Ryan Mountcastle 2023

[dzorange]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

It’s possible.  But we’ve seen him have hot streaks and become more selective at the plate for a few weeks numerous times, only to fall back into bad habits.  So, I don’t want to get my hopes up prematurely.   Back when everyone was dumping on him in late May and early June, I always expected he’d eventually get hot and make up ground.  It’s his nature.  But at the end I’d of day, he swings at too many bad pitches to hit sell consistently. If he can change that, maybe he’ll get more consistent results.  But I’m skeptical that he will.  

Agreed, but I don't think he's any less of a concern than other regulars like Urias and Hays, and he offers much more upside offensively.

I'm similarly skeptical about O'Hearn staying afloat. He has the same walk and strikeout rates at Mountcastle, but Ryan's walk rate is down from his usual while O'Hearn is at his normal number.

[Frobby]

9 minutes ago, dzorange said:

Agreed, but I don't think he's any less of a concern than other regulars like Urias and Hays, and he offers much more upside offensively.

I'm similarly skeptical about O'Hearn staying afloat. He has the same walk and strikeout rates at Mountcastle, but Ryan's walk rate is down from his usual while O'Hearn is at his normal number.

I’m more addressing the hope that Mountcastle has permanently turned a corner.   I’m very skeptical of that.  But, I do think he could finish this year above his current 110 OPS+.  He’s in the ballpark of his career average 113 and is at an age when he should be starting to peak.  

[crawjo]

4 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

If he was suffering from vertigo and "seeing three balls" than he was being pretty irresponsible not informing the team.  I imagine it's pretty easy to get yourself injured trying to play MLB under those conditions.

I admire the desire to play through injuries but it's not smart.

Something like vertigo is difficult to even talk about. I get migraine headaches that put flashing lights in my vision, that go in and out every few minutes. They can go on forever. It's difficult to even describe to another person and early on you often hope it will just go away. I imagine something like vertigo would be like that. You think you can try to play through it, until you can't. 

So I don't think it's irresponsible; but just difficult to convey to others and to predict how it will impact you. 

[RVAOsFan]

I’m thinking Mountcastle stays hot tonight facing the LHP Peterson. 

[bluedog]

Peak Mountcastle is the closest the O's get to having Judge in their lineup.

If Peak Mountcastle can stick around for just 80 more games, I think a world series ring is coming our way.

[FlaO'sFan]

I liked watching this MLB piece on Ryan...

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by FlaO'sFan

[Moose Milligan]

9 minutes ago, FlaO'sFan said:

I liked watching this MLB piece on Ryan...

 

The Curse of Mark DeRosa.  It was like 2 or 3 months ago where he broke down Mateo and the toe tap and we were all like "WHOA a toe tap, Mateo's legit!" and then he went right back to being Mateo.

Anyway, I'm with @Frobbyon this.  I've been a pretty vocal Mountcastle critic over the years here.  It sucks because I think he's a great guy and his teammates appear to love him but his shortcomings have been apparent.

I'm curious to see if any real changes have been made.  He's gone on heaters before, we're all aware of that.  But we need to see how he handles a slump and how long that is.  The slumps are insufferable, they last forever and it's nothing but impatience at the plate and poor, pull-happy swing decisions.

I'm loving that he's using all fields lately, I hope he continues with that.  And if he can continue to be a little more selective at the plate, that might make a difference for him.

[Bemorewins]

Many posters here including myself wrote Mountcastle off and some even wanted/want him shipped off. I'm glad the O's didn't listen.

Right now, I think the wisest course would be to just ride the hot hand. Mountcastle is hitting everything right now. Obviously this won't continue at this place, but maybe this is a course correction?

Maybe this is him correcting back to the player he was in 2020/2021 instead of the second half of 2022?

For right now, he will probably spilt 1B/DH with O'Hearn with Santander/Adley sprinkled in. I love his approach to RF in particular right center right now.

[FlaO'sFan]

5 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

The Curse of Mark DeRosa.  It was like 2 or 3 months ago where he broke down Mateo and the toe tap and we were all like "WHOA a toe tap, Mateo's legit!" and then he went right back to being Mateo.

I almost didn't post it because of that, but CoC says jinxes don't exist, so I went ahead with it. If it goes bad it's on him. 

As you said, we've all seen him go on good streaks before, but I'm really starting to wonder if being sent down (even if officially it was for injury), and Ryan O'Hearn exerting himself at 1B, hasn't jolted something in his psyche and forced him to reavulate some things. Another poster mentioned that on here recently, and I think you might have noted that somewhere and thought it was possible. I'll add that I can only remember 1 horrible pitch that he chased in the Toronto series and many, many pitches he seemed to lay off of pretty easily that he would have whiffed on before. I have always liked Ryan so I am really rooting for him regardless.

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, FlaO'sFan said:

I almost didn't post it because of that, but CoC says jinxes don't exist, so I went ahead with it. If it goes bad it's on him. 

As you said, we've all seen him go on good streaks before, but I'm really starting to wonder if being sent down (even if officially it was for injury), and Ryan O'Hearn exerting himself at 1B, hasn't jolted something in his psyche and forced him to reavulate some things. Another poster mentioned that on here recently, and I think you might have noted that somewhere and thought it was possible. I'll add that I can only remember 1 horrible pitch that he chased in the Toronto series and many, many pitches he seemed to lay off of pretty easily that he would have whiffed on before. I have always liked Ryan so I am really rooting for him regardless.

CoC is a jinx himself.

I agree, I think O'Hearn's emergence might have stirred something in him.  I hope so, anyway.

There was that anecdote from ST all those years ago, Buck asked him why he didn't walk more, or why he wasn't more selective with swinging at pitches and Mountcastle laughed or something.  I don't remember the details but the impression was that he did know better and he did know it was stupid to swing at some of the stuff he was swinging at but he wasn't up there to walk.  He was up there to hack.

That said, he does seem like a reasonably intelligent guy.  I have a hard time marrying the ideas that he knows better than to swing at low and outside sliders but he chooses to ignore it...and that it took O'Hearn raking while he was on rehab to have the realization that he needs to get his act together, use the whole field and be a more selective hitter.  

I want to believe that narrative but it's hard.

But maybe he is that stubborn, maybe being awful for the 2nd half last year wasn't enough for him to want to change.  Hard to say.  

[NCRaven]

5 hours ago, Roy Firestone said:

That's insane.

Insane - ly awesome.

In my best Snoop Dogg Corona commercial voice.

[Yossarian]

Ryan Mountcastle destroyed a baseball last night.   

[SilverRocket]

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/sports/orioles-mlb/ryan-mountcastle-orioles-vertigo-swing-decisions-THSULACPM5F4NNVTPZWPR3G4N4/

Looks like his swing decisions have improved dramatically:

Quote

Mountcastle swung at 41.4% of pitches he saw outside the strike zone before going on the injured list, according to Statcast data from BaseballSavant.com, then lowered his chase rate to 37.4% in Norfolk and has been down to 35.9% since his injury. When separating out to pitches over the heart of the plate and all those that aren’t in that space, the difference is equally stark. He swung at 50.7% of pitches outside the heart of the plate before going on the injured list, and 41.2% since his return.

But there's probably also some luck involved:

Quote

when he swung at pitches over the heart of the plate before the injury; he had a .589 slugging percentage on such pitches, with a .322 weighted on-base average against expected stats that were far better (.867 and .499, respectively). From his return through Sunday’s game, he had an .897 slugging percentage on balls over the plate, against a .750 expected slugging percentage, with a .575 wOBA against a .501 xwOBA.

The swing decision differences are striking though. Did he just never do any sort of that training when the new hitting coaches came over last year?

[interloper]

8 minutes ago, SilverRocket said:

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/sports/orioles-mlb/ryan-mountcastle-orioles-vertigo-swing-decisions-THSULACPM5F4NNVTPZWPR3G4N4/

Looks like his swing decisions have improved dramatically:

But there's probably also some luck involved:

The swing decision differences are striking though. Did he just never do any sort of that training when the new hitting coaches came over last year?

Maybe someone got in his ear as a guy who has options remaining. He needs to commit to change or he's at risk of becoming another Ryan O'Hearn. Veteran hitter with 1 or 2 good years to his name bouncing around AAA and the bigs, or riding the bench. 

It's good to see. I don't have much faith he keeps it up, but he's a lot of fun right now. 

[ChosenOne21]

As a dog returns to his vomit, so does Ryan Mountcastle return to swinging at too many pitches off the plate. The Bible, probably