The Most Hyped Orioles Prospect...

[OsEatAlEast]

One thing I remember vividly about McDonald is that the Orioles took away his out pitch(forkball) straight out of the gate. They thought he could prolong his career by not throwing it. Which always brings me to the question. Is it better to burn out or fade away?

[DrungoHazewood]

53 minutes ago, OsEatAlEast said:

One thing I remember vividly about McDonald is that the Orioles took away his out pitch(forkball) straight out of the gate. They thought he could prolong his career by not throwing it. Which always brings me to the question. Is it better to burn out or fade away?

In 1910 it was "only a fool uses his best stuff except when he really needs it, because you have to go nine every 3-4 days. Or more."

Today it's "use your best stuff all the time, or you're going to get the crap knocked out of you.  But we'll yank you after five innings, and you only pitch once every five or six days."

Overall I'm not sure there's a lot of difference in how long a pitcher lasts.

Or... on smaller time scales Palmer vs Mussina.  Four-man rotation and some high-pitch games and high-inning seasons, vs. never topping 250 innings in a five-man and more pitch counts.  Palmer threw a few more career innings, but Mussina had three more seasons of 150+ innings.  Mussina was never really injured, Palmer missed part or all of four years.  And they had almost identical career W/L records.

[Can_of_corn]

14 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

In 1910 it was "only a fool uses his best stuff except when he really needs it, because you have to go nine every 3-4 days. Or more."

Today it's "use your best stuff all the time, or you're going to get the crap knocked out of you.  But we'll yank you after five innings, and you only pitch once every five or six days."

Overall I'm not sure there's a lot of difference in how long a pitcher lasts.

Or... on smaller time scales Palmer vs Mussina.  Four-man rotation and some high-pitch games and high-inning seasons, vs. never topping 250 innings in a five-man and more pitch counts.  Palmer threw a few more career innings, but Mussina had three more seasons of 150+ innings.  Mussina was never really injured, Palmer missed part or all of four years.  And they had almost identical career W/L records.

We've had this talk before.  Wins and losses aren't the best criteria to use when evaluating pitchers. 

[TommyPickles]

Man, McDonald's 1993 season looks like a Cy Young Award type year! He didn't even get any votes...

220.1 IP, 3.39 ERA, 171 Ks, 7 CG, 0.7 HR/9

Look at those same stats from the guy who won it that year, Jack McDowell.  Not that different.  Guess they really valued wins.

256.2 IP, 3.37 ERA, 158 Ks, 10 CG, 0.7 HR/9

 

[backwardsk]

41 minutes ago, TommyPickles said:

Man, McDonald's 1993 season looks like a Cy Young Award type year! He didn't even get any votes...

220.1 IP, 3.39 ERA, 171 Ks, 7 CG, 0.7 HR/9

Look at those same stats from the guy who won it that year, Jack McDowell.  Not that different.  Guess they really valued wins.

256.2 IP, 3.37 ERA, 158 Ks, 10 CG, 0.7 HR/9

 

Look at those complete games! 17 combined.  Only two AL guys had as many as three in 2019.

[InsideCoroner]

Based on board activity the last three years or so, you would have thought it was Victor Victor Mesa.

[Aristotelian]

I recall my dad was super hyped about Cal. He lived up to it and then some. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

7 hours ago, scOtt said:

I was going to mention Hammond too. I mean, he had a fine ML career, for us and others too. But never reached the hype he was supposed to be.

Hammonds was supposed to hit .300 with 20+ home run power and steal some bases. Never got to that level, but he was decent when healthy and that was the major issue for his entire career.

Hammonds only played more than 120 games in a season three times with a high of 128 games played in 2002.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

5 hours ago, TommyPickles said:

Man, McDonald's 1993 season looks like a Cy Young Award type year! He didn't even get any votes...

220.1 IP, 3.39 ERA, 171 Ks, 7 CG, 0.7 HR/9

Look at those same stats from the guy who won it that year, Jack McDowell.  Not that different.  Guess they really valued wins.

256.2 IP, 3.37 ERA, 158 Ks, 10 CG, 0.7 HR/9

 

McDonalds's ERA going into the last game of the season was 3.09. That would have been good enough to finish 4th in the AL in 1993. Johnny Oates gave Ben a chance to rest, but he wanted to start and move his ERA ranking up to 2nd or 3rd. Instead he finished out of the top 10 in ERA leaders after giving up 8 earned runs in 1 & 2/3 innings pitched. 

Kevin Appier who led the AL with an 2.56 ERA and in pitching WAR with 9.3, would have easily won the Cy Young in today's world of advanced analytics. McDowell only put up a 4.4 WAR in comparison. Appier got penalized for only winning 18 games in 1993.

[scOtt]

1 hour ago, orpheus100 said:

Ben McDonald was still good

Wieters was a tragedy

Tragedy is way too strong. I mean, he was hyped on the cover of SI as the Swith-Hitting Jesus. Before he even played an inning of pro ball. He had/has another fine career. And when it was close and late, and Matt was coming to bat, you felt good! ROCKET arm and the fastest footwork I've ever seen.

[Can_of_corn]

2 hours ago, scOtt said:

Tragedy is way too strong. I mean, he was hyped on the cover of SI as the Swith-Hitting Jesus. Before he even played an inning of pro ball. He had/has another fine career. And when it was close and late, and Matt was coming to bat, you felt good! ROCKET arm and the fastest footwork I've ever seen.

The hype for Matt didn't kick into high gear until he was playing in the minors.

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

The hype for Matt didn't kick into high gear until he was playing in the minors.

True, and it’s not like he wasn’t a good player.   Just not a great one.    

[DrungoHazewood]

7 hours ago, orpheus100 said:

Wieters was a tragedy

Since the inception of pro baseball in the 1870s something like 15 billion people have been alive.

Let's say for the sake of argument that half of a percent of those people have played some form of organized baseball.  That would be 75 million people.

In history maybe 200,000 or 250,000 people have appeared in a minor league game.

About 20,000 people have appeared in a major league game.

2,327 players have been a catcher for at least one game.

Of those 2,327 Matt Wieters is the 91st-best catcher of all time by JAWS.

So he's in the top 4% of all Major League catchers of all time, which puts him among the top 0.4% of professional catchers, which puts him in the top 0.0001% of everyone who's ever caught a game, and in the top 0.0000007% of all humans in catching ability.

You'd have to pick the best catcher out of every Japan-sized group of people to come upon someone who was as good a catcher as Matt Wieters.

Is that a tragedy?  I guess it depends on your perspective.

[TommyPickles]

10 hours ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

McDonalds's ERA going into the last game of the season was 3.09. That would have been good enough to finish 4th in the AL in 1993. Johnny Oates gave Ben a chance to rest, but he wanted to start and move his ERA ranking up to 2nd or 3rd. Instead he finished out of the top 10 in ERA leaders after giving up 8 earned runs in 1 & 2/3 innings pitched. 

Kevin Appier who led the AL with an 2.56 ERA and in pitching WAR with 9.3, would have easily won the Cy Young in today's world of advanced analytics. McDowell only put up a 4.4 WAR in comparison. Appier got penalized for only winning 18 games in 1993.

Lol imagine putting up a 9.3 WAR as a starting pitcher and leading the AL with a 2.53 ERA and not winning the Cy Young...

[TommyPickles]

I feel like Matt Weiters' final few (pricey and injury-riddled) years in Baltimore hurt his legacy here.  It definitely distracts from how well he did in his first few years:

2009-2012=

• 13.3 WAR
• 2,031 PA  
• 2 Gold Gloves, 2 All Star Selections
• Made about $1.7 Million over those 4 years

2013-2016=

• 4.9 WAR
• 1,437 PA
• 0 Gold Gloves, 2 All Star Selections (one in a season which he played only 26 games)
• Made about $37.3 Million over those 4 years.