Ryan Mountcastle 2023

[Matt Bennett]

5 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I said this in the game thread tonight:

Funny thing is that Elias released Renato Núñez at 26-years old after he slashed .256/.324/.492/.816 in 2020. He ended up getting just 55 more major league PAs. The year before Núñez slashed .244/.311/.460/.771 with 31 home runs and 90 RBIs.

Mountcastle is 26 years old and slashing .237/.271/.452/.723. He slashed .250/.305/.423/.729 with 22 home runs as a 25 year old.    

Basically Nunez was a better hitter than Mountcastle at both 25 and 26 years old. What makes anyone think Mountcastle is part of the future here or really should still be an everyday player?

Mountcastle has slashed .199/.237/.336/.573 against right-handers this year. The league figured out how to get him out as he's gotten worse the longer he's been in the league.   

I complained on OH at the time that the Nunez DFA was an odd cut. Yeah, I get it that his defense was poor and didn't play a premium position. But damn. He could mash a little. At a time when so few Orioles could. 107 OPS+ in his time with Baltimore. I know they were phasing him out of 3B and into 1B/DH and he was blocked by Mancini/Mountcastle but still. Maikel Franco was probably the least favorite Orioles I've ever watched and he got 97 starts at 3B. 

[Frobby]

14 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I said this in the game thread tonight:

Funny thing is that Elias released Renato Núñez at 26-years old after he slashed .256/.324/.492/.816 in 2020. He ended up getting just 55 more major league PAs. The year before Núñez slashed .244/.311/.460/.771 with 31 home runs and 90 RBIs.

Mountcastle is 26 years old and slashing .237/.271/.452/.723. He slashed .250/.305/.423/.729 with 22 home runs as a 25 year old.    

Basically Nunez was a better hitter than Mountcastle at both 25 and 26 years old. What makes anyone think Mountcastle is part of the future here or really should still be an everyday player?

Mountcastle has slashed .199/.237/.336/.573 against right-handers this year. The league figured out how to get him out as he's gotten worse the longer he's been in the league.   

I think Mountcastle has been somewhat better than Nunez in his career, e.g. 111 OPS+ vs. 101 for Nunez.  Obviously Mountcastle is doing worse than that now, 1/3 of the way through the season.  Should he finish this season that poorly, yes I think he could be send packing.  

[amdcpus]

Down to a .709 OPS, wonder if they'll let him make a run at "The Whiffer" 's record..

[Hank Scorpio]

He stinks.

[baltimoriole]

I'd like to DFA a player just because I'm in the mood. There are a lot of good candidates where if they weren't on the team tomorrow I wouldn't voice a word of opposition. Perez, Voth, Baker, Baumann, Givens, McKenna, Vavra, O'Hern. Take them or leave them, but if I could only DFA one player so we wouldn't have to watch them anymore, it'd be Mountcastle. He's reaching Chris Davis level frustrating to watch. I gave up MLB.TV for two years because Davis was so frustrating. I had to step away. I'm almost at that point with Mountcastle. Just knowing he may bat in an inning makes me so anxious I stop watching for a half an hour until it's over.

[Tony-OH]

Not to kick a guy when he's down, but Hicks has been worth more WAR in 4 games (0.3rWAR and 0.4 FWAR) than Mountcastle in 253 PAs and 58 games (0.2 rWAR and 0.0 fWAR). 

O'Hearn in his 19 games and 54 PAs has been worth 0.2 WAR (both r and f).

In case you were wondering, Mountcastle does have two options remaining.

[LTO's]

Kjerstad is coming 

[Dunk35]

It defies logic why he has the 2nd most PA on the team. A low 700 OPS from a 1B is just brutal! 

[Tony-OH]

11 minutes ago, Dunk35 said:

It defies logic why he has the 2nd most PA on the team. A low 700 OPS from a 1B is just brutal! 

The .273 OBP is really the killer. I'm really surprised the Orioles with all of their analytics keep putting an absolute out machine in the lineup everyday. Now I have noticed they are finally starting to give O'Hearn and hopefully Santander if they promote Cowser more opportunities. 

I really think Mountcastle needs a reset in the minors. He was not done any factors coming up in a system at the time that did not make him learn plate discipline so you get what we got at this point. 

Maybe some Norfolk time would help? I don't know if he's fixable but he clearly has continued to decline in the major leagues as pitchers have figured out how to get him out and he hasn't been able to make the adjustment back. 

[emmett16]

I feel for the guy.  But it’s frustrating to watch someone continue to make the same mistakes over and over with no adjustments.  Sure, he’s likely trying but it ain’t working.  

[Es4M11]

Not to make excuses for Mountcastle, he hasn't been good, but it still seems to me that he is punished by bad luck. How many balls has he hit hard that in a majority of instances would be base hits / extra bases? I see him attempting to be more selective with the low and away pitches only to be screwed by umpires with an unfavorable call, which often has put him in bad counts forcing him to swing away. I say this not to provide an excuse for the guy, but it's gotta weigh heavily on a player when he's smoking pitches that are continuously finding gloves. Mountcastle is a peculiar case, and who knows what the answer is. At this point maybe just have to except that bad luck is a part of his game, and move on to someone who actually produces instead of waiting on the hope of Mountcastle could be.

[Frobby]

30 minutes ago, Es4M11 said:

Not to make excuses for Mountcastle, he hasn't been good, but it still seems to me that he is punished by bad luck. How many balls has he hit hard that in a majority of instances would be base hits / extra bases? 

The answer is, a shrinking number.  The gap between his wOBA (.301) and his xwOBA (.361) is 60 points, but it was over 100 points back in April.  

[Tony-OH]

48 minutes ago, Es4M11 said:

Not to make excuses for Mountcastle, he hasn't been good, but it still seems to me that he is punished by bad luck. How many balls has he hit hard that in a majority of instances would be base hits / extra bases? I see him attempting to be more selective with the low and away pitches only to be screwed by umpires with an unfavorable call, which often has put him in bad counts forcing him to swing away. I say this not to provide an excuse for the guy, but it's gotta weigh heavily on a player when he's smoking pitches that are continuously finding gloves. Mountcastle is a peculiar case, and who knows what the answer is. At this point maybe just have to except that bad luck is a part of his game, and move on to someone who actually produces instead of waiting on the hope of Mountcastle could be.

We've had this discussion. Is it bad luck or do team's know how to position their fielders to get him out? 

I was going over those huge the bigger swarms of outs at SS, 3B and in RF and each case he hits the ball pretty hard (well over 90 MPH). I think we sometimes get too caught up with EV as the be all end all for good hitting. Sure, hitting ball harder typically gives you a better chance of success (that's shown in the stats) but if you hit a lot of ball to SS and 3B hard, is that bad luck or are you hitting a lot of pitches hard but at poor angles? 

Looking at his outs in RF, it's not hard to know how to play him there.

He only has six hits to left field this year in total. 

Either way, his plate discipline is pretty awful and when you combine that with his lack of ability to make adjustments consistently, and you get a guy who has been a hole in the lneup. I'm glad Hyde/Orioles have finally dropped him to 6th in the lineup, but I'm startng to think that maybe some time in Norfolk where he can work on making adjustments might be best, especially since the Orioles have O'Hearn and Santander available to play there. 

And it's not like he's been very good defensively this year either.

[webbrick2010]

Yeah he is at a low spot... but he still

leads team in runs, HR's, RBI's, and total bases. I agree long term (2024) he will be gone, but I think he will soon have a hot streak and to be fair to him one would have to revisit this after that streak..

[ChosenOne21]

They've gotta be assuming a hot streak is right around the corner with the batted ball data. I'm not sure what else it could be at this point