Let's discuss RHP Bryan Baker

[Tony-OH]

On November 8th the Orioles quietly claimed Bryan Baker off waivers from the Blue Jays. I did some quick research on him at the time and saw he had great numbers in AAA in 2021. I then looked at his 19 pitches he threw in his one big league appearance in September and saw a 94.8 MPH fastball and 88 MPH cutter as the two pitches he used.

Since I had some time I went back and watched video of him last year as well as 2019 and I'll tell you, he gets a lot of swing and miss on his fastball. I saw an occasional curveball to go along with his cutter that has more drop than "cut". 

Honestly, I kinda like him. At 27 years old he's not that old and if he can command the ball like he did in 2021, I think he's going to be a solid 6th, 7th inning guy.

Did the Orioles find a gem, I don't know if I'd go that far, but I think they've found a better Travis Lakins and a guy who can be very similar to Cole Sulser.

The craziest thing is the Blue Jays claimed Shaun Anderson (yes the same Anderson that pitched seven games with the Orioles and put up a 9.00 ERA in 10 IPs last year before he was DFA'd) on the Nov 19th, so they basically picked Anderson over Baker. The Blue Jays would eventually DFA Anderson on the 30th.

I'm not sure I would have traded Baker for Anderson, but we'll see next year (assuming we have a season) who was right. My guess Baker spends all of 2022 in the Orioles bullpen and ends up with a sub 3.50 ERA.

 

[Frobby]

I really don’t understand the Blue Jays dropping this guy.   Hopefully he’ll prove they made a huge mistake.   

[Aristotelian]

I liked the pickup at the time and still like it. Of all the waiver wire arms we have picked up he seems to have the strongest resume. 

[NCRaven]

Maybe they were hoping to pass him through waivers and misjudged.

[Frobby]

I was looking at Baker’s stats this morning and noticed that he has a 6.00 ERA but a 3.14 FIP.    That made me think that perhaps he’d been unlucky.   But when I look at Statcast data, his wOBA of .341 is worse than his .366 xwOBA.  His xBA is .316 and xSLG .458.   Not good.  

For me, I’m not clamoring for him to be DFA, but he’s purely a low leverage reliever.   
 

[wildcard]

31 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I was looking at Baker’s stats this morning and noticed that he has a 6.00 ERA but a 3.14 FIP.    That made me think that perhaps he’d been unlucky.   But when I look at Statcast data, his wOBA of .341 is worse than his .366 xwOBA.  His xBA is .316 and xSLG .458.   Not good.  

For me, I’m not clamoring for him to be DFA, but he’s purely a low leverage reliever.   
 

Baker has 2 options left.   There is no reason to DFA him during the season so far.   At some point they may send him to AAA to regroup.   

I'd see how he does the rest of the season and make a decision before rosters are set in November.   They might be able to pass him through waivers at some point.

He has had some good outings as times but he is behind about  7 other relievers right now.  He provides depth.

[Aristotelian]

I'm intrigued enough to keep him. He's got a solid resume and we're still looking at a small sample. There are plenty of other guys on both the 40 man and 26 man that I would get rid of before him.

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

I was looking at Baker’s stats this morning and noticed that he has a 6.00 ERA but a 3.14 FIP.    That made me think that perhaps he’d been unlucky.   But when I look at Statcast data, his wOBA of .341 is worse than his .366 xwOBA.  His xBA is .316 and xSLG .458.   Not good.  

For me, I’m not clamoring for him to be DFA, but he’s purely a low leverage reliever.   
 

For sure. he really needs to ditch the cutter as it's been an awful pitch for him. Batters have slashed .471/.346/.618 off the pitch and put up a .485 wOBA though his xwOBA is .372 so he's been a bit unlucky. 

Both his fastball and the changeup have been pretty good so you gotta wonder why he keeps throwing that cutter which he throws 31.1% of the time. I saw a slow curveball that he used in AAA last year. I'd bring that back instead of the cutter. I think it pairs better with he fastball that has slightly above average vertical drop with good spin rate.

All I know is the cutter is not working for him at the major league level.

 

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, Tony-OH said:

For sure. he really needs to ditch the cutter as it's been an awful pitch for him. Batters have slashed .471/.346/.618 off the pitch and put up a .485 wOBA though his xwOBA is .372 so he's been a bit unlucky. 

Both his fastball and the changeup have been pretty good so you gotta wonder why he keeps throwing that cutter which he throws 31.1% of the time. I saw a slow curveball that he used in AAA last year. I'd bring that back instead of the cutter. I think it pairs better with he fastball that has slightly above average vertical drop with good spin rate.

All I know is the cutter is not working for him at the major league level.

 

The game announcers have mentioned this several times.  

[Tony-OH]

35 minutes ago, Frobby said:

The game announcers have mentioned this several times.  

Well hell, what does anyone need my analysis for then??

[bobmc]

52 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Well hell, what does anyone need my analysis for then??

So they can report it as theirs?  

[Just Regular]

7 hours ago, wildcard said:

Baker has 2 options left.   There is no reason to DFA him during the season so far.   At some point they may send him to AAA to regroup.   

Is it service time manipulation if that keeps him in the bigs all 26 weeks now so he can be an Up/Down guy in 2023 and 2024?

[NelsonCruuuuuz]

On 1/23/2022 at 10:34 PM, Frobby said:

I really don’t understand the Blue Jays dropping this guy.   Hopefully he’ll prove they made a huge mistake.   

I do. Why is he still on the team? 

[sportsfan8703]

What to make of Baker?  He’s the definition of hit or miss. Throws 98-99, with a nasty change up. 
 

He doesn’t get outs by luck. When he’s on he looks like a top reliever in the game.  He looked that way last night  

Is it the delivery that makes him inconsistent?  He appears to fall off the mound at times. 

[LA2]

Baker came out of the All-Star Break confidently pumping 98-100 mph fastballs to go along with the breaking stuff. I'm sure he's someone the now-vaunted O's pitching coaches can tune into a valuable reliever.