Connor Greene endures and attempts to breaking out

[wildcard]

Amidst the carnage of the recent few days if you look hard you may find Connor Greene (26) continuing his 11 game surge to try to right his season.  Since August 7th  Greene has pitched in 13.1 innings and allowed 3 runs for an ERA of  2.03 while striking out 14.

During this time he has been DFA'd by the O's, claimed by the Dodgers, pitched 2 scoreless innings for the Dodgers,  optioned to Oklahoma City, DFA'd by the Dodgers, claimed by the O's, optioned to Norfolk and recalled by the O's.

If he continues at this pace over next three weeks Elias will probably keep him on the 40 man roster over the winter and he will enter ST with a leg up on making the opening day bullpen.  Here is hoping he can do just that.

[Tony-OH]

I liked what I saw in spring training and at times this year at the big league level. The arm is there but someone needs to get through to him that trying to command 4 and 5 pitches is not as easy as completely commanding two plus pitches. He really needs slim down his repertoire, but he's got a nice arm.

[Aristotelian]

Agreed, even when he gave up that dagger homer to Nelson Cruz I was impressed with his arm and stuff. His minor league numbers aren't super impressive (7 K/9 vs 7 BB/9 in AAA) but can be hard to tell with PCL and he didn't pitch in 2020. I am still skeptical but certainly curious. 

[SteveA]

My first reaction is that you are way overreacting to 13 decent innings spread over 6 weeks.

But I will say that he throws hard, seems to have good stuff.   There are a ton of guys on the 40 that I would jettison before him.

And I think -- and hope -- there will be a lot of jettisoning going on this offseason.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

28 minutes ago, SteveA said:

My first reaction is that you are way overreacting to 13 decent innings spread over 6 weeks.

But I will say that he throws hard, seems to have good stuff.   There are a ton of guys on the 40 that I would jettison before him.

And I think -- and hope -- there will be a lot of jettisoning going on this offseason.

I'll keep Greene over a mediocre pitcher who doesn't throw as hard, but Elias needs to decide if Chris Holt is going to get the most out of the Orioles pitchers. Prospects are going to start being promoted next year and the time to hire the right coaches is now.   

[SteveA]

2 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

I'll keep Greene over a mediocre pitcher who doesn't throw as hard, but Elias needs to decide if Chris Holt is going to get the most out of the Orioles pitchers. Prospects are going to start being promoted next year and the time to hire the right coaches is now.   

Yep.   My biggest concern is how poorly the prospects we promoted this year did at the major league level.   

[wildcard]

53 minutes ago, SteveA said:

My first reaction is that you are way overreacting to 13 decent innings spread over 6 weeks.

But I will say that he throws hard, seems to have good stuff.   There are a ton of guys on the 40 that I would jettison before him.

And I think -- and hope -- there will be a lot of jettisoning going on this offseason.

My reaction to your reaction of my reaction is that you are overreacting. Was the word attempts to break out too strong for you?  

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

1 minute ago, SteveA said:

Yep.   My biggest concern is how poorly the prospects we promoted this year did at the major league level.   

The prospects we've seen this year aren't top prospects, but I really thought the results would be a little better then what we've seen. I just don't want to see a scenario where Grayson Rodriguez comes up and underwhelms. 

Maybe we'll see Holt do better when he has better talent to work with, and I don't have a strong opinion on him either way yet. If Elias proceeds with the same coaching staff next year, I'll trust the process. (for now)

[SteveA]

11 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

The prospects we've seen this year aren't top prospects, but I really thought the results would be a little better then what we've seen. I just don't want to see a scenario where Grayson Rodriguez comes up and underwhelms. 

Maybe we'll see Holt do better when he has better talent to work with, and I don't have a strong opinion on him either way yet. If Elias proceeds with the same coaching staff next year, I'll trust the process. (for now)

Well we need some "not top prospects" to hit.   Lowther, Kremer, and Akin were #9-#10-#11 prospects in our system according to Tony in the offseason, with Zimmerman #24.  You have to get SOMETHING out of guys like that.  And we have gotten very little, despite those guys working with Holt at Bowie last year and advancing to the majors with  Holt this year.

[wildcard]

1 minute ago, SteveA said:

Well we need some "not top prospects" to hit.   Lowther, Kremer, and Akin were #9-#10-#11 prospects in our system according to Tony in the offseason, with Zimmerman #24.  You have to get SOMETHING out of guys like that.  And we have gotten very little, despite those guys working with Holt at Bowie last year and advancing to the majors with  Holt this year.

Elias/Holt tried to promote starters out of AA with little AAA experience and/or success prior to 2021:

Zimmerman  7 starts at AAA with a 4.89 ERA

Kremer    4 starts at AAA with an 8.84 ERA

Lowther 0 starts at AAA 

Akins    24 starts at AAA with a 4.73 ERA

Its pretty apparent now that the alternate site work did not prepare these guys for the majors the way more time at AAA might have done.

This was done mainly to save money in a year that  Elias stated they were not trying to contend.   Guess what? It did not work.

If Matt Harvey and Lopez had done better as starters it might not have looked so bad but that did not happen.

[SteveA]

47 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Elias/Holt tried to promote starters out of AA with little AAA experience and/or success prior to 2021:

Zimmerman  7 starts at AAA with a 4.89 ERA

Kremer    4 starts at AAA with an 8.84 ERA

Lowther 0 starts at AAA 

Akins    24 starts at AAA with a 4.73 ERA

Its pretty apparent now that the alternate site work did not prepare these guys for the majors the way more time at AAA might have done.

This was done mainly to save money in a year that  Elias stated they were not trying to contend.   Guess what? It did not work.

If Matt Harvey and Lopez had done better as starters it might not have looked so bad but that did not happen.

And Holt was running that show.

There are plenty of guys who can pitch in the majors without going to AAA.

• Tarik Skubal, a 4.21 ERA and 1.8 WAR with the Tigers this year, never pitched in AA.  (OK I will grant that he was a top 100 prospect).
• Bailey Ober has a 4.12 ERA in 18 starts for the Twins this year, his entire AAA experience is 16 innings.   Never been a top 100 prospect.
• Taylor Widner has a 4.55 ERA for Arizona.   He did play in AAA some but had a 7.91 ERA there.

I don't care about Harvey and Lopez one bit.   I care about this organization's ability to develop young pitchers.   They were supposed to be state of the art in terms of player development, telling guys which pitches to use to maximize their potential, etc.  The first significant group of guys they had to work with to reach the majors have failed.    

 

[wildcard]

33 minutes ago, SteveA said:

And Holt was running that show.

There are plenty of guys who can pitch in the majors without going to AAA.

• Tarik Skubal, a 4.21 ERA and 1.8 WAR with the Tigers this year, never pitched in AA.  (OK I will grant that he was a top 100 prospect).
• Bailey Ober has a 4.12 ERA in 18 starts for the Twins this year, his entire AAA experience is 16 innings.   Never been a top 100 prospect.
• Taylor Widner has a 4.55 ERA for Arizona.   He did play in AAA some but had a 7.91 ERA there.

I don't care about Harvey and Lopez one bit.   I care about this organization's ability to develop young pitchers.   They were supposed to be state of the art in terms of player development, telling guys which pitches to use to maximize their potential, etc.  The first significant group of guys they had to work with to reach the majors have failed.    

 

Have failed?  What makes you think that Akin, Zimmerman, Kremer, Lowther and A Wells are done?  There is more to come in the future. Some will do better, some probably will not.

[SteveA]

1 minute ago, wildcard said:

Have failed?  What makes you think that Akin, Zimmerman, Kremer, Lowther and A Wells are done?  There is more to come in the future. Some will do better, some probably will not.

So far.   This year was the year we would see the first tangible results of player development/coaching.    Elias didn't even have a whole offseason to get his organization set up before 2019, top to bottom, with coaches and a system that he wanted.   Last year there were no minor leagues with Covid.  This year we finally can start seeing the benefits of what is supposed to be a state of the art approach to teaching and developing young players.   Cameras monitoring everything they do, analytics about their pitches or their swings, etc.

And I've liked what I've seen from a lot of hitters.   Mountcastle starting to take walks, Mullins abandoning switch hitting and becoming as good as he is.

But at the major league level, the results have been pretty ugly.  One Rule 5 guy (who hasn't been in our system before this year) has blossomed.   But almost everyone we have brought up has been a failure.   Yes, so far.   If you aren't concerned then you are burying your head in the sand, IMO.   It seems like people's biggest hope for Holt and something is that they "don't mess up Greyson Rodriguez".   Well, I have higher hopes.   I want to see them get the most out of the talent of pitchers, whatever that talent may be.  This is the first year where I think it's fair to look for tangible results and the early returns are poor.

[7Mo]

19 minutes ago, SteveA said:

But at the major league level, the results have been pretty ugly.  One Rule 5 guy (who hasn't been in our system before this year) has blossomed.   But almost everyone we have brought up has been a failure.   Yes, so far.   If you aren't concerned then you are burying your head in the sand, IMO.   It seems like people's biggest hope for Holt and something is that they "don't mess up Greyson Rodriguez".   Well, I have higher hopes.   I want to see them get the most out of the talent of pitchers, whatever that talent may be.  This is the first year where I think it's fair to look for tangible results and the early returns are poor.

No doubt the returns this year have been poor. 

I see other organizations saying they feel like 2020 had a more detrimental affect on pitchers than hitters. The loss of the MiLB season has been harmful. And as both you and Wildcard have pointed out, some of these guys could come back stronger. Zimmerman looked good before injury. Akin has looked good lately. 

I also think it's fair to look at how big a load the O's are asking these guys to carry. I have no doubt that any other team in baseball would have yanked Akin when he gave up the first hit. I doubt many teams at all would have sent him back for the 7th but for the no-hitter. Tampa is asking their young guys to get 3 outs ,4 outs, 9 outs. We're asking our guy to go finish the 7th because we don't have anyone reliable to finish for him. 

You say you want more out of Holt, Elias and the organization. That's fair. I doubt anyone on this board would disagree with that. But other organizations have guys up and down too. Developing pitchers isn't a straight line of progress. It's not uncommon for young guys to come up, get kicked around, go back to AAA, figure some stuff out and come back. Again and again. When you focus on the O's, it's easy to lose sight that other teams don't have that straight line progress all the time. 

Other than Rodriguez, I'm not sure we have pitchers who are going to come up and dominate. I think all will take their lumps, to one degree or another. 

Elias said the other day that he wanted this year to evaluate who he has. I hope they look at it and realize they've put a lot on the young guys and take the offseason to bring in 3-4 guys who can go get 9-12 outs to help the prospects.

I'd feel pretty good about asking Akin or Zimmerman to go get 9-12 outs. To do that, we need some more guys who can be counted on. Asking Akin and Zimm to go finish 7 innings is a pretty big ask to me at this stage. 

[sportsfan8703]

20 hours ago, wildcard said:

Elias/Holt tried to promote starters out of AA with little AAA experience and/or success prior to 2021:

Zimmerman  7 starts at AAA with a 4.89 ERA

Kremer    4 starts at AAA with an 8.84 ERA

Lowther 0 starts at AAA 

Akins    24 starts at AAA with a 4.73 ERA

Its pretty apparent now that the alternate site work did not prepare these guys for the majors the way more time at AAA might have done.

This was done mainly to save money in a year that  Elias stated they were not trying to contend.   Guess what? It did not work.

If Matt Harvey and Lopez had done better as starters it might not have looked so bad but that did not happen.

Man I thought the same thing but look at these guys’ ages. It’s eventually time to see what you have. Eventually you have to sink or swim and all of these guys sank. Also, eventually your weaknesses get exposed and that’s what happened here. None of these guys, despite some good lower minors/AA #s we’re projected to be anything more that #4/#5 starter types.