Who will be in the O's pen?

[wildcard]

Here is my guess in late January:

(4)Sulser,  Tyler Wells, Scott (L),  Lopez

(5) Austin Cox (L)  Rule 5 pick (This year's Tyler Wells)

(6)   FA Collin McHugh, 35 year old with Houston connection 1/4m

(7)  Bautista or Baker or Tate - Whoever looks best in ST.

(8) Alex Wells - Mid/ long relief/ spot starter.  Hyde sees him as a reliever.  He has done all he needs to at AAA with a 3.29 ERA and a 1.024 WHIP.

 

 

[RZNJ]

10 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Here is my guess in late January:

(4)Sulser,  Tyler Wells, Scott (L),  Lopez

(5) Paul Fry

(6)   Joey Kriehbel

(7)  Bryan Baker

(8) Keegan Akin

 

 

Amended

[wildcard]

17 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Amended

JMO

Fry optioned out of ST

Krehbiel  DFA'd to Norfolk

Akin, Zimmerman and Lowther in the rotation for the first month.  Then Grayson, Bradish and Baumann are coming for their jobs.

[RZNJ]

44 minutes ago, wildcard said:

JMO

Fry optioned out of ST

Krehbiel  DFA'd to Norfolk

Akin, Zimmerman and Lowther in the rotation for the first month.  Then Grayson, Bradish and Baumann are coming for their jobs.

We'll see.  I think Wells over Akin in the rotation.   

[wildcard]

36 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

We'll see.  I think Wells over Akin in the rotation.   

I could see that.

[Aristotelian]

I think Baker and Bautista make the team one way or another. Not worth predicting FA signing or Rule 5 at this point but I agree there will be one or two not currently in the system and those are good guesses.

[RZNJ]

9 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

I think Baker and Bautista make the team one way or another. Not worth predicting FA signing or Rule 5 at this point but I agree there will be one or two not currently in the system and those are good guesses.

I think they'll start Bautista in Norfolk while they audition Baker.

[HowAboutThat]

Ah, we gotta talk about something, I guess.

I wonder if they still want Lopez to start?

Unless they’ve given up on Alex Wells/Akin, they have to be in the rotation. Too many potential starters need innings for Tyler Wells, at least for now, so he is for the pen.

I think Fry has lost it and he gets DFA-Ed, but I’d love to be wrong.

Would love to see a Scott trade but he demonstrated his trade value(small) last summer.

[Frobby]

12 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

I think they'll start Bautista in Norfolk while they audition Baker.

That’s probably right, of course depending on how spring training goes.   

[wildcard]

19 minutes ago, Philip said:

Ah, we gotta talk about something, I guess.

I wonder if they still want Lopez to start?

Unless they’ve given up on Alex Wells/Akin, they have to be in the rotation. Too many potential starters need innings for Tyler Wells, at least for now, so he is for the pen.

I think Fry has lost it and he gets DFA-Ed, but I’d love to be wrong.

Would love to see a Scott trade but he demonstrated his trade value(small) last summer.

This  is a significant topic in my opinion.   Tampa's bullpen was a big reason why they won 100 games.  The pen was much better than their starters.    If the O's are following the Tampa model improving the O's pen is a must.

[HowAboutThat]

19 minutes ago, wildcard said:

This  is a significant topic in my opinion.   Tampa's bullpen was a big reason why they won 100 games.  The pen was much better than their starters.    If the O's are following the Tampa model improving the O's pen is a must.

Sure. Your comment doesn’t refute or even address mine, which was just about the typical idle speculation that happens in the off months. Any Fool knows that a good BP is important. The question is whether the fools in Oriole Management 1) would recognize a good BP if it hit them on the butt, and 2) know that a rotation is important, too.

Im not sure we are following Tampa’s model BTW. Their plan is to trade guys at peak value and restock their pipeline. We don’t have anyone at peak value except perhaps Means and we have no idea whether he was being actively shopped before the lockout, so it’s too soon to say.

[Can_of_corn]

40 minutes ago, wildcard said:

This  is a significant topic in my opinion.   Tampa's bullpen was a big reason why they won 100 games.  The pen was much better than their starters.    If the O's are following the Tampa model improving the O's pen is a must.

If the O's hope to ever contend again improving the pen is a must.

It's got nothing to do with your Rays fascination.

[Frobby]

44 minutes ago, wildcard said:

This  is a significant topic in my opinion.   Tampa's bullpen was a big reason why they won 100 games.  The pen was much better than their starters.    If the O's are following the Tampa model improving the O's pen is a must.

Please stop with the idea that just because Elias has spoken approvingly about Tampa’s organization, he’s going to slavishly follow everything Tampa does.   That isn’t happening.   

And guess what — improving our bullpen is a must no matter what model we’re following.    We had a 5.70 bullpen ERA last year, worst in the majors by more than .6 runs per game and more than 1.5  runs worse than league average.   Our save rate was 29th, at 48%.    We don’t need to worry about what Tampa is doing to know that our bullpen needs to be much, much better.

The interesting thing is that the 2020 bullpen, with many of the same pitchers, was way better — 3.90 ERA (9th in the majors) and 61% save rate (13th).    Could just be that their 2020 performance was a small sample size fluke, and that they didn’t have as much time to wear down from being overused thanks to the lousy starters.   
 

[Frobby]

Here are the key pitchers who were in our bullpen in both 2020 and 2021 (ERA each year in parentheses):

Cole Sulser (5.56/2.70)

Dillon Tate (3.24/4.39)

Tanner Scott (1.31/5.17)

Paul Fry (2.45/6.08)

Cesar Valdez (1.26/5.87)

Travis Lakins (2.81/5.79)

Shawn Armstrong (1.80/8.55)

All but Sulser were worse, and all but Tate were drastically worse.   Valdez and Armstrong are out of the organization.  I think Fry and Scott are capable of much better than we saw last year.   Not sure about Lakins.

 

 

[Pickles]

24 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Please stop with the idea that just because Elias has spoken approvingly about Tampa’s organization, he’s going to slavishly follow everything Tampa does.   That isn’t happening.   

And guess what — improving our bullpen is a must no matter what model we’re following.    We had a 5.70 bullpen ERA last year, worst in the majors by more than .6 runs per game and more than 1.5  runs worse than league average.   Our save rate was 29th, at 48%.    We don’t need to worry about what Tampa is doing to know that our bullpen needs to be much, much better.

The interesting thing is that the 2020 bullpen, with many of the same pitchers, was way better — 3.90 ERA (9th in the majors) and 61% save rate (13th).    Could just be that their 2020 performance was a small sample size fluke, and that they didn’t have as much time to wear down from being overused thanks to the lousy starters.   
 

Load.

It's pretty damn impossible to have a good bullpen when you need 5 innings out of them every night.