Could Pittsburgh use Mullins

[HowAboutThat]

Mullins has known flaws. He can’t throw. Everything else is worth giving him another chance, but he is by no means guaranteed a spot. And all the potential pirate additions are better than Mullins because they all offer exceptional defense, even if they’ve lost a step or two.

[REDMAN]

 I know that Roch likes to push Mullins, but really, all I see is a maybe 4th or 5th OF in the majors, who doesn't have a major league arm, has great speed but takes bad routes and gets bad jumps and can't hit very well from either side of the plate.

[thezeroes]

40 minutes ago, REDMAN said:

 I know that Roch likes to push Mullins, but really, all I see is a maybe 4th or 5th OF in the majors, who doesn't have a major league arm, has great speed but takes bad routes and gets bad jumps and can't hit very well from either side of the plate.

Mickey Rivers had the same issue but played in the MLB for fifteen years with three different clubs and made the All_Star team.

[Frobby]

49 minutes ago, REDMAN said:

 I know that Roch likes to push Mullins, but really, all I see is a maybe 4th or 5th OF in the majors, who doesn't have a major league arm, has great speed but takes bad routes and gets bad jumps and can't hit very well from either side of the plate.

Statcast had Mullins at +3 outs above average in his 22 games with the Orioles, and a positive jump of +0.9, comprised of -0.7 reaction, +0.9 burst, and +0.7 route.    His jump ranking was 29th among 187 outfielders.    His route ranking was 24th.

[Can_of_corn]

45 minutes ago, thezeroes said:

Mickey Rivers had the same issue but played in the MLB for fifteen years with three different clubs and made the All_Star team.

Mickey Rivers career wRC+ 106

Cedric Mullins career wRC+ 57

[Can_of_corn]

28 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Statcast had Mullins at +3 outs above average in his 22 games with the Orioles, and a positive jump of +0.9, comprised of -0.7 reaction, +0.9 burst, and +0.7 route.    His jump ranking was 29th among 187 outfielders.    His route ranking was 24th.

Got his 2018 numbers handy?

[Frobby]

11 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Got his 2018 numbers handy?

+1 outs above average, +0.2 jump, consisting of -1.2 reaction, +0.6 burst, +0.8 route.    https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/cedric-mullins-656775?stats=statcast-r-fielding-mlb

[Just Regular]

It is just knitting together little things, but one could see the slightly surprising Wilkerson DFA as a continuation of the nurturing Mullins that began with demoting him to wherever he needed to play well, and now a roster move vote of confidence entering spring.  Stewart's start of season unavailability has to tick Mullins's adrenaline up a bit too.  He does complement a Santander/Hays/Mancini starting unit nicely.

[REDMAN]

14 hours ago, Frobby said:

Statcast had Mullins at +3 outs above average in his 22 games with the Orioles, and a positive jump of +0.9, comprised of -0.7 reaction, +0.9 burst, and +0.7 route.    His jump ranking was 29th among 187 outfielders.    His route ranking was 24th.

Defensive stats in analytics are great to look at but are generally wrong, especially when range and burst and reaction are taken into question, even Kinney knows that defensive stats have a long way to go. Now if Paul Blair was alive and evaluating OF, I would be more incline to believe them, but some of these people have actually never played the game and most of this data is by still using the old eye test, just not by qualified people.

[Oriole4Life]

Things I took from this thread -

Seeing the word "mesa" being used to describe a player's development.  That was cool, I had never heard that before.  Kinda makes sense.

Some guy mentioned Josh Bell, and I got sad for a second, because I thought he was talking about the first baseman for the Pirates, and I thought "we let him get away?"  Then I googled it and realized it was that scrub we got from the Dodgers.

I saw Christian Walker's name mentioned, then I got a little sad, cuz he's a pretty good player.  Only had one real good year though.  He's no Jake Arrieta (still angry we traded him, I always saw tons of potential in him).

I like Mullins by the way, he has tons of speed.  I like him for that reason alone, always envisioned him as a great leadoff guy.  I don't follow stats or player development nearly as close as you guys, I just figured he fell off...which he did.  He's only 25 so I'd like to see him get some more chances.  I also just realized that our outfielders are really bad Other than Mancini of course.

[REDMAN]

I have always envisioned the orioles having the OF with 3 CF, like we had with Brady, Devo, and Finley before the Davis trade, that would be my dream of a great OF.

[Tony-OH]

On 1/29/2020 at 10:46 AM, interloper said:

Because it doesn't make sense to cut young players with a bunch of years of control, especially when the system is not deep with CFers and he's not that far removed from being decent. He has defensive tools. They don't NEED to cut him yet, but another season like 2019 and they could. 

Right on the mark. Saying that, the only issue defensively is that Mullins' arm is so weak that it deflates his plus defensive abilities to go get the ball. Obviously Mullins ha a lost year last year, but there is still some pop in the bat, he's a hard, willing learner, has the desire to get better, and has 75 level speed.

He was rushed to the majors so I think it's unfair to totally dismiss him completely. But as you said, if he struggles again offensively and can't make the adjustments then his time on the 40-an could be coming to the end next year.

[interloper]

2 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Right on the mark. Saying that, the only issue defensively is that Mullins' arm is so weak that it deflates his plus defensive abilities to go get the ball. Obviously Mullins ha a lost year last year, but there is still some pop in the bat, he's a hard, willing learner, has the desire to get better, and has 75 level speed.

He was rushed to the majors so I think it's unfair to totally dismiss him completely. But as you said, if he struggles again offensively and can't make the adjustments then his time on the 40-an could be coming to the end next year.

I really hope he re-establishes himself as at least a 4th outfielder option, which I tend to think was always his correct ceiling. Like a .700 OPS guy with speed and enough defensive versatility to play any outfield spot. His arm probably keeps him from being a serious starting CF candidate.

[BRobinsonfan]

On 1/29/2020 at 10:46 AM, Can_of_corn said:

The O's are bad.  Bad teams tend to have bad players.

Hey... wait a minute.  I think you could be on to something here.  We should get the boys in the lab on this right away!  

 

[BRobinsonfan]

Eight pages on Cedric Mullins is a clear indicator that Spring Training can't get here quickly enough!