Royals series

[Just Regular]

Brown had it on the telecast the pick is Grayson tomorrow, steering him away from ATL/Fried (go get 'em, Dean) and putting him back out there on "only" 4 days rest.

I believe I saw within the past week or so the fraction of SP turns on 4 days rest are down to around 1/4th.

[Billy F-Face3]

9 hours ago, Just Regular said:

If you accept as a general principle Mike Elias is refraining from multi-year commitments to mid-pack at best length pitchers like Lyles and Gibson, and cross-reference with actual contracts obtained by the world's best pitchers last offseason, I think the answer is No.

John Means looms 18 months from now as the Trey Mancini of Arms.     Heaven forbid he's World Series MVP or something.

With the benefit of a month of performance data on the FA SP of 2023, who would you rather have for $1 more than their actual?

deGrom 185, Rodon 162, Verlander 86, Senga 75, Taijuan 72, Taillon 68, Bassitt 63, Eflin 40, Ty. Anderson 39, Eovaldi 34*, Quintana 26, Wacha 26, Martinez 26, Stripling 25, Manaea 25, Heaney 25*, Smyly 19, Lyles 17, Syndergaard 13, Clevinger 12, Kluber 10, Boyd 10, Cueto 8, Greinke 8, Lorenzen 8, R. Hill 8

* are a couple that make me wonder, though I believe both those guys have some Club-unfriendly escalators if they are good, and get at least that guarantee if they are bad.

I do think Frazier vs. the $8-10mm pitchers is fuzzy if Elias chose right, but even the guys near there doing okay, I'm not sure exactly what we'd be doing with them now.

 

I was a strong advocate for trying to sign Drew Smyly because I thought he could be a good value acquisition as a LHP. And so far through 1 month, he's giving the Cubs what they paid for. Although, I doubt the Orioles (or even myself as armchair GM) would have paid him as much. Other pitchers I had in the same bargain LHP teir was Quintana and Heany.

I think the free agent market is bloated right now so all those guys were paid more than expected. And the ones people thought were sure things, have had the injury bug to start the season. (You could say that they have a history of injuries or just being older that would have foreshadowed this.)

[Bahama O's Fan]

Here is our reality. 

1. We are finally contenders

2. Our starting pitching is not good enough

3. To win it all, we need to acquire top quality starting pitching (at least one)

4. We do not have it in the minors

5. To acquire this pitching today means overpaying, the market is crazy

So...Will Elias overpay or just leave the team where it is. Oh...and...

6. We have a gluttony of position players that are going to cause a real 40 mam roster crunch

[maybenxtyr]

43 minutes ago, Bahama O's Fan said:

Here is our reality. 

1. We are finally contenders

2. Our starting pitching is not good enough

3. To win it all, we need to acquire top quality starting pitching (at least one)

4. We do not have it in the minors

5. To acquire this pitching today means overpaying, the market is crazy

So...Will Elias overpay or just leave the team where it is. Oh...and...

6. We have a gluttony of position players that are going to cause a real 40 mam roster crunch

I expect some of those questions to be answered as the season goes along...the pitching is going to be hard to fix unless the starters can get it together. 

 

Gibson has been pretty decent so far. His ERA after last night is 4.61. I'm guessing most of us would be happy with that over the course of a whole season. Kremer and Bradish are the keys right now. Can they get back to what they did in 2022?

[Just Regular]

Run differential wise the Royals last night stomped the 20-10 Orioles worse than we've been able to manage in any of our Wins yet.

[clapdiddy]

I didn't see the game last night, but I did see Gibson pitch in Detroit.   The one thing that stuck out to me was that his command was awful.  He looked like he didn't have a good "feel" for the ball.   Was that more of the same last night?

 

[sportsfan8703]

We need Grayson to be nails today. Last year’s ace versus this year’s ace matchup. Rested A side of the pen. We need to take this one down. 2/3. 

[Spy Fox]

3 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

We need Grayson to be nails today. Last year’s ace versus this year’s ace matchup. Rested A side of the pen. We need to take this one down. 2/3. 

It’d be nice to see the offense have a good game against Lyles before the reality check of Fried-Strider-Morton-McClanahan.

[Moshagge3]

Mountcastle said in the postgame interview on Tuesday night that it was difficult to pick up the ball against the hitter's background in the early twilight part of the game and easier when it got dark. Hopefully they can see in the broad daylight.

[dystopia]

15 minutes ago, Moshagge3 said:

Mountcastle said in the postgame interview on Tuesday night that it was difficult to pick up the ball against the hitter's background in the early twilight part of the game and easier when it got dark. Hopefully they can see in the broad daylight.

Funny. KC didn't have that problem.

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, dystopia said:

Funny. KC didn't have that problem.

Home field advantage.

[oriole]

4 hours ago, Bahama O's Fan said:

Here is our reality. 

1. We are finally contenders

2. Our starting pitching is not good enough

3. To win it all, we need to acquire top quality starting pitching (at least one)

4. We do not have it in the minors

5. To acquire this pitching today means overpaying, the market is crazy

So...Will Elias overpay or just leave the team where it is. Oh...and...

6. We have a gluttony of position players that are going to cause a real 40 mam roster crunch

Seems like the obvious answer is to trade from the position player depth to get a top starter. The issue is what type of pitcher is available for guys that aren’t exactly top prospects. To me, a top prospect is like a MLB top-20 or something. For example, if we had Cease, would we be comfortable having traded him for a package headlined by Cowser? I doubt it. 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, oriole said:

Seems like the obvious answer is to trade from the position player depth to get a top starter. The issue is what type of pitcher is available for guys that aren’t exactly top prospects. To me, a top prospect is like a MLB top-20 or something. For example, if we had Cease, would we be comfortable having traded him for a package headlined by Cowser? I doubt it. 

Jones was I think a top 30 guy when he headlined the Bedard deal. 

I think even at the time folks were mostly pleased with that return.

[oriole]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Jones was I think a top 30 guy when he headlined the Bedard deal. 

I think even at the time folks were mostly pleased with that return.

That’s a hard one to reflect on considering how that trade looks now. You know you won a trade when you feel kinda bad for the other team (not too bad though)

I just checked and saw Cowser was at 34 on MLBs top 100. Higher than I remembered, so not sure he was a good example. 

[rm5678]

4 hours ago, clapdiddy said:

I didn't see the game last night, but I did see Gibson pitch in Detroit.   The one thing that stuck out to me was that his command was awful.  He looked like he didn't have a good "feel" for the ball.   Was that more of the same last night?

 

Yes, I felt that his start last night was similar to the Detroit start.