McCann activated Stowers optioned

[eddie83]

There is really little reason to play Vavra in the infield right now. This is why I speculated he may not make the team in spring training. 
 

I am not sold on Stowers and his glove concerns me but I am having a difficult time believing that the Orioles all of the sudden like Vavra over Stowers in the OF. I’m not buying it. That’s why I wonder how much the analytics department plays a role in the lineup. You look up and 8 days into the season Stowers has started one game and they are facing 4 LHP in a row. If that was the plan all along I can’t fathom why Stowers made the team. 
 

We know they don’t like Stowers vs LHP. They aren’t going to play McKenna vs RHP. I know the OF has not sat much but over the course of the year they will rest. In an ideal world when McCann plays he is starting vs LHP. I think over the course of 162 the at bats will be there. 

[Sports Guy]

12 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Well, I’m definitely not as sure of that as you.  Time will tell.  

So, when you did your prospect rankings and read about others, did you rank Vavra right where you had Stowers?  Did you see other sites doing that?

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, eddie83 said:

There is really little reason to play Vavra in the infield right now. This is why I speculated he may not make the team in spring training. 
 

I am not sold on Stowers and his glove concerns me but I am having a difficult time believing that the Orioles all of the sudden like Vavra over Stowers in the OF. I’m not buying it. That’s why I wonder how much the analytics department plays a role in the lineup. You look up and 8 days into the season Stowers has started one game and they are facing 4 LHP in a row. If that was the plan all along I can’t fathom why Stowers made the team. 
 

We know they don’t like Stowers vs LHP. They aren’t going to play McKenna vs RHP. I know the OF has not sat much but over the course of the year they will rest. In an ideal world when McCann plays he is starting vs LHP. I think over the course of 162 the at bats will be there. 

I think if the Os liked Vavra more, he would have been sent down for everyday at bats. They don’t care if Vavra plays once a week up here.

[eddie83]

26 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I think if the Os liked Vavra more, he would have been sent down for everyday at bats. They don’t care if Vavra plays once a week up here.

Sure. But using that logic then why did Stowers make it? 
 

I don’t think the plan was for it to play out like this. Mullins hasn’t sat yet, Hays only once. Santander and Adley haven’t sat yet. Those guys aren’t going to play at those rates all year. In a SSS they can. Time will tell but I can’t see the logic in keeping both Vavra and another LHB that’s not Stowers. I can see the logic in sending him down, getting him reps and then when he comes back he actually plays. 

Edited April 10, 2023 by eddie83

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, eddie83 said:

If they aren’t playing Stowers vs LHP then I get why they are doing it. Adley went 4-4 at DH yesterday. 
 

Like I said maybe they are giving Stowers a reset here and he will be back soon. He would not have played much this week either. 

Oh trust me, we are on the same sheet of music when it comes to sending Stowers down to play everyday if he's not going to ever play up with the Orioles. But again, it boggles my mind how a guy who hit so well against lefties in the minors is marginalized to being a platoon guy against right-handed pitching when it's not exactly the murderer's row of right-handed bats keeping him out. 

[Hank Scorpio]

2 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Oh trust me, we are on the same sheet of music when it comes to sending Stowers down to play everyday if he's not going to ever play up with the Orioles. But again, it boggles my mind how a guy who hit so well against lefties in the minors is marginalized to being a platoon guy against right-handed pitching when it's not exactly the murderer's row of right-handed bats keeping him out. 

This is, I think, essentially where most of us dissenters are. Guys with sticks like that should be worked in.

Or sent down, as it were. I just don't understand the hesitance.

[eddie83]

4 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Oh trust me, we are on the same sheet of music when it comes to sending Stowers down to play everyday if he's not going to ever play up with the Orioles. But again, it boggles my mind how a guy who hit so well against lefties in the minors is marginalized to being a platoon guy against right-handed pitching when it's not exactly the murderer's row of right-handed bats keeping him out. 

I think at this point they have convinced themselves he can’t hit LHP at the MLB level. What that is based on? I have no idea. 
 

I honestly think it has to be analytical. 

[Tony-OH]

54 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Right.   I think Hyde is doing a good job with the 4-players-for-3 starts situation with Urias/Mateo/Frazier/Gunnar (see Frobby's post breaking down how much each has played).   And they have used up just 2 DH games doing that.    Adley has used up 2.   You could do the same thing with Hays/Santander/Mullins/Stowers, where each one would have played in at least 6 games by now.   But they haven't.   Instead McKenna was in the mix vs lefties and Stowers was basically an afterhought.   I think the key is that they have Vavra ahead of Stowers right now as an OF/DH.    And that is why Stowers went down.

I think it all boils down to, in their opinion, Vavra>>Stowers and they fill the same role (corner OF/DH vs some RHPs).   You could argue that if they hadn't gotten Frazier that Vavra could fit into the infield mix but it APPEARS to me that they have made a judgement that his defense at 2B is simply not acceptable.

So I think the reason Stowers has been buried, and then demoted, is that the front office has made two decisions:

   1) Vavra's defense at 2B was not at an acceptable level to get any significant time there

   2) Vavra is more better than Stowers at filling a corner OF/DH role.

Couple that with the fact that McKenna has a role as a backup CF and the fact that he has hit lefties well in the majors, and wind up with Stowers being #13 on the 13-man position player staff.

Now you can disagree or agree with those two assessments... but if you take them as givens, I guess a lot of what they have done makes sense.

[This is not me agreeing with them or justifying what they are doing.   But when I hear a lot of people say that they are being stupid or not making sense, I have a natural urge to play devils advocate and TRY to see things from their point of view, because I don't believe they are stupid people.   So I try to analyze what I'm seeing.   And it appears to me they have made those two assessments and that led them to signing Frazier and to Stowers being the odd man out in terms of playing time at the MLB level.]

I agree with your analysis of how the Orioles see the situation. At the end of the day though, if this was their thought process, they should have just optioned Stowers and gone with Cordero or O'Hearn off the bench. Yes, I know they would need to be added to the 40- man, but Bemboom, Krehbiel, Cano, and probably Zimmermann could all go and probably pass through waivers, especially at the end of spring training when there were a ton of guys on waivers.

Even if I agreed with their analysis of Stowers vs the other players, there should be no thought process that ends with him buried at the end of the 26th man roster.

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Oh trust me, we are on the same sheet of music when it comes to sending Stowers down to play everyday if he's not going to ever play up with the Orioles. But again, it boggles my mind how a guy who hit so well against lefties in the minors is marginalized to being a platoon guy against right-handed pitching when it's not exactly the murderer's row of right-handed bats keeping him out. 

This is the head scratching thing to all of this for me and I mentioned it a lot in the offseason.

Can we stop pretending that guys like Hays, Santander and Mountcastle must play everyday. We act as if these are perennial AS guys and players that you just can’t remove from the lineup.

They are good players. Players winning teams would be more than happy to have.

But let’s stop pretending that they are good enough to where they should be taking at bats away from younger talent with as good or higher ceilings.

And that is before we talk about how Santander shouldn’t be getting regular OF time.

[Tony-OH]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

This is the head scratching thing to all of this for me and I mentioned it a lot in the offseason.

Can we stop pretending that guys like Hays, Santander and Mountcastle must play everyday. We act as if these are perennial AS guys and players that you just can’t remove from the lineup.

They are good players. Players winning teams would be more than happy to have.

But let’s stop pretending that they are good enough to where they should be taking at bats away from younger talent with as good or higher ceilings.

And that is before we talk about how Santander shouldn’t be getting regular OF time.

We're 9 games into the season and:

Mountcastle: Has a .293 OBP 
Hays: Take away his 5-for-5 game and he's 2-for-25 on the season. Defensive he's been awful at -3 OOA already
Santander: Slashing (.194/.250/.306/.556): Defensively he's at -1 in his limited time out there with a -35% success rate added

So yeah, I don't know how they could have gotten Stowers into more games with all that success.

 

 

 

 

[Otter]

41 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

We're 9 games into the season and:

Mountcastle: Has a .293 OBP 
Hays: Take away his 5-for-5 game and he's 2-for-25 on the season. Defensive he's been awful at -3 OOA already
Santander: Slashing (.194/.250/.306/.556): Defensively he's at -1 in his limited time out there with a -35% success rate added

So yeah, I don't know how they could have gotten Stowers into more games with all that success.

 

 

 

 

Exactly.  And the funniest/saddest part is that Hyde's comments make him seem just as confused by this as all of us...

[Pat Kelly]

Santander has at least earned the right to have some patience, based on last season.  He should be the primary DH; however, Adley who can’t catch everyday is the best bat in the lineup and needs to play and will DH occasionally as he did on Sunday. 

There are a couple of choices - bench Santander when AR DH’a or play him in RF.   Right now if you bench him who plays in RF, Vavra?  Is Vavra a better defensive RF? 

Real issue is Hays vs McKenna.  Hays is a streaky hitter with speed who seems to be declining defensively.   McKenna aside from game 2 is still a good defensive OF who hits like a SS from the 1970’s. 

Would a McKenna/Stowers platoon with Vavra and another bench bat make the most sense?   Probably.   Which means Hays likely has 30-45 days to once and for all show if he’s a nugget or not.   

[Billy F-Face3]

10 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

I don't think Hyde is making these lineup decisions because his excuses don't hold weight. I can guarantee a good manager (if he were making out the lineup cards himself like they used to do) would have found a way to get Stowers 4 starts a week at worse. 

His excuse to why Stowers gets no PAs against lefties was weak. BTW, good on whoever asked those questions. If Hyde really feels the way his answers come across, then I do think he's over his head a little bit when it comes to using all his talent on his roster.

There is a reason you have 26 guys on a roster and you wanna just run out the same basic lineup everyday they will be cooked by Late August.

BTW, his "Have you looked at our outfielders" comment is hilarious. Hays (.715 OPS), Mullins (.647), Santander (.556) with back ups in Vavra (.311) and McKenna (661 OPS). Yeah, I don't know how he could have found some PAs for Stowers with the way they've hit the ball. Lol

Just more BS from Hyde and the Orioles. If Hyde is making out the lineup cards by himself, he's over his head and should not be around here when the team is really ready to compete, but I think he does nothing more than give health updates to Sig or Sig's computer minions before the computer spits out it's "optimized lineups". 

Sure, it's early in the season but the team is last place once again, is 2-4 against the AL East, and has rarely looked like the best team on the field talent wise against their opponents.

We are 5 years into Elias' reign. He gets judged on wins and losses at the major league level and his roster decisions are not looking good at all.

At the end of last season when the lineup started looking like it was drew out of a hat, someone in Orioles Hangout claimed that Hyde had little say in the Lineups and everyone laughed at him. Because it used to be that the Manager's main job was setting the lineup. But this person who commented said that it was the front office all putting in votes or sometime of collaborative effort/decision on what the starting lineup would be. If this person had inside info, I don't know, but that would explain why it looked like a pre-schooler made those lineups.

[Frobby]

4 minutes ago, Billy F-Face3 said:

At the end of last season when the lineup started looking like it was drew out of a hat, someone in Orioles Hangout claimed that Hyde had little say in the Lineups and everyone laughed at him. Because it used to be that the Manager's main job was setting the lineup. But this person who commented said that it was the front office all putting in votes or sometime of collaborative effort/decision on what the starting lineup would be. If this person had inside info, I don't know, but that would explain why it looked like a pre-schooler made those lineups.

I don’t recall anyone saying that.  

Elias has said that the FO provides information and suggestions but that Hyde decides the lineup.  
 

[Billy F-Face3]

16 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I don’t recall anyone saying that.  

Elias has said that the FO provides information and suggestions but that Hyde decides the lineup.  
 

It was in the Facebook group. Not here.