It's time to play the players of the future

[LA2]

1 hour ago, Aristotelian said:

Ah, got it. I'm confused by the MLB.com Gameday. From the way it appears, it has Mullins and Vavra as defensive subs in the beginning of the inning. 

Yeah, in the second "Game Advisory" for the top of the 9th inning on Gameday, it says Odor left the game with two outs. Hyde used the opportunity to sub Mullins for McKenna as well and thus set up a promising sequence of at-bats in Mateo / Mullins / Rutschman to start the bottom of the 9th inning.

[Frobby]

10 minutes ago, LA2 said:

Yeah, in the second "Game Advisory" for the top of the 9th inning on Gameday, it says Odor left the game with two outs. Hyde used the opportunity to sub Mullins for McKenna as well and thus set up a promising sequence of at-bats in Mateo / Mullins / Rutschman to start the bottom of the 9th inning.

Mateo isn’t that promising a leadoff hitter.  He’s fun when he’s on base, but he’s not on base enough, especially lately.

[Chelsea_Phil]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

We don't talk about players like that here. While I agree that Aguilar has no role on this team, we don't call players names or refer to them as piles of whatever. 

Sorry, I’ll try to temper my anger.

[SteveA]

10 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Except Hays gets poor jumps and reads on the ball.

The Orioles defense has been good this year but it can be a lot better on the COF spots.  The Orioles really need a vast position player improvement in the offseason, as well as some pitching upgrades, to truly contend in 2023.

And Stowers, in the playing time he did get, appeared even worse.   Terrible routes.   I had never heard bad things about his defense coming up so I was surprised at how bad he looked.

[Can_of_corn]

12 hours ago, wildcard said:

This is not a hard question to answer.

The O's have turned the team around this year based on pitching and defense.  That is why Hays plays.  His defense is superior.   He has the range to play left field in Camden Yards.   Stowers  does not have that kind of range. Period.

Elias and Hyde knew that Hays had a good 1st half offensively.  They knew he was playing hurt in the 2nd half which effected his offense but not his defense.  They expected he would get over the injury and hit better.  It has not happen.

The hitting philosophy the O's have embraced does not seem to work.  Emphasizing hitting the ball hard on the barrel has a side effect of making hitters lengthen their swings. Which leads to a lot of fly outs.   Hays and Mountcastle are the poster children for that.  But Stowers has the same issue.  Long swings.

I don't know how eliminating the shift will effect hitting next season but on its own the O's need to re-evaluate their hitting philosophy.

JMO

It's the same approach the Astros use.

[RZNJ]

Rutschman and Henderson, Vavra, all seem to have fine hitting styles.   It's tough to teach old dogs new tricks and sometimes you just have to get the right dog to begin with.    It seems as though the Orioles have emphasized getting hitters who have very low chase percentages.   That's Rutschman, Henderson, and Vavra.    Unfortunately, Frobby provided the data that shows that Hays, Mateo, and Mountcastle are amongst the league's worst in that category.     Rutschman, Henderson, and Vavra also show the willingness to use the opposite field.    Henderson took a breaking ball that was on the inner half and rifled a double to LCF the other day.    Tough to imagine too many other hitters on the team doing that.

So, I'm pretty sure the Orioles do emphasize damage over contact in the minors but they also emphasize not expanding the zone and using an all fields approach.   The problem is that they have some holdover hitters that are productive but are either unwilling or incapable of adopting that approach.    

 

[Aristotelian]

2 hours ago, RZNJ said:

Rutschman, Henderson, and Vavra also show the willingness to use the opposite field.    Henderson took a breaking ball that was on the inner half and rifled a double to LCF the other day.    Tough to imagine too many other hitters on the team doing that.

Not sure about that. The league is playing Adley as an extreme pull hitter. His spray chart is pretty pull heavy. All HR and about 3/4 of his doubles vs RHP have been to right field. Seems to me that pitch recognition and selectivity are the bigger point of emphasis. Add Stowers, Cowser, Westburg, Haskin, and Norby to the list of guys with 10% or close walk rates in the high minors. 

[Tony-OH]

17 hours ago, SteveA said:

And Stowers, in the playing time he did get, appeared even worse.   Terrible routes.   I had never heard bad things about his defense coming up so I was surprised at how bad he looked.

Actually, his route taking has been his best part of outfield defense according to statcast. In the three components of jump, his route taking is at 0.1 ft/sec above average. His problem is his reaction (-1.6) and burst (-2.3) have been terrible and when you combine that with his 37.8% running speed, and my assessment that he was a Santander level (0.7 route, -0.9 reaction and -0.9 burst) was actually generous. He's actually worse. His 27.9 ft/sec covered would be the worse in baseball if his qualified.

I'll admit, I wasn't thrilled with what I saw when he was playing defense in the minors, but I didn't realize how bad it was until his statcast numbers came out. Now he's had less than 10 attempts, so it's a small sample size, but to put it in context, Ryan Mountcastle covered 29.6 ft/sec in 2021 when we couldn't wait to get him out of LF.

All the more reason to convert him to 1B in my opinion.

[Frobby]

5 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Actually, his route taking has been his best part of outfield defense according to statcast. In the three components of jump, his route taking is at 0.1 ft/sec above average. His problem is his reaction (-1.6) and burst (-2.3) have been terrible and when you combine that with his 37.8% running speed, and my assessment that he was a Santander level (0.7 route, -0.9 reaction and -0.9 burst) was actually generous. He's actually worse. His 27.9 ft/sec covered would be the worse in baseball if his qualified.

I'll admit, I wasn't thrilled with what I saw when he was playing defense in the minors, but I didn't realize how bad it was until his statcast numbers came out. Now he's had less than 10 attempts, so it's a small sample size, but to put it in context, Ryan Mountcastle covered 29.6 ft/sec in 2021 when we couldn't wait to get him out of LF.

All the more reason to convert him to 1B in my opinion.

Not encouraging, but I’d like to see more playing time before judging Stowers on such a small sample.  He’s only played 103 innings in the outfield so far, and sometimes there’s an adjustment period getting used to playing in stadiums with 2-3 levels, different lighting etc.   That said, Stowers certainly has looked unsure of himself at times.   We’ll see if he looks any better in a larger sample.  

[Tony-OH]

24 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Not encouraging, but I’d like to see more playing time before judging Stowers on such a small sample.  He’s only played 103 innings in the outfield so far, and sometimes there’s an adjustment period getting used to playing in stadiums with 2-3 levels, different lighting etc.   That said, Stowers certainly has looked unsure of himself at times.   We’ll see if he looks any better in a larger sample.  

Absolutely agree, and I think he is better than the "worse in baseball" numbers he's put up so far, but his performance does match my eye test from watching him in the minors. He's not going to be a good defensive outfielder at this point, so again, I hope they convert him to first base.

[jamalshw]

Given the wildcard is no longer a viable option, I want to see Stowers in the lineup everyday. Lets see him some more in the OF to see if he can adjust and improve defensively. I want the team to at least have a better idea what they have in him (and Vavra for that matter) before the offseason.

[Moose Milligan]

I think we all hate seeing him on the bench, but it's pretty apparent as to what's going on.  

Stowers has a good amount of swing and miss in his game.  He's already struck out 15 times, has walked 3 times in Baltimore.  And before anyone goes MOOSE TEH SAMPLLLZ SIZZZE IS 222222 SMALL yes, I agree.  It's entirely too small.

But it's also not a giant departure from what he's done in the minors, he strikes out at a pretty good clip to compared how he walks.  His defense, as pointed out by @Tony-OHisn't great.  He doesn't really pass the "Is he smooth?" eye test and the advanced statcast stuff isn't kind to him, either.

Now I agree that I want to see him in the lineup every day, I want to see more of his hitting approach and I want to see if he can get to his power at all.  IMO, the playoff race is over, we need to see what we have in guys like Vavra and Stowers.

But like I said, it's pretty apparent as to what's going on; it's obvious to me that if a guy doesn't do anything particularly well he's either not being strongly considered or they're going to make him ride the bench and work on things until he gets where he needs to be.  I have no doubt in my mind that if Stowers was elite in the outfield he'd have been playing more.  I also have no doubt in my mind that if he had an approach and a walk-rate like Rutschman, he'd be playing more even if his defense was still sub-par.  

It sucks, but I think that's what is happening here.  We can banter back and forth about what's best for players and what we'd prefer to see but it's also apparent that they have their way of doing things.  And again, I agree that it sucks because we're fans and we don't get to see what we want to see immediately, such as Stowers being in the lineup every day.  

[SteveA]

19 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I think we all hate seeing him on the bench, but it's pretty apparent as to what's going on.  

Stowers has a good amount of swing and miss in his game.  He's already struck out 15 times, has walked 3 times in Baltimore.  And before anyone goes MOOSE TEH SAMPLLLZ SIZZZE IS 222222 SMALL yes, I agree.  It's entirely too small.

But it's also not a giant departure from what he's done in the minors, he strikes out at a pretty good clip to compared how he walks.  His defense, as pointed out by @Tony-OHisn't great.  He doesn't really pass the "Is he smooth?" eye test and the advanced statcast stuff isn't kind to him, either.

Now I agree that I want to see him in the lineup every day, I want to see more of his hitting approach and I want to see if he can get to his power at all.  IMO, the playoff race is over, we need to see what we have in guys like Vavra and Stowers.

But like I said, it's pretty apparent as to what's going on; it's obvious to me that if a guy doesn't do anything particularly well he's either not being strongly considered or they're going to make him ride the bench and work on things until he gets where he needs to be.  I have no doubt in my mind that if Stowers was elite in the outfield he'd have been playing more.  I also have no doubt in my mind that if he had an approach and a walk-rate like Rutschman, he'd be playing more even if his defense was still sub-par.  

It sucks, but I think that's what is happening here.  We can banter back and forth about what's best for players and what we'd prefer to see but it's also apparent that they have their way of doing things.  And again, I agree that it sucks because we're fans and we don't get to see what we want to see immediately, such as Stowers being in the lineup every day.  

I think the reason he's on the bench is more defense than offensive potential.   I think they feel he is worse in the OF than Santander and probably doesn't provide as much with the bat.   I think the reason he and Vavra are sitting, and Odor is playing alot, is primarily defense.   Or at least the organization's opinion of their defense.

Insert obligatory 1000th comment from CofC "but they played Mancini out there".   I know, that doesn't seem to gibe with what I am saying.   If you expect human beings to behave in a completely consistent logical fashion at all times you will be constantly disappointed.  But I guess that was a combination of them feeling Mancini's bat merited getting him in the lineup in different ways even at the expense of defense, and I don't think they feel that way with Stowers and Vavra.

I think that Stowers and Vavra are sitting primarily because their defense is believed to be sub-par, and they did poorly in the limited ABs they have gotten so there's no motivation to suck it up with the bad defense in order to get their bats in the lineup.

Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I believe is happening.

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, SteveA said:

I think the reason he's on the bench is more defense than offensive potential.   I think they feel he is worse in the OF than Santander and probably doesn't provide as much with the bat.   I think the reason he and Vavra are sitting, and Odor is playing alot, is primarily defense.   Or at least the organization's opinion of their defense.

Insert obligatory 1000th comment from CofC "but they played Mancini out there".   I know, that doesn't seem to gibe with what I am saying.   If you expect human beings to behave in a completely consistent logical fashion at all times you will be constantly disappointed.  But I guess that was a combination of them feeling Mancini's bat merited getting him in the lineup in different ways even at the expense of defense, and I don't think they feel that way with Stowers and Vavra.

I think that Stowers and Vavra are sitting primarily because their defense is believed to be sub-par, and they did poorly in the limited ABs they have gotten so there's no motivation to suck it up with the bad defense in order to get their bats in the lineup.

Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I believe is happening.

That's exactly right.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, SteveA said:

I think the reason he's on the bench is more defense than offensive potential.   I think they feel he is worse in the OF than Santander and probably doesn't provide as much with the bat.   I think the reason he and Vavra are sitting, and Odor is playing alot, is primarily defense.   Or at least the organization's opinion of their defense.

Insert obligatory 1000th comment from CofC "but they played Mancini out there".   I know, that doesn't seem to gibe with what I am saying.   If you expect human beings to behave in a completely consistent logical fashion at all times you will be constantly disappointed.  But I guess that was a combination of them feeling Mancini's bat merited getting him in the lineup in different ways even at the expense of defense, and I don't think they feel that way with Stowers and Vavra.

I think that Stowers and Vavra are sitting primarily because their defense is believed to be sub-par, and they did poorly in the limited ABs they have gotten so there's no motivation to suck it up with the bad defense in order to get their bats in the lineup.

Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I believe is happening.

Trust me I am.