Early spring bullpen thoughts

[Tony-OH]

8 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Good post. I definitely see both sides of this one. You are definitely right about him having unproven endurance. Part of that was managing pitch counts with a young prospect. I would still lean toward maximizing his upside and continue developing him as a starter. They can always pull the plug and turn him back into a reliever if he never gets it together.

It's certainly valid opinion to hope he gets it eventually. I just don't think he'll ever have the consistent command, endurance and health to stick as a successful starter at the big league level. Now that the Orioles are hopefully a contender, his role is best in the bullpen. In the reverse, he still could go back to starting at some point if it works. As was pointed out, several starters started off their careers as relievers and converted quite nicely later in their career. 

By the way, I see some Randy Myers in Hall. 

 

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

I agree with this. We forget, Hall was looking dominant and ready for promotion at the All Star as a starter last year. Everyone on this board was calling for his promotion. Then they did that weird 1 inning start after the break that seemed to mess him up, he had two horrible starts in a row, a meh start, and another horrible one. At that point he got promoted as a reliever.

Hall’s period of “looking dominant” at Norfolk was pretty brief.   He had a 5.17 ERA through 10 starts there, then had 4 very good starts right before the ASB.

[RZNJ]

Hall is listed in some places at 6'2 and 200 but he doesn't look like a big guy to me, not that that means everything.   However, he did have the stress reaction in his elbow in 2021 and his stuff was down from earlier reports at Norfolk when he came up last year.   You have to seriously question his durability.     Why not get some use out of him and let him start his career as a power lefty in the bullpen and see if he can establish himself that way.     Sending him to start at Norfolk seems like hoping a longshot comes in (his command getting markedly better as a starter) and tempting fate that his arm holds up.

[Sports Guy]

19 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Hall is listed in some places at 6'2 and 200 but he doesn't look like a big guy to me, not that that means everything.   However, he did have the stress reaction in his elbow in 2021 and his stuff was down from earlier reports at Norfolk when he came up last year.   You have to seriously question his durability.     Why not get some use out of him and let him start his career as a power lefty in the bullpen and see if he can establish himself that way.     Sending him to start at Norfolk seems like hoping a longshot comes in (his command getting markedly better as a starter) and tempting fate that his arm holds up.

If the arm isn’t going to hold up, it won’t hold up in either situation.

Pitchers have said in the past that the pen can be as bad or worse on your arm because you sometimes warm up multiples times and you are going more max effort.

 

[RZNJ]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

If the arm isn’t going to hold up, it won’t hold up in either situation.

Pitchers have said in the past that the pen can be as bad or worse on your arm because you sometimes warm up multiples times and you are going more max effort.

 

Depends on if you have a manager who abuses bullpen arms.  Buck didn't.  I don't think Hyde does either.

[Sports Guy]

6 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Depends on if you have a manager who abuses bullpen arms.  Buck didn't.  I don't think Hyde does either.

This doesn’t matter in terms of the max effort. 

[btdart20]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

If you mean pull the plug as in reassign them to AAA at some point, I agree, but they are decent depth as swing starters or long men in the bullpen. Since they both have and with options, they can ride the Norfolk shuttle easily, so I like them in AAA.

In my world, they are assigned to AAA to open the season and we have no need for them in Baltimore.  Agreed, they are fine for depth/break the glass emergencies for this year.  I hope our higher ceiling options develop by the end of the year making Watkins/Zimmermann, well, off the roster.

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, btdart20 said:

In my world, they are assigned to AAA to open the season and we have no need for them in Baltimore.  Agreed, they are fine for depth/break the glass emergencies for this year.  I hope our higher ceiling options develop by the end of the year making Watkins/Zimmermann, well, off the roster.

You will always need depth.

[eddie83]

Strong inning for Felix. 2 K’s. Good velo 

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

Strong inning for Felix. 2 K’s. Good velo 

As long as he feels good tomorrow And in the coming days, I think we should feel good about his chances of being on the OD roster.

Edited March 14, 2023 by Sports Guy

[eddie83]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

As long as he feels good tomorrow And in the coming days, I think we should feel good about his chances of being on the OD roster.

Yeah. That will be key. 

[LookinUp]

55 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Depends on if you have a manager who abuses bullpen arms.  Buck didn't.  I don't think Hyde does either.

Buck didn't abuse bullpen arms? I think he ran through them like a rented mule, which is part of the reason why JJ and Britton weren't the same by the end of their competitive seasons.

[RZNJ]

10 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

Buck didn't abuse bullpen arms? I think he ran through them like a rented mule, which is part of the reason why JJ and Britton weren't the same by the end of their competitive seasons.

They very seldom had pitchers go 3 days in a row and tried not to warm guys up without using them.   I think other managers are much worse.  He did a good job of keeping his bullpen fresh.

[RZNJ]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

This doesn’t matter in terms of the max effort. 

Ok.  Agreed.

[Aristotelian]

Bautista had a clean inning with 2 K today. That is nice to see.