Kostka: Os need to follow a different path

[Sports Guy]

11 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Everything isn't smart or stupid.  Everything is ZERO or TEN.  Everything isn't black and white.   Except in your world.   There are logical reasons why Elias didn't call up Rutschman in 2021.   It's as simple as that.

Well, there are reasons. We can debate how logical they are.

[LTO's]

15 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Did you miss the part where I was talking about him getting experience?

The part where I mentioned his 2022 acclimation period happening in 2021?

This is a moot point. He would've had the same time line to return from injury even if he debuted in 2021. Probably would've had a similar "acclimation period" as well given the lack of full ST and normal ramp up.

[Sports Guy]

10 minutes ago, LTO's said:

So you bring him up in July and this is supposed to make some sort of difference to the team last year and going forward? He got injured in ST. Unless in your alternate reality he doesn't get hurt then literally nothing changes. 

I know you aren’t this dumb. You know that players take time to adjust. If you don’t think him getting 200ish at bats in 2021 would have made him better prepared 2022 than you are completely clueless to the development process.

There is no argument that those at bats don’t put him in an even better place to succeed in 2022.

Edited January 9, 2023 by Sports Guy

[LTO's]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I know you aren’t this dumb. You know that players take time to adjust. If you don’t think him getting 200ish at bats in 2021 would have made him better prepared 2022 than you are completely clueless to the development process.

There is no argument that those at bats don’t put him in an even better place to succeed in 2022.

You're stating something that is completely unknowable as a fact that's also been made completely moot by how his 2022 season actually played out.  He put up a 5+ WAR season with a 133 wRC+ coming back from injury with hardly any spring training. He would've been on the same time line to return from injury no matter what. So theoretically those ABs in 2021 COULD have had a very very small impact on his 2022 stat line. OR given that he was injured to start the year, didn't have a normal ST/ramp up period and still young the results probably would've been the same. In any event, to act like this was some developmental tragedy is hilarious given how good he ended up being last year. Whatever development process the O's had him on clearly worked. 

[Frobby]

13 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I know you aren’t this dumb. You know that players take time to adjust. If you don’t think him getting 200ish at bats in 2021 would have made him better prepared 2022 than you are completely clueless to the development process.

There is no argument that those at bats don’t put him in an even better place to succeed in 2022.

I guess we’ll find out with Gunnar, Stowers and Vavra!

I generally agree with you, but I’m sure I could go find a bunch of examples of guys who looked good getting their feet wet in their debut year and then disappointed the following season.

As an aside, pretty much every OPS projection I’ve seen for Adley has him taking a small step backwards in 2023.   I don’t understand that at all, except to say that the projections must not take into account what his month-by-month progression looked like in 2022.   

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, LTO's said:

You're stating something that is completely unknowable as a fact that's also been made completely moot by how his 2022 season actually played out.  He put up a 5+ WAR season with a 133 wRC+ coming back from injury with hardly any spring training. He would've been on the same time line to return from injury no matter what. So theoretically those ABs in 2021 COULD have had a very very small impact on his 2022 stat line. OR given that he was injured to start the year, didn't have a normal ST/ramp up period and still young the results probably would've been the same. In any event, to act like this was some developmental tragedy is hilarious given how good he ended up being last year. Whatever development process the O's had him on clearly worked. 

Lol. The idea that you are dismissing it is so over the top ridiculous but whatever. It’s your thing. Keep slurping.

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

I guess we’ll find out with Gunnar, Stowers and Vavra!

I generally agree with you, but I’m sure I could go find a bunch of examples of guys who looked good getting their feet wet in their debut year and then disappointed the following season.

As an aside, pretty much every OPS projection I’ve seen for Adley has him taking a small step backwards in 2023.   I don’t understand that at all, except to say that the projections must not take into account what his month-by-month progression looked like in 2022.   

You can find examples of anything  if you want to but at some point, the norm, the odds and common sense should kick in.

Obviously it doesn’t with at least one person here but does with most.

[LTO's]

5 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Lol. The idea that you are dismissing it is so over the top ridiculous but whatever. It’s your thing. Keep slurping.

To act like this would have had a meaningful effect on the 2022 Orioles in the manner you are is over the top. I don't think any one would've complained if he got ABs in 2021. I also don't think any one but you actually thinks it would've made anything more than a very, very slight difference one way or another on the 2022 team. 

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, LTO's said:

To act like this would have had a meaningful effect on the 2022 Orioles in the manner you are is over the top. I don't think any one would've complained if he got ABs in 2021. I also don't think any one but you actually thinks it would've made anything more than a very, very slight difference one way or another on the 2022 team. 

Ok.  Thanks for commenting. As always, it’s been a pleasure. I will note this down that you don’t think experience makes players better.  Got it.  Whatever Elias does is always right. 

[Can_of_corn]

59 minutes ago, LTO's said:

This is a moot point. He would've had the same time line to return from injury even if he debuted in 2021. Probably would've had a similar "acclimation period" as well given the lack of full ST and normal ramp up.

No he wouldn't

He would have been in the majors earlier.

 

[interloper]

53 minutes ago, Frobby said:

 

I generally agree with you, but I’m sure I could go find a bunch of examples of guys who looked good getting their feet wet in their debut year and then disappointed the following season.

 

Orioles Legend Ryan O'Hearn is one of these guys. 

[Frobby]

56 minutes ago, LTO's said:

To act like this would have had a meaningful effect on the 2022 Orioles in the manner you are is over the top. I don't think any one would've complained if he got ABs in 2021. I also don't think any one but you actually thinks it would've made anything more than a very, very slight difference one way or another on the 2022 team. 

Well, let’s test that.  For sake of argument, Adley had a .513 OPS in his first 20 games, and the team went 9-11 in those games (9-10 in his starts).   After that, Adley had an .872 OPS the rest of the season and the team went 54-39 in those games (51-37 in his starts.   So, one could extrapolate that the team might have won 11-12 games of those first 20 instead of 9 if Adley had been at full throttle instead of adjusting to facing big league pitching for the first time.  I’d also say that if Adley had a couple of months of prior big league experience under his belt, the team probably would have brought him back to the big leagues after his injury a little faster than they did, maybe 7-10 games sooner.   

So, I can’t rule out that, by waiting until 2022 to call up Adley, the O’s cost themselves 3-5 wins in 2022.   Hypothetically, they might have snuck ahead of Tampa, though I suspect Tampa would have won another couple of games in that final week if they’d needed those wins to make the playoffs.  

Anyway, I’m not losing any sleep over this.   The scenario that played out in 2022 was pretty unforeseeable when Elias was making his decisions in 2021, and we probably got the 1:1 pick in the 2022 draft as a result of holding Adley back in 2021, so at least there was some benefit in that respect.  

 

Edited January 9, 2023 by Frobby

[LTO's]

14 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Well, let’s test that.  For sake of argument, Adley had a .513 OPS in his first 20 games, and the team went 9-11 in those games (9-10 in his starts).   After that, Adley had an .872 OPS the rest of the season and the team went 54-39 in those games (51-37 in his starts.   So, one could extrapolate that the team might have won 11-12 games of those first 20 instead of 9 if Adley had been at full throttle instead of adjusting to facing big league pitching for the first time.  I’d also say that if Adley had a couple of months of prior big league experience under his belt, the team probably would have brought him back to the big leagues after his injury a little faster than they did, maybe 7-10 games sooner.   

So, I can’t rule out that, by waiting until 2022 to call up Adley, the O’s cost themselves 3-5 wins in 2022.   Hypothetically, they might have snuck ahead of Tampa, though I suspect Tampa would have won another couple of games in that final week if they’d needed those wins to make the playoffs.  

Anyway, I’m not losing any sleep over this.   The scenario that played out in 2022 was pretty unforeseeable when Elias was making his decisions in 2021, and we probably got the 1:1 pick in the 2022 draft as a result of holding Adley back in 2021, so at least there was some benefit in that respect.  

 

Appreciate the effort but this is a meaningless test. You can't just say that had Adley gotten experience in 2021 those first 20 games would've been radically different. He was coming back from an injury and had no spring training. For any young guy even with a rehab assignment and a cup of coffee, I would expect a certain level of rust upon arrival.  In any event I would find it kinda ludicrous to just give the O's 3-5 wins in that scenario even in a perfect world. That's just not how baseball works. Would you have considered the fact that the O's were 11-8 in Chris Owings starts a meaningful stat to extrapolate? Obviously there's a big difference between AR and Owings but no one player is even approaching 3-5 wins level difference over the course of like 10-15 games. I sure hope you're right and I'm wrong though because if so, the Orioles should win 90+ games next year. 

[LTO's]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

No he wouldn't

He would have been in the majors earlier.

 

By what? 10 games or so? He almost surely would've had to knock off rust anyway having not had ST and normal ramp up. I understand why this meaningless topic is such a sticking point though. No one can prove you wrong. Just so happens you can't prove that you're right either. If Adley didn't get hurt and started on opening day you could maybe get me to think the Orioles win 85ish games. Anything else is just absurd. 

[Frobby]

33 minutes ago, LTO's said:

Appreciate the effort but this is a meaningless test. You can't just say that had Adley gotten experience in 2021 those first 20 games would've been radically different. He was coming back from an injury and had no spring training. For any young guy even with a rehab assignment and a cup of coffee, I would expect a certain level of rust upon arrival.  In any event I would find it kinda ludicrous to just give the O's 3-5 wins in that scenario even in a perfect world. That's just not how baseball works. Would you have considered the fact that the O's were 11-8 in Chris Owings starts a meaningful stat to extrapolate? Obviously there's a big difference between AR and Owings but no one player is even approaching 3-5 wins level difference over the course of like 10-15 games. I sure hope you're right and I'm wrong though because if so, the Orioles should win 90+ games next year. 

I’m just making the best case scenario for whether it made a difference in Adley’s impact on the team.  I didn’t say I buy it 100%.   To be clear, I was talking about 3-5 wins over 20-30 games, not 10-15.   The first 20 games Adley played in 2022 plus the 10 or so more he might have played if he’d had significant major league experience last year and thus didn’t need to spend as long in the minors on rehab this year.  Even 3-5 wins over 30 games is a big stretch, I know.  I’m just coming up with a rationale for an outer bounds of his possible impact.   And I agree that the with/without Adley’s W-L record last year can’t necessarily be assigned completely to Adley as opposed to unrelated events.