Konner Wade optioned after last night's game

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

12 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Ellis vs Othani is almost not fair.

We may have to spot the Angels a few runs tonight to make it even.

"Hyde, bubby. I'm your white knight" (Hat tip to Moose who first posted the Die Hard pic)

[SteveA]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

It’s like the Verlander game a few years ago.  The Os were one of them biggest underdogs in years in that game and won.

Surprisingly, the betting line is nowhere near as high.   I guess part of it is because the Angels are just a .500 team.

But the Astros were something like a -375 favorite in that Verlander game (you would have to bet $375 to win $100, or $75 to win $20, etc).    That is a # you  might go a whole season without seeing in any game in the majors.  (I think that a Diamondbacks @ Dodgers game or two this year might have reached that #).

I'm seeing the Angels as around -250.  That's a big line but you see that a few times a week around the majors.   Not nearly as steep as the Astro line was.   At -250, you only have to win >72% of the time to come out ahead.   Does anyone really think the O's have a 28% chance to win tonight?

[Moose Milligan]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

Kremer just pitched in relief yesterday for Norfolk, so I doubt it's him.

Whew.

36 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Seems that Ellis will be making his first major league start.

[Legend_Of_Joey]

1 hour ago, yark14 said:

I bet Ohtani goes deep 3 times tonight, and has 10+ K's.

Geez man, how many at bats do you think he will have!?

[Yardball85]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

Kremer just pitched in relief yesterday for Norfolk, so I doubt it's him.

and he got rocked.

The Kremer situation this year is extremely concerning, not just for him, but from a standpoint of players falling off a cliff with this team (see also Zac Lowther) 

[glenn__davis]

1 hour ago, Yardball85 said:

and he got rocked.

The Kremer situation this year is extremely concerning, not just for him, but from a standpoint of players falling off a cliff with this team (see also Zac Lowther) 

Lowther has struggled with injury so I think you can just look at it as a lost season for him.

Tony brought up a good point about Kremer in another thread, that that great curveball he has hasn't looked as good when using the AAA/MLB ball.  

[rm5678]

Conner Greene has been recalled. So we swapped a Konner for a Conner.

[HowAboutThat]

I suppose I shouldn’t be, but I’m glad Watkins is still around, it seems he’s going to get one more start at least. However, even though I’m happy about that, it begs the question of why Elias keeps a guy when he’s shown his limits?

Anyone can suddenly burst into success, but it’s unlikely enough that there’s little risk in sending a guy on his way. Why are we waiting so long? Stewart is one guy who could go today without a blink, yet he’s still here

[SteveA]

24 minutes ago, Philip said:

I suppose I shouldn’t be, but I’m glad Watkins is still around, it seems he’s going to get one more start at least. However, even though I’m happy about that, it begs the question of why Elias keeps a guy when he’s shown his limits?

Anyone can suddenly burst into success, but it’s unlikely enough that there’s little risk in sending a guy on his way. Why are we waiting so long? Stewart is one guy who could go today without a blink, yet he’s still here

For once in your life why don't you name a realistic replacement instead of just saying get rid of whoever.   Moves aren't made to get rid of guys, they are made to bring someone up who will be an improvement.    All you ever do is say this guy should go, that guy should go.   That's no way to run a team.

Given that:

   -- he is not going to promote anyone who is not on the 40 man roster unless they are someone he doesn't care about DFA'ing at a moment's notice

   -- he is clearly slow playing our prospects, we don't have to like it but expecting it to change is like throwing a temper tantrum because you want the sky to be purple

Who do you want to come up for Watkins, or Stewart?   A few days ago the decision was made to keep Stewart over McKenna, I know you and a lot of others don't agree with it but McKenna hasn't been down for 10 days so he isn't the answer.   Who do you want to bring up that is better than them, and on the 40 man roster?

DJ Stewart ahs a career OPS+ of 97.   Do you honestly believe there is some secret gem hidden in Norfolk who will be better?   If Diaz wasn't trying to make a little something of a season almost completely lost, of course he would be up now.   But that's not how it worked out.

We've brought up over a dozen guys from Norfolk and most of them have failed, but you think there is someone hiding down there who is going to do better?   

 

 

[Three Run Homer]

Guys like Konner Wade make me question the concept of "Replacement Level Pitcher".  In theory, a replacement-level player is someone who is readily available on the waiver wire or on anyone's AAA roster, who you can grab and plug in on a moment's notice.  So while an individual player who comes up from AAA may be above or below replacement level, there should not be a tendency for a team's callups to consistently be below replacement level. 

Yet it seems like almost everyone the Orioles have called up from AAA to soak up some innings this year has been terrible, well below the supposed "replacement level".   Does this mean that a truly replacement-level pitcher is a lot worse than BB-Ref and other measurements think?  (Put differently, does it mean that someone who is defined as a replacement-level pitcher per conventional measurements actually a lot less "readily available" than commonly thought?) 

Or does it mean that the Orioles have done a particularly poor job in choosing from among readily available talent?  Or that the Orioles are deliberately calling up guys who they know are below replacement level because they are trying to lose games?   

[Three Run Homer]

3 minutes ago, Three Run Homer said:

Guys like Konner Wade make me question the concept of "Replacement Level Pitcher".  In theory, a replacement-level player is someone who is readily available on the waiver wire or on anyone's AAA roster, who you can grab and plug in on a moment's notice.  So while an individual player who comes up from AAA may be above or below replacement level, there should not be a tendency for a team's callups to consistently be below replacement level. 

Yet it seems like almost everyone the Orioles have called up from AAA to soak up some innings this year has been terrible, well below the supposed "replacement level".   Does this mean that a truly replacement-level pitcher is a lot worse than BB-Ref and other measurements think?  (Put differently, does it mean that someone who is defined as a replacement-level pitcher per conventional measurements actually a lot less "readily available" than commonly thought?) 

Or does it mean that the Orioles have done a particularly poor job in choosing from among readily available talent?  Or that the Orioles are deliberately calling up guys who they know are below replacement level because they are trying to lose games?   

A related but separate question:  are the O's callup pitchers performing substantially worse than reasonable in-season projections based on their minor league numbers?  Or are they pretty much doing exactly what a rational forecast would predict they would do?  

[SteveA]

1 hour ago, Three Run Homer said:

Guys like Konner Wade make me question the concept of "Replacement Level Pitcher".  In theory, a replacement-level player is someone who is readily available on the waiver wire or on anyone's AAA roster, who you can grab and plug in on a moment's notice.  So while an individual player who comes up from AAA may be above or below replacement level, there should not be a tendency for a team's callups to consistently be below replacement level. 

Yet it seems like almost everyone the Orioles have called up from AAA to soak up some innings this year has been terrible, well below the supposed "replacement level".   Does this mean that a truly replacement-level pitcher is a lot worse than BB-Ref and other measurements think?  (Put differently, does it mean that someone who is defined as a replacement-level pitcher per conventional measurements actually a lot less "readily available" than commonly thought?) 

Or does it mean that the Orioles have done a particularly poor job in choosing from among readily available talent?  Or that the Orioles are deliberately calling up guys who they know are below replacement level because they are trying to lose games?   

I don't think they are deliberately calling these guys up because they are trying to lose games.

But I DO think they are deliberately calling them up because they don't care if they lose them.   They can add a Wade or a Green or a Jannis to the 40 man roster, get them to pitch some innings,  then when it's time to move on from him and bring up another guy, they can DFA him to make room for the the next one.

And if they DFA him and he is claimed -- they don't care because he wasn't that great to begin with.   This happened with Evan Phillips, Connor Greene, etc.   And if they aren't claimed, they can re-assign them to Norfolk.   This happened with Jannis, Eshelman, and several others.

So I think they decided to try to get through 162x9 innings this year by collecting a bunch of non-prospects in Norfolk and cycling through them.   They didn't WANT anyone who was good enough that once they added him to the 40 man roster they wouldn't want to risk losing him by DFAing him.  They wanted the roster flexibility to use more than a dozen guys to eat some innings.   It was a deliberate strategy to collect guys like Watkins, Wade, Greene, Eshelman, Jannis, Abad, Diplan,  Waddell, Armstrong, Anderson, Ellis and so on and so on and so on.

By the way, Tampa has been doing something similar, bringing up guys and using them a bit and then DFAing them.  They have been through some former Orioles such as David Hess and Evan Phillips, as well as Ellis.

[HowAboutThat]

2 hours ago, SteveA said:

For once in your life why don't you name a realistic replacement instead of just saying get rid of whoever.   Moves aren't made to get rid of guys, they are made to bring someone up who will be an improvement.    All you ever do is say this guy should go, that guy should go.   That's no way to run a team.

Given that:

   -- he is not going to promote anyone who is not on the 40 man roster unless they are someone he doesn't care about DFA'ing at a moment's notice

   -- he is clearly slow playing our prospects, we don't have to like it but expecting it to change is like throwing a temper tantrum because you want the sky to be purple

Who do you want to come up for Watkins, or Stewart?   A few days ago the decision was made to keep Stewart over McKenna, I know you and a lot of others don't agree with it but McKenna hasn't been down for 10 days so he isn't the answer.   Who do you want to bring up that is better than them, and on the 40 man roster?

DJ Stewart ahs a career OPS+ of 97.   Do you honestly believe there is some secret gem hidden in Norfolk who will be better?   If Diaz wasn't trying to make a little something of a season almost completely lost, of course he would be up now.   But that's not how it worked out.

We've brought up over a dozen guys from Norfolk and most of them have failed, but you think there is someone hiding down there who is going to do better?   

 

 

We’ve had this conversation every single time I mention this. You say the same thing, I offer the same entirely valid response. Aren’t you tired of it by now?

with this team, no one can be worse, and even a lateral “terrible out terrible in” move increases our knowledge of the new guy, whoever that is. 
so next time I mention that DJ Stewart or Plutko, or Valiaka or Sisco, or Franco, or whomever, is terrible and that a random body from the farm couldn’t do worse, just come back here and reread this. Except for Stewart, all those guys are gone, and should have been gone long ago, and their replacements, whether future pieces or not, aren’t worse than the guy they’ve replaced.

[Yardball85]

18 hours ago, glenn__davis said:

Lowther has struggled with injury so I think you can just look at it as a lost season for him.

Tony brought up a good point about Kremer in another thread, that that great curveball he has hasn't looked as good when using the AAA/MLB ball.  

Good points on both Lowther and Kremer.  I really hope Kremer can turn it around. 

[Yardball85]

13 hours ago, Philip said:

We’ve had this conversation every single time I mention this. You say the same thing, I offer the same entirely valid response. Aren’t you tired of it by now?

with this team, no one can be worse, and even a lateral “terrible out terrible in” move increases our knowledge of the new guy, whoever that is. 
so next time I mention that DJ Stewart or Plutko, or Valiaka or Sisco, or Franco, or whomever, is terrible and that a random body from the farm couldn’t do worse, just come back here and reread this. Except for Stewart, all those guys are gone, and should have been gone long ago, and their replacements, whether future pieces or not, aren’t worse than the guy they’ve replaced.

In the case of Stewart, though, I disagree that a random guy from the farm could do as well as him.