08/02 Roster Moves: Richie Martin activated from 60 day IL; Leyba optioned to Norfolk; Ryan Hartman placed on the Injured List

[jabba72]

1 hour ago, Philip said:

Statistically he was bad I agree, but he just didn’t look that bad to the eyes, and the guys he would potentially replace do.

edit: And in my previous comment I was of course referring to Franco.

Martin had probably among the lowest exit velocities as a hitter in 2019. So im not expecting a huge improvement from him after he's missed so much time with injuries, but I thought his glove was solid at SS, which would be an improvement over Urias.

Elias must has some trackman data on Martin's swing to call him up with no AAA time. 

[interloper]

Love this move. People forget he was starting to figure it out the last month or so before getting hurt. Think he'll probably be the infield version of McKenna, but I like the speed at least.

[spiritof66]

8 hours ago, interloper said:

Love this move. People forget he was starting to figure it out the last month or so before getting hurt. Think he'll probably be the infield version of McKenna, but I like the speed at least.

After OPSing .461 (39 ABs) in August 2019, Martin OPSed 1.055 (29 ABs) in September. Obviously a lot of that was a random peak in a small sample size, but there was a lot of talk about him changing his approach, learning to be more selective. And the September run lifted his post All-Star break OPS to .713 (102 ABs), following his .507 (181 ABs) before the break. It certainly seemed like he might be a useful part of the Orioles' future, whether at SS, at 2B or as an IF utility guy and late-inning replacement/baserunner, and the plan was (I thought it was, anyway) to get most if not all of the answer to that question by seeing him as a full-time player in 2020.  

The question is still out there as to whether he can be useful in one of those rules. The problem is that if he doesn't do well, it will be hard to know how much of that is attributable to his long inactivity. But given the current hole in the middle infield and lineup, I think Elias is proposing that he be given time at 2B or SS and just see what happens. I agree with that since we have a pretty good idea of what Valaika can do, and I don't know there was even a serous question about Leyba.

[wildcard]

I would like to have seen what he would have done at AAA first.

[Tony-OH]

9 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

After OPSing .461 (39 ABs) in August 2019, Martin OPSed 1.055 (29 ABs) in September. Obviously a lot of that was a random peak in a small sample size, but there was a lot of talk about him changing his approach, learning to be more selective. And the September run lifted his post All-Star break OPS to .713 (102 ABs), following his .507 (181 ABs) before the break. It certainly seemed like he might be a useful part of the Orioles' future, whether at SS, at 2B or as an IF utility guy and late-inning replacement/baserunner, and the plan was (I thought it was, anyway) to get most if not all of the answer to that question by seeing him as a full-time player in 2020.  

The question is still out there as to whether he can be useful in one of those rules. The problem is that if he doesn't do well, it will be hard to know how much of that is attributable to his long inactivity. But given the current hole in the middle infield and lineup, I think Elias is proposing that he be given time at 2B or SS and just see what happens. I agree with that since we have a pretty good idea of what Valaika can do, and I don't know there was even a serous question about Leyba.

I did the game log analysis back then and showed Hyde almost completely exclusively played him against left-handed pitching in September.