Adley Rutschman 2021

[ArtVanDelay]

Adley is 2-3 with a HR, double and walk tonight. OPS up to .940.

[MurphDogg]

11 minutes ago, ArtVanDelay said:

Adley is 2-3 with a HR, double and walk tonight. OPS up to .940.

Witt, Jr. is 0-1 with a strikeout and Abrams is 0-2 with two strikeouts tonight. Clearly the Orioles made the right choice.

[Tony-OH]

7 hours ago, baltfan said:

Do you also find it odd that he isn't even accidentally hitting more homers when he does make contact?

I'm not overly concerned yet, but I would like to see the K's come down significantly.

[ArtVanDelay]

4 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

Witt, Jr. is 0-1 with a strikeout and Abrams is 0-2 with two strikeouts tonight. Clearly the Orioles made the right choice.

Adley just stuck out. He’s a bust again. 

[survivedc]

2 hours ago, MurphDogg said:

Oppo. Big boy power.

 

Good Guy Adley picked up his own bat. Or are the Orioles really cutting costs?

[Just Regular]

2 hours ago, MurphDogg said:

Oppo. Big boy power.

 

1st inning, 1st pitch.   Looks like fastball, but was hoping for curveball on first look so it would pretty much exactly be the Crash Davis:

"This guy starts me with a curveball, I'm going downtown"

 

[Can_of_corn]

1 hour ago, OrioleDog said:

1st inning, 1st pitch.   Looks like fastball, but was hoping for curveball on first look so it would pretty much exactly be the Crash Davis:

"This guy starts me with a curveball, I'm going downtown"

 

That was because Crash couldn't handle velocity at that stage in his career.

 

[jabba72]

2 hours ago, ArtVanDelay said:

Adley just stuck out. He’s a bust again. 

It was another down the middle pitch he swung through as well. He does appear to have a great eye for the strike zone, he just is missing some hittable pitches. 

[Frobby]

Adley just missed a two homer game last night.   Here’s his double.  

https://mobile.twitter.com/BSLOnTheVerge/status/1390459101671530497
 

[Tony-OH]

9 hours ago, jabba72 said:

It was another down the middle pitch he swung through as well. He does appear to have a great eye for the strike zone, he just is missing some hittable pitches. 

He did, and it was noticeable once he faced a pitcher who was throwing in the mid 90s, that's when he's been swinging through pitches.  Still a small sample size for me to get too concerned about him hitting velocity, but so far when I've watch his PAs, and I've watched every one this year, he's not making good contact on high velocity fastballs. 

His homer came on a first pitch 88-90 MPH fastball that he hit opposite field. The double was another high lifted shot that ended up down the line oppo. 

I bet his launch angle is very high right now and with his swing path it seems like he going to hit a lot of flyballs or swing over pitches and hit weak ground balls. I don't think he lacks bat speed, but his swing path has a lot of holes in it and unless he can make some adjustments he's going to be a very high strikeout player at the major league level. 

Defensively though, and it's worth mentioning here, he's been outstanding. He receives very well and it appears his framing is good since he's gotten many close calls to go his pitcher's way.  Lots of energy back there and seems to call a good game though I'm not sure if he's calling all pitches or not since he seems to look in a lot to the dugout. Either way, he's everything they said defensively and would be the best defensive catcher we've had here since a young Wieters (though Wieters was never good at game calling).

[LTO's]

1 minute ago, Tony-OH said:

The double was another high lifted shot that ended up down the line oppo. 

The pitcher he hit the double off of was touching high 90s on his fastball according to the broadcast. 

[Frobby]

What I find strange is I never heard any reservations about Rutschman hitting top fastballs prior to the draft.   You’d certainly think that would be near the top of the list of things scouts are looking for.    Of course, there may be a steadier diet of high velocity stuff in the high minors and majors than there is in the Pac-12, so there’s a bigger sample size to examine.  But still, you’d think we would have heard at least a hint of this before draft day, if there had been any issue.    

For now, I’m going to assume that Rutschman is making adjustments and will eventually hit top velocity as well as other good hitters do.   
 

[Frobby]

Some quotes from Adley:

"I started feeling better in the box towards the end of [Wednesday's game]," Rutschman said. "I think just being able to get those first few at-bats under my belt was the key. Baseball is a very tough sport and very process oriented so sometimes it takes a few things to click into place. Being able to relax and stay comfortable in the box is a huge positive."

* * *
"Tonight in that first at-bat, I got a really good pitch to handle and I was able to capitalize and do some damage," Rutschman said. "It was a nice feeling to contribute and get that first one out of the way."

 

https://www.mlb.com/news/orioles-adley-rutschman-breaks-out-with-three-rbis?t=orioles-pipeline-coverage

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

What I find strange is I never heard any reservations about Rutschman hitting top fastballs prior to the draft.   You’d certainly think that would be near the top of the list of things scouts are looking for.    Of course, there may be a steadier diet of high velocity stuff in the high minors and majors than there is in the Pac-12, so there’s a bigger sample size to examine.  But still, you’d think we would have heard at least a hint of this before draft day, if there had been any issue.    

For now, I’m going to assume that Rutschman is making adjustments and will eventually hit top velocity as well as other good hitters do.   
 

He very well may by making adjustments, but I'm just telling you what I'm seeing, not making any proclamations about his future. I see a guy with a lot of miss in his bat in the PAs I've seen him this spring so far between major league spring training and now his three games.

There is little doubt Rutschman comes with the tools to succeed. What will remain in doubt until he has success at the major league level is whether he can handle professional velocity, movement and command. 

There is a lot of miss in today's baseball so I'm trying to not take my historical bias with swing and miss and make too much of it with Rutschman, but I've seen him miss a lot in three games, especially against guys with good velocity. 

The swing path that Rutschman uses is going to generate a lot of fly balls, weak ground balls and Whiff because it does not stay in the hitting zone very often. Both of his extra base hits were oppo yesterday, which is fine, but I'd like to see a guy ambush some good high velocity fastballs and hit some hard line drives. I'd like to see him show the ability to get the barrel to a good inside fastball and pull it.

These are things I haven't seen yet and things I generally look for when watching hitting prospects. I'm not saying he can't do that, I'm saying I haven't seen him do it yet.

One thing to remember here is that I don't look at Orioles prospects from an Orioles fan point of view. I learned a long time ago that you make a player prove to you they are going to be a good/great major league player rather than assume he will or hope he will. Of course as an Orioles fan I hope that Rutschman becomes the impact catcher we all want him to be, but the scouting side of me says, "prove it."

We have a small sample size to go off of right now and he's not getting promoted anytime soon so we'll have a lot more time to make a full evaluation.

When I see him do things that makes me think he'll hit in the big leagues I'll report that as well, but I know people are going to get upset with me when I don't say everything is flowery and perfect with Rutschman. Sure, if it makes people feel good by saying, "No worries, he'll be fine," go right ahead, but that's not how I scout. 

As Shawn Pender (Orioles assistant scouting director under Demacio) once told me, future major leaguers should stand out to you. They should be the best player or one of the best players on the field in college or the minor leagues. 

With that mind, there is no doubt Rutschman's receiving skills stand out already. He's going to be a no doubt plus receiver. 

The bat has potential because we know about the raw power and he does have a pretty good eye at the plate which will help him with more experience, but he'll need to prove he can make good consistent hard contact and be able to cover the whole strike zone, including the inner half, because professional scouting reports will get out and if a hole or weakness is discovered, it will be utilized against him. 

[Tony-OH]

3 hours ago, LTO's said:

The pitcher he hit the double off of was touching high 90s on his fastball according to the broadcast. 

Yeah, heard that and saw that he went with the pitch a bit.