Who will be auditioning for the O's closer this spring?

[Philip]

13 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Hyde weighs in:

Hyde has bigger concerns than designating a closer, but the subject always comes up in spring training. No one has emerged as the favorite. It could be one guy or several.

“I think, ideally, you’d like to have roles defined,” Hyde said.

“I think that we have guys who are able to pitch in the ninth inning. I’m looking for guys to be able to pitch the ninth inning and we’ll go from there. But when you have an Aroldis Chapman or a Mariano Rivera, those types of guys, yeah, you want them to pitch the ninth inning. That’s their role. We’re just not there yet, so right now the ninth inning is wide open and we’ll do the best we can and we’ll see what we have. We’ll see who can handle that situation and who we feel like is the best matchup, whoever we’re going to face in the ninth.

“In an ideal world you have a lights-out closer that when you give him the ball to in the ninth inning, you’ve got a high percentage chance of winning the game.”

https://www.masnsports.com/school-of-roch/2021/02/hyde-on-mancini-harvey-hernandez-jones-the-infield-and-more.html

If we had a Rivera or a peak Chapman, I would not argue my Point.

Ummmmmm but we don’t. 

 

[Frobby]

2 minutes ago, Philip said:

Well, don’t forget that both Britton and Johnson had historic seasons. They were outside the norm enough to be among the best in history, and I think Britton’s was the best in history.

Depends what measuring stick you want to use.   

My bottom line is that it’s not always obvious whether a guy is going to make a great closer.    Johnson’s great season was his first as closer.    Britton’s first season as closer came in his first year as a reliever, and only after Tommy Hunter faltered.   I do not think the current staff has an obvious closer, but maybe someone will step up and make It seem obvious ex post facto.   
 

[DrungoHazewood]

19 minutes ago, Philip said:

i understand where you’re coming from, but I stand by the contention that a “dedicated closer” is unnecessarily limiting and, especially with our bullpen, a disaster waiting to happen.

When your bullpen is eight or nine guys who you're not sure if they're going to have a 3.75 or a 5.75... just pull some names out of the hat each night.

And reminds me of the other underlying assumption here.  It's that you clearly have a heirarchy of relievers, a shutdown guy, a second-best guy, maybe a couple of specialists, etc.  Is it most important to get teh shutdown guy the 9th, or spot him in other situations?  Well.. for the Orioles they have 18 reliever candidates and who the heck knows how we'll rank them tomorrow, in June or in September.  You can't yell too much about needing to use Tanner Scott in the clutch situation in the 6th if you're not entirely sure he's really any good.

[LookinUp]

I don't think this team has an obvious light's out closer candidate, like say, George Sherrill. 

Hopefully one of these no names turns himself into a Flat Breezy type of fella.

[Philip]

20 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

When your bullpen is eight or nine guys who you're not sure if they're going to have a 3.75 or a 5.75... just pull some names out of the hat each night.

And reminds me of the other underlying assumption here.  It's that you clearly have a heirarchy of relievers, a shutdown guy, a second-best guy, maybe a couple of specialists, etc.  Is it most important to get teh shutdown guy the 9th, or spot him in other situations?  Well.. for the Orioles they have 18 reliever candidates and who the heck knows how we'll rank them tomorrow, in June or in September.  You can't yell too much about needing to use Tanner Scott in the clutch situation in the 6th if you're not entirely sure he's really any good.

I have no idea who our best reliever is at the moment, I think they’re all at varying places between mediocre and competent. Even though he’s improved,, Scott still terrifies me because you never know which version you’re going to get until after he comes out of the game. I know we have a depth chart, from one to whatever, but our number one is not that great, and the difference between our one and hour whatever probably isn’t that great either.