The biggest development of 2023 will be…

[Three Run Homer]

I interpret the OP's question as being "what is the most important risk (upside or downside) that is facing the Orioles this season?"  When I think of it like that, the answer has to be how Gunnar and GrayRod look over a full season.  Both of them have superstar potential but there are questions about Gunnar's ability to make contact and about whether GrayRod can recapture the stuff he had in early 2022.  The upside risk is that they both play like superstars, in which case we have a great chance to make the playoffs.  The downside risk is that they struggle and wind up just being average this year (which doesn't mean that they won't become stars later).  

[Frobby]

On 2/8/2023 at 6:39 PM, tntoriole said:

Biggest development of the year 

Angelos passes, the brothers announce the team will be sold to David Rubenstein

 

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Closing-Bell/2022/09/01/David-Rubenstein-talks-desire-to-buy-sports-team.aspx 

Bump…this February 2023 prediction was pretty eerie foreshadowing of the Rubenstein rumor.  

Lots of fun predictions in this thread.   Nobody mentioned Bradish.  @Moose Milliganmade a nice call on Basallo.   
 

[LookinUp]

Threads like this are always fun to look back on. I was mostly talking about DL Hall. In hindsight, his stuff wasn't great at the end of 2022 and that foreshadowed an unhealthy start to 2023. 

I still have hope that the guy gets past his health issues and pitches through the things he needs to work on. I don't rule out a Blake Snell like career for him, even though most do at this point.

[interloper]

On 2/8/2023 at 4:48 PM, interloper said:

I agree it's mostly about Grayson. However, I want to caution folks that it can take a year or three for a guy to really settle into being a great SP at the ML level. Let's be patient if he's not instantly blowing dudes away up here, because he probably won't be. Or, at least I expect him to sort of do what Bradish did - have some rough outings, have some absolute stunners. Hopefully, his floor is higher than Bradish's was. I would expect that to be the case for sure. 

Anyway, I think my answer is Holliday. I think he's going to get to AA this season and be the next #1 prospect in the game this time next year. 

My 1a is Kjerstad reemerging as a top prospect and ML callup threat in September. I feel like we're going to be looking at Kjerstad and Cowser and trying to decide which type of player benefits the team most - a big power COF guy or a more versatile OBP-centric guy. And one of them will get the call. Probably Cowser, but we'll be giving more thought to Kjerstad than we anticipated. 

None of these were particularly tough calls, but all 3 worked out pretty much as I expected. Grayson had his stumbles and his stunners, Holliday blew past my AA prediction all the way to AAA and locked up the #1 prospect nod. Kjerstad did indeed get his September callup after Cowser got his shot first, and for me anyway, has emerged as the guy I very much hope we do not trade. 

[tntoriole]

4 hours ago, Frobby said:

Bump…this February 2023 prediction was pretty eerie foreshadowing of the Rubenstein rumor.  

Lots of fun predictions in this thread.   Nobody mentioned Bradish.  @Moose Milliganmade a nice call on Basallo.   
 

Too bad I wasn’t similarly prescient about the Derby winner lol 

[Since1984]

2024 prediction? Impact MLB players are added via any avenue throughout the whole year to balance the team , a WS contender!

[AnythingO's]

5 hours ago, interloper said:

None of these were particularly tough calls, but all 3 worked out pretty much as I expected. Grayson had his stumbles and his stunners, Holliday blew past my AA prediction all the way to AAA and locked up the #1 prospect nod. Kjerstad did indeed get his September callup after Cowser got his shot first, and for me anyway, has emerged as the guy I very much hope we do not trade. 

There were few of us that were on the Kjerstad bandwagon back then but somewhere I saw him talk about the 2 lost years and his determination to make it to the MLB in 2023. After his June 2022 debut and his AFL performance, I just had the image of a man on a MISSION and he hit in ST and kept hitting at each stop thru August 2023. That represents over a year from becoming physically eligible to play. This is what he did in AAA thru July, (compare to Holiday) after about 13 months of work. Then he crashed, hit 0.228 in August with a SO/BB ratio of almost 3, before rebounding to 0.375 in September and being called up:  I believe he will continue building up over this winter and in ST 2024 we will see the real HK and non-believers will say Cowser who. HK and Westburg IMO have shown they belong on the MLB team and Cowser and Ortiz and the rest are fighting for somebody else's slots.

Edited December 16, 2023 by AnythingO's
typo

[Just Regular]

On 2/8/2023 at 5:32 PM, Just Regular said:

I think Kjerstad rates a Page 1 mention.     Its probably too tough for a hitter to not hit for a big chunk of his early 20's, but if he can get back to who Elias thought he was, he could ease the pain of the lineup for the Jose Abreu type anchor a lot of us had as an offseason priority.

If the magic dust falls on Basallo like Gunnar, has the Organization ever had a player like that?    Just going from memory, Schoop, Eduardo and Ponson feel like the best IFA's the org has grown.

I'd give Kjerstad about a 7 out of 10 for working his way back towards who Elias thought he was.

The mouthwatering thing though is Basallo (and Mayo as well) pretty well emulating a lot of Gunnar's 2022 success.    By the one is a fluke, two is a trend yardstick, Gunnar's breakout now feels more like there was some player development signal to the noise.

We're in for a fun era if Gunnar-Mayo-Basallo is some kind of repeatable result the pipeline can generate with any teenager who "only" commands a couple million in bonus pool allotment.    Those players are available to you even when you pick far far away from the Rutschman-Holiday range.

[Billy F-Face3]

On 2/8/2023 at 4:49 PM, waroriole said:

DL Hall. He has the same ability to leap up the charts as Gunnar. The talent and arm is all there. It’s just a matter of refining his command. 

This would be my thinking too.

But that might be too easy for me to project, so I'll go deeper.  I'll say the biggest development will be one of the pitchers currently in AAA getting into the Majors and impressing everyone by how successful he will be facing MLB hitters. Seth Johnson was the highest rated of that group, but he hasn't been back from surgery long enough to really say if it would be him. My radar doesn't tell me which of the prospects it will be. Just that it will be one of them. (Armbruester included in that batch of prospects).

[Billy F-Face3]

I was tricked by the bump.

[Frobby]

7 hours ago, Billy F-Face3 said:

I was tricked by the bump.

I’d start a similar new thread for 2024, but I think that’s a better topic for February than now, when our roster is a little more clear.  

[emmett16]

On 2/8/2023 at 4:50 PM, emmett16 said:

Gunnar was other worldly, but I'd say Norby is a close second.  We might have a future All Star in our minors that we aren't even fawning over....yet.  

I think Mayo is the biggest wild card in the system.  He has the biggest upside and therefore, if he clicks on all cylinders, we will have a monster on our hands.  

 

On 2/8/2023 at 5:32 PM, Just Regular said:

I think Kjerstad rates a Page 1 mention.     Its probably too tough for a hitter to not hit for a big chunk of his early 20's, but if he can get back to who Elias thought he was, he could ease the pain of the lineup for the Jose Abreu type anchor a lot of us had as an offseason priority.

If the magic dust falls on Basallo like Gunnar, has the Organization ever had a player like that?    Just going from memory, Schoop, Eduardo and Ponson feel like the best IFA's the org has grown.

Turns out Mayo clicked on all cylinders and we have a monster on our hands.  I think one could say that 'the magic dust' fell on Basallo, as well.  Holiday was a given for uber top prospect in the game, but to now have three is incredible and almost unbelievable.  

[emmett16]

22 hours ago, LookinUp said:

Threads like this are always fun to look back on. I was mostly talking about DL Hall. In hindsight, his stuff wasn't great at the end of 2022 and that foreshadowed an unhealthy start to 2023. 

I still have hope that the guy gets past his health issues and pitches through the things he needs to work on. I don't rule out a Blake Snell like career for him, even though most do at this point.

I think DL Hall is going to make a major impact to this organization.  The raw talent is incredibly special.  

[Frobby]

12 minutes ago, emmett16 said:

 

Turns out Mayo clicked on all cylinders and we have a monster on our hands.  I think one could say that 'the magic dust' fell on Basallo, as well.  Holiday was a given for uber top prospect in the game, but to now have three is incredible and almost unbelievable.  

I think our fans to some degree overrate them, or at least, overrate the chances that they will become star players at the major league level.  Even very highly ranked prospects turn into mediocre major leaguers a good percentage of the time.  Not everyone turns out to be Adley or Gunnar.

[emmett16]

6 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think our fans to some degree overrate them, or at least, overrate the chances that they will become star players at the major league level.  Even very highly ranked prospects turn into mediocre major leaguers a good percentage of the time.  Not everyone turns out to be Adley or Gunnar.

Maybe.  But when you look at their physicality and then you couple that with their baseball skills/talent you see something extremely unique and special.  We are talking about two massive physical specimens who have next level athletic abilities and baseball talent.  It's not often you see players with their size have the skills they have.  That alone raises both their floor and their ceiling.  I'll go out on a limb and say that Basallo's ceiling is higher than Adley's and, were it not for the defense and foot speed, Mayo's ceiling is higher than Gunnars.  I think offensively Mayo's ceiling is higher but Gunnar beats him out on defense.  

Edited December 16, 2023 by emmett16