Austin Hays 2022

[DrungoHazewood]

On 9/24/2022 at 12:05 PM, oldfan said:

Not a lot of guys have good arms in the outfield these days. Especially in rightfield, too many runners easily going first to third on singles to right. Years ago everyone knew there were three or four guys you couldn't run on.

Would love to see metrics that show any shred of evidence that's true. Without some facts to point to I think there's at least a 99% chance that there has been no measurable decrease in outfield arm strength since the good ol' days. 

Since the average player is bigger, stronger, and faster today with far better access to biomechanical data, medical technology and metrics than in the 40s, 50, 60s I'd assume arms are better today than ever before.

[foxfield]

Other than Adley and Gunner, I think we need to remain flexible as to who we see where.  Even Gunner could play multiple spots.....This has been a fantastic year, but it would be a pretty big mistake to think that replacing one bat or one glove and getting some pitching is all this team needs.  From absolutely horrendous to a winning season was a huge jump and it took some massive improvement to make that leap.  But going from say 82 or 83 wins to 95+ is going to take almost the same magnitude of jump.  As someone pointed out in another thread, we need to improve runs.  Scoring more giving up less by somewhere above 100 or more runs.  That is not only going to take additions, it is going to take improvement from those you keep.

So while it may be easy to calculate more runs by replacing say Odor that alone isn't going to do it.  So, in theory, I agree with Sports Guy here but I just look at it differently.  The production from Hays was good enough to keep as a nugget on a team that was abysmal.  But we need to improve for us to catch Tampa Bay, Toronto and the Yankees.  And if we are being honest, that is true all over.

Some of that will likely occur on it's own.  Gunner and Adley are still young and hopefully have room to grow.  But we need better production out of the OF and from the middle IF.

There are many ways to do that and some of them could include keeping Hays in LF.  But looking by position probably makes it too hard.  We need more offense, continued improving defense and better pitching.  The Orioles are going to have to be looked at in total, because many of the pieces....like Hays or even Mateo are good enough to contend on a winning team.  The issue is to be that team, we need to get better than what we are.  We are not going to internally grow to Division Winners in 23 or 24.  Elias is going to have to make some changes.  

The good news is that there are many pieces to work with.  But this is an important offseason, because this team cannot afford to stand pat.  It has some hard questions to answer.  And none of them are as simple as should Hays stay in LF, or Mountcastle at 1b, or Mateo at SS, Santander in RF, Mullins in CF.  The answer to any of them could be yes, maybe even many of them.  It cannot be the answer for all of them.

Edited October 4, 2022 by foxfield

[DrungoHazewood]

2 minutes ago, foxfield said:

From absolutely horrendous to a winning season was a huge jump and it took some massive improvement to make that leap.  But going from say 82 or 83 wins to 95+ is going to take almost the same magnitude of jump.  As someone pointed out in another thread, we need to improve runs.  Scoring more giving up less by somewhere above 100 or more runs.  That is not only going to take additions, it is going to take improvement from those you keep.

I think it's also likely that some of the 30 game improvement will not stick, it won't carry over.  Improvement is performance/skill plus luck.  The Orioles were pretty lucky with regard to injuries this year.  A number of pitchers significantly out-performed their FIPs, while only Baker, and maybe Watkins and Bradish went the other way.

They have a lot of positive indicators, but remember that the 1990 and 2013 Orioles declined by 11 and eight games, respectively.

[foxfield]

2 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I think it's also likely that some of the 30 game improvement will not stick, it won't carry over.  Improvement is performance/skill plus luck.  The Orioles were pretty lucky with regard to injuries this year.  A number of pitchers significantly out-performed their FIPs, while only Baker, and maybe Watkins and Bradish went the other way.

They have a lot of positive indicators, but remember that the 1990 and 2013 Orioles declined by 11 and eight games, respectively.

Agreed, my point being that swapping out Odor or a better LF for Hays and adding one SP isn't going to make this club a pennant winner.   I would consider this a firm 75 win team and continue building from there.  And more importantly that many of the individual pieces the O's currently have could be usable for a winning team, but collectively they simply are not yet good enough.

[Keygans]

Other thing to consider.... the Orioles like to do better in EVEN years the last decade plus.   So.......... regression in 2023 could happen with us winning the division AND the World Series in 2024!!!!!!

[jdwilde1]

3 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

The Orioles were pretty lucky with regard to injuries this year. 

I agree regarding position players and bullpen, but the O’s lost arguably their three best starters to injury (Means, Grayson, and Tyler Wells).  Means was out for basically the whole year, Grayson was expected to be called up in the early June, and Wells only pitched 9 innings after being injured in late July.  Between the three, that’s probably about 55 starts that needed to be filled. With that said, I was pleasantly surprised with the team’s ability to fill out the rotation. 

[now]

4 hours ago, Keygans said:

Other thing to consider.... the Orioles like to do better in EVEN years the last decade plus.   So.......... regression in 2023 could happen with us winning the division AND the World Series in 2024!!!!!!

This reminds me of the glory years, beginning with 1960, '64, '66, '70.

(Or of course, more famously, SF Giants 2010/12/14/16.)

[oldfan]

10 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Would love to see metrics that show any shred of evidence that's true. Without some facts to point to I think there's at least a 99% chance that there has been no measurable decrease in outfield arm strength since the good ol' days. 

Since the average player is bigger, stronger, and faster today with far better access to biomechanical data, medical technology and metrics than in the 40s, 50, 60s I'd assume arms are better today than ever before.

A thought, watch the games, that's what we did in the good ol' days.

[Frobby]

27 minutes ago, oldfan said:

A thought, watch the games, that's what we did in the good ol' days.

Back when the games were only on radio?

Seriously, the TV broadcasts of games were pretty limited until sometime in the late ‘70’s or early 80’’s, seems to me.  

Generally, I think arms are better today.   I’ve been going to baseball games and watching whenever I could since the mid-late 1960’s.
 

 

[DrungoHazewood]

20 hours ago, oldfan said:

A thought, watch the games, that's what we did in the good ol' days.

Did you?  How?  If you didn't live right next to the ballpark there's no way you watched more than a fraction of you favorite team's games, and very few of anyone else's.  In 1950 it was probably physically impossible to see more than 10-15% of MLB games.

If you lived in St. Louis and had season tickets to both the Browns and Cardinals and went to every game that would be watching 12.5% of all the games.

Edited October 5, 2022 by DrungoHazewood

[Sports Guy]

On 10/4/2022 at 8:26 AM, DrungoHazewood said:

I think it's also likely that some of the 30 game improvement will not stick, it won't carry over.  Improvement is performance/skill plus luck.  The Orioles were pretty lucky with regard to injuries this year.  A number of pitchers significantly out-performed their FIPs, while only Baker, and maybe Watkins and Bradish went the other way.

They have a lot of positive indicators, but remember that the 1990 and 2013 Orioles declined by 11 and eight games, respectively.

Yep.  Have to make big improvements to this team imo.  Can’t just make assumptions that these same things will carry over.  They made that mistake after 2012 and after 2014.

[DrungoHazewood]

9 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Yep.  Have to make big improvements to this team imo.  Can’t just make assumptions that these same things will carry over.  They made that mistake after 2012 and after 2014.

I don't think they assumed everything would just carry over and get better.  I think they were given a budget by Angelos, and weren't able to secure (m)any upgrades within those limits.

[OriolesMagic83]

9 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Yep.  Have to make big improvements to this team imo.  Can’t just make assumptions that these same things will carry over.  They made that mistake after 2012 and after 2014.

After 2014 was when Dan tried to go to Toronto if I remember right.  It seemed like the emphasis was on keeping Dan over improving the team. 

[Pickles]

10 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Yep.  Have to make big improvements to this team imo.  Can’t just make assumptions that these same things will carry over.  They made that mistake after 2012 and after 2014.

If they had truly made big mistakes after 2012 there wouldn't have been 2014.

And if there truly had been big mistakes after 2014 there wouldn't have been 2016.

You seem to think the only acceptable outcome is to make the playoffs every single year.

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I don't think they assumed everything would just carry over and get better.  I think they were given a budget by Angelos, and weren't able to secure (m)any upgrades within those limits.

I don’t know.  The payroll kept getting higher by a lot.  Either way, they didn’t capitalize on things when they needed to.  I hope this team doesn’t make the same mistake.