Ryan Mountcastle no longer a prospect

[wildcard]

If you look at the O's top 30 prospects you will not  find Ryan Mountcastle.   He has graduated.  He will maintain his rookie status all season but he will no longer be on the prospect lists.   

The O's still have 4 prospects in the top 100 list with Rutschman, Grayson Rodriguez, Kjerstad and DL Hall.  But Mountcastle omission may decease the O's standing in the team prospect ranking.   Hopefully Gunnar Henderson or someone else will be deeming good enough to replace him.

https://www.mlb.com/prospects/orioles

 

[Frobby]

I’m more worried about Mountcastle breaking out of his slump than I am about whether he appears on a prospect list.   This is not the start of his season I was hoping for.   

The lists are something I look at before and after the season, but what they say on a particular day in late April doesn’t mean a lot to me.   

Like everyone else, I’m chomping at the bit for MiL baseball to start so that we actually have something tangible on which to evaluate our prospects.  

 

[Aristotelian]

The whole idea of prospects is they are supposed to graduate and become big league players. This is a good thing. Couldn't care less how it affects various rankings. Hopefully it is not due to them watching him try to play LF. 

[wildcard]

Elias cares about the rankings.  He wants to maintain a top 5 farm system into the future.

[NCRaven]

5 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Elias cares about the rankings.  He wants to maintain a top 5 farm system into the future.

I think you overstate this.  Elias uses the rankings when speaking with the media to point out the improvement in our system.  I doubt he personally takes them too seriously other than to show they reflect his own opinions of our progress.

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, NCRaven said:

I think you overstate this.  Elias uses the rankings when speaking with the media to point out the improvement in our system.  I doubt he personally takes them too seriously other than to show they reflect his own opinions of our progress.

I definitely think he believes it’s something he can point to and say, look at how good we are building this thing!

I am not one of those who believes that he will hold players back just to have the higher ranking though.

[Tony-OH]

29 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I’m more worried about Mountcastle breaking out of his slump than I am about whether he appears on a prospect list.   This is not the start of his season I was hoping for.   

The lists are something I look at before and after the season, but what they say on a particular day in late April doesn’t mean a lot to me.   

Like everyone else, I’m chomping at the bit for MiL baseball to start so that we actually have something tangible on which to evaluate our prospects.  

 

At -0.8 rWAR he's been one of the worse players in MLB so far. There are slow starts to season then there is totally crapping the bed through the first 18 games.

Obviously this is disappointing to everyone and I'm not going to let an early skid take away from my belief in his bat, but if he doesn't get it going by the start of the AAA season, he may need to be sent down for a bit to figure it out. 

[wildcard]

7 minutes ago, NCRaven said:

I think you overstate this.  Elias uses the rankings when speaking with the media to point out the improvement in our system.  I doubt he personally takes them too seriously other than to show they reflect his own opinions of our progress.

That's double talk.  You think he cares about them to verify what he thinks of his own opinion of his farm system but he doesn't really care about them.????

[wildcard]

3 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

At -0.8 rWAR he's been one of the worse players in MLB so far. There are slow starts to season then there is totally crapping the bed through the first 18 games.

Obviously this is disappointing to everyone and I'm not going to let an early skid take away from my belief in his bat, but if he doesn't get it going by the start of the AAA season, he may need to be sent down for a bit to figure it out. 

I agree if the O's have someone to replace him.

[NCRaven]

Just now, wildcard said:

That's double talk.  You think he cares about them to verify what he thinks of his own opinion of his farm system but he doesn't really care about them.????

That's not what I said.  I think he uses the rankings when he talks to the media about how much our system has improved.  He only uses them to point out the advances that we've made.  But, I don't think he personally cares whether they are ranked #3 or #7.  It's just a form of public verification of our general progress.  Any way, I didn't say that he doesn't care, just that I think you overstate the importance that he places on them.

[wildcard]

7 minutes ago, NCRaven said:

That's not what I said.  I think he uses the rankings when he talks to the media about how much our system has improved.  He only uses them to point out the advances that we've made.  But, I don't think he personally cares whether they are ranked #3 or #7.  It's just a form of public verification of our general progress.  Any way, I didn't say that he doesn't care, just that I think you overstate the importance that he places on them.

You could be right but I don't agree.  I think he Elias cares about the ranks because  1) it shows every other GM how well he is doing in acquiring and developing talent and 2) If other GMs see the rankings are high they will value his players higher in trade.

[Frobby]

10 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

At -0.8 rWAR he's been one of the worse players in MLB so far. There are slow starts to season then there is totally crapping the bed through the first 18 games.

Obviously this is disappointing to everyone and I'm not going to let an early skid take away from my belief in his bat, but if he doesn't get it going by the start of the AAA season, he may need to be sent down for a bit to figure it out. 

Hard to disagree with this.   One little ray of hope is that in his last 9 games he’s only struck out 6 times in 27 PA and yet has only a .182 BABIP.   I haven’t seen all his at bats, but I’ve seen several times where he stung the ball and had nothing to show for it.   So to me, he’s looked a little better at the plate lately even though the results aren’t there.    

[Just Regular]

Are we still #5??

I noticed Mountcastle was about 80th percentile (~60th out of ~300) at xwOBA better than actual wOBA yesterday.   I would be very sorry if AAA happened - he's on the last set of pitchers he needs to learn from.

COVID's taken away the opportunity for us to get everyone who would benefit from it 500-1000 MLB PA before OD 2022, but we don't need to shoot ourselves in the foot atop that.

[Frobby]

5 minutes ago, wildcard said:

You could be right but I don't agree.  I think he Elias cares about the ranks because  1) it shows every other GM how well he is doing in acquiring and developing talent and 2) If other GMs see the rankings are high they will value his players higher in trade.

I seriously doubt other GM’s look at organizational rankings when evaluating a player in a trade.    And, we haven’t been trading our prospects, we’ve been acquiring other teams’ prospects in exchange for veteran talent.  That may turn around at some point, but not this year.  

[wildcard]

8 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I seriously doubt other GM’s look at organizational rankings when evaluating a player in a trade.    And, we haven’t been trading our prospects, we’ve been acquiring other teams’ prospects in exchange for veteran talent.  That may turn around at some point, but not this year.  

By July the O's will probably have 6 outfielders major league ready plus Mountcastle who  can play there in a pinch.  And they need better infielders.   There could be a trade coming depending out how things play out.