O’s sign Jordan Lyles

[sportsfan8703]

13 minutes ago, Ohfan67 said:

The Orioles paid Harvey one million dollars. If it takes 7 million to get Lyles to come to Baltimore, then the Orioles would have been much better off to wait and sign pitchers from the bargain bin right as spring training starts. No need to pay that much for poor to mediocre performance. 

This is the bargain bin. Salaries have drastically went up, plus we’re paying a OPACY and AL East tax. Inflation bro. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

2 minutes ago, Ohfan67 said:

The Orioles paid Harvey one million dollars. If it takes 7 million to get Lyles to come to Baltimore, then the Orioles would have been much better off to wait and sign pitchers from the bargain bin right as spring training starts. No need to pay that much for poor to mediocre performance. 

The thought process is Lyles will be bad, but reliable enough a pitcher to go around 180 innings next year. Which does have some value as the Orioles had plenty of bad pitchers, but no real innings eaters in 2021. 

The question is pitching at OPACY and in the AL East is a different beast. If Lyles can match last year’s results then he has value, but his numbers could easily suffer more. 

 

[MDtransplant757]

8 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

This is the bargain bin. Salaries have drastically went up, plus we’re paying a OPACY and AL East tax. Inflation bro. 

And here I am thinking that said inflation was all "transitory"

[spiritof66]

5 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I'm expecting them to trade him next season so they don't have to pay the buyout.

That's the explanation that occurs to me. Have him shoulder a significant innings load early on to preserve the rest of the staff, try to decrease it as a young starter or two or three show themselves capable of going deeper into games, and then flip him to another team that needs to have some innings eaten and is willing to overpay for the privilege

The other possibility that occurs to me is that Elias saw the recent discussion on here about hitters not reaching the warehouse and he's trying to put together a staff that will give visiting in players a better shot at doing that this year.

[interloper]

I think it's a fallacy to compare Lyles to Harvey.

The fact that we got 120 IP at a 6+ ERA from Harvey was nothing short of a lightning in a bottle miracle, even if the ERA was terrible. He averaged 80 IP over the previous 4 seasons. And he had some really nice starts mixed in there, too. Took the hill every day. 

The reason we got Harvey on a MiL deal was that he was coming off all those surgeries and flamed out after 11 innings in 2020. 

Lyles is a much more durable pitcher IMO. And part of the reason he didn't tally that many innings in recent years is he pitched partly out of the bullpen at times. So you're trading Harvey's upside for something more boring and reliably mediocre. Which I think the rotation could use, honestly. 

But I get the argument against him, I honestly do. And I'm not going to argue to the death about it. 

But I also think his strict AAV of $5.5 is fair. It's the signing bonus and buyout that make it feel like an overpay. The O's may not have to worry about the buyout if they can trade him. So call it $6 with the $500k Camden Tax Signing Bonus and it doesn't feel too bad to me.

[Sports Guy]

19 minutes ago, interloper said:

I think it's a fallacy to compare Lyles to Harvey.

The fact that we got 120 IP at a 6+ ERA from Harvey was nothing short of a lightning in a bottle miracle, even if the ERA was terrible. He averaged 80 IP over the previous 4 seasons. And he had some really nice starts mixed in there, too. Took the hill every day. 

The reason we got Harvey on a MiL deal was that he was coming off all those surgeries and flamed out after 11 innings in 2020. 

Lyles is a much more durable pitcher IMO. And part of the reason he didn't tally that many innings in recent years is he pitched partly out of the bullpen at times. So you're trading Harvey's upside for something more boring and reliably mediocre. Which I think the rotation could use, honestly. 

But I get the argument against him, I honestly do. And I'm not going to argue to the death about it. 

But I also think his strict AAV of $5.5 is fair. It's the signing bonus and buyout that make it feel like an overpay. The O's may not have to worry about the buyout if they can trade him. So call it $6 with the $500k Camden Tax Signing Bonus and it doesn't feel too bad to me.

It’s not unfair because there are outside circumstances that worked against Harvey that worked for Lyles.  
 

Anyone comparing him to Harvey absolutely has a leg to stand on.  
 

 

[interloper]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

It’s not unfair because there are outside circumstances that worked against Harvey that worked for Lyles.  
 

Anyone comparing him to Harvey absolutely has a leg to stand on.  
 

 

What do you mean?

[Ohfan67]

1 hour ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

The thought process is Lyles will be bad, but reliable enough a pitcher to go around 180 innings next year. Which does have some value as the Orioles had plenty of bad pitchers, but no real innings eaters in 2021. 

The question is pitching at OPACY and in the AL East is a different beast. If Lyles can match last year’s results then he has value, but his numbers could easily suffer more. 

 

Lyles has thrown 180 innings once in his career. It's a wasteful, pretty dumb signing. There is no way to spin this as anything expect a very costly, very minor upgrade. The guy led the majors in home runs allowed, for goodness sake. He led the league in runs allowed two years in a row. Seven million for that? And he's 31. It's not like he's a young guy with some upside. The Orioles are constantly crying poor and saying that now is not the time to invest in free agents...then they sign this guy for seven million. If this is their only "meaningful" free agent signing, then us fans are in big, big trouble. 

[interloper]

Quote

Lyles threw his fastball 49 percent of the time last season, according to Fangraphs.com, at an average velocity of 92.8 mph. He used his slider 26 percent, his curveball 18 percent and his changeup seven percent of the time. His groundball rate was just 37.6 percent, which would have ranked among the bottom half of O’s pitchers last year, although Means was one of those with a lower rate at 32.9. Earlier in his career Lyles had groundball rates in the high 40’s, even over 50 on occasion.

https://www.masnsports.com/steve-melewski/2021/12/a-few-notes-on-the-os-agreement-with-jordan-lyles.html

I think if there's any improvement to be found with Lyles, and I admit the likelihood is pretty low, I think it would be with pitch selection/sequence and figuring out how to get him back to that 45+% grounder rate. In some of the highlight videos I watched of his better games, it's the breaking stuff that he was getting guys out on. 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, interloper said:

https://www.masnsports.com/steve-melewski/2021/12/a-few-notes-on-the-os-agreement-with-jordan-lyles.html

I think if there's any improvement to be found with Lyles, and I admit the likelihood is pretty low, I think it would be with pitch selection and figuring out how to get him back to that 45+% grounder rate. In some of the highlight videos I watched of his better games, it's the breaking stuff that he was getting guys out on. 

But Elias is much more of a 4 seam proponent than a sinker guy.

I think part of the reason he didn't protect Pop was based in this.

Spin rate and 4 seam fastballs...that's what Elias does.

I admit it would be interesting if Lyles were to come here and go sinker heavy.

[Ohfan67]

1 hour ago, sportsfan8703 said:

This is the bargain bin. Salaries have drastically went up, plus we’re paying a OPACY and AL East tax. Inflation bro. 

The bargain bin is not open for shopping until right before and during the start of spring training. Heck, some better deals were deals signed in the last week or two. Let's face the facts...the Orioles suck. They make a lot of dumb moves and have for several decades. I have not been an Elias hater and have tried to defend what I perceived as Elias' strategy. This signing doesn't fit any reasonable strategy. If they were going to overpay for a starting pitcher, then buy a better one. The moves that they have made to save a few pennies here and there now make zero sense. If they have seven million to spend on this guy, then they have enough money that they don't have to act like they are completely broke. It's a poor move. 

[Roll Tide]

Shopping in the proverbial bargain bin

[luismatos4prez]

2 hours ago, Ohfan67 said:

The Orioles paid Harvey one million dollars. If it takes 7 million to get Lyles to come to Baltimore, then the Orioles would have been much better off to wait and sign pitchers from the bargain bin right as spring training starts. No need to pay that much for poor to mediocre performance. 

The Orioles didn't even have to guarantee Harvey a penny. It was a minor league deal, so we can assume nobody else wanted him.

It doesn't make much sense to me, but it seems Lyles was in more demand. I guess going 6 innings per start is valuable even when you're throwing 5 ERA ball.

I'd be pretty content with 180 IP of 5 ERA from him. Even if 7M is too much, the ML payroll is still barely above Max Scherzer's salary this year. And if there were better cheaper starters who wanted to come here, Mike would have signed them instead.

[Sports Guy]

43 minutes ago, interloper said:

What do you mean?

Rangers had a very good team defense.  He pitched in a pitchers park and a division full of pitchers parks.  The AL West is inferior to the East(the East scored 300ish more runs)

if you switched the 2 pitchers in 2021, it’s possible Harvey puts up similar numbers to Lyles and Lyles puts up similar numbers to Harvey.

[NCRaven]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

But Elias is much more of a 4 seam proponent than a sinker guy.

I think part of the reason he didn't protect Pop was based in this.

Spin rate and 4 seam fastballs...that's what Elias does.

I admit it would be interesting if Lyles were to come here and go sinker heavy.

While I think you are right in that Elias targets certain traits, I think you overstate his reliance on that one area.