Why Can't the Orioles Develop Starting Pitchers?

[Sports Guy]

12 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Given the team makeup it was fair to trade him.  I would have liked a better return but I'm more of a quality over quantity guy.

Yea I agree.  I would have liked one really good prospect but I also think the options were limited.  You could argue that they should have just kept him but I think they made the right call.

 

[Matt Bennett]

49 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

Bundy has had stretches like this before. Let's see if keeps pitching like this over the course of a whole 162 game season.

In August 2017, Bundy went 4-0 with a 2.00 ERA, 0.80 WHIP and 11.3 SO/9IP. I'm happy to see Bundy do well, but it's way too soon to say he's turned a corner. 

He also started off very hot in April 2018. 2.96 ERA with a 4.4 K/BB ratio. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

1 minute ago, Matt Bennett said:

He also started off very hot in April 2018. 2.96 ERA with a 4.4 K/BB ratio. 

Maybe Bundy has turned a corner, but we've seen this from him before even if he looks "different" this time. If Bundy keeps this up over a season without his ERA going to 4.75, then I'll be convinced he figured something out or the Angels coaching made an impact. 

[ChuckS]

12 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

Maybe Bundy has turned a corner, but we've seen this from him before even if he looks "different" this time. If Bundy keeps this up over a season without his ERA going to 4.75, then I'll be convinced he figured something out or the Angels coaching made an impact. 

I always thought Bundy would do well getting out of Camden Yards and the AL East.  His main problem was home runs. Could always miss bats even with the diminished fastball.  Playing most of his games in Anaheim and other big ballparks in the AL West was sure to help. 

[DoobyDoo]

There were articles last year about Bundy altering his pitch usage while here. Here’s one of them regarding throwing less fastballs:

https://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/bs-sp-orioles-dylan-bundy-pitch-mix-20190614-story.html

I don’t think this is a matter of the Orioles being unaware of the changes he needed to make. It looks like he just expanded on what he started to do last year.

Either way, I seriously doubt he’s going to continue pitching this well. 

[Can_of_corn]

I don't think anyone is expecting him not to drop off to some degree.  He's got an ERA+ of 271 for goodness sake.

[wildcard]

The O's pitching development system has not be very good over the years dating back 20 years or more.   Dave Wallace was the exception.  But he only lasted a few years and butted heads with Brady.   I think the minors reporting to Duquette and the major league pitching staff reporting to Buck probably didn't help.   

But now Elias has put everything under one pitching director, Chris Holt.  And they have revamped the pitching coaches throughout the system and are now using analytics from top to bottom.   If last year is any indication they are making progress toward a consolidated system the brings a stream of pitchers through the minors to the majors.  The only hiccup so far seems to be that Elias has not drafted much pitching the last two years.

[25 Nuggets]

I believe the developmental problems have to do with three things:

1. Not having a universal approach to development between the minor league affiliates.  This has been well documented and has been the #1 focus for Elias & Co.  (Duquette also said he wanted to address this)
2. Not having a good overall approach to avoid injury.  This is something the Orioles are hardly alone in; nonetheless, sometimes I think they've tried so hard to avoid injury, that they've created other problems.  Like holding back a pitcher's best pitch so long that said pitcher loses control of it.  And then gets hurt anyway.  It feels like most of the major pitching prospects over the last 20-some years got hurt.
3. Various parts of the organization lying to each other and keeping things from each other.  People acting cut-throat to save their own jobs, at the expense of the team.  This was a larger problem than just pitching development - it poisoned all operations.

Also what wildcard just said.

[Santandah]

3 hours ago, ChuckS said:

I always thought Bundy would do well getting out of Camden Yards and the AL East.  His main problem was home runs. Could always miss bats even with the diminished fastball.  Playing most of his games in Anaheim and other big ballparks in the AL West was sure to help. 

Camden Yards, with or without fans, is a bandbox.