Adam Frazier 2023

[Pickles]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

Yea I don’t disagree..just playing devils advocate. 

LOL.  What you do best.

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, Pickles said:

LOL.  What you do best.

Well, I do wonder if they are considering it though. Frazier’s OPS for this month, in 38 at bats, was 507 entering tonight and 3 Ks don’t exactly help that. 
 

His overall OpS is back under 700 and his OBP is back below 300.

How long do you keep going to him when the defense is also terrible?  I would guess they give him a lot of rope to snap out of it but I do think it’s something to watch if he continues to struggle for another week or 2.

[Pickles]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Well, I do wonder if they are considering it though. Frazier’s OPS for this month, in 38 at bats, was 507 entering tonight and 3 Ks don’t exactly help that. 
 

His overall OpS is back under 700 and his OBP is back below 300.

How long do you keep going to him when the defense is also terrible?  I would guess they give him a lot of rope to snap out of it but I do think it’s something to watch if he continues to struggle for another week or 2.

The positional players on the roster now will be who they roll with in the postseason.

There is some clear flex on the pitching staff, particularly the bullpen.

[Sports Guy]

Just now, Pickles said:

The positional players on the roster now will be who they roll with in the postseason.

There is some clear flex on the pitching staff, particularly the bullpen.

I tend to agree that’s the likely outcome and I don’t expect Frazier to continue to be this bad with the bat but if he goes another 25-30 at bats with a sub 500 OPS, that has to start to make them think, how much value is going to bring us.

OToH, the question may be at that point, is a guy like Ortiz ready to be thrown into this type of pressure?

[Pickles]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

I tend to agree that’s the likely outcome and I don’t expect Frazier to continue to be this bad with the bat but if he goes another 25-30 at bats with a sub 500 OPS, that has to start to make them think, how much value is going to bring us.

OToH, the question may be at that point, is a guy like Ortiz ready to be thrown into this type of pressure?

They're not going to be swayed by 30 bad ABs.  He's still hitting better than Ortiz.  He's guaranteed to be on the postseason roster.

[Sports Guy]

7 minutes ago, Pickles said:

They're not going to be swayed by 30 bad ABs.  He's still hitting better than Ortiz.  He's guaranteed to be on the postseason roster.

Well it wouldn’t be 30 bad at bats. It would be 70 bad at bats at the worst time of the year to have bad at bats and where his defense has been awful. 
 

Just hard to rely on that in the biggest of all situations.

[Pickles]

Looked ok there.  LOL.

He's going to be on the postseason roster.  It's really not worth the discussion.

If you feel the need to pick a nit, figure out the bullpen.

[Tony-OH]

Frazier has been very streaky but the good news is he's only had 11 starts in August so the Orioles have finally transitioned him to the bench role that he's a better fit for.

On the year he's now put up:
0.0 fWAR (-2.2 Off, -10.5 Def)
93 wRC+ - below replacement level

I think the real surprise was how bad defensively he was at 2B this year. His -14 OAA is 1 percentile making him one of the worse, if not the worse defensive 2B in baseball this year. His surprising uptick in power was nice while it lasted, but he has one homer in his last 82 PAs (since his two homer game).

Saying that, I'm ok with him as a bat off the bench for the playoffs because his ability to make contact is skill that could be needed late in close games, but Westburg should be the everyday 2B at this point.

 

[Frobby]

6 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Frazier has been very streaky but the good news is he's only had 11 starts in August so the Orioles have finally transitioned him to the bench role that he's a better fit for.

On the year he's now put up:
0.0 fWAR (-2.2 Off, -10.5 Def)
93 wRC+ - below replacement level

93 wRC+ is not below replacement level.  First of all, there’s no such thing as “replacement level” for offense or defense alone.  The concept only applies to a combination of the two.  Second, 14 of the 30 teams in the majors have a wRC+ of under 93 at 2B.   https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?lg=all&qual=y&season=2023&season1=2023&ind=0&type=8&month=37&team=0%2Cts&sortcol=17&sortdir=asc&pagenum=1

I’m not in major disagreement with your overall assessment of Frazier, but just needed to be clear on this point.  

Also, as we know, rWAR likes Frazier way more than fWAR (1.3 to 0.0).   

 

[Tony-OH]

44 minutes ago, Frobby said:

93 wRC+ is not below replacement level.  First of all, there’s no such thing as “replacement level” for offense or defense alone.  The concept only applies to a combination of the two.  Second, 14 of the 30 teams in the majors have a wRC+ of under 93 at 2B.   https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?lg=all&qual=y&season=2023&season1=2023&ind=0&type=8&month=37&team=0%2Cts&sortcol=17&sortdir=asc&pagenum=1

I’m not in major disagreement with your overall assessment of Frazier, but just needed to be clear on this point.  

Also, as we know, rWAR likes Frazier way more than fWAR (1.3 to 0.0).   

 

I actually copied and pasted those stats and assessment from Facebook and didn't really think about it honestly as it was just more information for the post. On a side note, I've lost faith in rWAR as an accurate representation of value and now prefer the fWAR model. 

Regardless, the key to my post is that the Orioles are no longer using him as an everyday player and that's a good thing. Saying that, he's been 0-for-6 in August coming in as a pinch hitter so he's not been doing much off the bench either.

[Frobby]

20 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I actually copied and pasted those stats and assessment from Facebook and didn't really think about it honestly as it was just more information for the post. On a side note, I've lost faith in rWAR as an accurate representation of value and now prefer the fWAR model. 

Regardless, the key to my post is that the Orioles are no longer using him as an everyday player and that's a good thing. Saying that, he's been 0-for-6 in August coming in as a pinch hitter so he's not been doing much off the bench either.

He may be a guy who doesn’t adjust well to not having regular reps.  He played 150+ games in 2019, 2021 and 2022, and 58 in the short 2020 season.  So, he’s not used to being a bench guy.  We’ll see how he adjusts.  

[Sports Guy]

22 minutes ago, Frobby said:

He may be a guy who doesn’t adjust well to not having regular reps.  He played 150+ games in 2019, 2021 and 2022, and 58 in the short 2020 season.  So, he’s not used to being a bench guy.  We’ll see how he adjusts.  

He better get used to if he wants to continue to be a major leaguer.

[Pickles]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

He better get used to if he wants to continue to be a major leaguer.

That was my first thought as well.

[Tony-OH]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

He may be a guy who doesn’t adjust well to not having regular reps.  He played 150+ games in 2019, 2021 and 2022, and 58 in the short 2020 season.  So, he’s not used to being a bench guy.  We’ll see how he adjusts.  

True. Earlier in the year when he was having some success late in games, a lot of that came in games he started and was playing regularly.

I was surprised when I looked these #s up a few weeks ago, but he's been a really bad PH this year going 1-for-16 with a walk, HBP, and SF (19 PAs) and no RBIs. The only good news is he's only struck out in two of those PAs. 

Now, these are clearly SSS stats so I looked at his career PHing stats and they are .222/.336/.291/.626 in 128 PAs with one home and 7 RBIs. 

So the more I look at it, the more I think he might not be a very good part-time player and he's certainly not a good option at PHing unless you just need a guy to put the ball in play. With his lack of speed and defense, it's not like he's bringing much else to the field.

 

 

[Three Run Homer]

15 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

There is absolutely a point in releasing them. If you don’t think they help You in October, why keep them through Sept?

The question is who do you need to make room for.  Definitely they need to make room for Ortiz, but he can come up on September 1.  I suppose you could release Frazier if you thought that Kjerstad would be a better left handed bat off the bench.  But Kjerstad has been slumping and he would need to be added to the 40 man roster.  

The bigger issue is who should be getting regular playing time in the infield.  In my opinion, most of the starts in September should go to Henderson, Ortiz and Westburg, with either Henderson or Ortiz at SS.  Mateo should stricly be a pinch runner, Frazier should be a pinch hitter, and Urias can play 3B when you want to give one of the rookies a day off.   If Ortiz falls on his face, you can always put Urias or Frazier back in the lineup, but Ortiz' minor league stats say that he should be able to outhit what Mateo, Urias and Frazier have done recently.