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

[interloper]

8 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Holoday is our new DH.

Should this be in green? That one day he DH'd was successful at least. I don't hate it in order to stack righties against a lefty. 

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, interloper said:

Should this be in green? That one day he DH'd was successful at least. I don't hate it in order to stack righties against a lefty. 

Should it?  As far as I know he's a DH option.

[interloper]

1 minute ago, Can_of_corn said:

Should it?  As far as I know he's a DH option.

Yeah he definitely is an option. But my point was that he exists on the roster for 2 reasons: 1) he was at his opt-out date and the O's apparently like him more than Wynns, and 2) he allows both starting catchers to be in the lineup at the same time. I wouldn't say he's "our new DH". We have a lot of guys cycling in and out, including Iglesias. 

Relating to Mountcastle, I was just saying I think other guys will get cut before Holaday to make room. 

[wildcard]

21 minutes ago, 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. 

Option Smith

[interloper]

Just now, wildcard said:

Option Smith

I think it would be a DFA, but yeah, that's the path of least resistance. 

[MurphDogg]

Tonight against a lefty the O's are starting Bryan Holaday along with Severino, Velazquez, Valaika, and Cedric Mullins(!).

This is a terrible lineup against lefties and they have to start the left-handed Mullins because Velazquez is already in for the left-handed Dwight Smith, Jr.

Meanwhile against lefties last year in AAA, Mountcastle batted .349/.362/.597.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

Tonight against a lefty the O's are starting Bryan Holaday along with Severino, Velazquez, Valaika, and Cedric Mullins(!).

This is a terrible lineup against lefties and they have to start the left-handed Mullins because Velazquez is already in for the left-handed Dwight Smith, Jr.

Meanwhile against lefties last year in AAA, Mountcastle batted .349/.362/.597.

Geez, what did he get, one walk?  No wonder they didn't call him up.

[eddie83]

1 minute ago, MurphDogg said:

Tonight against a lefty the O's are starting Bryan Holaday along with Severino, Velazquez, Valaika, and Cedric Mullins(!).

This is a terrible lineup against lefties and they have to start the left-handed Mullins because Velazquez is already in for the left-handed Dwight Smith, Jr.

Meanwhile against lefties last year in AAA, Mountcastle batted .349/.362/.597.

This was an issue coming into the season. Now with Iglesias hurting - obviously wasn’t available yesterday- and Hays out its even more exacerbated.  

[MurphDogg]

7 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Geez, what did he get, one walk?  No wonder they didn't call him up.

It is interesting how much more he walked against righties than lefties.

He had 3 walks against lefties, but if you are hitting .349 and slugging .597, I don't need you walking that much.

His righty Avg/OBP delta was a respectable .41 points.

[interloper]

This is all the more maddening because there's no statistics happening down there, so we're just kind of taking their word for it that he's doing... something and improving... somehow. I know there's a lot of tech they're employing at Bowie, so that's some level of comfort knowing they're doing more than just practicing against each other. There's some kind of analytical coaching going on. 

But yeah. Free the man already. 

[interloper]

I wonder how Diaz fits in at some point, too. Santander has a death grip on RF at the moment, and rightly so. Unless Diaz can play some out-of-position CF a la Santander last season, I don't know how you get him on the roster. Unless you REALLY cycle dudes around constantly. 

Or unless, of course, Elias pulls a fast one on us and brings him up before Mountcastle. 

 

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, interloper said:

I wonder how Diaz fits in at some point, too. Santander has a death grip on RF at the moment, and rightly so. Unless Diaz can play some out-of-position CF a la Santander last season, I don't know how you get him on the roster. Unless you REALLY cycle dudes around constantly. 

Or unless, of course, Elias pulls a fast one on us and brings him up before Mountcastle. 

 

That would be shocking, he isn't on the 40.

[SteveA]

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.

[CarrRun49]

On 8/17/2020 at 4:38 PM, interloper said:

I wonder how Diaz fits in at some point, too. Santander has a death grip on RF at the moment, and rightly so. Unless Diaz can play some out-of-position CF a la Santander last season, I don't know how you get him on the roster. Unless you REALLY cycle dudes around constantly. 

Or unless, of course, Elias pulls a fast one on us and brings him up before Mountcastle. 

 

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.

[DrungoHazewood]

On 8/17/2020 at 4:31 PM, interloper said:

This is all the more maddening because there's no statistics happening down there, so we're just kind of taking their word for it that he's doing... something and improving... somehow. I know there's a lot of tech they're employing at Bowie, so that's some level of comfort knowing they're doing more than just practicing against each other. There's some kind of analytical coaching going on. 

But yeah. Free the man already. 

I'm not sure it would be much better to assign outsized value to what he's done in a few weeks of AAA plate appearances.  If he'd gone 15-for-62 (.241) we'd have 11-page threads arguing that maybe he's just not that good and we need to move on.  If he had four more infield hits that could have been classified errors he would be hitting .306 and clearly he's being held back for silly service time issues and this whole game is stupid and keeping the Orioles from the playoffs.