I'm Ready for Mountcastle and Diaz: Mountcastle Up, Diaz Still Waiting

[DrungoHazewood]

5 minutes ago, CarrRun49 said:

I am going to keep bringing this up. And maybe I am in the minority.  But what has Diaz done to prove he is ready to contribute at the major league level?  To me, so far, he is a slightly above average minor leaguer at each level that can't stay healthy.  That doesn't scream, "bring him up" to me.  He's lost this year and I understand that's out of his control.  But, I would like to see 1/2-3/4 of a season at AAA putting up solid numbers and not being hurt, before we anoint him as the future every day LF.

That's fine and all, but the Orioles are playing Dwight Smith, Jr.  Who's almost 28 and has spent most of the last four seasons being kind of okay in AAA and not very good in the majors.

[Can_of_corn]

53 minutes ago, CarrRun49 said:

I am going to keep bringing this up. And maybe I am in the minority.  But what has Diaz done to prove he is ready to contribute at the major league level?  To me, so far, he is a slightly above average minor leaguer at each level that can't stay healthy.  That doesn't scream, "bring him up" to me.  He's lost this year and I understand that's out of his control.  But, I would like to see 1/2-3/4 of a season at AAA putting up solid numbers and not being hurt, before we anoint him as the future every day LF.

What is the harm in having players come up and try out at the ML level?  The 40 has chaff that can be cut for him.  No offense to the kids out there playing well but he's not going to hurt the team's playoff chances.

One of the benefits, historically, to being bad is the chance to bring these guys up and see what they can do.

The data you can get from watching him in the majors has to be superior to what you can get playing scrimmages against the same competition for months.

[bobmc]

6 hours ago, SteveA said:

Although I design and write software for a living, I don't have any hacking skills.  Do we have anybody on OH with such skills?

What I'd like to see is someone hack into the Oriole Park system and program the fake crowd noise to do a "We want Mountcastle" chant.

And another in Spanish for Diaz, like "?Donde esta Yusniel?"  

[maybenxtyr]

41 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

What is the harm in having players come up and try out at the ML level?  The 40 has chaff that can be cut for him.  No offense to the kids out there playing well but he's not going to hurt the team's playoff chances.

One of the benefits, historically, to being bad is the chance to bring these guys up and see what they can do.

The data you can get from watching him the majors has to be superior to what you can get playing scrimmages against the same competition for months.

Bring em up now. If they're good enough they stick...if not then move on and realize they are further away from contention than they thought.

[sportsfan8703]

Mountcastle should’ve been 100% been up after the 7 games or whatever. Probably before then. 
 

Diaz should’ve gotten the call once Hays went on the DL and Mullins/Stewart flopped. 
 

I get that we have a 5 year plan, but if you have a shot at making the playoffs under these set of circumstances, you should go for it. Especially when it does nothing to jeopardize that 5 year plan. 

[NCRaven]

When teams all around baseball are calling up their best prospects and all he does is bring up Akin to rot on the bench, get one appearance, and then demote him, I get less and less enthused with Elias over time.

[survivedc]

I’m betting we see Mountcastle either Thursday or next Tuesday after the off day. 

[Moose Milligan]

7 minutes ago, survivedc said:

I’m betting we see Mountcastle either Thursday or next Tuesday after the off day. 

What are we betting?

[Tony-OH]

On 8/17/2020 at 3:29 PM, interloper said:

Yeah. I'm curious what move they make to get him here.

You could option Mullins, but then your only CF option is Velazquez.

You could DFA Smith, but I wonder if they want to keep his lefty bat and have him split a little time with Mountcastle early on. 

Holaday seems valuable in order to get Sisco and Sevvy DH ABs.

They could DFA Davis (haha). 

Maybe time it with Hays' return from IL, send out Mullins and Smith at the same time. 

I don't think if you bring up Mountcastle that you platoon him with anyone. Perhaps he gets an occasional day off against a tough veteran righty, but if he comes up, he needs to play just about every day in LF.

With Velazquez's ability to play left field, I think he could give him a day off and be a defensive replacement late in close games perhaps. I'm fine with DFAing, DSJ. While DSJ's bat has some value, his poor defensive and base running skills (speed is below average and awareness is clearly not great) makes him replacement level at best.

[Sports Guy]

It’s a shame about Smith Jr.  He does have a bat that certainly could play in the majors but not on this team.  He needs to go.  I would suspect someone would pick him up but we have too many guys who need to play before him.  

[CarrRun49]

3 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

That's fine and all, but the Orioles are playing Dwight Smith, Jr.  Who's almost 28 and has spent most of the last four seasons being kind of okay in AAA and not very good in the majors.

I didn't say DSJ should be trotting out there on a daily basis.  I said this board talks about Diaz as if he's a sure thing to come and produce as a major league LF'er.

[DrungoHazewood]

13 minutes ago, CarrRun49 said:

I didn't say DSJ should be trotting out there on a daily basis.  I said this board talks about Diaz as if he's a sure thing to come and produce as a major league LF'er.

There are no guarantees, but you can look at the available evidence.  Diaz was 22 in the AA Eastern League last year.  He had an .807 OPS.  His performance was very similar to the Phils' Alex Bohm, also 22, with a .844 OPS in the EL last year.  Bohm is playing for the Phils now, and hitting well but in 20 PAs so that's really nothing.  Daniel Johnson is a Cleveland OF, had an .872 OPS in the EL but is a year older, he's in Cleveland right now.  The Phils' Adam Haseley had an .837 in the EL last year at 23, is in Philly, too.  Isaac Paredes is just 21, didn't hit quite as well as Diaz in the EL, but is playing for the Tigers now.

Diaz was 4th in the EL in OPS among players his age or younger.  It wouldn't be in any way surprising if he was in the Orioles starting lineup right now.

[DrungoHazewood]

41 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

It’s a shame about Smith Jr.  He does have a bat that certainly could play in the majors but not on this team.

You can't say that without context.  He's a guy who's going to OPS in the low .700s in the majors. You can find a role for someone like that, but only if they can play defense, or run, or maybe leverage a big platoon split.  There aren't too many corner OFers who OPS .700 or .725 and just keep getting regular starting gigs.

[CarrRun49]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

There are no guarantees, but you can look at the available evidence.  Diaz was 22 in the AA Eastern League last year.  He had an .807 OPS.  His performance was very similar to the Phils' Alex Bohm, also 22, with a .844 OPS in the EL last year.  Bohm is playing for the Phils now, and hitting well but in 20 PAs so that's really nothing.  Daniel Johnson is a Cleveland OF, had an .872 OPS in the EL but is a year older, he's in Cleveland right now.  The Phils' Adam Haseley had an .837 in the EL last year at 23, is in Philly, too.  Isaac Paredes is just 21, didn't hit quite as well as Diaz in the EL, but is playing for the Tigers now.

Diaz was 4th in the EL in OPS among players his age or younger.  It wouldn't be in any way surprising if he was in the Orioles starting lineup right now.

I wouldn't be surprised either, but we shouldn't be writing his name in permanent marker for starting LF in 2022.  He's been unable to stay healthy as well.  None of the players listed above are guaranteed to be mainstays in the lineup for years to come, just because they are now in the major leagues.

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

You can't say that without context.  He's a guy who's going to OPS in the low .700s in the majors. You can find a role for someone like that, but only if they can play defense, or run, or maybe leverage a big platoon split.  There aren't too many corner OFers who OPS .700 or .725 and just keep getting regular starting gigs.

Sure, he’s a dime a dozen guy but he could have a role on a ML team as long as he is cheap.