O’s sign Jordan Lyles

[spiritof66]

9 hours ago, Philip said:

I have a question, how can a guy with such a big ERA “Eat innings” if he’s so bad he can’t make it out of the third inning?

Is the manager just leaving him in for six innings because spent 7 million on him, and damn the score?

By definition, terrible pitchers can’t eat innings because they are terrible.

Why can't durable but terrible pitchers eat lots of innings, even while pitching terribly, for terrible teams that don't much mind losing some games by terrible scores, if that will help protect its young pitchers from pitching too many innings?

I'm guessing we'll see that, at least early in the season: Lyles being kept in for 5-6 innings while giving up a lot of runs and throwing a lot of pitches. I think the Orioles will leave him in some games while he gets knocked around and provides the few fans in the OF seats with souvenirs, because they view that as preferable to exposing pitchers who might have a future with the team to that kind of overuse and confidence-shattering bombs. As the season progresses, if some of those younger guys show they can go deeper into games, Lyles becomes a fill-in starter or a swingman who might be tradeable to another team that wants to avoid chewing up its young pitchers. That doesn't look like $7 million of value to me, but I can't see another strategy that makes any sense.

In other words, the Orioles wanted a durable, experienced innings-eater in the worst way, and that's pretty much what they got.

If you're thinking about how the 2021 Lyles might perform with the 2022 Orioles, you might take a look at last year's park factors. The comparison that jumps out to me is the difference in HR park factors: .946 in Arlington and 1.574 in Baltimore.  https://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor/_/sort/HRFactor  

[BohKnowsBmore]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

"and including an $11 million club option for 2023. "

What are the odds that option is exercised?  1%?  0.1%?  It's a lottery ticket for the O's, good on them.  If they teach him an emory ball or he invents a knuckle-splitter or something and he throws 220 innings to a 2.81 they've got a deal.  If all the other things happen it's like the option doesn't even exist.

Sometimes in OOTP baseball I'll throw in a club option for $20M for some random player I'm bidding on just to see if I can fool the AI into accepting my contract offer. 

Not particular to Lyles, necessarily, but I think you may need to update your mental model on current going rates relative to performance.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, spiritof66 said:

Why can't durable but terrible pitchers eat lots of innings, even while pitching terribly, for terrible teams that don't much mind losing some games by terrible scores, if that will help protect its young pitchers from pitching too many innings?

I'm guessing we'll see that, at least early in the season: Lyles being kept in for 5-6 innings while giving up a lot of runs and throwing a lot of pitches. I think the Orioles will leave him in some games while he gets knocked around and provides the few fans in the OF seats with souvenirs, because they view that as preferable to exposing pitchers who might have a future with the team to that kind of overuse and confidence-shattering bombs. As the season progresses, if some of those younger guys show they can go deeper into games, Lyles becomes a fill-in starter or a swingman who might be tradeable to another team that wants to avoid chewing up its young pitchers. That doesn't look like $7 million of value to me, but I can't see another strategy that makes any sense.

In other words, the Orioles wanted a durable, experienced innings-eater in the worst way, and that's pretty much what they got.

If you're thinking about how the 2021 Lyles might perform with the 2022 Orioles, you might take a look at last year's park factors. The comparison that jumps out to me is the difference in HR park factors: .946 in Arlington and 1.574 in Baltimore.  https://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor/_/sort/HRFactor  

Managers don't leave guys in to take a beating much anymore.

[DrungoHazewood]

16 minutes ago, BohKnowsBmore said:

Not particular to Lyles, necessarily, but I think you may need to update your mental model on current going rates relative to performance.

Just making up numbers.  I know no one throws 220 innings anymore.

[Philip]

The larger question is whether this reveals a weakness in Mike? 
General managers ideally should excel in more than one area and should be aware of their weakness in others and compensate with excellent assistants.

I don’t know why he signed such an obviously unsuited pitcher at this time and for such an apparent overpay. I don’t know how many big money moves or significant trades he has made, but the trade returns have been bad, and his signings have been mediocre or worse, with a couple exceptions.

I fear that actually dealing with other GMs may be a weakness.

[interloper]

19 hours 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/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. 

 "He had a 2.87 ERA and 0.989 WHIP in his last five outings, which included one run allowed in seven relief innings in Arizona, and opponents batted .215/.292/.346.

The four-seam fastball is typically 92-93 mph and BrooksBaseball.net data shows that Lyles decreased its usage after July, with more of a reliance on his slider, sinker, curveball and changeup."

https://www.masnsports.com/school-of-roch/2021/12/another-look-at-lyles-and-other-notes.html

Not saying he's gonna suddenly be a 2.87 pitcher, but I'm hoping they can find improvement by tweaking his pitch usage. 

I still don't agree he's going to put up a worse year than Harvey, we'll just have to see. But I do agree that it's weird the O's felt it was necessary to pounce on him this early in the offseason. Maybe they really felt the lockout pressure for whatever reason? 

[Philip]

Occam’s Razor:

Why him?

A: they wanted him

Why now?

A: someone else wanted him too

Why so much?

A: they had to overpay to get him to choose Bmore over team X.

those are the most likely answers but they beg an additional question:

Why did they want him? There doesn’t see to be any reason to want him. The best answer I can find to that query is

A: Mike has no faith that our pitching production will be better than what Lyles offers, and isn’t able to get a better pitcher, which suggest that

A1: Mike wants to suck again this year despite legitimate reason to start on field improving.

[Sports Guy]

I mean it’s obvious why he wants him..to eat innings on a team that needs guys you eat innings.

Thats obvious.

The question is, will he eat innings in Baltimore the same way he could in Texas?

[wildcard]

I don't believe that Elias is signing Lyles with the belief that he will be a 5.00 ERA guy for the O's.   I think he and Holt believe they can fix him.

If you look at the Baseball Savant data it shows that over that last three years Lyles has had periods where his 4 seamer, slider, curve and change up were effective.  Not all at the same time but at different times.   I think Holt sees something to work with there.

Also there is too much emphasis being placed on the last two years in Texas.  The Rangers have not IMO had a good pitching coaching situation for several years.  Julio Rangel was the pitching coach in 2020.  Here is what MLBTR has to say about him upon his firing after the 2020 season.

"During Rangel’s two seasons as pitching coach, Texas hurlers combined for a 5.09 ERA in 2019 (24th of 30 teams) and a 5.02 ERA in 2020 (23rd).  While ERA isn’t the sole determining factor in a pitching staff’s effectiveness, and the Rangers hadn’t been getting consistent results from their arms for years prior to Rangel’s arrival, clearly the club felt a change was necessary."

They replaced him with two co-pitching coaches in 2021, Doug Mathis and Brendan Sagara without much better results.   I don't read much about analytics from any of these guys.

Under the Brewers Chris Hook in 2019 Lyles had a great 2nd half after being acquired from the Pirates.   He went 7-1, 2.45 ERA,  11 S, 58.2 IP, 43 H, 56 K, 1.108 WHIP.  That is what Holt is probably going to try to bring out of Lyles.

Whether you believe in Holt's ability to use analytics and the equipment to show Lyles how he can improve during ST and into the season, the important thing is that Elias and Holt believe in their ability to improve Lyles.  And that is why I think they signed him.

 

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, wildcard said:

I don't believe that Elias is signing Lyles with the belief that he will be a 5.00 ERA guy for the O's.   I think he and Holt believe they can fix him.

If you look at the Baseball Savant data it shows that over that last three years Lyles has had periods where his 4 seamer, slider, curve and change up were effective.  Not all at the same time but a different times.   I think Holt see something to work with there.

Also there is too much emphasis being place on the last two years in Texas.  The Rangers have not IMO had a good pitching coaching situation for several years.  Julio Rangel was the pitching coach in 2020.  Here is what MLBTR has to say about him upon his firing after the 2020 season.

"During Rangel’s two seasons as pitching coach, Texas hurlers combined for a 5.09 ERA in 2019 (24th of 30 teams) and a 5.02 ERA in 2020 (23rd).  While ERA isn’t the sole determining factor in a pitching staff’s effectiveness, and the Rangers hadn’t been getting consistent results from their arms for years prior to Rangel’s arrival, clearly the club felt a change was necessary."

They replaced him with two co-pitching coaches in 2021, Doug Mathis and Brendan Sagara witht much better results.   I don't read much about analytics from any of these guys.

Under the Brewers Chris Hook in 2019 Lyles had a great 2nd half after being acquired from the Pirates.   He went 7-1, 2.45 ERA,  11 S, 58.2 IP, 43 H, 56 K, 1.108 WHIP.  That is what Holt is probably going to try to bring out of Lyles.

Whether you believe in Holt's ability to use analytics and the equipment to show Lyles how he can my improve during ST and into the season, the important thing is that Elias and Holt believe in their ability to improve Lyles.  And that is why I think they signed him.

 

You don't spend 7M on a guy worth 3M because you think you can turn him into someone worth 7M.

[interloper]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

You don't spend 7M on a guy worth 3M because you think you can turn him into someone worth 7M.

I don't think you can really argue he's worth $3M. I think he's worth about 5, which is what he got, plus some Camden tax, plus a buyout that the O's may not even have to pay if they trade him. 

[wildcard]

3 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

You don't spend 7M on a guy worth 3M because you think you can turn him into someone worth 7M.

But that is what I think Elias and Holt are doing.  Mainly because that is probably the only way the O's can get a starter for 7m that is worth 7m.

[Philip]

1 hour ago, spiritof66 said:

Why can't durable but terrible pitchers eat lots of innings, even while pitching terribly, for terrible teams that don't much mind losing some games by terrible scores, if that will help protect its young pitchers from pitching too many innings?

I'm guessing we'll see that, at least early in the season: Lyles being kept in for 5-6 innings while giving up a lot of runs and throwing a lot of pitches. I think the Orioles will leave him in some games while he gets knocked around and provides the few fans in the OF seats with souvenirs, because they view that as preferable to exposing pitchers who might have a future with the team to that kind of overuse and confidence-shattering bombs. As the season progresses, if some of those younger guys show they can go deeper into games, Lyles becomes a fill-in starter or a swingman who might be tradeable to another team that wants to avoid chewing up its young pitchers. That doesn't look like $7 million of value to me, but I can't see another strategy that makes any sense.

In other words, the Orioles wanted a durable, experienced innings-eater in the worst way, and that's pretty much what they got.

If you're thinking about how the 2021 Lyles might perform with the 2022 Orioles, you might take a look at last year's park factors. The comparison that jumps out to me is the difference in HR park factors: .946 in Arlington and 1.574 in Baltimore.  https://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor/_/sort/HRFactor  

I remember last season, I was constantly complaining about Lopez being brought out for another inning after it was clear he was tired, and although there were some happy exceptions almost every time he started that final fateful inning, he left with men on base who scored.

Unless the quantity of the innings is more important than the quality, There is no such thing as an innings eater.

If Mike doesn’t care about winning this season, and he only wants a 7 million dollar warm body to stand on the mound and do his best, and for some reason he does not want that to be our prospects-in-waiting, then yes your point is completely valid.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, interloper said:

I don't think you can really argue he's worth $3M. I think he's worth about 5, which is what he got, plus some Camden tax, plus a buyout that the O's may not even have to pay if they trade him. 

Sure.

[Sports Guy]

7 minutes ago, wildcard said:

I don't believe that Elias is signing Lyles with the belief that he will be a 5.00 ERA guy for the O's.   I think he and Holt believe they can fix him.

If you look at the Baseball Savant data it shows that over that last three years Lyles has had periods where his 4 seamer, slider, curve and change up were effective.  Not all at the same time but at different times.   I think Holt sees something to work with there.

Also there is too much emphasis being placed on the last two years in Texas.  The Rangers have not IMO had a good pitching coaching situation for several years.  Julio Rangel was the pitching coach in 2020.  Here is what MLBTR has to say about him upon his firing after the 2020 season.

"During Rangel’s two seasons as pitching coach, Texas hurlers combined for a 5.09 ERA in 2019 (24th of 30 teams) and a 5.02 ERA in 2020 (23rd).  While ERA isn’t the sole determining factor in a pitching staff’s effectiveness, and the Rangers hadn’t been getting consistent results from their arms for years prior to Rangel’s arrival, clearly the club felt a change was necessary."

They replaced him with two co-pitching coaches in 2021, Doug Mathis and Brendan Sagara without much better results.   I don't read much about analytics from any of these guys.

Under the Brewers Chris Hook in 2019 Lyles had a great 2nd half after being acquired from the Pirates.   He went 7-1, 2.45 ERA,  11 S, 58.2 IP, 43 H, 56 K, 1.108 WHIP.  That is what Holt is probably going to try to bring out of Lyles.

Whether you believe in Holt's ability to use analytics and the equipment to show Lyles how he can improve during ST and into the season, the important thing is that Elias and Holt believe in their ability to improve Lyles.  And that is why I think they signed him.

 

I would bet a good amount of money that if you gave Elias truth serum, that he would say he would ecstatic to get the same numbers in 2022 that Lyles had in 2021.  Hes 31, has been in the majors a long time. There really isn’t much fixing that happens at this point.

In fact, if he had the same year in 2022 vs 2021, he would actually have a better season.