2023 Ongoing Lineup Thread

[Frobby]

On 6/23/2023 at 3:20 PM, turtlebowl said:

I'm almost at the point this season where I am wondering if winning is worth it (this season).  If the O's were 5 games under .500 I think the narrative changes completely with what the goal of the season is.  Obviously someone in the organization (everyone speculates) is afraid to bring up and play prospects.  I am assuming the thought is the team has great chemistry so you don't mess with what is working. 

It has really become frustrating feeling as if we probably have 3 players right now that are in the minors that would make our lineup better.  It becomes more obvious by the day, unless trades happen or an injury, they aren't going to do anything different if they are winning.

 

Yeah, I really hate it when the team wins a lot of games and makes it harder to bring up prospects.  Don’t they understand what the objective of the game is?

[Sports Guy]

The way this team treats very good but not elite prospects is mind numbingly stupid.

[Aristotelian]

47 minutes ago, glenn__davis said:

Ortiz had no chance today. Ole Hyder knows Frazier is a must play against RHP and "Jorgie" could never sit 2 days in a row. 

We *finally* face a LHP tomorrow (and Tues). If he isn't optioned by then that is when Ortiz gets out of platoon jail. 

[Aristotelian]

Tough pitcher and no Adley... pressure on Bradish but he has been excellent lately. 

[wildcard]

1 hour ago, Bemorewins said:

I am not one of the many hyper-obsessed posters who wants all of the young players/prospects brought up like yesterday, but I am hopeful and looking forward to the day when Frazier and Mateo are not batting back to back anymore in the lineup (even if I have to wait through most of July leading to the trade deadline).

It seems that you are making it way to easy on the pitcher to have such weak hitting players posting every day. And then when you combine that with Bemboom, that means that pretty much every 3 innings the opposition will be able to catch a breather. Lastly, I don’t understand why we are playing Santander in RF today and DH Hicks? 

It probably has something to do with Hicks being 33 years old.

[Bemorewins]

2 minutes ago, wildcard said:

It probably has something to do with Hicks being 33 years old.

Even at 33, he's a superior defensive player to Santander. I feel like with the very weak offensive lineup that we are putting out there, at least we could field the best defensive team as possible. I dunno because the last time I felt this strongly opposed to a lineup, we scored a bunch of runs off of Shane Bieber on that Thursday day game (though we wound up loosing the game due to an equally horrid strategy of throwing all of our worse bullpen pitchers on the same day).

[wildcard]

6 minutes ago, Bemorewins said:

Even at 33, he's a superior defensive player to Santander. I feel like with the very weak offensive lineup that we are putting out there, at least we could field the best defensive team as possible. I dunno because the last time I felt this strongly opposed to a lineup, we scored a bunch of runs off of Shane Bieber on that Thursday day game (though we wound up loosing the game due to an equally horrid strategy of throwing all of our worse bullpen pitchers on the same day).

But at 33 I think Hyde is trying to not wear Hicks down physically.

Edited June 25, 2023 by wildcard

[deward]

32 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Yeah, I really hate it when the team wins a lot of games and makes it harder to bring up prospects.  Don’t they understand what the objective of the game is?

I thought we all wanted Elias to strike a good balance between the long and short term health of the franchise. Suppressing your next wave of top prospects in favor of guys like Mateo and Frazier seems bad for both. Bringing up Ortiz to just bury him on the bench while other guys aren't performing is just baffling. Drafting and developing guys like Cowser and Westburg, only to go out of your way to find reasons not to give them opportunities is just odd. I don't follow every other team as closely as I used to, but I'm struggling to think of an example of another org that was stacked in the upper levels of the farm that then proceeded to block those guys with retreads like Hicks and O'Hearn. I understand that Hicks and O'Hearn have worked out better than anyone thought, but the process is perplexing. 

[turtlebowl]

44 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Yeah, I really hate it when the team wins a lot of games and makes it harder to bring up prospects.  Don’t they understand what the objective of the game is?

You are missing the point, I am happy they are winning. Unfortunately the decision makers have decided not to mess with the mojo. That to me is preventing the team from moving players up.  So great, we are winning but could we be even better if management wasn’t afraid to make difficult decisions on players on the roster of a winning team but not really contributing?

I think different management would handle this differently even while winning. 
 

My basic point is if we were around .500 right now they would probably say, let’s bring these kids up and see if we can make a run. 

 

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, deward said:

I thought we all wanted Elias to strike a good balance between the long and short term health of the franchise. Suppressing your next wave of top prospects in favor of guys like Mateo and Frazier seems bad for both. Bringing up Ortiz to just bury him on the bench while other guys aren't performing is just baffling. Drafting and developing guys like Cowser and Westburg, only to go out of your way to find reasons not to give them opportunities is just odd. I don't follow every other team as closely as I used to, but I'm struggling to think of an example of another org that was stacked in the upper levels of the farm that then proceeded to block those guys with retreads like Hicks and O'Hearn. I understand that Hicks and O'Hearn have worked out better than anyone thought, but the process is perplexing. 

I was mostly just reacting to the tone of the post, “wondering if winning is worth it.”   That’s the object of the game.  If we were trading a bunch of really good prospects to acquire some mediocre players who could give us marginal help in the short term, I’d call that a bad tradeoff in terms of winning now vs. later.  Deferring the arrival of some prospects bothers me less.  Plus, it’s a long season, with still a long way to go.  I still think it’s likely that guys like Westburg and Cowser will get their chances this year when it’s all said and done.  

[wildcard]

7 minutes ago, deward said:

I thought we all wanted Elias to strike a good balance between the long and short term health of the franchise. Suppressing your next wave of top prospects in favor of guys like Mateo and Frazier seems bad for both. Bringing up Ortiz to just bury him on the bench while other guys aren't performing is just baffling. Drafting and developing guys like Cowser and Westburg, only to go out of your way to find reasons not to give them opportunities is just odd. I don't follow every other team as closely as I used to, but I'm struggling to think of an example of another org that was stacked in the upper levels of the farm that then proceeded to block those guys with retreads like Hicks and O'Hearn. I understand that Hicks and O'Hearn have worked out better than anyone thought, but the process is perplexing. 

Elias' team is winning at or near a 100 win pace.   That is after losing for 3 years and then winning 83 last year.    That is an amazing progression that we should not take for granted.   He might know what he is doing.

We are seeing Urias play more at 3B vs righties and Henderson play more at SS.   Both are hitting righties well.  There is little room for Ortiz to get much playing time vs righties at those position.

I believe Elias wants to see whether Frazier can develop some trade value between now and late July.  He has been playing a lot vs righties and been part of a 100 win team.   He is not holding the O's back to any great degree.    I think if Elias can trade him he will.  If he can't he might see more bench time in August and Sept.   JMO.

Prospects can spend 3 or 4 years (depending or if they are college or high schools draftees) in the minors before they have to be protected from the Rule 5 draft.  They have three option years after they reach  the majors.  Its Elias job to use that time to the best advantage of the franchise.  I think that is what Elias is doing.

[deward]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I was mostly just reacting to the tone of the post, “wondering if winning is worth it.”   That’s the object of the game.  If we were trading a bunch of really good prospects to acquire some mediocre players who could give us marginal help in the short term, I’d call that a bad tradeoff in terms of winning now vs. later.  Deferring the arrival of some prospects bothers me less.  Plus, it’s a long season, with still a long way to go.  I still think it’s likely that guys like Westburg and Cowser will get their chances this year when it’s all said and done.  

I'm more bothered by it given the age of some of these prospects. Ortiz will be 25 next month. Westburg and Kjerstad are 24. Every player's prime years are different; these guys could easily be entering the front end of their prime now, and O's are missing out on the benefits. Looking at the current roster, Hays, Mullins and Mounty had all established footholds in the bigs at age 23. Adley was 24, but I've assumed that had more to do with the missing COVID year than anything else. Santander got a taste at 22 (rule V, I know). My point is, these guys are as ready as they're going to get (even Kjerstad, I would argue), and I just don't see where Elias is building a road-map to get them involved. The wins gained from playing guys like Hicks and O'Hearn are nice, but how many wins will Elias give back by continuing to play them after the lightning is out of the bottle, instead of turning to the guys that should be the future?

[deward]

1 minute ago, wildcard said:

Elias' team is winning at or near a 100 win pace.   That is after losing for 3 years and then winning 83 last year.    That is an amazing progression that we should not take for granted.   He might know what he is doing.

We are seeing Urias play more at 3B vs righties and Henderson play more at SS.   Both are hitting righties well.  There is little room for Ortiz to get much playing time vs righties at those position.

I believe Elias wants to see whether Frazier can develop some trade value between now and late July.  He has been playing a lot vs righties and been part of a 100 win team.   He is not holding the O's back to any great degree.    I think if Elias can trade him he will.  If he can't he might see more bench time in August and Sept.   JMO.

Prospects can spend 3 or 4 years (depending or if they are college or high schools draftees) in the minors before they have to be protected from the Rule 5 draft.  They have three option years after they reach  the majors.  Its Elias job to use that time to the best advantage of the franchise.  I think that is what Elias is doing.

Is your argument that the club would not have been better off over the past month to play someone other than Frazier or Mateo? The wins in the bank are nice, but you could easily start to give them back by chasing Mateo's April instead of giving other guys a chance. I would argue that's already happened.

[Bemorewins]

10 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Elias' team is winning at or near a 100 win pace.   That is after losing for 3 years and then winning 83 last year.    That is an amazing progression that we should not take for granted.   He might know what he is doing.

We are seeing Urias play more at 3B vs righties and Henderson play more at SS.   Both are hitting righties well.  There is little room for Ortiz to get much playing time vs righties at those position.

I believe Elias wants to see whether Frazier can develop some trade value between now and late July.  He has been playing a lot vs righties and been part of a 100 win team.   He is not holding the O's back to any great degree.    I think if Elias can trade him he will.  If he can't he might see more bench time in August and Sept.   JMO.

Prospects can spend 3 or 4 years (depending or if they are college or high schools draftees) in the minors before they have to be protected from the Rule 5 draft.  They have three option years after they reach  the majors.  Its Elias job to use that time to the best advantage of the franchise.  I think that is what Elias is doing.

I was with you up until the Frazier line. If that is Elias plan, that seems like a really bad use of 8 million dollars especially for a team with a 50 million dollar payroll. Because in essence what you are saying is that he brought Frazier with the idea of flipping him into a prospect or 2. That is a very expensive way to acquire additional prospects and it's a questionable move for an org that is a prospect rich as us.

[Bemorewins]

16 minutes ago, deward said:

I'm more bothered by it given the age of some of these prospects. Ortiz will be 25 next month. Westburg and Kjerstad are 24. Every player's prime years are different; these guys could easily be entering the front end of their prime now, and O's are missing out on the benefits. Looking at the current roster, Hays, Mullins and Mounty had all established footholds in the bigs at age 23. Adley was 24, but I've assumed that had more to do with the missing COVID year than anything else. Santander got a taste at 22 (rule V, I know). My point is, these guys are as ready as they're going to get (even Kjerstad, I would argue), and I just don't see where Elias is building a road-map to get them involved. The wins gained from playing guys like Hicks and O'Hearn are nice, but how many wins will Elias give back by continuing to play them after the lightning is out of the bottle, instead of turning to the guys that should be the future?

If/when O'Hearns and/or Hicks struggle they can be replaced by the younger players that you suggest. Until then it makes little sense to replace very productive players preemptively to proactively prevent possible future struggles to replace them with guys who have great potential but haven't proven anything at this level.

Now, I think it's a different story with Frazier and Mateo, especially Mateo who is giving us so little. They should be the guys who we are considering to replace right now, not Hicks and O'Hearns who have done very well.

And I agree with you on the ages of some of our AAA prospects, they are entering prime years, and at some point soon decisions need to be made. But since we've waited this long, I'm fine with waiting another 3/4 weeks. One/some may need to be traded and/or some will be brought up as others are moved out. 

The real issue for me is the pitching (both bullpen and starters).