions that the person doesn't have.

And if they are comfortable running players out as starters at the most critical defensive position on the team who are so obviously incapable of playing the position well, then how in the world does that justify not playing Montanez in CF? They knew that all the guys they've tried at Short this year had absolutely NO history of success at any level above A ball as quality starting shortstops and yet they did it anyway!

So because they don't have an effective SS...they should start putting anyone, anywhere? I'm honestly at a loss for what you're saying.

You're saying that since they haven't gotten a good SS, they should exacerbate the problem by giving themselves a crappy CF'er as well.

Erm, ok, to each their own, I guess.

So give me a break. If they can play Bynum at short, they can play Montanez in CF for a while and see what happens. At least with the Montanez scenario we have a chance at seeing a solid offensive player in CF reglardless of his defensive prowess. That was never a possibility at SS.

This is just so wrong on so many levels. So since the Orioles put Fahey in LF a couple years back, should they put Bynum in CF and call it a day? Just because you're doing something else poorly, does mean you should replicate it again. You're asking for madness, man.

[hammer310]

I'm sick of seeing this statement. Where's the proof that he's worse than Payton? Payton hasn't looked good in CF either...

Have you seen all his highlights the past couple weeks. He covers a ton of ground out there. He might not have the best arm, but he is way better than Lou.

Look, I want Lou out there, but if he could play there he would be by now. Maybe with more practice and game time in left will help. But as of right now, he isnt going to play there.

[bluedog]

Probably saw him in Spring Training, perhaps?

Two games isn't nearly enough to gauge CF effectiveness IMO.

I guess I fail to see the significance of 150-200 AB's in the grand scheme of things. David Newhan hit MLB pitching effectively for 200-some odd AB's. It's pretty meaningless, if you ask me.

If he hits MLB pitching effectively for 150-200 AB's, that'll be well, good, but it still won't mean a darn thing IMO.

Where do you draw the line, however? When a player himself admits that he's no good, I'd say that's a decent spot to draw the line. If we just assume that they're wrong, and go against their advice on a whim, well, you probably won't do so well. You have to have reason to believe he'd be effective, outside of just being curious about IF he'd be any good.

Indeed you could, but those are the xception, rather than the rule.

So we should completely discount everything they say, correct? I haven't even said that I would call them a model or anything. I just said that I trust their abilities to gauge a CF's abilities. If you really think they're that inept, well, to each their own I guess.

Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, the old regime is no longer in power. MacPhail cleaned house this offseason. I'm much more inclined to trust the new guys. The fact that they had sucked for so many years means nothing to me.

Lots of teams have had crappy regimes and then had great player evaluation. Since Dan Duquette was bad at player evaluation, should we just assume that Theo Epstein isn't any good. I mean, so many years of bad evaluation, the Red Sox clearly don't stand a chance.

Wow, now I've gone from saying the team is a model to infallible. You can't make this stuff up.

Number 1 sign that you're losing an argument:

1) You start inventing cute little opinions that the person doesn't have.

So because they don't have an effective SS...they should start putting anyone, anywhere? I'm honestly at a loss for what you're saying.

You're saying that since they haven't gotten a good SS, they should exacerbate the problem by giving themselves a crappy CF'er as well.

Erm, ok, to each their own, I guess.

This is just so wrong on so many levels. So since the Orioles put Fahey in LF a couple years back, should they put Bynum in CF and call it a day? Just because you're doing something else poorly, does mean you should replicate it again. You're asking for madness, man.

I'm asking for the O's to try Montanez in CF to determine if he can play the position well enough in the bigs to justify using him as a fourth outfielder (in the event he doesn't win the starting LF job outright). This given the fact that Lou's manager at Bowie, Tony and several other people who follow Bowie regularly have indicated that they believe he's an above average left fielder and hasn't seemed overmatched in CF when he's played there. Where's the madness in that?

I'm also asking that the O's actually give the man a shot to play in the majors and evaluate his chances at a roster spot based on his performance. Given this organizations repeated failure in correctly projecting prospects over the past decade and the concept of risk vs. reward (there is no risk in doing this, but potentially a huge reward), where is the madness in that?

My points were not suggesting that we do stupid things just for the sake of doing stupid things. They were designed to illustrate that the O's have made plenty of very poor personnel decisions, underlining the fact that your faith in Trembley and the rest of the organization knowing whether or not Montanez can play LF or CF is not based on infallable logic (as you clearly inferred in your original posts) but instead in the quite fallable estimations of people who can be wrong about evaluating a player's ability. And the only way to really determine whether he can play at this level is to, shockingly, let him actually play at this level.

Go back and look at Montanez's quote. He's not saying he's no good as an outfielder, he's saying he's inexperienced at the big league level. I guarantee you that Lou's the last person who would say he can't play baseball. So stop taking his comments out of context.

In any event, I'm comfortable letting Lou prove his ability on the field. If Lou fails to make it as a big leaguer, I'll be the first to admit my opinion was wrong. If he makes it will you be man enough to do the same??

[Roll Tide]

I just dont get what the problem is understanding the difference between rebuilding & overplaying veterans who's time and use to the club are expiring. Millar & Payton could play solid if not spectacular ball from here until seasons end. Very little will change the fact that because of age/talent, direction of the organization that they wont be Orioles in 2009.

Rebuilding teams outside Baltimore tend to let their younger players play. I have stated in several Montanez threads, that by simply reducing the playing time by a few games per week they can get the regular AB's to detemine if he has a chance to be a contributor, just a 4th OF, or should be sent to the scrap heap. While nothing is a sure thing with young players. Having some idea this season would seem to be better than next season when the Orioles might play games that have real meaning this deep into the season.

If the Orioles were to obtain a player that was hitting .316 24 HR's 84 RBI's & 940 OPS.We would be calling for the managers head if they didn't put the guy in the lineup everyday. Out with the old in with the new. Also Scott,Mora,Markakis all could play 1-2 less games per week to make evaluating Reimold or someone else after the september call ups. Scott will be either on the team or traded for another player in the off season. Mora is here because they cant unload his contract regardless of how he performs between now & then (especially with his not trade). I dont need to see Montanez in CF if he's not feeling confident at the moment. Just would like to see him in the lineup even at dh from now until seasons end.