Fangraphs Os top 45 prospects

[LookinUp]

13 hours ago, Frobby said:

Back to Lowther, it really seems over the top to write him under the 35+ grade.   Fangraphs was never that high on him, only grading him at 40 going into last season.   But anyone who closely followed the O’s knows he got shuttled around, had some arm issues and pitched pretty well in the final few starts.     Considering some of the guys who rated a 35+ grade, I just don’t see how Lowther could fall below that group.   

I assume Fangraphs has more blind spots across all orgs than local experts. They may get more intel from orgs with more people (e.g., Dodgers/Rays/Yanks with more scouts), and thus be "on" more of their guys. I think it's just a natural risk of trying to do this for every team as opposed to for a single team.

And without that scout or coach saying, yeah, but this Basallo kid looks special, they just see age, bonus, statistics and limited film/in person and place them in a general spot. 

[Tony-OH]

17 hours ago, wildcard said:

Yes, that is what I meant.  I didn't even think it would be about your list.

Your list is different then any other list.  You know the most about the O's and scout them.   Most lists will not have Basallo, Pinto and Hernandez as high as you do.   Its because you know the scouts and have more  knowledge than national ranker do.   I don't always agree with your rankings but I always respect why you rank them the way you do.  And you know more about the whole subject than I do.

When you announce your list I never get them right.  I don't have your knowledge and I think differently because of that.  I go more on how close certain players are to the majors.   No way I could look at a guy  in the Dominican maybe 4 years from the majors and rank him high.   Its just not in me to do that.  That doesn't mean I think you are wrong. 

A  year or two ago I was thinking Kremer would be in the top 10.  As you announced I would think Kremer has to be next.  You had him lower.   And we saw what happened to him during the season.  You got it right.  I didn't think he would have the problems he did.

Don't think I am trying to get under your skin when I rank Bradish and Baumann higher than you do.  I just rank guys close the majors higher.   I don't have the ability to look at young players the way you do.  I see that Baumann is being ranked lower have several rankers.   But that is just not  how I think.

 

It's all good wildcard. I don't have any issues with anyone who disagrees with my rankings or thoughts on guys, but I do get peeved when it looks like someone is putting more credence into some national list after they've been here for a long time.

While someone can disagree all they like or have a differing opinion, I can guarantee no one has put as much time into watching video and talking with knowledgeable people about the Orioles prospects. I've been doing this now for about 23+ years and have learned a lot and have adjusted how I evaluate as I've gotten more experience. Having so much video to watch on MiLBTv has been a great help to fill in blanks I once had and allowed me to make my own evaluation over word from others.

While I can respect the national pubs for trying to do all systems, I'm not sure they have the depth of knowledge to be too accurate, which is why you see highly drafted or once previously highly rank players stay high in their rankings year after year.

 

 

[Tony-OH]

15 hours ago, Frobby said:

Back to Lowther, it really seems over the top to write him under the 35+ grade.   Fangraphs was never that high on him, only grading him at 40 going into last season.   But anyone who closely followed the O’s knows he got shuttled around, had some arm issues and pitched pretty well in the final few starts.     Considering some of the guys who rated a 35+ grade, I just don’t see how Lowther could fall below that group.   

Not only that, if you look at his movement of his pitches and the success he had once he had settled into a 5-day starter routine, along with his success in the minor league prior to 2021, it boggles my mind anyone would not think he's at least a 35+ player. 

But I can bet the evaluator looked at the stats and went, "yuck", without understanding the entire situation last year.

[Frobby]

22 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Not only that, if you look at his movement of his pitches and the success he had once he had settled into a 5-day starter routine, along with his success in the minor league prior to 2021, it boggles my mind anyone would not think he's at least a 35+ player. 

But I can bet the evaluator looked at the stats and went, "yuck", without understanding the entire situation last year.

Here are their comments on Lowther:

“Lowther is a former FanGraphs fave due to his delivery’s deceptive elements but they haven’t stood up to upper-level bats and he now a depth evaluation, too. “

[Tony-OH]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Here are their comments on Lowther:

“Lowther is a former FanGraphs fave due to his delivery’s deceptive elements but they haven’t stood up to upper-level bats and he now a depth evaluation, too. “

And there you have it. they are looking at the skewed stats that he put last year instead of looking at the stuff on Savant and then looking at the stats once he settled into an every five game starter for the most part.

Another thing to consider is the uniqueness of Lowther's speed and movement of his pitches. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/affinity-pitchers-bySHV#players=pitchers&player=675912-L&s=0.6

This chart shows he pretty unique with only two pitchers (Andrew Heaney and Dillon Peters) having a .7 or above similarity score. I'm still trying understand the importance of these similarity scores still so I'm not sure you can draw any conclusions based on them yet, but it is interesting to see how different he is to most pitchers. 

It's going to be about limiting his mistakes in the middle of the plate for Lowther. If he can do that, I think he's going to end up a pretty good starting pitcher, and certainly worth way more than 35+.

 

 

 

[LookinUp]

41 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Here are their comments on Lowther:

“Lowther is a former FanGraphs fave due to his delivery’s deceptive elements but they haven’t stood up to upper-level bats and he now a depth evaluation, too. “

As it relates to Lowther, I think his performance was uneven enough last year that it's fair that even two informed evaluators differ on him. While I still like him and generally agree with Tony that there's a lot of meaningful context and it's not time to give up on him, he's definitely a guy who needs to prove it.

[Sports Guy]

My thoughts on Lowther are this…if you have Kevin Smith on this list, Lowther has to be on it too.  I have Lowther in my top 20 and I think you can argue that is too high but I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt, after being good previously, that the organization really screwed him over in 2021.

[Frobby]

16 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

And there you have it. they are looking at the skewed stats that he put last year instead of looking at the stuff on Savant and then looking at the stats once he settled into an every five game starter for the most part.

Another thing to consider is the uniqueness of Lowther's speed and movement of his pitches. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/affinity-pitchers-bySHV#players=pitchers&player=675912-L&s=0.6

This chart shows he pretty unique with only two pitchers (Andrew Heaney and Dillon Peters) having a .7 or above similarity score. I'm still trying understand the importance of these similarity scores still so I'm not sure you can draw any conclusions based on them yet, but it is interesting to see how different he is to most pitchers. 

It's going to be about limiting his mistakes in the middle of the plate for Lowther. If he can do that, I think he's going to end up a pretty good starting pitcher, and certainly worth way more than 35+.

 

 

 

Well, I do think they know something about Lowther.   Here’s their write-up from last year when they ranked him 18th:

“He doesn’t throw very hard, but it takes hitters a few looks to get comfortable with Lowther, whose mechanical funk disrupts their timing. The sinking and tailing action on his heater makes it tough to square up, and the southpaw leans on his secondary stuff to finish hitters. His curveball has depth and it bites hard, but doesn’t pair very well with the sinker and is best deployed as a means to get ahead of hitters early in the count. The changeup, which has weird, floating/tailing action but almost no sink, has become Lowther’s out pitch. He fits in a swingman or bulk relief role.”

That said, I’d assume they did not get multiple looks at Lowther this year.   Overall of the national sites I think they do the best job of drilling down on players, but I don’t think they did a good job on Lowther.

[Tony-OH]

10 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

As it relates to Lowther, I think his performance was uneven enough last year that it's fair that even two informed evaluators differ on him. While I still like him and generally agree with Tony that there's a lot of meaningful context and it's not time to give up on him, he's definitely a guy who needs to prove it.

Don't they all?

[LookinUp]

5 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Don't they all?

Sure, but my doubts on Lowther are very different than my doubts on Hall, for example. I have no idea if the stuff will be enough to succeed over time.

[Tony-OH]

12 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

Sure, but my doubts on Lowther are very different than my doubts on Hall, for example. I have no idea if the stuff will be enough to succeed over time.

I just looked at Fangraphs to see what players they have above Lowther. McSweeney and Burch are on there. Let me just say this: LOL! 

Honestly I typical respect Fangraphs and I don't know who came up with this list, but I'm not even sure where to even start when they have a 23-year old reliever (McSweeney) who put up a 5.09 ERA at Aberdeen with a 1.53 WHIP. I'm assumed they were impressed by his small sample size at Bowie. Honestly, I'd have to go back and look at my scouting report on him because i don't really remember his stuff, but I know it wasn't impressive.

I don't know, to each their own. But go look up what Lowther did as a 23-year old and get back to me.