We will draft pitchers in every round next year in 2022

[DocJJ]

Maybe that's the strategy?

I hope we take Elijah Greene or Jace Jung in round 1, then nothing but pitchers the entire rest of the draft!   ONE of them would have to become something useful....  no?

[UMDTerrapins]

We went into this draft a little thin in the outfield and with 1B. No 1B selected yet, but yes, our next area of need will be pitching. But clearly we’re not going to draft just pitchers next year. I take it that with pitching not being a focus that Elias is pretty comfortable with the young pitchers we currently have between AA and Baltimore. 

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, UMDTerrapins said:

We went into this draft a little thin in the outfield and with 1B. No 1B selected yet, but yes, our next area of need will be pitching. But clearly we’re not going to draft just pitchers next year. I take it that with pitching not being a focus that Elias is pretty comfortable with the young pitchers we currently have between AA and Baltimore. 

There’s going to be a big gap between that AA class and the next group.   Personally I think we’ve gone significantly too far hitter-heavy over the last three drafts.   Doing it in 2019 may have been logical, but I don’t think a team can do that three years in a row without experiencing some consequences.    

[DocJJ]

Look like quality starters:

DL Hall

Greyson Rodriguez

 

Might be decent:

Kevin Smith

Michael Baumann

 

Worth Watching:

Kyle Bradish

Kyle Brnovich

Blaine Knight

 

This hardly seems like enough!!!!!

 

 

[MurphDogg]

4 minutes ago, DocJJ said:

Look like quality starters:

DL Hall

Greyson Rodriguez

 

Might be decent:

Kevin Smith

Michael Baumann

 

Worth Watching:

Kyle Bradish

Kyle Brnovich

Blaine Knight

 

This hardly seems like enough!!!!!

Drew Rom (6-0, 2.85 ERA, 1.118 WHIP, 9.9 K/9, 2.0 BB/9 over 11 starts at A+ as a 21-year-old) certainly belongs on that list as well.

Depending on how generous you are being, Garrett Stallings and Ignacio Feliz could be too.

[Frobby]

9 minutes ago, DocJJ said:

Look like quality starters:

DL Hall

Greyson Rodriguez

 

Might be decent:

Kevin Smith

Michael Baumann

 

Worth Watching:

Kyle Bradish

Kyle Brnovich

Blaine Knight

 

This hardly seems like enough!!!!!

 

 

Still hoping for something from Akin/Kremer/Lowther/Wells.    But I agree this is not enough.   Of the pitchers at Aberdeen and Delmarva, the only one who is solidly on the radar screen is Drew Rom.   

[Moose Milligan]

Yes, I'm a big proponent of this strategy.  Pitchers in rounds 2-50.  At least 2 or 3 of them will have to be good.  

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

Drew Rom (6-0, 2.85 ERA, 1.118 WHIP, 9.9 K/9, 2.0 BB/9 over 11 starts at A+ as a 21-year-old) certainly belongs on that list as well.

Depending on how generous you are being, Garrett Stallings and Ignacio Feliz could be too.

Beat me to it on Rom.   Feliz is interesting but I need to see more from him.   And of course, we have Carter Baumler on the shelf who may prove worthy of the overshot money once his TJ recovery is over, but that’s unproven.  

I’m not feeling that generous towards Stallings or anyone else.   
 

[UMDTerrapins]

2 hours ago, DocJJ said:

Look like quality starters:

DL Hall

Greyson Rodriguez

 

Might be decent:

Kevin Smith

Michael Baumann

 

Worth Watching:

Kyle Bradish

Kyle Brnovich

Blaine Knight

 

This hardly seems like enough!!!!!

 

 

I’m not defending not taking more pitchers in the past two drafts. I’m just saying that it you’d have to surmise that Elias must be comfortable with the depth in Means, Rodriguez, Hall, Bradish, T. Wells, Baumann, Smith, Kremer, Akin, Lowther, A. Wells, Zimmerman, Knight, Rom, Brnovich, Peralta, etc, or else he would have drafted more starters. It’s not a paltry list, and position players aren’t as big an injury risk. I’m not particularly bent out shape about the lack of quality starters in our lower levels (Baumler and others aside), but we are clearly due to make it an emphasis in the 2022 draft and international market. 

[LookinUp]

There's a young international guy or two that has some hype, IIRC.

But as Tony pointed out elsewhere, we actually did draft a fair number of pitchers in rounds 11-20 in 2019 and it looks like that strategy is playing out again today. So it's not like we don't have the bodies. The question is whether Elias' targeting strategy will work out.

[UMDTerrapins]

21 minutes ago, UMDTerrapins said:

I’m not defending not taking more pitchers in the past two drafts. I’m just saying that it you’d have to surmise that Elias must be comfortable with the depth in Means, Rodriguez, Hall, Bradish, T. Wells, Baumann, Smith, Kremer, Akin, Lowther, A. Wells, Zimmerman, Knight, Rom, Brnovich, Peralta, etc, or else he would have drafted more starters. It’s not a paltry list, and position players aren’t as big an injury risk. I’m not particularly bent out shape about the lack of quality starters in our lower levels (Baumler and others aside), but we are clearly due to make it an emphasis in the 2022 draft and international market. 

One last note. A lot of us seem to have written off the first wave (Kremer, Zimmerman, Akin, Lowther, A. Wells). The most innings any of them have thrown is 71 (Akin). Clearly none of them profile as TOR guys, but we're going to need a lot more time to determine which of them might be assets in the back end of the rotation. It's just as much a sin to undervalue our prospects as it is to overvalue them. We gave Arrieta around 350 innings before we gave up shipped him off. We never even got a look at Zach Davies. We can't give away guys who can help us in the future (Pop) during a rebuild. This is why starting Matt Harvey at this point during our rebuild drives me absolutely mad. Some of these particular guys could really possibly help us in the future. We need a lot more patience with guys who don't throw 97+ mph. 

[Sydnor]

6 minutes ago, UMDTerrapins said:

One last note. A lot of us seem to have written off the first wave (Kremer, Zimmerman, Akin, Lowther, A. Wells). The most innings any of them have thrown is 71 (Akin). Clearly none of them profile as TOR guys, but we're going to need a lot more time to determine which of them might be assets in the back end of the rotation. It's just as much a sin to undervalue our prospects as it is to overvalue them. We gave Arrieta around 350 innings before we gave up shipped him off. We never even got a look at Zach Davies. We can't give away guys who can help us in the future (Pop) during a rebuild. This is why starting Matt Harvey at this point during our rebuild drives me absolutely mad. Some of these particular guys could really possibly help us in the future. We need a lot more patience with guys who don't throw 97+ mph. 

My issue with the first wave is that they’re all fairly old. Wells is the youngest at 24, Kremer and Lowther are 25, and Zimmermann and Akin are 26. None have the pedigree or tools that Arrieta had. John Means developing at 26 is great and he put in a lot of work to make it happen by going to development coaches, increasing velo, etc. I’m not counting on any of those guys being a piece in the rotation in the future, and would be pleasantly surprised if one of them made a leap. That’s why I would have liked to see the O’s draft some pitching with real upside.

[UMDTerrapins]

15 minutes ago, Sydnor said:

My issue with the first wave is that they’re all fairly old. Wells is the youngest at 24, Kremer and Lowther are 25, and Zimmermann and Akin are 26. None have the pedigree or tools that Arrieta had. John Means developing at 26 is great and he put in a lot of work to make it happen by going to development coaches, increasing velo, etc. I’m not counting on any of those guys being a piece in the rotation in the future, and would be pleasantly surprised if one of them made a leap. That’s why I would have liked to see the O’s draft some pitching with real upside.

None of them have the pedigree/stuff that Arrieta had....clearly. And it still took him a long time to develop at the ML level. That's my point....we need to roll those guys out there and take our lumps for a while to find with some level of certainty what we have. It's easy to predict that each one individually won't make it....the odds are against them. But I feel good that among those five, one or two of them will be able to fill the #4 or #5 slots in our rotation. It's a safe bet that some of the highly regarded guys that look really promising today won't be able to become quality starters in the majors, or injuries will derail them. But I'm looking at at least 15 viable candidates for our rotation in a couple of years. You never have enough pitching, but we're certainly not deficient in my opinion. I'm happy we've emphasized position players the past few drafts. As long as we emphasize pitching next draft, I don't see a massive problem.....we've got a lot of home grown options under our control for a good number of years. 

[Just Regular]

I will be curious to see in the next 1-2 years what if any kind of Sutcliffe guy (I refuse to consider Matt Harvey in this context as his ability is obviously all used up) gets cajoled to town for this era's Mussina/McDonald, or if they simply lean on Means for that.

For sure opting for Cowser not Rocker, 10 straight Bats etc...as you look for the first good Adley teams to get fleshed out, it tilts more of whatever $$$ there ends up being towards the pitching staff.

If we're lucky enough in 24 months to pull off some excellent pitcher rental, pretty likely someone from yesterday and someone currently in the org Top 20 are the Diaz/Kremer type people.

[Moose Milligan]