Adam Frazier 2023

[tntoriole]

1 hour ago, owknows said:

I appreciate the reset in the interaction.

Maybe we're talking past one another. I posted his performance for the months of March/April and it showed an OPS in the mid .600's for the entirety of that time. (and that I thought his WAR was replacement level at that time... which is to say near zero)

In what I took to be a rebuttal, you told me you were tracking WAR over time, and you posted a table showing that metric...  which included an OPS of .759 for the time period you calculated (which was considerably higher than the mid .600's that he posted for the entire months of March/April.) It would appear that your data spanned only a 19 game subset of the 29 which comprised March/April. And depending on whose WAR you use, his figures could have been anywhere from 0.1 to 0.6 over that time..

I consider WAR to be a little bit polluted by confirmation bias to begin with, so I really am a little disappointed with myself for prolonging a conflicted discussion over it.

He's wearing orange... he seems like a great guy and a great team mate. Hard not to root for him. And I do.

I characterized his current state as a tick below replacement. In retrospect that was probably a little harsh.

All that said, my larger point has nothing to do with Frazier or his performance per se. My concern has never been Frazier's contribution to the big club. It has been the impact of his acquisition on the choreography of player advancement through the minors and into the majors. We spent a lot of tough years waiting patiently for the building of a top notch farm. And it is now starting to see it's way into the majors.

But for probably sound statistical reasons..  Elias tends to favor middle infielders when drafting skill positions (they have a substantially greater probability of playing at least 4 years in the majors than do pitchers or other skill players for example).

But with that focus, we now have a considerable excess... a bumper crop if you will.. of such players. Good ones. And soon will for outfielders as well.

We are starting to see players bump their heads against the ceiling at Norfolk. And it will be less than a season before players that need to be promoted TO Norfolk have no place to go... People generally say this is a good problem to have... but if not strategically managed... it isn't. It's going to cost you players that you don't get a chance to fully evaluate... It's going to cost you trade value in forcing you to deal players that other teams know you have to deal.

This club already needed to do some strategic pruning of middle infielders. And instead of doing that it added another one in Frazier. I guess ultimately I think that Frazier could post a great season and still not be the correct move strategically... because it its going to rob you of trade value and accordian all of your farm.

I appreciate the depth of argument.  
 

However, you do not make the case that Elias would make.  Namely, that injuries happen, that expected performances do not sometimes occur-both minor and major, and that what you see as a surplus could by a tough season’s end be just barely enough. 
 

Mike’s experience with trade partners is more in deoth than yours or mine, so his stockpiling of prospects that you see as damaging and wasteful, he believes necessary to make flexible trade responses to other partners. 
 

Either way, I trust Elias judgement much more than any GM we have seen and certainly much more than my own fan based judgements. 

[seak05]

Half the fans on the board want to dfa him, the other half want him batting 5th*
 

He’s a positive WAR player who can play multiple positions and help balance a fairly RH heavy infield. Long term the orioles have better players, but he probably has a place on the current team given its roster construction 

* this is an exaggeration 

[owknows]

4 minutes ago, tntoriole said:

I appreciate the depth of argument.  
 

However, you do not make the case that Elias would make.  Namely, that injuries happen, that expected performances do not sometimes occur-both minor and major, and that what you see as a surplus could by a tough season’s end be just barely enough. 
 

Mike’s experience with trade partners is more in deoth than yours or mine, so his stockpiling of prospects that you see as damaging and wasteful, he believes necessary to make flexible trade responses to other partners. 
 

Either way, I trust Elias judgement much more than any GM we have seen and certainly much more than my own fan based judgements. 

I don't have many criticisms of Elias.

He's got a good eye for talent.. understands draft mechanics... and has had some great success with reclamation projects.

But in this case... we already had. Urias, Mateo, Henderson, Westburg, Ortiz, Vavra, and Norby

Any one of whom is a potential MLB starting caliber player.

Urias, Mateo, and Henderson were already in the show..

Leaving Vavra, Westburg, Ortiz, and Norby banging their head against the backup job.

We simply didn't need another player in that mix. We already needed to trade at least 2 of these guys.

 

[tntoriole]

8 minutes ago, owknows said:

I don't have many criticisms of Elias.

He's got a good eye for talent.. understands draft mechanics... and has had some great success with reclamation projects.

But in this case... we already had. Urias, Mateo, Henderson, Westburg, Ortiz, Vavra, and Norby

Any one of whom is a potential MLB starting caliber player.

Urias, Mateo, and Henderson were already in the show..

Leaving Vavra, Westburg, Ortiz, and Norby banging their head against the backup job.

We simply didn't need another player in that mix. We already needed to trade at least 2 of these guys.

 

Except .. just to make my point.  Urias is on the IL and Mateo is hitting like Joe Schmoe. 
And the ones “banging their head”.. Vavra and Ortiz both helped us win games this weekend. 

I will trust Elias in maximizing our chances THIS year by having strong reinforcements ready to go as well as Elias waiting a half season before pulling a trigger on a major need deal by having the chips showcase on the best MiLB team and keeping their trade value high.

If you pulled them up now and they went through the inevitable 1 for 25 starts what does that do to their trade value at the deadline vs smoking hot at Norfolk ? 

[BRobinsonfan]

44 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Mentioning Ortiz is idiotic. He has no sample size to go off of. Just stop.

As for Gunnar…yes he has been better so far. He has been worth .4 more fWAR and that’s with Gunnar playing about as bad as he could.

Good for Frazier. He has outplayed a rookie who is learning and adjusting and has barely been better and up until the last week, it was even closer.

By the end of the year, this won’t be the case. Probably won’t be the case by the time July starts.

I stand by what I said. You all are being foolish and over the top with how you are talking about Frazier…just as a complete dismissal of Frazier is equally foolish.

 

This is basically where I'm at.  At 31, Frazier's best days are probably behind him.  But he is most definitely an upgrade over Odor, and that's his value.  It's just a value we didn't need to pay for to acquire.   On the O's hierarchy of needs, we should have put the money toward a decent starting pitcher.  

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, tntoriole said:

Except .. just to make my point.  Urias is on the IL and Mateo is hitting like Joe Schmoe. 
And the ones “banging their head”.. Vavra and Ortiz both helped us win games this weekend. 

I will trust Elias in maximizing our chances THIS year by having strong reinforcements ready to go as well as Elias waiting a half season before pulling a trigger on a major need deal by having the chips showcase on the best MiLB team and keeping their trade value high.

If you pulled them up now and they went through the inevitable 1 for 25 starts what does that do to their trade value at the deadline vs smoking hot at Norfolk ? 

Probably not much since the other teams aren't run by idiots.

[tntoriole]

15 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Probably not much since the other teams aren't run by idiots.

At least not named Angelos lol 

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, maybenxtyr said:

If you had to make a decision within a month considering where the team currently sits, and where they hope to be at the end of the season, would you replace Mateo with Ortiz? 

 

 

That's an excellent question and one that would depends on a lot of factors. Mateo has traditionally been very streaky with the bat over his career with high highs and low lows, so it's best not to judge him during with one of these streaks but to look at him overall. 

I'm a big believer in Ortiz, but Mateo has shown that he can be an above average and even an elite defender at SS and when his bat is doing ok, he can be a vert valuable player. Ortiz, like most rookies is going to take his lumps at times offensively, but the thing Ortiz brings is very steady defense with flash. If I had to think of a shortstop consistency wise, similar to Ortiz with the Orioles, I have to go back to JJ Hardy. Ortiz has more range than Hardy, but he reminds me more of him then any other Orioles shortstop of late.

Mateo, even last year, does make his share of errors and his throwing has been erratic at times this season. 

So I guess when I look at it, if I needed a SS over 162 games, I prefer the guy like Ortiz. He may not have the arm strength to make some of the amazing plays that Mateo can make in the hole and up the middle (not saying Ortiz can't make these plays, but his arm appears to me a tick below Mateo's plus arm), but he's going to make less errors. 

With the bat, Mateo has more pop, but is also more prone to long streaks of being a zero at the plate. Ortiz has shown to be more consistent since the second half of his Bowie season last year and he's not a punch and judy singles hitter. 

So in a month, if Mateo is still slumping and struggling to hit, I would not be against giving the job to Ortiz. The orioles will not lose much if anything defensively and may have a more consistent offensive threat. 

And since this is the Frazier thread, I still would be fine if Ortiz was the everyday second baseman until that decision was made. but we know that's not going to happen and honestly, Frazier is earning his playing time right now.  

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, tntoriole said:

At least not named Angelos lol 

I'm talking about GMs not owners.

[RZNJ]

Elias has put the roster in a place where we can withstand injury to just about any player and be okay.  Urías gets hurt, Ortiz comes up.  The two most irreplaceable players are Rutschman and Mullins but even Mullins can be replaced by Cowser.  All of the maneuvers we thought silly or unnecessary like Torrens, O’Hearn, Frazier were designed to create as much depth as possible between the big team and AAA.   The Orioles can afford to decrease Mateo’s playing time as they wait to see if he gets back on track and give more AB’s to Ortiz.  Elias has tried to design a sort of plug and play system and so far so good.   

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Honestly, I just read the Roch quote yesterday and was too lazy to look up whatever you had said.  I didn’t look at Statcast because I wouldn’t have thought there was enough data yet to rate his speed.  He’s only played in 10 games.   Now that I look at your scouting report, you had his speed at 50, which is not far off Pipeline’s 45.   I’d say if he’s really 79th percentile (and I’d prefer a bigger sample to confirm that), he’s more of a 55 than a 50, right?

My speed ratings have always been off the eye test. I take everything into consideration from taking extra bases, speed to first, extra base speed, to stealing bases. I don't have the statcast data to go off of and honestly, I'm too lazy to take a bunch of sprint to first base times down and try to average them out. 

So saying all that, I'm good with calling Ortiz is average to slightly above average runner. But yes, if he's 79th percentile, that would make him closer to a 55-60 runner depending on how you want give the grade. Remember, most guys still get their speed ratings by the scouting scale and was based off times to first base. 

With statcast, there really isn't a need to use the scouting scale as it's given to you with corresponding percentile's. 

I still love checking statcast to see if my eyes and year's of scouting experience was on the mark. I will say, if there is one thing I've been a little low on is actual speed. Henderson was definitely faster than I thought even though I think I gave him 50 or 55 speed. 

I'll be honest, I don't put a ton of time and effort into the scouting grades and the ones I've seen on places like pipeline are laughable at times. I prefer to tell people what kind of player i think the player is and what is best role will be at the major league levels. 

 

[BRobinsonfan]

12 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

My speed ratings have always been off the eye test. I take everything into consideration from taking extra bases, speed to first, extra base speed, to stealing bases. I don't have the statcast data to go off of and honestly, I'm too lazy to take a bunch of sprint to first base times down and try to average them out. 

So saying all that, I'm good with calling Ortiz is average to slightly above average runner. But yes, if he's 79th percentile, that would make him closer to a 55-60 runner depending on how you want give the grade. Remember, most guys still get their speed ratings by the scouting scale and was based off times to first base. 

With statcast, there really isn't a need to use the scouting scale as it's given to you with corresponding percentile's. 

I still love checking statcast to see if my eyes and year's of scouting experience was on the mark. I will say, if there is one thing I've been a little low on is actual speed. Henderson was definitely faster than I thought even though I think I gave him 50 or 55 speed. 

I'll be honest, I don't put a ton of time and effort into the scouting grades and the ones I've seen on places like pipeline are laughable at times. I prefer to tell people what kind of player i think the player is and what is best role will be at the major league levels. 

 

Old#5Fan would be proud of you for applying "the eye test."  I just wonder where he would come down on this debate.  I mean Adam Frazier and Joey Ortiz are both solid baseball names.   

[LA2]

2 hours ago, RZNJ said:

Elias has put the roster in a place where we can withstand injury to just about any player and be okay.  Urías gets hurt, Ortiz comes up.  The two most irreplaceable players are Rutschman and Mullins but even Mullins can be replaced by Cowser.  All of the maneuvers we thought silly or unnecessary like Torrens, O’Hearn, Frazier were designed to create as much depth as possible between the big team and AAA.   The Orioles can afford to decrease Mateo’s playing time as they wait to see if he gets back on track and give more AB’s to Ortiz.  Elias has tried to design a sort of plug and play system and so far so good.   

Excellent point that hasn't been mentioned enough here. Also, AR is irreplaceable, but Elias gained a few degrees of calm when he signed up McCann as his replacement. His catch 'n throw and pitcher management have looked good and he has a history of pop vs. LHP: .254 / .319 / .447 / .765, with 36 home runs and 114 RBI (!) in 797 AB.

[wildcard]

3 hours ago, RZNJ said:

Elias has put the roster in a place where we can withstand injury to just about any player and be okay.  Urías gets hurt, Ortiz comes up.  The two most irreplaceable players are Rutschman and Mullins but even Mullins can be replaced by Cowser.  All of the maneuvers we thought silly or unnecessary like Torrens, O’Hearn, Frazier were designed to create as much depth as possible between the big team and AAA.   The Orioles can afford to decrease Mateo’s playing time as they wait to see if he gets back on track and give more AB’s to Ortiz.  Elias has tried to design a sort of plug and play system and so far so good.   

Torrens became a FA and signed with the Nationals.

[RZNJ]

9 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Torrens became a FA and signed with the Nationals.

I know that, but there was a chance that he would have accepted his assignment and Elias took that chance.  He was acquired with the idea that they would try to stash him at Norfolk.

Edited May 22, 2023 by RZNJ