Joey Ortiz 2022

[Pickles]

1 hour ago, RZNJ said:

How many Aprils are you basing that on?

Ain't that kind of the issue too?

[Pickles]

9 hours ago, Frobby said:

I agree there’s a solid chance for that to happen.  I just got stuck on the “no doubt” part.  I’d be happy for us to take our chances on Ortiz next year and see what we can get for Mateo this winter.  

It was suggested that other teams may not value Mateo as a 3 WAR SS yet, so we should hold on to him.  But if we think Ortiz is better and should be playing over him, I don’t think we enhance Mateo’s trade value by reducing his role and playing time.  So I’d look to trade him now.  Obviously, if we can’t get anything decent in exchange, we don’t need to trade him now, but I’d be shopping him pretty aggressively.  It would be nice if he won the Gold Glove; that might get some extra attention, even though his fielding kind of is what it is regardless of what the award-givers say.  

 

I'd rather have Mateo in a back up role than to trade him for some middling return.  I don't care about maximizing his trade value; I care about maximizing my major league wins. He would be an amazing super sub; he'd probably still play 140 games a year, but he'd get about 350 abs.  He could still be worth several wins in that role imo.  As a defensive replacement and a pinch runner he would be a real tool to a team.

He's my starting SS next year, at least to start, but if I had to pick and choose between trading one and using one as a bench player between Mateo and Urias, I'd trade Urias, because Mateo would be more valuable in the utility role.

And to be a little more on topic considering this is Ortiz' thread, I am greatly enthused to hear the reports in this thread, and if he's as good as some believe, he will soon be the starting shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Pickles
On Topic

[orioles22]

52 minutes ago, Pickles said:

I'd rather have Mateo in a back up role than to trade him for some middling return.  I don't care about maximizing his trade value; I care about maximizing my major league wins. He would be an amazing super sub; he'd probably still play 140 games a year, but he'd get about 350 abs.  He could still be worth several wins in that role imo.  As a defensive replacement and a pinch runner he would be a real tool to a team.

He's my starting SS next year, at least to start, but if I had to pick and choose between trading one and using one as a bench player between Mateo and Urias, I'd trade Urias, because Mateo would be more valuable in the utility role.

And to be a little more on topic considering this is Ortiz' thread, I am greatly enthused to hear the reports in this thread, and if he's as good as some believe, he will soon be the starting shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles.

I've said this before, but Mateo is too good of a shortstop to be playing in a utility role. He either starts for us or someone else. I'd rather have Ortiz at second or in the utility role, at least for now. I expect Holliday to be the next shortstop, at just about the time that Mateo may lose a step or two.

[forphase1]

1 hour ago, orioles22 said:

I've said this before, but Mateo is too good of a shortstop to be playing in a utility role. He either starts for us or someone else. I'd rather have Ortiz at second or in the utility role, at least for now. I expect Holliday to be the next shortstop, at just about the time that Mateo may lose a step or two.

I think folks are giving Mateo too much credit.  The defense is good, but the bat is pretty bad.  From what I've seen and read I expect Ortiz to give similar performance at short, though in a slightly different way.  And the bat should be better.  I'm not saying Mateo couldn't start on some other teams, I just think with what we've got coming up he shouldn't be penciled in as our starter.  The bat just doesn't play enough for him to be a regular in the lineup day in and day out.  If we had a strong lineup in 6-7 of the other positions, then we could carry him.  But we don't, so we can't.  I hope he's given a utility role or is traded personally.  

[wildcard]

6 hours ago, forphase1 said:

I think folks are giving Mateo too much credit.  The defense is good, but the bat is pretty bad.  From what I've seen and read I expect Ortiz to give similar performance at short, though in a slightly different way.  And the bat should be better.  I'm not saying Mateo couldn't start on some other teams, I just think with what we've got coming up he shouldn't be penciled in as our starter.  The bat just doesn't play enough for him to be a regular in the lineup day in and day out.  If we had a strong lineup in 6-7 of the other positions, then we could carry him.  But we don't, so we can't.  I hope he's given a utility role or is traded personally.  

The O's have a lineup that could be very good if certain adjustments  are made.  Mullins, Gunnar, Adley, Santander should be good.  Westburg drove in 100 in AAA and should be a middle of the order bat.  

Hays had a 830 OPS until he got hurt.  The O's have to IL him when hurt and play Cowser when  Hays is hurt.   

Mountcastle is good when not slumping.   I  would  try to get him to not swing from his heels all the time and be  more about getting base hits more often.   Westburg can play 1B at times and Ortiz plays 2B.  This is a job for Hyde to optimize the production out of 1B now that he will have more talent. 

Stowers in RF should give power and a left-handed bat in Camden.  He is a talent and needs playing time.  Cowser is coming.  I would mostly play him at the corners.  He does not have Mullins speed in CF.

That is eight.   I think ST would be dedicated to trying to get Mateo back to hitting like he did in July/August and seeing what Ortiz looks like at SS.  But I expect Ortiz to begin the year in the minors.

There is potential for a much improved lineup here.

 

 

[IPlayGM]

53 minutes ago, wildcard said:

The O's have a lineup that could be very good if certain adjustments  are made.  Mullins, Gunnar, Adley, Santander should be good.  Westburg drove in 100 in AAA and should be a middle of the order bat.  

Hays had a 830 OPS until he got hurt.  The O's have to IL him when hurt and play Cowser when  Hays is hurt.   

Mountcastle is good when not slumping.   I  would  try to get him to not swing from his heels all the time and be  more about getting base hits more often.   Westburg can play 1B at times and Ortiz plays 2B.  This is a job for Hyde to optimize the production out of 1B now that he will have more talent. 

Stowers in RF should give power and a left-handed bat in Camden.  He is a talent and needs playing time.  Cowser is coming.  I would mostly play him at the corners.  He does not have Mullins speed in CF.

That is eight.   I think ST would be dedicated to trying to get Mateo back to hitting like he did in July/August and seeing what Ortiz looks like at SS.  But I expect Ortiz to begin the year in the minors.

There is potential for a much improved lineup here.

 

 

The bolded part made me laugh….I think a lot of guys fall in that category!!!

[LookinUp]

2 hours ago, wildcard said:

The O's have a lineup that could be very good if certain adjustments  are made.  Mullins, Gunnar, Adley, Santander should be good.  Westburg drove in 100 in AAA and should be a middle of the order bat.  

Hays had a 830 OPS until he got hurt.  The O's have to IL him when hurt and play Cowser when  Hays is hurt.   

Mountcastle is good when not slumping.   I  would  try to get him to not swing from his heels all the time and be  more about getting base hits more often.   Westburg can play 1B at times and Ortiz plays 2B.  This is a job for Hyde to optimize the production out of 1B now that he will have more talent. 

Stowers in RF should give power and a left-handed bat in Camden.  He is a talent and needs playing time.  Cowser is coming.  I would mostly play him at the corners.  He does not have Mullins speed in CF.

That is eight.   I think ST would be dedicated to trying to get Mateo back to hitting like he did in July/August and seeing what Ortiz looks like at SS.  But I expect Ortiz to begin the year in the minors.

There is potential for a much improved lineup here.

 

 

You essentially wrote in last year's lineup plus Westburg and said it's good enough to carry Mateo's bat.

I agree that not having Odor will be a plus. And once Cowser comes up, you hope he's better than Hays, but unless those two rookies are really good, we either need to add a MOO bat from the outside or we need to upgrade the offensive hole at SS, IMO. 

 

[forphase1]

3 hours ago, wildcard said:

The O's have a lineup that could be very good if certain adjustments  are made.  Mullins, Gunnar, Adley, Santander should be good.  Westburg drove in 100 in AAA and should be a middle of the order bat.  

Hays had a 830 OPS until he got hurt.  The O's have to IL him when hurt and play Cowser when  Hays is hurt.   

Mountcastle is good when not slumping.   I  would  try to get him to not swing from his heels all the time and be  more about getting base hits more often.   Westburg can play 1B at times and Ortiz plays 2B.  This is a job for Hyde to optimize the production out of 1B now that he will have more talent. 

Stowers in RF should give power and a left-handed bat in Camden.  He is a talent and needs playing time.  Cowser is coming.  I would mostly play him at the corners.  He does not have Mullins speed in CF.

That is eight.   I think ST would be dedicated to trying to get Mateo back to hitting like he did in July/August and seeing what Ortiz looks like at SS.  But I expect Ortiz to begin the year in the minors.

There is potential for a much improved lineup here.

 

 

I agree with SOME of this.  Sure, when healthy and not slumping, most players can perform at their peak level.  Problem is that's not reality. 

Hays - when healthy he seems really good.  Problem is he can't stay healthy and even if the injuries aren't enough to DL him, its enough to make him a hole in the lineup.  Sure, we should sit him and play others OR we could replace him with someone who isn't always injured and having to sit.  I like Hays, but he's not reliable enough to count on.

Mountcastle - sure, when he's not slumping he is good.  Same is true to most MLB players.  Problem is he slumps way too much and for way too long to pencil him in as the starter every day.  Sure, if we can 'fix' him then it's a different story, but that hasn't happened yet, and may never happen.

Stowers - he should have played much more last year and hopefully gets more chances this upcoming year.  

As to the rest, you are making tons of assumptions.  Let's go position by position and see if we can really afford to carry Mateos bat...

1st - Mountcastle - Nope, no consistent enough to carry Mateos load too

2nd- who knows?  Odor certainly couldn't.  I'm hopeful that we either sign someone good here or one of the kids can perform, but it's still TBD

SS - Mateo - black hole in the lineup.  So far we are 0-3

3rd - Gunnar - Yes, he's good 1-4 so far

C - Adley - Yup 2-5

Outfield - Santander, Hays and Mullins - Santander is solid, Mullins is good, though wasn't nearly as good as last year.  Last year he could carry the team, this year we was just decent.  Hays isn't reliable enough.  so 1.5 out of 3 here, giving us 3.5-8 at this point.  Stowers may help here too, but only if he's played.

DH - With the above starters listed, we don't really have anyone that is a good bat to put in the DH spot, and certainly no one you can count on carrying a team.

 

So I look at our lineup and I see 3.5 or so out of 9 slots that are good enough to carry weak at bats by other positions.  Replacing Mateo with Ortiz could help that if Ortiz can hit anywhere close to as he did the final 3 months of last season.  In a good/great lineup you can hide a few glove first/weak bat players as the rest of the lineup can produce.  But the way we are currently constructed, we simply don't have the bats to have too many black holes in that lineup.  

 

 

[Frobby]

10 minutes ago, forphase1 said:

I agree with SOME of this.  Sure, when healthy and not slumping, most players can perform at their peak level.  Problem is that's not reality. 

Hays - when healthy he seems really good.  Problem is he can't stay healthy and even if the injuries aren't enough to DL him, its enough to make him a hole in the lineup.  Sure, we should sit him and play others OR we could replace him with someone who isn't always injured and having to sit.  I like Hays, but he's not reliable enough to count on.

Mountcastle - sure, when he's not slumping he is good.  Same is true to most MLB players.  Problem is he slumps way too much and for way too long to pencil him in as the starter every day.  Sure, if we can 'fix' him then it's a different story, but that hasn't happened yet, and may never happen.

Stowers - he should have played much more last year and hopefully gets more chances this upcoming year.  

As to the rest, you are making tons of assumptions.  Let's go position by position and see if we can really afford to carry Mateos bat...

1st - Mountcastle - Nope, no consistent enough to carry Mateos load too

2nd- who knows?  Odor certainly couldn't.  I'm hopeful that we either sign someone good here or one of the kids can perform, but it's still TBD

SS - Mateo - black hole in the lineup.  So far we are 0-3

3rd - Gunnar - Yes, he's good 1-4 so far

C - Adley - Yup 2-5

Outfield - Santander, Hays and Mullins - Santander is solid, Mullins is good, though wasn't nearly as good as last year.  Last year he could carry the team, this year we was just decent.  Hays isn't reliable enough.  so 1.5 out of 3 here, giving us 3.5-8 at this point.  Stowers may help here too, but only if he's played.

DH - With the above starters listed, we don't really have anyone that is a good bat to put in the DH spot, and certainly no one you can count on carrying a team.

 

So I look at our lineup and I see 3.5 or so out of 9 slots that are good enough to carry weak at bats by other positions.  Replacing Mateo with Ortiz could help that if Ortiz can hit anywhere close to as he did the final 3 months of last season.  In a good/great lineup you can hide a few glove first/weak bat players as the rest of the lineup can produce.  But the way we are currently constructed, we simply don't have the bats to have too many black holes in that lineup.  

 

 

My view is, the whole construct of good bats at other positions carrying a weak bat somewhere else is wrong.  For Mateo to play, either (1) the strength of his glove needs to be good enough to justify the weak bat, or (2) the weak bat has to improve.  In 2022, 3.3 rWAR/2.8 fWAR tells you Mateo, glove was good enough to carry his bat.   Will he be as good defensively in 2023?  Can he be better offensively?  Those are two important questions that will dictate his playing time.  

But then there’s the other question: do we have a player, or combination of players, that give us a better mix of offense and defense than Mateo does?   Ortiz might flat out be a better overall player than Mateo, a tick behind on defense but significantly better on offense.  Honestly, with Mateo, Urias, Henderson, Westburg, Ortiz and Norby, there are so many permutations it’s mind-boggling.  
 

[forphase1]

9 minutes ago, Frobby said:

My view is, the whole construct of good bats at other positions carrying a weak bat somewhere else is wrong.  For Mateo to play, either (1) the strength of his glove needs to be good enough to justify the weak bat, or (2) the weak bat has to improve.  In 2022, 3.3 rWAR/2.8 fWAR tells you Mateo, glove was good enough to carry his bat.   Will he be as good defensively in 2023?  Can he be better offensively?  Those are two important questions that will dictate his playing time.  

But then there’s the other question: do we have a player, or combination of players, that give us a better mix of offense and defense than Mateo does?   Ortiz might flat out be a better overall player than Mateo, a tick behind on defense but significantly better on offense.  Honestly, with Mateo, Urias, Henderson, Westburg, Ortiz and Norby, there are so many permutations it’s mind-boggling.  
 

I get what you are saying, but I'm not sure WAR can tell the whole picture of roster construction.  If we had 8 glove first players who all get a decent WAR due to their defense but all hit like Mateo we wouldn't score enough runs to win many games, even if the defense kept the scores like 2-1 all the time.  On the other side if we had a lineup full of mashers, but carried rocks in their gloves, the WAR may be great individually, but we may lose a lot of high scoring games as our defense would be so terrible.  I'm being a bit silly of course, but still the point remains.  

A team with a solid lineup can hide a weak bat or two, and still score enough runs to offset the holes in the lineup.  We just had too many holes too many times this year.  When Hays and Mountcastle were slumping, we had like 4-5 weak hitters on a regular basis (Odor, Mateo, Hays, Mountcastle, Chirinos).  That's just too many to carry.  Odor is gone (hopefully) so that should be addition by subtractions.  Mateos spot is another place we could potentially fix one of the holes.

I agree we have so many options that it's exciting to think about and see how it plays out.  But if Ortiz can be as you said, a tick behind on defense but significantly better on offense, then it'd be silly for us to simply give Mateo the starting position.  We need to upgrade at a few spots to really secure that playoff spot, and I think SS is one of those places.  As good as Mateo is with the glove, the bat is just not good enough if we have viable alternatives, which it appears we have.  

[Frobby]

55 minutes ago, forphase1 said:

I get what you are saying, but I'm not sure WAR can tell the whole picture of roster construction.  If we had 8 glove first players who all get a decent WAR due to their defense but all hit like Mateo we wouldn't score enough runs to win many games, even if the defense kept the scores like 2-1 all the time.  On the other side if we had a lineup full of mashers, but carried rocks in their gloves, the WAR may be great individually, but we may lose a lot of high scoring games as our defense would be so terrible.  I'm being a bit silly of course, but still the point remains.  

A team with a solid lineup can hide a weak bat or two, and still score enough runs to offset the holes in the lineup.  We just had too many holes too many times this year.  When Hays and Mountcastle were slumping, we had like 4-5 weak hitters on a regular basis (Odor, Mateo, Hays, Mountcastle, Chirinos).  That's just too many to carry.  Odor is gone (hopefully) so that should be addition by subtractions.  Mateos spot is another place we could potentially fix one of the holes.

I agree we have so many options that it's exciting to think about and see how it plays out.  But if Ortiz can be as you said, a tick behind on defense but significantly better on offense, then it'd be silly for us to simply give Mateo the starting position.  We need to upgrade at a few spots to really secure that playoff spot, and I think SS is one of those places.  As good as Mateo is with the glove, the bat is just not good enough if we have viable alternatives, which it appears we have.  

I do agree that you can’t look at WAR in a vacuum.  I’m not sure I agree with the idea that the offensive lineup wasn’t strong enough to carry Mateo’s glove.   The O’s have had teams that were worse than this one offensively, but still won 90+ games because the pitching and defense was so good.   For example, the 1964 O’s won 97 games despite having a team OPS+ of 95 (this year’s team was at 97) and finishing 6th of 10 teams in runs scored.   By Rtot (the only advanced metric available for that time period), they saved 75 runs with their gloves.  

[forphase1]

22 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I do agree that you can’t look at WAR in a vacuum.  I’m not sure I agree with the idea that the offensive lineup wasn’t strong enough to carry Mateo’s glove.   The O’s have had teams that were worse than this one offensively, but still won 90+ games because the pitching and defense was so good.   For example, the 1964 O’s won 97 games despite having a team OPS+ of 95 (this year’s team was at 97) and finishing 6th of 10 teams in runs scored.   By Rtot (the only advanced metric available for that time period), they saved 75 runs with their gloves.  

That 1964 team had Brooks and Boog who combined for almost 70 home runs and 220 RBI, with a 1.005 OPS for Boog and a .889 OPS for Brooks.  Our leader this year was Adley with a .806 OPS.  So yeah, that 1964 team had some bats who were able to carry the team, unlike this last year.  

Also, in 1964, the average runs per game was 4.04.  In 2021 it was 4.53 (I couldn't find complete numbers for 2022 for some reason).  Point being the offense output was up 1/2 a run per game too, which increases the need to score more yourself.  

In 2022 we scored 674 runs and allowed 688.  I think our defense can improve a bit at 2nd as Odor turned an OK double play, but wasn't great with the glove.  Otherwise I'm not sure we can save many more runs from a defense standpoint.  Sure, the pitching can get better.  But we were 20th in runs scored per game, at 4.16 a game.  We need to improve the lineup, and SS is an obvious place we can do so, and it just makes sense as long as the defense drop isn't much.  Our lineup just doesn't have much real top end strength at this point to carry so many bad at bats.  JMO.

[RZNJ]

I don't think it's going to happen but if Ortiz and Westburg replaced Mateo and Odor, the bar is not all that high for improvement.   If Ortiz and Westburg put up a .700 OPS or better that's a pretty significant improvement.    Westburg at 2B could be an overall better defender than Odor as well.   Ortiz could be comparable to Mateo defensively.

Starting the season with a rookie DP combination would be bold and I think Elias is going to play it safe and go with Westburg at 2B and let Ortiz bake a little more at Norfolk and give Mateo 1 or 2 months to see which version we get.

I like Abreu as a hitter but I don't think you get Abreu unless you are going to move Mountcastle.   I don't like he idea of having them both on the team.

[Just Regular]

2 hours ago, forphase1 said:

I get what you are saying, but I'm not sure WAR can tell the whole picture of roster construction.  If we had 8 glove first players who all get a decent WAR due to their defense but all hit like Mateo we wouldn't score enough runs to win many games, even if the defense kept the scores like 2-1 all the time. 

Good synopsis of The Extra 2% Tampa Bay Rays.    Run prevention is just so much more affordable than run creation.

They've taught me to be almost agnostic on if DL Hall throws 250, 350 or 450 innings the next three years, though surely DL and his agent aren't.     Curious to see how high Edwin Diaz pushes the bar to make the 70-inning lifestyle feel less unappealing to any given pitcher.

I do think weighing the Mateo v. Ortiz pros and cons, the new 2023 baserunning rules help the incumbent.    If the rulemakers miscalibrated and it becomes feasible for Mateo to steal 60-90 bases efficiently, that's a pretty good tiebreaker for me looking at the next half season.     You can always switch if Teams adapt well to defend themselves against the running game, as I'm sure Buck preached before bidding his guys farewell this fall.

 

 

[forphase1]

2 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

Good synopsis of The Extra 2% Tampa Bay Rays.    Run prevention is just so much more affordable than run creation.

They've taught me to be almost agnostic on if DL Hall throws 250, 350 or 450 innings the next three years, though surely DL and his agent aren't.     Curious to see how high Edwin Diaz pushes the bar to make the 70-inning lifestyle feel less unappealing to any given pitcher.

I do think weighing the Mateo v. Ortiz pros and cons, the new 2023 baserunning rules help the incumbent.    If the rulemakers miscalibrated and it becomes feasible for Mateo to steal 60-90 bases efficiently, that's a pretty good tiebreaker for me looking at the next half season.     You can always switch if Teams adapt well to defend themselves against the running game, as I'm sure Buck preached before bidding his guys farewell this fall.

 

 

The only problem with relying on the baserunning to push Mateo over the top is he has to get on base for that speed to do any good.  When your OBP is only .267, does it really matter if you are the best basestealer in the game?  Sure, it's a nice feather in the cap, and on the few occasions when you DO happen to get on you can cause some damage.  But for his baserunning to really be impactful enough to give him the nod over a much better bat, that OBP needs to be closer to the .300 mark.