Mountcastle rookie/prospect eligibility tracker

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, MurphDogg said:

If it weren't for the 7 inning double-headers and the new extra innings rule, Mountcastle might have gotten those 4 extra ABs.

If I recall correctly they sat Hays a game late last year to guarantee he wouldn't make the cutoff.

Do you think they would have done the same with Mountcastle?

[Just Regular]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

If I recall correctly they sat Hays a game late last year to guarantee he wouldn't make the cutoff.

Do you think they would have done the same with Mountcastle?

Our analytics are better now; we count that stuff up front.

[HowAboutThat]

Rookie or not I hope he learns to open his glove when the second Baseman throws to him.

[Frobby]

13 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Hays fell just short last season.  He has lost his rookie status.

Quite the coincidence that the O's just happen to have guys fall just short two years in a row.  Just their good luck that they will still be eligible for those offseason prospect rankings.

I can see you are being snarky, but where is your evidence that the O’s manipulated Mountcastle’s playing time to preserve his rookie status? He played every single game after his call-up.    The only game he didn’t start was the first game of a doubleheader, three weeks before the season ended, and even in that game he game in during the middle of the game and got 2 at bats.  He only had 6 games in which he had less than four plate appearances, and in five of those he played the entire game.   Over the last 17 games, he batted 3rd or 4th every game, not something you’d do with a rookie if you were trying to keep his at bats down.   
 

In short, I see no evidence that the O’s tried to manage Mountcastle to the 130 at bat standard.   He stayed under it himself by walking 11 times and having three other plate appearances that didn’t count as an at bat.   

While I’m on the subject, it’s crazy in this day and age that rookie status depends on AB rather than PA.    Two guys come up to the majors, one two days after the other, and they each play every game the rest of the year.    The first guy has 145 PA and walks 16 times.    The other has 137 PA and walks 7 times.    The first guy keeps rookie status and the second guy doesn’t— that makes no sense whatsoever.  

[Frobby]

Some thoughts about rookie status.

This year, 75 position players made their major league debut.  Only 7 of them surpassed rookie status.    The one with the lowest number of at bats was Luis Garcia of the Nats, who had 134 at bats in 139 PA (one less PA than Mountcastle).   46 of the 75 debuted before Mountcastle, but he was 7th in total PA, 8th in AB.

Last year 98 position players debuted.    54 have lost their rookie status by now, but 44 still have it (at least, based on the AB criterion; some may have lost it on days of service).

83 position players debuted in 2018.    60 have lost rookie status, 23 still have it (based on AB).
 

[bobmc]

11 hours ago, Philip said:

Rookie or not I hope he learns to open his glove when the second Baseman throws to him.

It does happen - to wit - DJ Stewart's catch yesterday in RF!  Now one may argue that the difficulty made it actually "easier" to glove the ball instinctively but whatevs.  I was happy to see DJ make those two tough plays yesterday and was happy to see RM glove his last PO tightly.  

[Can_of_corn]

Remember when we didn't understand why Mountcastle didn't get called up after the apparent super 2 deadline had passed?  Then a few days later he did get called up?

[Just Regular]

It's banter fodder, but I also think it is kind of a nothingburger.   If Super 2 is taken away, an artificial "Rookie of the Year" shot the following season probably has more upside for the player than the club for those future arb hearings. 

The club gets that sweet sweet prospect rankings bump (Kremer Top 100 now?)

I just saw the story about new rules yesterday disqualifying Adell and some others next year due to service time; Mountcastle was not addressed, but I think he's still good as since 8/21 it was only about 40 days.  The gist of the story seemed to be you got credit for September 2020 days and if you exceeded 45 days you lost rookie status regardless of your AB or IP total.

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Remember when we didn't understand why Mountcastle didn't get called up after the apparent super 2 deadline had passed?  Then a few days later he did get called up?

There is no such thing as an apparent Super 2 deadline, especially this year.    

It is my understanding that every day of service time this year counts as 2.8 days, for FA/Arb eligibility purpose.    Looks like Mountcastle was up for 38 days which translates to 106 days of service.    We won’t know the cutoff date until the end of 2022 (by which time there will be a new CBA and Lord knows if Super-2 will still exist or how it will be determined).   

Last winter the super 2 cutoff was 2.115 (Josh Hader), lowest in a decade.    Mountcastle’s 106 sets him up to be lower than that at the end of 2022.   Whether that’ll keep him out of Super-2 is anyone’s guess.   The Brewers probably thought they were safe bringing up Hader in 2017 considering that the cutoff had been above 2.130 each of the previous three years and hadn’t been below 2.122 this decade.    But they were wrong.   And I’d imagine the whole pattern of callups was different this year because of the short season, so it’s really hard to know what to expect.   

[Tony-OH]

4 hours ago, Frobby said:

I can see you are being snarky, but where is your evidence that the O’s manipulated Mountcastle’s playing time to preserve his rookie status? He played every single game after his call-up.    The only game he didn’t start was the first game of a doubleheader, three weeks before the season ended, and even in that game he game in during the middle of the game and got 2 at bats.  He only had 6 games in which he had less than four plate appearances, and in five of those he played the entire game.   Over the last 17 games, he batted 3rd or 4th every game, not something you’d do with a rookie if you were trying to keep his at bats down.   
 

In short, I see no evidence that the O’s tried to manage Mountcastle to the 130 at bat standard.   He stayed under it himself by walking 11 times and having three other plate appearances that didn’t count as an at bat.   

While I’m on the subject, it’s crazy in this day and age that rookie status depends on AB rather than PA.    Two guys come up to the majors, one two days after the other, and they each play every game the rest of the year.    The first guy has 145 PA and walks 16 times.    The other has 137 PA and walks 7 times.    The first guy keeps rookie status and the second guy doesn’t— that makes no sense whatsoever.  

The rule really needs to be updated to plate appearances. It's pretty ridiculous that it's still AB like a walk doesn't count towards being a rookie or not.

Saying that, it will be nice to know Mountcastle will be a rookie next year. If he hits anywhere near what he did this year he will certainly have a great chance to be the Orioles first rookie of the year since Gregg Olson in 1989. 

[Number5]

While I think an argument could be made that it is possible that Super 2 status plays a role in a team's thinking, I really don't think that rookie status matters at all to MLB teams, as far as roster management is concerned.  I don't see any real benefit to the team whether a player keeps his rookie status or not.  I just don't think that teams really care all that much about offseason prospect rankings.  Fans care far more about things like that than teams do, IMO.  Teams do, however, have an incentive to keep a player out of Super 2 status, whether they will admit to it or not.

[DrungoHazewood]

5 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Remember when we didn't understand why Mountcastle didn't get called up after the apparent super 2 deadline had passed?  Then a few days later he did get called up?

Green font, you gotta remember the green font.

[Can_of_corn]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Green font, you gotta remember the green font.

Naw, that's tinfoil land.

 

[Can_of_corn]

He scored a third place vote in the 2020 voting.

[scOtt]

12 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

He scored a third place vote in the 2020 voting.

Third place in what? ROY?

'Cuse me me while I kiss this fly. I hadn't heard that. About Mountcastle.