Orioles sign Kyle Gibson

[Just Regular]

There's a roto analyst flow chart I've heard that's mostly for jokes but goes like.

Do you throw more than 4 pitches?    Yes/No

Are you Yu Darvish?   Yes/No

If you are not Yu Darvish, scrap the crap and throw your best pitches more.     Driveline and Rhapsodo and "things the Dodgers (and Orioles?) know that Driveline doesn't" are gonna be very good for you Evan Phillips.

I'm sure pitch labs and master craftsmen have grown the Every Pitch in the World club some, but you get the idea.    

Stylistically, Lyles-Gibson-Bassitt for me are kind of the discount/regular/luxury versions of the same model.   I don't have a strong feel either way if Elias' strategy is "this is the only flavor of low variance pitcher Angelos trusts me to buy" or "I've got my big guy to box out and get rebounds" and now I can mix things up.

[Frobby]

I consider Gibson an upgrade over Lyles, but the chances that he turns out to be better are only like 60/40 in my view.  It’s not a slam dunk.  I’d rather have Gibson for $5 mm (if that’s actually what he got) and pay the $1 mm Lyles buyout than have Lyles for $11 mm.   So, I’m fine with that move.   But it’s imperative that the O’s come into 2023 with someone much better than Gibson added to the rotation.  

Edited December 4, 2022 by Frobby

[Sports Guy]

26 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

Gibson is such Whole Foods oatmeal I agree it gives some breathing room to play games like this with the pitching market.

Heaney and Rogers are the non-Bassitt combo for me.    Last year:

Heaney - 110/19 in 72.2 IP

Rogers - 84/19 in 64.1 IP

Bassitt - 167/49 in 181.2 IP

You are 40 innings short if Heaney again can only pitch half a season, certainly possible.    Heaney at the TBR Eflin contract and Rogers at the BOS Chris Martin contract sum to about a 3/57 outlay (just 2 years for the reliever).

Some of this is watching even a very well honed master of his craft like Bassitt scuffle in October.    He's a great tool for the 162 game haul.

Heaney has never been a guy you can rely on but there is upside there. 
 

Wonder if he can be had for less than 3 years?

[Sports Guy]

I think a fair question to ask is, did you need to make this move right now?

[Just Regular]

5 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Heaney has never been a guy you can rely on but there is upside there. 
 

Wonder if he can be had for less than 3 years?

Its an interesting call for his camp.    Tyler Anderson in a similar situation opted for the $40mm long term payout after his spin through the LAD graduate school cycle.

If Heaney bets on himself and can repeat anything close to those results in 28 starts not 14, he elevates to another neighborhood.

I'm sure Clubs are giving multiple offers like 1/16 and 3/40.

[wildcard]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

So let’s have him throw the slider more and the 4 seamer less!  I’m sure no other pitching coach could have unearthed this data!   Oh wait, some random guy on the internet just did…

Among other things, I don’t know why you give so much of the credit for any improvement by our staff to Holt.  We have more than a dozen people in the analytics department figuring out what our guys can do better and where our opponents can be attacked.  We have an assistant pitching coach in the dugout during games.  We have a Manager of Pitching Strategy.  We’ve got a coach in the bullpen.  How do we know which of these people contributed to the success of any particular pitcher?  

And, I’m not real high on the “Holt missed a month” excuse.  He was there all offseason before 2021.   He was there all of spring training.  He was there 5 of 6 months of the season.  Was he working with the pitchers remotely while he was away?   I don’t know.  Do you?  Did the team pitch better when he returned?  They had a 5.60 ERA in the first half, 6.15 in the second half.  Pretty sure Holt’s absence was in the first half.  

All this sounds like I’m down on Holt or don’t think he deserves any credit for the staff’s improvement.  That’s not the case.   I just don’t see him as the sole source of that improvement, and I don’t assign him magical powers.   And I have no idea what role, if any, he played in the decision to sign Gibson.  

 

I don't know whether Holt is the sole source but he is the Director the Pitching for the Orioles so everything that happens he has his fingers in.   And when I hear pitchers credit the pitching coach for the changes in their pitches or approach they mostly talk about Holt.

Elias brought Holt and Sig with him from Houston.  The three along with Hyde seem to be the senior management team to me.  Elias relies on Holt to lead  the pitching department.

[Just Regular]

Pitching strategist Ryan Klimek I feel deserves a call out.     On the great eternal beer and tacos question, I have no idea whether when the staff expansion happened last year, Chris Holt was like "finally, I've been hoping to get this full-time resource for years", or like "jiminy crickets, another egg head telling me stuff".

Some of my optimism for Elias and Sig is they have particular life experiences that indicate competence in both.

Elias talks like an accountant-lawyer but pitched college and started in scouting.    Was he worked too hard without enough platform as a Yale freshman?    You might hope for growth after a good-ish first year.

https://www.thebaseballcube.com/content/player/28115/

Sig was a NASA scientist but spent a year in a minor league dugout (feel sure he considered it a fellowship, and being intentional in applying growth mindset), maybe figuring out functional channels to present these data findings usefully to actual human ballplayers.

Is the formula for Coke mostly in Klimek, Holmes, Holt, Blood, Sig or Elias?   

By formula for Coke, I more mean nursing tolerable performances out of waiver wire players - everybody knows Carlos Rodon, Shohei Ohtani and Grayson Rodriguez can do things almost all of the rest of the planet's best pitchers can't.    There's data there to evidence it - its just math.

[Big Al]

Worst case scenario, he’s a bottom of the rotation innings eater who keeps the seat warm until Means is healthy and or Hall is ready for prime time, then traded for a bag of peanuts at the deadline. Best case scenario, Holt and the staff fix him and he’s a key piece in a playoff run. 

[Going Underground]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

I consider Gibson an upgrade over Lyles, but the chances that he turns out to be better are only like 60/40 in my view.  It’s not a slam dunk.  I’d rather have Gibson for $5 mm (if that’s actually what he got) and pay the $1 mm Lyles buyout than have Lyles for $11 mm.   So, I’m fine with that move.   But it’s imperative that the O’s come into 2023 with someone much better than Gibson added to the rotation.  

So Boyd got $10 mil and Gibson got 5 mil.? Seems backwards or something strange. Maybe major incentives in the contract  

[owknows]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

That was Holt’s idea!  

He's a Wizard.

[jerios55]

12 minutes ago, Going Underground said:

So Boyd got $10 mil and Gibson got 5 mil.? Seems backwards or something strange. Maybe major incentives in the contract  

A few Twitter rumblings of 5 million doesn't have me believing that number at this point.   Have we seen anything remotely official?

Edit: https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/baltimore-orioles/kyle-gibson-11787/

8 mill arbitration (2019) then 3 year 28mill (9.33 per).  I don't see how he's willingly taking a pay cut this early in the offseason. 

Edited December 4, 2022 by jerios55

[tabletop]

26 minutes ago, Big Al said:

Worst case scenario, he’s a bottom of the rotation innings eater who keeps the seat warm until Means is healthy and or Hall is ready for prime time, then traded for a bag of peanuts at the deadline. Best case scenario, Holt and the staff fix him and he’s a key piece in a playoff run. 

Yeah, on a one year deal it’s a fine signing with where the team is.

[Number5]

15 minutes ago, jerios55 said:

A few Twitter rumblings of 5 million doesn't have me believing that number at this point.   Have we seen anything remotely official?

No, we haven't.  Seems to me I saw someone in the comments section of the MLBTR article say $6.5M, but I think that was just some guy's guess, as he didn't quote a source.

[Number5]

19 minutes ago, jerios55 said:

8 mill arbitration (2019) then 3 year 28mill (9.33 per).  I don't see how he's willingly taking a pay cut this early in the offseason. 

Agree it seems odd, although it may be possible that he and his agent may feel that his age and last year's stats make it unlikely that he can command the same money that he was making previously.  If so, their thinking might be that taking a 1-year deal with BAL (with their strong defense, wall, and up-and-coming young team) might give him a decent opportunity to post better numbers this year in order to possibly get a better contract next winter.  Pure speculation on my part, as we really don't know the contract details yet.

[jerios55]

15 minutes ago, Number5 said:

Agree it seems odd, although it may be possible that he and his agent may feel that his age and last year's stats make it unlikely that he can command the same money that he was making previously.  If so, their thinking might be that taking a 1-year deal with BAL (with their strong defense, wall, and up-and-coming young team) might give him a decent opportunity to post better numbers this year in order to possibly get a better contract next winter.  Pure speculation on my part, as we really don't know the contract details yet.

I agree something like this might be true, but consider the age factor will only be worse next year, the early seems odd.  But each agent/ player will have a different tolerance for market patience. 

Edit:  As a spouse of a Phillies fan, I can also say he may have simply liked playing with our defense.   Gosh that was one aspect of that team that was hard to watch. 

Edited December 4, 2022 by jerios55