Mountcastle has first big MLB game

[DrungoHazewood]

15 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

That happens to you a lot doesn't it?

Yes!  You know how all the movies of Babe Ruth look like they're in fast motion?  No, everyone just moved that fast.  That's how they could finish a game in 90 minutes. It makes me nostalgic and I drift off.

[Can_of_corn]

5 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Yes!  You know how all the movies of Babe Ruth look like they're in fast motion?  No, everyone just moved that fast.  That's how they could finish a game in 90 minutes. It makes me nostalgic and I drift off.

Except, ironically, the folks that actually ran track, which explains why times are faster now.

[MurphDogg]

23 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

If the three of them in the first sentence have a .340 combined OBP at the end of a somewhat normal season I'd eat my shoe.  But it's nice they're doing well so far.  I'd bat Sisco leadoff, at least against righties, whenever he plays. 

I guess I can bring up the thing that batting order doesn't really matter.  The difference between Mullins leading off and Sisco is very small, as long as you're assuming they'll both be somewhere in the lineup anyway.

Sisco had a minor league career OBP of .386. He takes a ton of pitches. He is a fairly ideal leadoff guy.

Ultimately the effect of batting order is small, but it is still dumb when a team puts a fast guy at leadoff whether he can take a walk or hit, because that is what we all thought was ideal in the 70s and 80s.

[Just Regular]

Our Nick Castellanos has been my prior as he raked AAA, and now having seen him for a few at-bats....mmmm confirmation bias.

I expect the first few walks are a byproduct of an early MLB pitcher book....let's see how hacktastic this rookie is.   If things go well, fear-based walks will come - I think the first returns are rookie testing.

How long until he breaks into the Top Half of the lineup?

[weams]

10 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

Sisco had a minor league career OBP of .386. He takes a ton of pitches. He is a fairly ideal leadoff guy.

Ultimately the effect of batting order is small, but it is still dumb when a team puts a fast guy at leadoff whether he can take a walk or hit, because that is what we all thought was ideal in the 70s and 80s.

Especially because the positive effect of a stolen base or caught stealing is so negligibly to a strong negative. 

[DrungoHazewood]

5 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

Sisco had a minor league career OBP of .386. He takes a ton of pitches. He is a fairly ideal leadoff guy.

Ultimately the effect of batting order is small, but it is still dumb when a team puts a fast guy at leadoff whether he can take a walk or hit, because that is what we all thought was ideal in the 70s and 80s.

Clogging the bases isn't really a thing, but you will get a small advantage from having a fast guy with a high OBP as opposed to Chance Sisco.  In a perfect world he'd be batting 2nd or 5th or something.  But in an Oriole world leadoff is good.

But yea, batting a really fast guy with a .290 OBP leadoff when you have a slow guy with a .380 is dumb.  But, a really fast guy with a .350 might be just as productive in that spot as a really slow guy with a .360 or .370.  Especially since speed is often correlated with other things like power, so you may be slightly better off with the slow/higher OBP/power guy batting down in the order and the fast/less OBP+power guy leading off.

[DrungoHazewood]

26 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Except, ironically, the folks that actually ran track, which explains why times are faster now.

I was starting to type something about relativistic effects but it got too nonsensical for even me so I stopped.

[DrungoHazewood]

16 minutes ago, weams said:

Especially because the positive effect of a stolen base or caught stealing is so negligibly to a strong negative. 

My guess is that the overall impact of base stealing in all MLB history is slightly negative.  The world would have scored a few more runs if base stealing was illegal.

[makoman]

33 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

Sisco had a minor league career OBP of .386. He takes a ton of pitches. He is a fairly ideal leadoff guy.

Ultimately the effect of batting order is small, but it is still dumb when a team puts a fast guy at leadoff whether he can take a walk or hit, because that is what we all thought was ideal in the 70s and 80s.

I think the mere fact that Sisco, who is one of the slowest players in the majors, has led off a couple times shows that they know what they're doing and aren't tied to old school ideals. I would assume (or hope) with Mullins it might be as simple as "this guy is kinda hot, let's throw him a bone that we think he's good enough to do this and try and keep his confidence going." 

As for Alberto, if you think he's a 305 hitter like last year he is probably also a 330 OBP guy like last year, which annoyingly is probably one of the higher expected OBPs on the team, this year's actual results so far notwithstanding. If you think he's one of the better hitters but also one with the least power he'd be ok at first I guess. If Sisco/Santander/Nunez are really 330-340 guys then it's not a big difference and maybe you are fine with the higher power down lower, but if any of them are really 380 guys then no, go with them and just push Alberto down somewhere else. 

[hoosiers]

Nice to see Mountcastle off to this quality start with the bat in his first couple of games.  It wouldn't surprise me if the book on RM is that he will chase pitches outside the zone and that is why he drawing the walks.  Or RM is evolving as a hitter.  

I think we too often get hung up on players' deficiencies and downplay the positives as a result.

Anyway, enough of the philosophies, RM's early raking provides a juicy hint of the possibility of another building block slotting into place for our next competitive team.  Sisco, Santander, RM, Adley, Kjerstad.  We are looking at some very cheap, very competitive bats in our lineup around 2022 and 2023.

[glenn__davis]

1 hour ago, weams said:

Especially because the positive effect of a stolen base or caught stealing is so negligibly to a strong negative. 

From a strictly quantitative standpoint yes.  I think the effect that a speedy baserunner has on the game impossible to quantify though.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, glenn__davis said:

From a strictly quantitative standpoint yes.  I think the effect that a speedy baserunner has on the game impossible to quantify though.

Because it's so small they don't have instruments advanced enough to detect it? 

[weams]

4 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Because it's so small they don't have instruments advanced enough to detect it? 

There is no real positive advantage to speed other than on defense. I guess the first to third thing is a thing. 

[weams]

These fleas bunting for singles is kinda fun. 

[accinfo]

I would like to see Mountcastle moved up to batting 2nd right now with Santander batting 3rd.  To me Ryan will see more fastballs ahead of one of the hottest hitters in baseball.