Orioles sign Kyle Gibson

[Can_of_corn]

10 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

I'm feeling the same. The more I see the actual contracts these pitchers are getting, it is apparent these guys were out of our league from the beginning. They want to go to big market playoff teams for top dollar.  If they would come at all they would take a Chris Davis type of overpay. It sucks but I'm glad we aren't going to $200m on Degrom. Should we even do a wow offer to get Bassit or Eovaldi? I'm really not sure we should. Gibson is not exciting but he's an incremental upgrade over Lyles. 

The more interesting quote was "we can get anyone available on the market" in trade. That's interesting.

He's just flexing the strength of the farm and he's not wrong.

Doesn't mean he'll actually be willing to make the trade.

[Frobby]

On 12/3/2022 at 7:14 PM, wildcard said:

The one thing I am confident in is that Holt knows all about Gibson.  The pitches he throws, their shape, how consistent they are, what has worked for him and what has not.  And he knows what he can do to improve him.

* * *

I can't agree that Gibson is a back of the rotation starter.   Not after he spends ST with Holt.

While I have questioned how much of this is personal to Holt, it’s certainly the case that the Orioles’ pitching department believes they can get a good performance out of Gibson.  

“I think that we targeted Kyle. He was a priority for us,” executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias said today in his suite at the Manchester Grand Hyatt.

“Our jobs as front office evaluators is to look at what we think is going to happen in the future, and not what somebody’s baseball card numbers were last season, and we saw a lot of things to us that project well into the future for Kyle. I think he’s going to have a really nice season for us and is a really good fit, and it puts us in a position of security with our rotation, our pitching staff, as we proceed through the rest of the offseason.”

* * *

“This is a guy who’s thrown (1,504) innings in his 10-year major league career, just took a trip to the World Series with the Phillies, tremendous reputation around the league as a leader, but also the type of linchpin that I think will benefit our young pitching staff quite a bit in the rotation,” Elias said.

“Projects to cover a lot of innings and a lot of starts for us and is a guy who keeps your team in ballgames. He’s got six pitches, really knows how to pitch and mix them. Plus changeup. He’s a guy that our pitching department thinks can help tap into a new gear and have a great season with us.”

https://www.masnsports.com/blog/orioles-still-in-hunt-for-starters-after-giving-gibson-10-million-contract

 

 

 

[Aristotelian]

48 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

He's just flexing the strength of the farm and he's not wrong.

Doesn't mean he'll actually be willing to make the trade.

For sure, I would not be surprised to see us hold the line for now. Of course, I am hoping for the best.

[scbalt52]

Good signing. More to come

[interloper]

I watched some highlights of him from last year and he certainly has a lot of "pitchability" as they say. Ton of good movement on his breaking stuff, seems to have very good command. I think we'll be pleasantly surprised, assuming good health. I've come around on it a lot more since it was announced.

[interloper]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

While I have questioned how much of this is personal to Holt, it’s certainly the case that the Orioles’ pitching department believes they can get a good performance out of Gibson.  

“I think that we targeted Kyle. He was a priority for us,” executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias said today in his suite at the Manchester Grand Hyatt.

“Our jobs as front office evaluators is to look at what we think is going to happen in the future, and not what somebody’s baseball card numbers were last season, and we saw a lot of things to us that project well into the future for Kyle. I think he’s going to have a really nice season for us and is a really good fit, and it puts us in a position of security with our rotation, our pitching staff, as we proceed through the rest of the offseason.”

* * *

“This is a guy who’s thrown (1,504) innings in his 10-year major league career, just took a trip to the World Series with the Phillies, tremendous reputation around the league as a leader, but also the type of linchpin that I think will benefit our young pitching staff quite a bit in the rotation,” Elias said.

“Projects to cover a lot of innings and a lot of starts for us and is a guy who keeps your team in ballgames. He’s got six pitches, really knows how to pitch and mix them. Plus changeup. He’s a guy that our pitching department thinks can help tap into a new gear and have a great season with us.”

https://www.masnsports.com/blog/orioles-still-in-hunt-for-starters-after-giving-gibson-10-million-contract

 

 

 

Elias also went on to confirm a reporter's guess that they will look to tweak his pitch usage with those six pitches. That's going to be their main focus in terms of how to help him improve over 2022. 

[Roll Tide]

4 hours ago, clapdiddy said:

What is he going to say?   "Well, we tried to get some other guys to take that 10 million, but we settled for Kyle."?  

I think we can take what they say at this time of year with a grain of salt.    Now, in fairness, it seems like a move that could have been made later.   Maybe Gibson wanted to get this done quickly.  Who knows...I think we just can't take the "GM-speak" too literal.  

I don’t understand why you even bother talking to the $20 million plus guys if you aren’t going to take the plunge. Seems like a waste of team. That makes me hopeful that he does have permission to spend moderately in the current environment. 

[Ohfan67]

The Orioles starting pitching staff was 22nd in wins above average in MLB last year. Only two "real" starting pitchers had an ERA+ greater than 1 (this excludes relief pitchers who made one or two spot starts). One of the starters who had an ERA+ greater than one turns 31 in June and his up-to-now basically failed ML career has been worth 1.9 WAR (1 WAR is from 2022 with O's). That guy's FIP is almost a full run higher than his ERA in 2022. Their top pitching prospect is coming off an injury, didn't pitch nearly as much as hoped last year, and hasn't thrown a ML pitch yet. The second best pitching prospect was very ineffective last year, has significant control/command issues, and may never stick in the rotation. After GRod and Hall, there's not a lot of high impact starting pitching prospects in the Orioles farm system. Signing the Gibson's and Lyle's of the baseball world is going to be required for the Orioles to have a good starting pitching staff, especially a good staff with any real starter depth. I'm not trying to be super doom and gloom, but I think some posters are overestimating and maybe even wildly overestimating the in-house starter options. Most of the optimism/enthusiasm I see about next year's pitching staff is based on small sample size, relatively short streaks of success. Of course I want the Orioles to sign an additional starting pitcher with more upside than Gibson, hopefully significantly more upside, but there are a lot of starts to cover and having one or two solid veterans like Gibson to slot into the starting rotation will be very useful. 

[DrinkinWithFermi]

4 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

The better question is, why have either of them at all?  

Teams that are punting don't need to aim higher than "below average but passable."

3 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

Should we even do a wow offer to get Bassit or Eovaldi? I'm really not sure we should.

Depends on whether competing is a priority or not.

If yes, get a good pitcher to fill Lyles' spot.

If no, get a mediocre placeholder to fill Lyles' spot.

 

[Aristotelian]

1 minute ago, DrinkinWithFermi said:

Teams that are punting don't need to aim higher than "below average but passable."

Depends on whether competing is a priority or not.

If yes, get a good pitcher to fill Lyles' spot.

If no, get a mediocre placeholder to fill Lyles' spot.

 

Let's assume competing is a priority, do you make a wow offer to one of the remaining FA pitchers? Which one and how much? 

[Just Regular]

4 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Let's assume competing is a priority, do you make a wow offer to one of the remaining FA pitchers? Which one and how much? 

That's really just Rodon.     I believe Senga/Bassitt are better than the Manaea types but not necessarily so much so that $80mm for one vs. $16mm for the other would be an efficient use of 5X as much.

Rodon looks like he's going to beat what I'd thought of as the "standard" ~$100mm guarantee (Ray, Gausman, Castillo, Musgrove) by a lot, but I don't think he's that much better than those guys.

 

[DrinkinWithFermi]

12 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Let's assume competing is a priority, do you make a wow offer to one of the remaining FA pitchers? Which one and how much? 

There are plenty of mid-rotation SPs available that are demonstrably better than the Lyles's and Gibsons ofthe world. Use your "system" to identify a couple that you think are better than the pack, and then beat the market to land one of them. We are running a bottom 3-5 payroll, acting like 3 or 4 year mid-tier free agent contract is going to derail the rebuild and cripple the franchise is absurd.

It is a great excuse to not spend money and pocket a bunch of cash though.

[Aristotelian]

10 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

That's really just Rodon.     I believe Senga/Bassitt are better than the Manaea types but not necessarily so much so that $80mm for one vs. $16mm for the other would be an efficient use of 5X as much.

Rodon looks like he's going to beat what I'd thought of as the "standard" ~$100mm guarantee (Ray, Gausman, Castillo, Musgrove) by a lot, but I don't think he's that much better than those guys.

 

Ray is a great comp. Already regressed to his career averages and he's only gonna get worse. This is the issue. 

[Aristotelian]

1 minute ago, DrinkinWithFermi said:

There are plenty of mid-rotation SPs available that are demonstrably better than the Lyles's and Gibsons ofthe world. Use your "system" to identify a couple that you think are better than the pack, and then beat the market to land one of them. We are running a bottom 3-5 payroll, acting like 3 or 4 year mid-tier free agent contract is going to derail the rebuild and cripple the franchise is absurd.

It is a great excuse to not spend money and pocket a bunch of cash though.

Again, go on record here. Pick one and what is your wow offer that gets him to the O's? Otherwise there is really nothing to be upset about.

[RZNJ]

3 minutes ago, DrinkinWithFermi said:

There are plenty of mid-rotation SPs available that are demonstrably better than the Lyles's and Gibsons ofthe world. Use your "system" to identify a couple that you think are better than the pack, and then beat the market to land one of them. We are running a bottom 3-5 payroll, acting like 3 or 4 year mid-tier free agent contract is going to derail the rebuild and cripple the franchise is absurd.

It is a great excuse to not spend money and pocket a bunch of cash though.

But you were against signing Rodon?   That doesn't make sense.