Cole Irvin 2023

[Roll Tide]

14 minutes ago, Pickles said:

So the OH consensus is that Hall is expected to be an averagish relief pitcher?

I don’t know about averagish …but definitely relief for me. He struggles with command and throws too many pitches to be a starter. 

[wildcard]

I feel good about Gibson and Wells start to the season.   Bradish is a #2 in the making.   GRod has great stuff.  Just needs time to settle in.   Means in July.

I think Kremer is going to have a good year.  He is off to a tough start but he took a while to get it in gear last year.   I think he will come around.   

Last time I saw Hall he was becoming a pitcher not a thrower.   Cutting down his veto in favor of command.  Still not stretched out but he is changing the way he is approaching hitters.   I am not close to giving up on him as a starter.   

That is 7 starters that  I think can contribute to a playoff team.   Watkins is a good bridge to fill some innings until these guys put it together. 

You guys are always talking about SSS and how bad it is.   We are 13 games into the season.   That is SSS.   Chill.

[Pickles]

2 minutes ago, Bemorewins said:

Our definitions for contention are VERY different. And that’s ok.

Even if we somehow sneak into the playoffs with this rotation, we will be serious underdogs going into ANY series against our competitors.

Now onto the approach, Elias cannot have any certain on whatever moves he makes. But I will say this - the more talent that you have, the more certainty that you will have for success. (I know not exactly some original, brilliant idea.)

Saying that, if you acquire starting pitchers with better stuff who have had some serious success; it increases the chances of it working out and you winning. I.e. back in the day when the Red Sox acquired Pedro or when the DBacks acquired Johnson and Schilling. 
 

Now I’m not saying those hall of fame greats are any of these guys. (Alcantara I don’t know? Maybe?) 

But when you settle based on fear for risk adverse moves that don’t cost you anything, you wind up with a guy like Irvin. 
 

The Irvin’s of the world do nothing to raise of profile/odds/ceiling for winning a pennant. He’s simply not that good. However, if we want to win, we are going to need more than hope that Grayson (and dare I say Hall) become those guys. We will need more even if one does. Because our competitors have at least 2 in most instances.

If this team makes the playoffs this year, I would expect they would not be favored in many playoff matchups.  That's a world's difference than saying there's no way they could win and are doomed to fail.

This year is also only the beginning of what I expect to be many years of competing for the playoffs, and in general, I expect the teams going forward to be better than this team.

And yes, it would be nice to add a TOR HOF starter to this roster.  That would help.

[Pickles]

1 minute ago, Roll Tide said:

I don’t know about averagish …but definitely relief for me. He struggles with command and throws too many pitches to be a starter. 

I don't have a problem with that.  You're likely correct.  But I would not give up on him starting yet.

I just mentioned averagish, because it was pushed back when I suggested "all-star" relief pitcher.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Roll Tide said:

I don’t know about averagish …but definitely relief for me. He struggles with command and throws too many pitches to be a starter. 

I'm not willing to close the book on him as a starter but if I had to guess I'd peg him as a guy that has one or two All-Star level seasons out of the pen over a career spanning 10-12 years with at least one of those years entirely wiped out by injury.

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, wildcard said:

I feel good about Gibson and Wells start to the season.   Bradish is a #2 in the making.   GRod has great stuff.  Just needs time to settle in.   Means in July.

I think Kremer is going to have a good year.  He is off to a tough start but he took a while to get it in gear last year.   I think he will come around.   

Last time I saw Hall he was becoming a pitcher not a thrower.   Cutting down his veto in favor of command.  Still not stretched out but he is changing the way he is approaching hitters.   I am not close to giving up on him as a starter.   

That is 7 starters that  I think can contribute to a playoff team.   Watkins is a good bridge to fill some innings until these guys put it together. 

You guys are always talking about SSS and how bad it is.   We are 13 games into the season.   That is SSS.   Chill.

This may be a little sunnier than I would put things, but I agree it’s way too early to call the 2023 pitching staff a train wreck.   They are not off to a good start, and it’s quite worrisome, but it’s a long season.  Things could look very different in a month or two, and I hope they do.  

[eddie83]

This is not a perfect comp at all. For one thing our prospect depth is far better now. That said I do see some similarities around the 2011-13 Orioles. Talking about the pitching. 

The 2011 Orioles position player wise even without Manny and Davis were good enough to be competitive. The pitching was dreadful. I know they won a bunch of close and extra inning games in 2012 but by the end of the year they had a solid overall team. In 13 they hit better,  especially the first half but the SP wasn’t good enough and they lost a bunch of close games. In 14 everything clicked even with injuries. 
 

At this point it is what it is in terms of 2023. My hope is the rotation settles down to an extent and we mash the baseball. Get Means back and then make a deal, even if it’s not a huge one at the deadline. Tillman developed back then but we know what happened with Arrieta. What we can’t afford are poor trades and not developing enough of our own. 

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, LTO's said:

I think we all agree that we would have liked to see more done this offseason. I just wonder what this board would be like right now if we had signed Bassit, Eovaldi or Rodon. I think Bassit was the consensus favorite here and he's given up 5 HRs in 15 innings which is......really bad. 

To be fair, Bassitt had that awful debut where he gave up nine runs in 3.1 IP against the Cardinals then put up two quality 6 innings starts. I certainly would have taken that. He's going to be fine and would have upgraded this rotation if the Orioles were serious about adding top talent, not mediocre ones in Gibson (though Gibson has been solid so far he has a career 94 OPS+) and Irvin. 

[sportsfan8703]

17 minutes ago, wildcard said:

I feel good about Gibson and Wells start to the season.   Bradish is a #2 in the making.   GRod has great stuff.  Just needs time to settle in.   Means in July.

I think Kremer is going to have a good year.  He is off to a tough start but he took a while to get it in gear last year.   I think he will come around.   

Last time I saw Hall he was becoming a pitcher not a thrower.   Cutting down his veto in favor of command.  Still not stretched out but he is changing the way he is approaching hitters.   I am not close to giving up on him as a starter.   

That is 7 starters that  I think can contribute to a playoff team.   Watkins is a good bridge to fill some innings until these guys put it together. 

You guys are always talking about SSS and how bad it is.   We are 13 games into the season.   That is SSS.   Chill.

Good post but I think even in best case scenario world we’re in a lot of trouble. What does give me hope is that I think we underrate how good our lineup is and overrate the toughness of the league’s lineups. 
 

The Nats and Tigers lineups are terrible. The White Sox lineup is “good” but they have some weak spots that can be exploited. 
 

The positives are is that we took 2/3 from Texas. 3/4 from Oak. The AL East is a struggle. We know that. 

[sportsfan8703]

1 minute ago, Tony-OH said:

To be fair, Bassitt had that awful debut where he gave up nine runs in 3.1 IP against the Cardinals then put up two quality 6 innings starts. I certainly would have taken that. He's going to be fine and would have upgraded this rotation if the Orioles were serious about adding top talent, not mediocre ones in Gibson (though Gibson has been solid so far he has a career 94 OPS+) and Irvin. 

I watched that Bassit start last night against the Tigers because I had a monetary interest. Bassit threw 109 pitches against really bad Detroit team. 

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

Everyone keeps talking about the parks but OPACY had a 97 park factor and Oakland had a 96 park factor in 2022.

The switch of parks isn’t a problem. 

The problem is that his command and control have been garbage and he is walking guys at a rate he never has in his career.

He has walked 8 guys so far this year. To put that into perspective, in 2022 he only had 2 months where he walked more than 8 and both times it was 9. 

He has more walks this year.

His stuff isn’t good enough to where he can allow baserunners at a high rate. The last 2 seasons combined, he has given up 447 baserunners via hits and BBs, in 359 IP.  That’s a rate of 1.2 baserunners/IP.

This year it’s 25 in 12.2 IP.  Which is basically 2/IP.  

He can’t pitch like that no matter what park he is in.  His strike% is also down almost 4%.  While his K rate is higher, he is missing fewer bats and not throwing nearly as many first pitch strikes.

It’s all about his control and especially his command. Something is obviously not right with him, whether it’s mechanical or physical.

He was never going to be some great starter but he should be a solid back end guy that can eat innings while he makes no money. That has value. 
 

But he isn’t the guy right now that we traded for and the division, nor the park, has anything to do with it.

This post is right on point. For some reason Irvin lost his command so far and has not been able to do the one thing he was brought here to do, and that was to eat some innings and keep the team in games. He doesn't have the stuff to be a 12.7% walk rate guy and between that and getting hit hard (91 EV) he's allowing way too many base runners (1.97 WHIP).

Now looking at his stuff from last year to this year, I saw three things that jumped out.

He's throwing his sinker much less (22.9% vs 9.3% this year), he's been unable to bury his curveball low away to lefties or down and in on righties and it's getting hammered, and he's been unable to consistently throw his changeup for strikes low and away to lefties.

Last year he had a decent 22.4 WHIFF rate on the curveball and this year it's just 5.6%, mainly because of the location. He's actually added 7.5 inches of horizontal movement on the curveball but he can't command it.

In fact, all of his pitches have increased horizontal movement this year so it's not stuff, it's commanding that new movement. now the Orioles have clearly been teaching horizontal movement as we've seen several pitches adjust their pitch shapes to get more run, so it appears to me that the movement is working, but now Irvin needs to find out how to command it with the new movement.

I betcha he ends up coming back and being decent for this team this year and doing what they signed him to do, and that's eat innings and keep the team in the game more times than not.

 

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

This post is right on point. For some reason Irvin lost his command so far and has not been able to do the one thing he was brought here to do, and that was to eat some innings and keep the team in games. He doesn't have the stuff to be a 12.7% walk rate guy and between that and getting hit hard (91 EV) he's allowing way too many base runners (1.97 WHIP).

Now looking at his stuff from last year to this year, I saw three things that jumped out.

He's throwing his sinker much less (22.9% vs 9.3% this year), he's been unable to bury his curveball low away to lefties or down and in on righties and it's getting hammered, and he's been unable to consistently throw his changeup for strikes low and away to lefties.

Last year he had a decent 22.4 WHIFF rate on the curveball and this year it's just 5.6%, mainly because of the location. He's actually added 7.5 inches of horizontal movement on the curveball but he can't command it.

In fact, all of his pitches have increased horizontal movement this year so it's not stuff, it's commanding that new movement. now the Orioles have clearly been teaching horizontal movement as we've seen several pitches adjust their pitch shapes to get more run, so it appears to me that the movement is working, but now Irvin needs to find out how to command it with the new movement.

I betcha he ends up coming back and being decent for this team this year and doing what they signed him to do, and that's eat innings and keep the team in the game more times than not.

 

Are you seeing anything that would lead you to believe that the new movement is why the K rate is higher? (Again, SSS and all)

[Roll Tide]

47 minutes ago, Pickles said:

I don't have a problem with that.  You're likely correct.  But I would not give up on him starting yet.

I just mentioned averagish, because it was pushed back when I suggested "all-star" relief pitcher.

 

47 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I'm not willing to close the book on him as a starter but if I had to guess I'd peg him as a guy that has one or two All-Star level seasons out of the pen over a career spanning 10-12 years with at least one of those years entirely wiped out by injury.

Fine ….Make him prove it in the minors. He needs to become a pitcher rather than a thrower. Learn how to pitch to contact, throw more strikes, not try to K every hitter. Give him a 105 pitches, tell him to need to get through 6 consistently. That should carry over to being able to give you five in the majors. 
 

At some point you have to move on from the idea if he can’t get to that. It’s fine for him to be a one inning guy throwing it as hard as he can if that’s what he is.

[Tony-OH]

15 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

I watched that Bassit start last night against the Tigers because I had a monetary interest. Bassit threw 109 pitches against really bad Detroit team. 

And despite not having his best command, he allowed just two runs over those six innings. Sounds like a pretty good pitcher to me.

Either way, your analysis is tainted by your fandom. If Bassitt was signed by Elias and had two solid starts after the bad one, you would be all in and claiming how smart he was for signing him (I would have agreed with you). But since he was not, you now will try and find ways to discredit Bassitt even after a quality start.

Gibson, who I was always fine in signing as back of the rotation starter to eat innings like Lyles did last year, is the only Orioles starting pitcher to go at least 6 innings this year (twice). 

Are you willing to tell everyone that this team would not be better with Bassitt in the Orioles rotation right now?

He was not signed either because Angelos did not give Elias the budget to sign him, or Elias' risk aversion to signing any large pitching contracts led him to one year deals and low risk/mid reward trades like Irvin. I still don't know the answer to that question, but there is no way you can tell me the Orioles would not be a better rotation with Bassitt.

Now back to Irvin, I had no issue with the trade and I think he will eventually be back up and better, so I'm not bashing the trade after three starts in April and a demotion. 

But I will continue to say that Elias' weak offseason is becoming more and more obvious. He wanted to liftoff, but the only think lifting off are balls hit by batters against this pitching staff. A pitching staff he knew needed to be upgraded and need a true TOR and #3 to be a serious playoff contender without having to catch lightning in a bottle again.

 

 

 

 

[Tony-OH]

6 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Are you seeing anything that would lead you to believe that the new movement is why the K rate is higher? (Again, SSS and all)

The changeup has a better WHIF rate due to the horizontal movement, but the WHIF rates on his other pitches are down, mainly because he's not commanded them well enough to get guys to chase or swing through stuff. Batters seems to take his pitches just off he plate and that's because he hasn't been able to prove to them that he can land them in the zone enough on the shadow of the strike zone.