O’s sign Jordan Lyles

[Aristotelian]

1 minute ago, Philip said:

Sure, I don’t disagree with the notion of signing a warm body or two to a minor league contract for the inevitable time when our starters need to sit in the corner and think about what they’ve done. But that’s not a $7 million guy, for $7 million you’re going to be starting him longer than you should, keeping him longer than you should, and using him more than you should. How long did we keep Harvey after it was clear he was another “we shouldn’t have signed him” guys?

I definitely agree $7M seems like an overpay. I don't like the signing, just trying to understand it. 

[jabba72]

2 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

I definitely agree $7M seems like an overpay. I don't like the signing, just trying to understand it. 

Losing 110 games last year probably had something to do with the overpay. Just a wild guess. Its possible he had other offers. 

[Philip]

1 minute ago, jabba72 said:

Losing 110 games last year probably had something to do with the overpay. Just a wild guess. Its possible he had other offers. 

You don’t pay a man in this position $7 million, you find somebody and pay them $700,000 not 7 million. Under any circumstances. For 7 million you want somebody who’s going to be legitimately productive not somebody who’s just gonna stand there and get bombed

[Philip]

You know, every time people talk about blowing tons of money on a sucky player I remember Richie Zisk, who was one of my very favorites back in the day.

before the 1978 season, he signed a 10 year, $2.8 million contract, and everybody was shocked. I have no idea whether he earned it, but in two years with Rangers he hit 22 home runs and had 88 RBIs per year, which is pretty good. And they traded him to Seattle and the rest was history.

But I think about him whenever I have a reason to ponder lousy players like Jordan Lyles.

[Frobby]

16 minutes ago, jabba72 said:

Except no one in our rotation could even pitch 6 innings last year. Thats why they wanted him. To give the bullpen a breather every 5 starts in case the rotation self implodes again.  

To be precise about this, Orioles pitchers went 6+ innings 32 times last year, including 7+ seven times.   Lyles went 6+ 18 times, seven of which were 7+.   And it’s not like he was just being left out there to take a beating.   15 of the 18 were quality starts, and in another he went 7 IP 4 ER.  The other two were 6 IP 4 ER and 6 IP 5 ER.   Not great, not ungodly awful either.  He had 5 other outings where he pitched 5+ and allowed 2 or 3 runs.   So really, more than 2/3 of the times he took the ball, he went at least 5 innings and kept his team in the game.   I’d be very happy if he did that for the O’s.   The question is, can he do that against tougher competition and in a homer friendly home ballpark?

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, interloper said:

I guess I'm just more bullish on him. If he puts up a 5ish ERA over 150+ innings, I think that's honestly huge for this team. It's a bit of an overpay, but I'm not sure why people care so much about that aspect. It doesn't mean that suddenly Elias is dumb or that Sig is just twiddling his thumbs with a whole analytics dept. 

Guy is just gonna eat innings, and they're willing to overpay for that right now in an aggressive market. Still plenty of room for the young pitchers. 

I don't see the point of spending $7M for win 58 when you could spend $600k and win 56 or 57.  Especially when the guy is home run prone, coming to a huge home run park, and there's a non-trivial chance that he'll go all Dan Straily on us.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, wildcard said:

The O's need 5 starters to begin the season.  They have Means and Lyles.   Grayson, Bradish and Baumann may need to go to AAA for a little while to begin the season.  That gives Zimmermann a good chance to be in the rotation on OD.  All he has to do is pitch well  and they will not take him out of the rotation.  He can get 30 starts.

There are a lot of guys in the world who can give you five innings, 3-4 runs once a week.  Most of them don't cost $7M.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, sevastras said:

I still think they should move the fences back 20’. They could have one of the fastest outfields with Hays and Mullins. Also, their pitching would be better and they don’t have that much of a home run hitting team like years past. They could resign Bundy as well because most of his HRs allowed weren’t over 20 feet over. 

I'd love to see that.  Never going to happen. Most certainly not this year.  In most of the park that would require major renovations and construction.  They could slightly turn the field and move the plate back a bit like they did in 2000(?), and put up some screens to make the fences taller.

[Aristotelian]

17 minutes ago, Frobby said:

To be precise about this, Orioles pitchers went 6+ innings 32 times last year, including 7+ seven times.   Lyles went 6+ 18 times, seven of which were 7+.   And it’s not like he was just being left out there to take a beating.   15 of the 18 were quality starts, and in another he went 7 IP 4 ER.  The other two were 6 IP 4 ER and 6 IP 5 ER.   Not great, not ungodly awful either.  He had 5 other outings where he pitched 5+ and allowed 2 or 3 runs.   So really, more than 2/3 of the times he took the ball, he went at least 5 innings and kept his team in the game.   I’d be very happy if he did that for the O’s.   The question is, can he do that against tougher competition and in a homer friendly home ballpark?

It's almost like Elias did a screen for high IP per start then figured who was the worst/cheapest available. At 5.62 IP per start, Lyles is well above average (4.89 not including "openers"). http://www.highheatstats.com/2021/07/the-incredible-shrinking-pitching-start/

[wildcard]

24 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

There are a lot of guys in the world who can give you five innings, 3-4 runs once a week.  Most of them don't cost $7M.

Most of them don't pitch for the Baltimore Orioles.

[Just Regular]

Lyles is a little bit interesting to me as a control on Holt.

With the orangest colored glasses, one could argue that the Pirates and Rangers (dumb!) didn't know how to use this drone sensibly, but the Brewers (we are smart like them now!) did.   Our drone flying ace Holt lacked sufficient hardware in 2021's Orioles pitchers, all those inexperienced youths with not enough AAA time, etc.   

Here's a pitcher who has all his man strength, and half a season of good results with a smart pilot that has enabled him to attain $20mm+ of extra earnings these few years.

When Jordan Lyles takes $16mm of the Rangers money, he doesn't bring the Brewers intellectual capital.

[maybenxtyr]

For me, it's not really the player that I dislike ( he is what he is), it's paying him $7 million next season. I know pitching is expensive, but if you're going to pay for it at least make it worth it.

[DrungoHazewood]

28 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Most of them don't pitch for the Baltimore Orioles.

The road to hell is paved with paying free agent rates for below-average players. 

[jabba72]

1 hour ago, Philip said:

You don’t pay a man in this position $7 million, you find somebody and pay them $700,000 not 7 million. Under any circumstances. For 7 million you want somebody who’s going to be legitimately productive not somebody who’s just gonna stand there and get bombed

Of course thats what you want. I want Rob Ray and Stroman to sign 3 year deals to pitch here. Unfortunately those pitchers have options, usually with a couple extra years added to the contract and teams with hopes of making the playoffs making the highest offer. 

[wildcard]

7 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

The road to hell is paved with paying free agent rates for below-average players. 

Dramatic post considering the O's have a payroll in the low 60 millions and its a one year contract.

Take a deep breath and try to stay off that road.