Year One Survivors of the Rebuild

[HowAboutThat]

7 hours ago, spiritof66 said:

Who on this list might in a couple of years hold down a job in MLB other than filling a roster spot on a real bad team? Means and Santander have a good chance, IMO. The rest seem unlikely, but you never know. I never know, anyhow.

That is exactly my thought, the team is so bad that none of the guys, even the best, can be expected to be around here for very long. The best will be traded to restock the farm, and the others will just go away, except for Davis…

[HowAboutThat]

Every single one of the guys you mentioned is flawed. Even if he might improve, at the moment, not one of these guys with the possible exception of Santander and Means, Is on a .500+ team.

Some of them should not even be on our .300+ team.

I’m assuming that your list is of the only guys that are worth consideration, and all the others are just warm bodies wearing uniforms until the next warm body shows up. With that in mind, of your list:

Means. I agree he is in serious danger of the sophomore slump, but I think he’s our best arm right now, and any second division team would be happy to have him.

Wojo. Worth a long look. I like him and he’s large and bulky. Maybe he can learn something over the break.

Nunez can hit. But absolutely nothing else. We have four DHs right now. How many other teams need one?

Armstrong is 29. Hes a warm body. He’s got his pension and health care and (edited) half an elementary school teacher’s career salary in the bank. 

Fry as above, but he’s a lefty and he’s 27. Slightly longer leash.

Hess must be a fascinating party guest because he sure doesn’t pitch well. -.08 WAR, 7.09 ERA and a 3+ HR/9 rate. He has an option. Let’s use it...

Santander. He might be a player on a first division team. Depends on how he does first half. I don’t think he’ll be on our next good team, because he might develop enough to be traded before then.

Smith is a warm body. See above re: pension, etc. he’s a placeholder till MC comes up.

Ruiz. I like defense. Defense is our friend. He can stay.

Wilk. Him too, but no one expects him on the team in 2021

Scott. Too early to give up on him but hoping on him is probably fruitless too. Hasn’t given any reason to think he’ll figure it out but no reason to stop trying yet.

[UMDTerrapins]

What stands out to me is that most of our rebuild will be waiting for the arms. With Hays and Mountcastle joining the O’s this year, the only building block offensive players in the system will be Rutschman and maybe Diaz or Henderson, with Rutschman moving up rapidly. We don’t want to rush Hall and Rodriguez. But it’s worth considering that the offense may be pretty decent sooner than expected. If Means and Cobb can perform reasonably well, and a few decent starters emerge from the group of Kremer, Lowther, Baumann, Bailey, Akin, and Hess, then things could trend upwards quicker than we anticipate. And I like those first three names in particular. Our system needs a few more years picking at the top of the draft, so I’m not sold that a quicker return to winning is entirely positive. But I think at the end of 2020 our attention will be on the bullpen and left side of the infield, with an eye towards being competitive sooner than we currently envision. I think once Mountcastle arrives, we’ll start looking at the rebuild differently, not as being in it’s infancy. 

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, UMDTerrapins said:

What stands out to me is that most of our rebuild will be waiting for the arms. With Hays and Mountcastle joining the O’s this year, the only building block offensive players in the system will be Rutschman and maybe Diaz or Henderson, with Rutschman moving up rapidly. We don’t want to rush Hall and Rodriguez. But it’s worth considering that the offense may be pretty decent sooner than expected. If Means and Cobb can perform reasonably well, and a few decent starters emerge from the group of Kremer, Lowther, Baumann, Bailey, Akin, and Hess, then things could trend upwards quicker than we anticipate. And I like those first three names in particular. Our system needs a few more years picking at the top of the draft, so I’m not sold that a quicker return to winning is entirely positive. But I think at the end of 2020 our attention will be on the bullpen and left side of the infield, with an eye towards being competitive sooner than we currently envision. I think once Mountcastle arrives, we’ll start looking at the rebuild differently, not as being in it’s infancy. 

I think there is a real difference between not rushing Hall and Rodriguez and what we have seen so far from Elias.  He doesn't seem to see the value in challenging top prospects.

I know, I know it's early.  Just going off of what we have seen so far.

[ScGO's]

Another interesting group of players are the guys who made it through Year One of the Rebuild on the 40 man roster but still haven't received a full tryout yet.

Austin Hays - Lets hope he can become what we envisioned when he was a Top 100 prospect

DJ Stewart - I think some are done with him, but I still think he has OBP ad power potential

Hunter Harvey - looked good in his few performances, but needs to stay healthy

Austin Wynns - warm body, or a real option?  Better D than Sisco and Severiino

Cedrick Mullins - Full overhaul coming  Lets see if he can be salvaged

Evan Phillips - I'd like to see him get some more innings this year. Should be given a shot to compete in our iffy bullpen

Cody Carroll - Fully recovered at this point I believe.  See if we can get some return from the Britton trade

Dillon Tate - Speaking of the Britton trade, I felt Tate showed flashes last year of being a solid BP option in the future

Branden Kline - Gets K's, but also gets hammered at times.

 

 

 

 

[HowAboutThat]

8 hours ago, ScGO's said:

Another interesting group of players are the guys who made it through Year One of the Rebuild on the 40 man roster but still haven't received a full tryout yet.

Austin Hays - Lets hope he can become what we envisioned when he was a Top 100 prospect

DJ Stewart - I think some are done with him, but I still think he has OBP ad power potential

Hunter Harvey - looked good in his few performances, but needs to stay healthy

Austin Wynns - warm body, or a real option?  Better D than Sisco and Severiino

Cedrick Mullins - Full overhaul coming  Lets see if he can be salvaged

Evan Phillips - I'd like to see him get some more innings this year. Should be given a shot to compete in our iffy bullpen

Cody Carroll - Fully recovered at this point I believe.  See if we can get some return from the Britton trade

Dillon Tate - Speaking of the Britton trade, I felt Tate showed flashes last year of being a solid BP option in the future

Branden Kline - Gets K's, but also gets hammered at times.

 

 

 

 

Harvey & Hays- co-rookies of the year.

Wynns- we need a catcher. I’m ok with him for now, but for him the end is near.

Stewart- yeah I’m done with him. He looked like a buffoon in the field. Comically incompetent. But no reason not to give him some more chances.

Kline- no

Tate-no 

Phillips-no

Hess-no. Go away.

Mullins-no

Carroll-hmmm maybe. He gets a mulligan for now but his debut was devoid of anything positive. Probably also no.

[TommyPickles]

I like Santander a lot.  I could see him holding down a corner outfield spot for years to come.  Santander(25)/Hays(24)/Diaz(23) seems like an enviable young squad.

[ScGO's]

18 hours ago, Philip said:

Tate-no 

 

I think Tate to the bullpen was a great move and last year was the first full year of it.  WHIP is low, K's are up, he's figuring out what type of BP pitcher he is (as I'm sure the analytics dept is too).  His MLB numbers are a bit skewed in the small sample size.  His FIP is a full run+ lower than his ERA WHIP is under 1.3, BBs are up from milb #s, K's are still there.  I think he can be a 6th or 7th inning arm in the near future; essentially a slightly better Miguel Castro.

[HowAboutThat]

5 hours ago, ScGO's said:

I think Tate to the bullpen was a great move and last year was the first full year of it.  WHIP is low, K's are up, he's figuring out what type of BP pitcher he is (as I'm sure the analytics dept is too).  His MLB numbers are a bit skewed in the small sample size.  His FIP is a full run+ lower than his ERA WHIP is under 1.3, BBs are up from milb #s, K's are still there.  I think he can be a 6th or 7th inning arm in the near future; essentially a slightly better Miguel Castro.

I’m willing to give him the chance, we’re certainly in a position to do so, but he’s been underwhelming. He seems very smart however, and very adaptable, so in the absence of anyone better, sure let’s have him in the fray again.

Edited December 31, 2019 by Philip
Clarification

[weams]

This is what we are up against.

 

[HowAboutThat]

16 minutes ago, weams said:

This is what we are up against.

 

Does a guy improve/regress/remain because of the coaching?

Teaching is very much a two-way street. Are the kids good because of the teacher or vice-versa?

Some of the best regarded teachers in my area spend a lot of time poaching talented kids from other teachers. Their students are already gifted, hard-working and receptive.

And that’s where our coaches are. Every guy they work with is already gifted and hard-working.

The question is what does a coach do with a player who has already reached the lower levels?

Was the advice given Arietta grounds for firing? Was Arietta being stubborn? Would the same advice presented a different way have been more successful? Matusz had the same coaches and he was terrible. Would a different coach have seen something to fix? Was Matusz receptive? 

and so on.

It’s a very difficult question to evaluate. I will be very interested in what they discover....or claim to have discovered.

[Frobby]

27 minutes ago, Philip said:

Does a guy improve/regress/remain because of the coaching?

Teaching is very much a two-way street. Are the kids good because of the teacher or vice-versa?

Some of the best regarded teachers in my area spend a lot of time poaching talented kids from other teachers. Their students are already gifted, hard-working and receptive.

And that’s where our coaches are. Every guy they work with is already gifted and hard-working.

The question is what does a coach do with a player who has already reached the lower levels?

Was the advice given Arietta grounds for firing? Was Arietta being stubborn? Would the same advice presented a different way have been more successful? Matusz had the same coaches and he was terrible. Would a different coach have seen something to fix? Was Matusz receptive? 

and so on.

It’s a very difficult question to evaluate. I will be very interested in what they discover....or claim to have discovered.

Well, the tweets above suggest that teams are going to get a lot more systematic about evaluating coaching.    Good for them.   

[HowAboutThat]

41 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Well, the tweets above suggest that teams are going to get a lot more systematic about evaluating coaching.    Good for them.   

Sure, but isn’t “evaluating coaching” something that teams have been doing from the very beginning? What’s new about this announcement?

The problem is how? What parameters do you set? Goals are simple, but how best to accomplish those goals, how best to diagnose problems, how much blame or credit do you give to the coach or the player, and so on.

I have lots of solutions, and one of my mantras with my students is that we collect solutions. If one solution doesn’t work, we try a different one, and progress happens or not. At some point we have to answer the questions: are we not making progress because the student is unwilling or unable, because the coach is not diagnosing the problem, finding an adequate solution, or conveying the solution in an adequate way? Or some combination of the above?

At some point, there are so many unquantifiable variables that we have to rely on the claim of “magic” so I will be eager to read of further developments.