Jorge Lopez traded to Twins for pitching prospects (edit)

[WI O’s Fan]

On 9/20/2022 at 8:10 AM, Frobby said:

I think the “regression to the mean” explanation is an oversimplification.  That’s fine when somebody’s xERA is higher than his actual ERA because hard hit balls are getting caught, and later it swings back the other way when some soft liners fall in.   But there’s more going on here:

- 10.1 K/9 for the O’s, 7.1 K/9 for the Twins

- 3.2 BB/9 for the O’s, 6.6 BB for the Twins.

That tells me that, for whatever reason, Lopez hasn’t had the same command of his stuff with the Twins that he did with the O’s.   And that lack of command also is probably a reason why he’s getting hit harder when he does throw pitches over the plate.

 

The mean is his career average is not an over simplification. Compare his Twin results with the 2015- 2021.  They are basically the same.  April thru June was the mirage.  Elias sold him high and even after a few kinks were showing in July as a high leverage guy.

[sportsfan8703]

This trade has been killing us. I know Lopez has struggled a bit with the Twins, and the Bautista is a much better closer, but this has killed our bullpen depth, and exposed our shaky middle relief. Everyone got pushed up a spot, and we’ve been a RH arm short since. 
 

The bullpen is taxed. We could’ve really used Lopez. Or Elias could’ve bought a middle arm option, and still had a net gain of prospects. 

[LA2]

1 hour ago, sportsfan8703 said:

This trade has been killing us. I know Lopez has struggled a bit with the Twins, and the Bautista is a much better closer, but this has killed our bullpen depth, and exposed our shaky middle relief. Everyone got pushed up a spot, and we’ve been a RH arm short since. 
 

The bullpen is taxed. We could’ve really used Lopez. Or Elias could’ve bought a middle arm option, and still had a net gain of prospects. 

My guess is that Lopez would be doing better than he has with the Twins if he was still here, with our pitching coaches and the bros that helped him pull through his family crises.

[sportsfan8703]

Did this move cost us a WC berth?  If Lopez was moved from Closer to MR or SU, would it had helped the pen?  Khreibel completely collapses. Bautista tired a bit. Do we win the two HOU home games and the game at BOS?  I mean that puts us right there. 
 

Lopez vs Bautista isn’t the question. It’s the trickle down effect on the rest of the pen having to pitch in more high leverage situations. Like Khreibel, Reed, and even Hall. 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Did this move cost us a WC berth?  If Lopez was moved from Closer to MR or SU, would it had helped the pen?  Khreibel completely collapses. Bautista tired a bit. Do we win the two HOU home games and the game at BOS?  I mean that puts us right there. 
 

Lopez vs Bautista isn’t the question. It’s the trickle down effect on the rest of the pen having to pitch in more high leverage situations. Like Khreibel, Reed, and even Hall. 

I doubt it would have made a significant difference.  Lopez did not pitch well down the stretch.   And honestly, Tampa kind of coasted at the end, knowing they had a playoff spot sewn up.  They would have won more than 86 if they’d needed to, IMO.

[deward]

1 hour ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Did this move cost us a WC berth?  If Lopez was moved from Closer to MR or SU, would it had helped the pen?  Khreibel completely collapses. Bautista tired a bit. Do we win the two HOU home games and the game at BOS?  I mean that puts us right there. 
 

Lopez vs Bautista isn’t the question. It’s the trickle down effect on the rest of the pen having to pitch in more high leverage situations. Like Khreibel, Reed, and even Hall. 

Losing the depth certainly came home to roost in September. It depends, I guess, on if you think Lopez would have pitched better here than he did in Minnesota. I could see an argument that a familiar environment and coaching staff would have made it more likely that he stayed on track. If you're in the camp that he was pitching over his head all along, and the regression he showed in Minn was inevitable, then he would have been part of the problem in September too. 

I think the more interesting question is, if you assume that Lopez would have continued to pitch well, and that he would have prevented a couple of meltdowns that made the difference in securing a playoff berth or not, was acquiring Cade Povich worth giving up that opportunity? I would argue that no chance at the post-season should passed on lightly.

[Redskins Rick]

How can you trade Lopez and claim to not be in the playoff chase.

Yet, at the end of the season, claim this team has it to complete with the AL East????

I know, my paraphrasing is probably off some, but you get the gist.

Elias pulled that trigger, return wasnt great, and now we are a better team.

 

[jamalshw]

Unless you think one of those wins we could have gotten by having Lopez here was against the Rays, we would have had to win 4 more games to have gotten into a playoff spot due to the tie breaker (and that's assuming Tampa wouldn't win an extra game or two if being pushed more by the Orioles). 

I don't see Lopez having that much of an impact. He struggled a bit in Minnesota. Would that have happened had he stayed? Who knows. He could have collapsed like several other arms down the stretch. We worked the pen hard early in the year. It makes sense they wore down. Would Lopez have helped minimize that? Possibly. Would he have helped us get an extra win or two? That seems like a reasonable assumption. Would he have made a 4 win difference in a little over 2 months? No. I don't think so. 

I get that it's a trickle down effect and late in a game the difference between a win or loss can be minimal and the swing is bigger than what WAR of a player may indicate. Still, I don't think the Lopez trade (or the Mancini trade...or both combined) was the difference between making and not making the playoffs. 

[tntoriole]

12 minutes ago, deward said:

Losing the depth certainly came home to roost in September. It depends, I guess, on if you think Lopez would have pitched better here than he did in Minnesota. I could see an argument that a familiar environment and coaching staff would have made it more likely that he stayed on track. If you're in the camp that he was pitching over his head all along, and the regression he showed in Minn was inevitable, then he would have been part of the problem in September too. 

I think the more interesting question is, if you assume that Lopez would have continued to pitch well, and that he would have prevented a couple of meltdowns that made the difference in securing a playoff berth or not, was acquiring Cade Povich worth giving up that opportunity? I would argue that no chance at the post-season should passed on lightly.

I think we would have had more blown saves than with Bautista and the net effect would be nil or even worse than where we were.   Bigger problem in terms of winning was offense leaving the stage many games down the stretch. 
I think Elias made a good trade and I am high on Povich.. he is one of my sleeper candidates in organization progress next year .. if stays healthy 
 

[wildcard]

If the goal is to win the World Series then keeping Lopez would not have achieved that in 2022.  The O's were not going to last long in the playoffs if they got that far.

Will Povich, Lopez or any of the other pitchers in that trade make a different in the O's efforts to win the WS is another question.

Edited October 12, 2022 by wildcard

[deward]

5 minutes ago, tntoriole said:

I think we would have had more blown saves than with Bautista and the net effect would be nil or even worse than where we were.   Bigger problem in terms of winning was offense leaving the stage many games down the stretch. 
I think Elias made a good trade and I am high on Povich.. he is one of my sleeper candidates in organization progress next year .. if stays healthy 
 

It's possible, for sure. Povich is fine, but I found Elias to be a bit too rigid in his thinking this year. He didn't plan on this team winning, and he wasn't willing to bend on his plan when they started surprising everyone. I can appreciate someone having a vision and sticking to their guns on it, but you have to be able to react to opportunities. I would have liked to see him be a bit more aggressive in trying to seize an unexpected moment. Not mortgage the future type aggressive, but also not knocking the pins out from under the strongest part of the team and doing nothing to offset it but add Brett Phillips. I know everyone hopes that the team becomes a year in/year out contender, but playoff spots have been so scarce for this franchise that I don't like seeing one be allowed to pass by without any real attempt being made to chase it down from Elias.

[deward]

4 minutes ago, wildcard said:

If the goal is to win the World Series then keeping Lopez would not have achieved that in 2022.  The O's were not going to last long in the playoffs if they got that far.

Will Povich, Lopez or any of the other pitchers in that trade make a different in the O's efforts to win the WS is another question.

Hasn't the argument been that the goal is just to get to the post-season and random chance mostly takes over from there? How do we know that this team, if left intact, couldn't have gotten hot in October? They clearly weren't the most talented team in the field, but anything can happen in a short series, right?

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Did this move cost us a WC berth?  If Lopez was moved from Closer to MR or SU, would it had helped the pen?  Khreibel completely collapses. Bautista tired a bit. Do we win the two HOU home games and the game at BOS?  I mean that puts us right there. 
 

Lopez vs Bautista isn’t the question. It’s the trickle down effect on the rest of the pen having to pitch in more high leverage situations. Like Khreibel, Reed, and even Hall. 

Lopez allowed 11 runs and 37 baserunners in 22 innings following the trade.  If his loss cost us anything it was a fraction of a win.

[DrungoHazewood]

4 minutes ago, deward said:

Hasn't the argument been that the goal is just to get to the post-season and random chance mostly takes over from there? How do we know that this team, if left intact, couldn't have gotten hot in October? They clearly weren't the most talented team in the field, but anything can happen in a short series, right?

Yes, but in the current setup you now have that additional playoff round if you don't win the division, so even if every series is a 50-50 coin flip that cuts your odds significantly.  

If the argument is "why couldn't the Orioles get hot in October" sure, that's possible.  But on day one of the post-season they would have had a roughly 5% chance of winning it all.  Or a 95% chance of not.

[deward]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Yes, but in the current setup you now have that additional playoff round if you don't win the division, so even if every series is a 50-50 coin flip that cuts your odds significantly.  

If the argument is "why couldn't the Orioles get hot in October" sure, that's possible.  But on day one of the post-season they would have had a roughly 5% chance of winning it all.  Or a 95% chance of not.

A 5% chance sounds better than sitting at home with a 0% chance