Renato Nunez cut by Tigers

[bobmc]

58 minutes ago, Philip said:

I can’t understand why Plutko is being given a bullpen spot despite offering less than anyone we currently have.

Per Roch:

Elias said in a Zoom call. “Ultimately, we decided to act on an opportunity to acquire Adam Plutko from the Cleveland Indians. He is an experienced length reliever/starting pitcher who logged over 100 innings two years ago as a four-, 4 1/2-, five-pitch mix if you count his cut fastball and has starter traits and the ability to log innings in a season where we’re going to need a lot of innings from a lot of different pitchers coming off last year’s shortened season, going into what we anticipate is going to be a full season at the major league level.

“Always been an admirer of his. He has a smooth delivery, mixes pitches, good competitor and he’s somebody that we’re going to put into our mix. Whether that starts off as long relief or in the rotation will be TBD. I expect it will be the former. I expect he’ll probably start in the bullpen for us, but we think he can help provide support for this pitching staff and is somebody who has an opportunity to blossom with this opportunity.”

https://www.masnsports.com/school-of-roch/2021/03/elias-discusses-trade-and-roster-after-8-5-loss.html

Makes it spin more "palatable" than Lakins or Sulser.

[Tony-OH]

9 minutes ago, bobmc said:

Per Roch:

Elias said in a Zoom call. “Ultimately, we decided to act on an opportunity to acquire Adam Plutko from the Cleveland Indians. He is an experienced length reliever/starting pitcher who logged over 100 innings two years ago as a four-, 4 1/2-, five-pitch mix if you count his cut fastball and has starter traits and the ability to log innings in a season where we’re going to need a lot of innings from a lot of different pitchers coming off last year’s shortened season, going into what we anticipate is going to be a full season at the major league level.

“Always been an admirer of his. He has a smooth delivery, mixes pitches, good competitor and he’s somebody that we’re going to put into our mix. Whether that starts off as long relief or in the rotation will be TBD. I expect it will be the former. I expect he’ll probably start in the bullpen for us, but we think he can help provide support for this pitching staff and is somebody who has an opportunity to blossom with this opportunity.”

https://www.masnsports.com/school-of-roch/2021/03/elias-discusses-trade-and-roster-after-8-5-loss.html

Makes it spin more "palatable" than Lakins or Sulser.

Well I guess we can go ahead and give Plutko a spot in the pen on the 26-man roster. I think that definitely spells the end of Sulser and Lakins making the team unless Elias gives back the Rule 5 guys. Personally, I would have kept both Rule 5 guys ahead of Plutko.

[Sports Guy]

44 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Well I guess we can go ahead and give Plutko a spot in the pen on the 26-man roster. I think that definitely spells the end of Sulser and Lakins making the team unless Elias gives back the Rule 5 guys. Personally, I would have kept both Rule 5 guys ahead of Plutko.

I would much rather have Plutko than Max S.  I see zero appeal to the guy and he has done nothing this spring to change that.  
 

At least at Plutko can throw strikes and maybe eat some innings.  I don’t really see the appeal in him but I would trust him to do that over Max S.  At this point, Max would be lucky to have the career Plutko has already had.

[Tony-OH]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

I would much rather have Plutko than Max S.  I see zero appeal to the guy and he has done nothing this spring to change that.  
 

At least at Plutko can throw strikes and maybe eat some innings.  I don’t really see the appeal in him but I would trust him to do that over Max S.  At this point, Max would be lucky to have the career Plutko has already had.

Mac, not Max. Either way, Sceroler has better stuff looking at his statcast info, is younger, and has a little upside vs a guy who is a long reliever/swingman. Again, we're looking at the future here and the ability to eat innings. 

Sceroler besides his one awful outings has been pretty good and has shown a 92-95 MPH fastball, decent curveball and change. Do I think he's a future stud, no, but he's an arm that I would be happy to keep around over a long reliever like Plutko.

[SteveA]

2 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Mac, not Max. Either way, Sceroler has better stuff looking at his statcast info, is younger, and has a little upside vs a guy who is a long reliever/swingman. Again, we're looking at the future here and the ability to eat innings. 

Sceroler besides his one awful outings has been pretty good and has shown a 92-95 MPH fastball, decent curveball and change. Do I think he's a future stud, no, but he's an arm that I would be happy to keep around over a long reliever like Plutko.

Tony - 

Both stuff-wise and in terms of future value, how do you think Wells & Sceroler stack up compared to the two Rule 5 guys from last year?

I always found it odd that we cut bait on those two guys as early as we did in spring 2020.

 

[Sports Guy]

6 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Mac, not Max. Either way, Sceroler has better stuff looking at his statcast info, is younger, and has a little upside vs a guy who is a long reliever/swingman. Again, we're looking at the future here and the ability to eat innings. 

Sceroler besides his one awful outings has been pretty good and has shown a 92-95 MPH fastball, decent curveball and change. Do I think he's a future stud, no, but he's an arm that I would be happy to keep around over a long reliever like Plutko.

Better stuff doesn’t matter if you can’t harness it and aren’t good.  Zero indication that this guy is good or even remotely belongs on a big league roster.  It’s not like he is some 21 year old with some long term upside.

He gives us nothing now or in the future that you can’t find on a waiver wire or in the draft.

And yea, not sure why I kept saying Max although maybe I’m just trying to forget about him already.  Lol

[Philip]

2 hours ago, wildcard said:

Depth.  He has to stay in the majors because he is out of options.  Lakins and Sulser have options.

But he offers nothing. Literally every guy we have already is better. There is no justification for designating somebody to make room for this guy, but they already did that. But there’s no reason to have him in the pen.

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, Philip said:

But he offers nothing. Literally every guy we have already is better. There is no justification for designating somebody to make room for this guy, but they already did that. But there’s no reason to have him in the pen.

Not all the guys we have are better but there are also aren’t many guys worse either and when you are at this level, it’s not like we are picking between CY candidates.

[VaBird1]

1 hour ago, RZNJ said:

Are we talking about Plutko who put up 20 starts and a 4.86 ERA in 2019.   We got 13 guys better than him?

I think I would be pleasantly surprised to see three people pitch that well.

[Philip]

1 hour ago, RZNJ said:

Are we talking about Plutko who put up 20 starts and a 4.86 ERA in 2019.   We got 13 guys better than him?

Well, in 2019 you are correct, he was not terrible. He’s got a pretty high BB%, a pretty low K%, a career 5.5 xFIP, and a career .4 WAR.

I can see him as a reclamation project, but there’s no reason to put him in the Pen, and I definitely wouldn’t prefer him even to Lakins.

Stick him at AAA and let him address his issues, fine. But nothing more.

[Sports Guy]

12 minutes ago, Philip said:

Well, in 2019 you are correct, he was not terrible. He’s got a pretty high BB%, a pretty low K%, a career 5.5 xFIP, and a career .4 WAR.

I can see him as a reclamation project, but there’s no reason to put him in the Pen, and I definitely wouldn’t prefer him even to Lakins.

Stick him at AAA and let him address his issues, fine. But nothing more.

Lol...I don’t get this mindset.  
 

He has already shown to be a back end guy.  He is 29.  He is what he is.  You don’t send him down to “address issues”. His issues are the way he pitches.  
 

I don’t think people understand that players are flawed.  This mindset is all over this site and it makes no sense.

[Philip]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

Lol...I don’t get this mindset.  
 

He has already shown to be a back end guy.  He is 29.  He is what he is.  You don’t send him down to “address issues”. His issues are the way he pitches.  
 

I don’t think people understand that players are flawed.  This mindset is all over this site and it makes no sense.

Well of course he’s flawed, otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten him for a bucket of balls.

If he is what he is, and there’s nothing to “work on,” then he offers nothing we don’t already have. That should be plenty obvious. And eating innings is a silly concept, any fool can stand on the mound for 120 innings a season.

Again, if Mike sees some thing in this guys arsenal that can be developed, then I’m all for it. But put him in AAA And not on the big league roster.

[Philip]

43 minutes ago, VaBird1 said:

I think I would be pleasantly surprised to see three people pitch that well.

You will definitely be surprised if he pitches that well. You will pardon my current skepticism.

[SteveA]

51 minutes ago, Philip said:

Well of course he’s flawed, otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten him for a bucket of balls.

If he is what he is, and there’s nothing to “work on,” then he offers nothing we don’t already have. That should be plenty obvious. And eating innings is a silly concept, any fool can stand on the mound for 120 innings a season.

Again, if Mike sees some thing in this guys arsenal that can be developed, then I’m all for it. But put him in AAA And not on the big league roster.

We can't put him in AAA.  The entire reason we got him was because he was out of options which means he can't be sent to the minors.

And no, any fool can't eat innings.  The Orioles have gone through a ton of guys who failed at that basic requirement, like Mike Wright, Dan Straily, etc.

I don't know if Plutko will be any better, but he did pitch a lot of innings in the majors in 2019 and while he wasn't great, he was better than a lot of the guys we were pitching that same season.

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, SteveA said:

Tony - 

Both stuff-wise and in terms of future value, how do you think Wells & Sceroler stack up compared to the two Rule 5 guys from last year?

I always found it odd that we cut bait on those two guys as early as we did in spring 2020.

 

Good question. The Orioles did cut bait pretty quick with Brandon Bailey from the Houston Astros and Michael Rucker from the Chicago Cubs last year. 

Bailey made his major league debut with Houston last year so we have a little statcast info on him. the numbers on his pitches weren't overwhelming and his velocity (92.1 MPH) on his fastball is lower than what we've seen from Sceroler and Wells this spring.

Bailey is now out with Tommy John surgery so perhaps the Orioles felt like he was an injury waiting to happen but more likely it was because his stuff really didn't impress that much. 

Rucker was raw and from what we heard had some arm strength in the mid-90s but not the command needed yet.

Wells is a big 6-foot-8 guy with a fastball that has been sitting 94-96 and has touched 97. He started off throwing the curveball but went more with the slider in his last outing when he tossed three shutout innings wi9th six Ks. He's looks like the kind of arm you want to bring out of the pen so there is some upside. I think he makes the team because he can be stretched out and has some potential upside.

Sceroler has been 92-95 so he's shown more arm strength than Bailey as well. His curve has good hard break and he was able to throw a decent change. He might have a starter's upside still but could probably be ok in long relief this year. I think he's worth giving innings to in the bullpen this year. If it doesn't work or he really struggles, you just give him back and bring up one of your depth guys from AAA.