Roch: O's Looking for Defensive Minded OF

[Frobby]

13 minutes ago, E-D-D-I-E said:

Aaron Hicks would horrible, in every way. We are talking about a guy who said he was too distraught to play on the day a criminal was shot and killed. That a message I want my young players to follow?

Huge pass.

I’m not worried about Hicks’ influence on the young players.   The fact that he’s 33 years old, due $30 mm the next three years and hasn’t put up an OPS over .642 for the last two is much more relevant to me.  

[Three Run Homer]

19 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Frazier is a little like Vavra for the outfield. Below average sprint speeds and jumps. 

I like the Frazier signing less after reading this thread.  I thought he was going to spell Hays against RHs on occasion.  If the team doesn't think he can do that, then it's more likely that he was signed to be the regular 2B, which is a really bad decision.  

[Yardball85]

53 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I’m not worried about Hicks’ influence on the young players.   The fact that he’s 33 years old, due $30 mm the next three years and hasn’t put up an OPS over .642 for the last two is much more relevant to me.  

Yeah, a Hicks acquisition would be a waste of time and money, not to mention innings that could/should go to younger and cheaper options. 

[OriolesMagic83]

5 hours ago, Frobby said:

I’m not worried about Hicks’ influence on the young players.   The fact that he’s 33 years old, due $30 mm the next three years and hasn’t put up an OPS over .642 for the last two is much more relevant to me.  

Now that you've said that it makes sense for the O's to trade for him w/ the Yankees picking up 80% of his salary and getting a prospect around #20.  Would fit in with their thinking of adding "cheap" players even if they're not good.

[sportsfan8703]

18 hours ago, Three Run Homer said:

I like the Frazier signing less after reading this thread.  I thought he was going to spell Hays against RHs on occasion.  If the team doesn't think he can do that, then it's more likely that he was signed to be the regular 2B, which is a really bad decision.  

Ramon Urias suffered a pretty bad sprained ankle at the very end of the season. Keeping him out 8-10 weeks over the offseason. It seems like the Frazier signing was insurance in case Urias wasn’t ready for OD. There weren’t too many other true 2B on the market. 
 

As it looks now we’re going to rely on Stowers and Hays in the COF with Santander DH’ing primarily. Maybe Santander plays some RF versus LHP. Westburg is in play. Do we sign Profar?  Cowser ETA?  Norby ETA? There’s OF ABs to go around. I think Hays is locked in as an everyday COF at the moment. 

[waroriole]

14 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Ramon Urias suffered a pretty bad sprained ankle at the very end of the season. Keeping him out 8-10 weeks over the offseason. It seems like the Frazier signing was insurance in case Urias wasn’t ready for OD. There weren’t too many other true 2B on the market. 
 

As it looks now we’re going to rely on Stowers and Hays in the COF with Santander DH’ing primarily. Maybe Santander plays some RF versus LHP. Westburg is in play. Do we sign Profar?  Cowser ETA?  Norby ETA? There’s OF ABs to go around. I think Hays is locked in as an everyday COF at the moment. 

8M is a stupid amount of money to spend on a backup 2B. The Orioles don’t even spend smart money. 

[Frobby]

50 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Ramon Urias suffered a pretty bad sprained ankle at the very end of the season. Keeping him out 8-10 weeks over the offseason. It seems like the Frazier signing was insurance in case Urias wasn’t ready for OD. There weren’t too many other true 2B on the market. 
 

It doesn’t take 4.5 months to recover from a sprained ankle.  

[sportsfan8703]

5 hours ago, Frobby said:

It doesn’t take 4.5 months to recover from a sprained ankle.  

It was a sprained knee that suffered and the timetable was 8-12 weeks.  So that's 2-3 months.  Meaning he might still just be getting healthy for the beginning of ST.  

[btdart20]

1 hour ago, sportsfan8703 said:

It was a sprained knee that suffered and the timetable was 8-12 weeks.  So that's 2-3 months.  Meaning he might still just be getting healthy for the beginning of ST.  

Here's what Urias said a few months ago.

Urías twice went on the injured list this season, limiting him to 118 games. A sore left oblique cost him 22 games from June 10-July 4, and he was shut down early with a sprained knee, keeping him out of the lineup for the last eight.

“It’s good,” he said. “The pain is almost gone. I’m pretty sure that I’m like two weeks away from being 100 percent and starting with my offseason program.”

Urías reacts to first Gold Glove and updates knee injury - Blog (masnsports.com)

[Frobby]

6 minutes ago, btdart20 said:

Here's what Urias said a few months ago.

Urías twice went on the injured list this season, limiting him to 118 games. A sore left oblique cost him 22 games from June 10-July 4, and he was shut down early with a sprained knee, keeping him out of the lineup for the last eight.

“It’s good,” he said. “The pain is almost gone. I’m pretty sure that I’m like two weeks away from being 100 percent and starting with my offseason program.”

Urías reacts to first Gold Glove and updates knee injury - Blog (masnsports.com)

And that was about 6 weeks before we acquired Frazier, so hopefully the O’s had confirmed by then that Urias was healthy.  But, Urias has been a bit injury prone in his 2+ years with the O’s, which may have had some impact on the O’s judgment.  

[ThisIsBirdland]

Roch is continuing to push the defensive LH corner outfielder as a possible remaining acquisition on his daily blog. The free agency market looks to be down to basically just Profar and Peralta, decent vets but not necessarily defense-oriented or worth the cost.

Is this enough of a need to justify making a trade? My guess is they'll address it with MiLB deals, but would people be upset if they took a shot at someone for a mid-tier prospect like Cesar Prieto? Like Hernaiz, there's a good chance he's blocked here. Could he bring them either a defense-first vet or maybe a prospect swap like Dominic Fletcher with the D-Backs (one of their 56 LH corner outfielders)? I only pick him because he looks to be blocked and is known for his defense first. It does look like he's coming off of a strong offensive season in their AA/AAA programs too; maybe not too realistic for Prieto.

[TommyPickles]

Is there really a "defensive corner outfielder" out there that's much better than Ryan Mckenna and his .794 OPS against LHP.

Seems like we have plenty of OF options already...

[NCRaven]

3 hours ago, TommyPickles said:

Seems like we have plenty of OF options already...

Is that a good reason not to try for an improvement?  Incremental improvements add up.

Edited January 31, 2023 by NCRaven

[RZNJ]

I'm expecting a Robbie Grossman type.

[Sports Guy]

Btw, didn’t they sign Frazier for this?