The Mountcastle Eye

[Just Regular]

I knew he had been running good and making baby steps, but was surprised to see the split that after tonight, since his season opening 81/8 K/BB, he's been 39/21.

He won't have the June counting stats for as strong of a Rookie of the Month bid, but the rates are better.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

Thread title sounds like the name of a mystery novel. 

[Il BuonO]

I commented on it in the GT. Looks much more comfortable and doesn’t chase as much. The pitch he took for ball four on the walk was one he swung at earlier in the season. 

[Pickles]

I've been very pleasantly surprised at his discipline over the course of the season.  You can actually seem him growing and it is being reflected in the stats and performance.

He has a better walk rate now than he did at any point in his MiL career- which was very productive.  That's obviously an encouraging trend.

I have been skeptical of Mountcastle really being able to develop into that 900 ops hitter, specifically because of his plate discipline issues.  But I really have found his season so far to raise my expectations of what he might be come.

[waroriole]

Maybe he’s just a slow starter, like Greg “The Hammer” Valentine. Once the season heats up, he doesn’t get tired, he gets stronger. 
 

Side Note: old 80s/90s wrestling is on Peacock.

[Frobby]

He still ranks 4th among qualifiers in highest O-swing%, at 42.7%.   Not exactly the model of discipline.   I can’t break that down to see if he’s done better recently though.   

[Aristotelian]

Have not watched games lately but he has been steadily productive. Seems to always be in the top 1Bs for Daily Fantasy. 121 OPS+. Overall walk rate 5%, 6 BBs in August not much different than usual. .364 for the month, best month of the year. I wonder if the rest during his concussion protocol helped him. Also wonder what his WAR would be now if he hadn't been messing around in LF early in the year.

 

[joelala]

I wonder if he’d win ROY if he were in a playoff team. He’s a bit streaky sure, but he’s the best hitter on our team as a rookie, and that’s pretty cool. Definitely looks like we’ve found our 1B for the next five or six years. 

[Just Regular]

2 minutes ago, joelala said:

I wonder if he’d win ROY if he were in a playoff team. He’s a bit streaky sure, but he’s the best hitter on our team as a rookie, and that’s pretty cool. Definitely looks like we’ve found our 1B for the next five or six years. 

The savvier electorate nowadays probably crushes his chances, but there are still five weeks to play, and his counting numbers could grow very attractive.   .280/30/100 is in range.

HR's are more plentiful today, so I get it, but it was still weird seeing the Orioles Rookie HR record graphic recently, and he's about to write Ripken/Murray off the top of the list.

I somewhat feel ROY the playoff thing isn't as much of a tiebreaker as MVP.

Today FG has the horse race as:

Batters - Adolis 3.0, Arozarena 2.2, R. Urias 1.6, Wander 1.6, Mountcastle 1.5

Pitchers - L. Garcia 2.8, Irvin 2.5, McClanahan 2.0, Dunning 1.9, Clase 1.7, Gilbert 1.5

I looked back at the voting to remind myself the process (no longer Top 10), and saw he got one third-place vote last year.

[Moose Milligan]

He won't win rookie of the year since he lags in the WAR race.  

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Aristotelian said:

Have not watched games lately but he has been steadily productive. Seems to always be in the top 1Bs for Daily Fantasy. 121 OPS+. Overall walk rate 5%, 6 BBs in August not much different than usual. .364 for the month, best month of the year. I wonder if the rest during his concussion protocol helped him. Also wonder what his WAR would be now if he hadn't been messing around in LF early in the year.

 

He’d be roughly 0.5 rWAR better, so 1.5 instead of 1.0 right now.    

As to your question about whether getting some rest due to the concussion protocol helped him, I don’t know, but he did hit .483/.484/.897 in the 8 games before he got concussed, so I’d guess the rest didn’t really help. 
 

[Yardball85]

10 hours ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

Thread title sounds like the name of a mystery novel. 

LOL.  I love this because it's so true.

Really excited about Mountcastle.  Amazing that he is over .800 after the horrible start. 

[vab]

Man, it's almost like he has gained experience and gotten better. You would think that's impossible if you listen to many on this board (and fans in general to be fair). This really needs to be kept in mind as this rebuild continues - all these young guys are going to struggle some (even the vaunted Rutchsman and Gonzalez), got to stay with them. 

[Frobby]

41 minutes ago, vab said:

Man, it's almost like he has gained experience and gotten better. You would think that's impossible if you listen to many on this board (and fans in general to be fair). This really needs to be kept in mind as this rebuild continues - all these young guys are going to struggle some (even the vaunted Rutchsman and Gonzalez), got to stay with them. 

You mean Rodriguez, not Gonzalez.   

For me a big question is whether some of our pitchers who struggled hugely this year will be able to bounce back and eventually become productive.   That makes a huge difference in the future of this team.   
 

[Aristotelian]

Just noting Mountcastle drew two walks last night, one with the bases loaded in the second to drive in the tying run, then in the 7th leading off as the tying run, coming around to score on Mancini's double. Small sample size of course but those were both relatively big situations and I imagine both would have been tempting situations to swing for the fences.