Elias’ Pitching Acquisitions

[deward]

2 hours ago, emmett16 said:

I Wanted to start a thread on pitchers Elias has acquired via trade, rule 5, & other non-drafted players.  It’s been mentioned a ton that he has gone very light on pitchers in the draft.  Use this thread to discuss non-drafted pitchers acquired by Elias.  Not only successes but the duds.  A lot is spoken about the stockpile of IF & OF MLB ready talent and the pipeline coming up.  At first glance it looks they have done a pretty good job of building a pitching pipeline full of MLB level talent from spare parts.  

Kyle Bradish - Bundy trade - MLB SP

Tyler Wells - rule V - MLB SP

Cionel Perez- waiver - MLB RP

 Ryan Baker - waiver - MLB RP

Yenier Cano - Lopez trade - MLB RP

Voth- waiver claim - MLB RP

Coluombe - cash purchase 

Givens - FA - IL

Gibson - FA - MLB

 Cole Irvin - Hernaiz trade - AAA

Cade Povich - Lopez Trade - AA

Chayce McDermott - Mancini Trade - AA

Seth Johnson - Lopez trade - IL

Now, no blockbuster trade netting a future SP1 or SP2 has been completed yet, but I’d say they’ve done a good job living in the margins and finding talent that fits their system.  

 

The problem with living in the margins is you sometimes get marginal results. How many of those guys do you have full confidence in? Wells looks good, Cano and Coluombe look great (but so did Perez last year), Gibson should at least be reliable. Beyond that, I'm not sure. Last year's success was heavily fueled by unexpectedly good results from Bradish, Kremer, Voth, and Perez. Now all four are struggling and it's not clear yet if they'll be able to recapture what they found in 2022. Irvin couldn't make it through April without getting demoted. I fear that the bullpen will be worn out by June if the starters can't get their act together once they start facing better teams. 

[Frobby]

Just now, interloper said:

I think it's kind of wild to expect Bradish and GRod to have ERAs under 4. Frankly that's just not very likely. Bradish still looks like he's prone to unraveling or sudden loss of command. GRod is a rookie and I would expect something in the mid-4's with nice strikeout numbers. 

Kremer is a disaster.

Grayson is at 4.07 now, riding a 14 inning scoreless streak.   I don’t think it’s that unrealistic for him to end up under 4.00. Certainly not guaranteed, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised, and I’d probably be disappointed if he didn’t.

Bradish has his work cut out for him.  But, he hasn’t pitched that many innings, so he’s got a shot to dig himself out of the hole.  

[deward]

32 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Kind of a negative post.   The pen is #1 in the majors in ERA at 2.86.  There is a lot of stuff going right for that to happen.   Their at 110 innings for 28 games with makes them 6th in the MLB.   It would be nice to see that go down by about 6 innings of the next 28 games which would put them at league average.   I think as the starters settle in that could happen.

The starters are 24th at a 5.28 ERA.    But that should improve.   Wells, GRod and Bradish all should be fine with ERAs under 4.00 and Gibson in the low 4.00s.    Kremer is the only one that concerns me right now.  He should bounce back but I don't like the way he accepts giving up homers.    Zimmermann and/or Watkins may be needed if Kremer does not improve.  At least until Means and/or Hall are ready. 

 

If this teams needs Zimmermann or Watkins, they're in trouble. 

[interloper]

Just now, Frobby said:

Grayson is at 4.07 now, riding a 14 inning scoreless streak.   I don’t think it’s that unrealistic for him to end up under 4.00. Certainly not guaranteed, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised, and I’d probably be disappointed if he didn’t.

Bradish has his work cut out for him.  But, he hasn’t pitched that many innings, so he’s got a shot to dig himself out of the hole.  

I agree that I wouldn't be surprised if Grayson pitches under 4, but I certainly don't expect it. I'm just looking for him to limit the implosions. So far he has. 

I really like Bradish, but he just doesn't seem to have that veteran pitcher skill of figuring out a pitch to lean on when nothing is working, and grinding through an outing. He either has it or you're warming someone up in the 2nd inning. But I like his chances most days. 

[interloper]

1 minute ago, deward said:

If this teams needs Zimmermann or Watkins, they're in trouble. 

Irvin and Kremer are, I think, roughly lined up as far as their pitching days go. So I think one more bad Kremer start and one more good Irvin start, we might see that swap. Last Irvin start was very good, but it was also the game Norfolk trounced Charlotte 20-1 or whatever. 

[Oriole1940]

He has done overall real good, but I think he would be the first to say that the missing link is a TOR SP to top off the Orioles 2023 comeback to real   competitiveness  IMO we need 2, not 1, but let  us see where 1 will take us.  

[deward]

20 minutes ago, interloper said:

Irvin and Kremer are, I think, roughly lined up as far as their pitching days go. So I think one more bad Kremer start and one more good Irvin start, we might see that swap. Last Irvin start was very good, but it was also the game Norfolk trounced Charlotte 20-1 or whatever. 

You're probably right that Irvin would be next up if they decide to pull Kremer from the rotation, but he's in that same bucket of SP for me that I have no confidence in vs good teams. Even in his last start, he gave up 7 hits in 6 innings. 

[sportsfan8703]

Kyle Brnovich was looking like he could be something after his 2021 season in AA/A+.  Acquired via the Bundy trade.  He's out with TJ surgery.  We also acquired Stallings, Pinto, Peek, and I believe another arm or two in our various deals with the Angels.  

 

It will be interesting to see what Elias looks like as a buyer.  We're in Adley year 2, and Gunnar year 1.  We'll also have to see how Means looks.  I don't know if Elias will have that luxury before the deadline.  The SP is worrisome.  Will Grayson even be available in Sept/Oct?  No doubt that are guys are competitive, but talent prevails in a series.  Well luck if you're the KC Royals.  

[wildcard]

32 minutes ago, deward said:

If this teams needs Zimmermann or Watkins, they're in trouble. 

Watkins had a 4.17 ERA as a starter last year in 20 starts.   Zimmermann has shown improvement this year from work he did over the winter.    I would not be afraid to use either in the rotation of a while.

[wildcard]

34 minutes ago, interloper said:

Irvin and Kremer are, I think, roughly lined up as far as their pitching days go. So I think one more bad Kremer start and one more good Irvin start, we might see that swap. Last Irvin start was very good, but it was also the game Norfolk trounced Charlotte 20-1 or whatever. 

If Kremer continues to struggle and Irvin gets his AAA ERA to 3.50 then I think a swap may be worth it.   But Irvin is not there yet for me.    I would go for Zimmermann right now.  Watkins cut a finger and is not back to normal yet.

[interloper]

2 minutes ago, wildcard said:

If Kremer continues to struggle and Irvin gets his AAA ERA to 3.50 then I think a swap may be worth it.   But Irvin is not there yet for me.    I would go for Zimmermann right now.  Watkins cut a finger and is not back to normal yet.

I could get on board with this. Agree that Irvin is not quite there yet. Zimm has been hot, so he makes sense as a spot starter. I might even give Hall a whirl, but I'm not sure I trust him to get through 4 innings without throwing 90 pitches. 

[deward]

4 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Watkins had a 4.17 ERA as a starter last year in 20 starts.   Zimmermann has shown improvement this year from work he did over the winter.    I would not be afraid to use either in the rotation of a while.

I appreciate the optimism, but it seems misplaced here. Zimmermann has pitched well in Norfolk before and then bombed in the majors. Watkins had an ERA over 7 last September and has walked more than he's struck out so far in AAA this year. I'd be terrified of having to rely on either one, personally. 

[wildcard]

9 minutes ago, interloper said:

I could get on board with this. Agree that Irvin is not quite there yet. Zimm has been hot, so he makes sense as a spot starter. I might even give Hall a whirl, but I'm not sure I trust him to get through 4 innings without throwing 90 pitches. 

I think Hall is making progress in learning to pitch instead of just throw.   He says he in not completely healthy yet.  Needs to strengthen his back with weight training.     I just want him to start at AAA and become more consistent.  Get his pitch per inning count down to 15.

[Tony-OH]

45 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It’s a factual post.  We are 10th in ERA, and our starters are 11th.   That’s not spin, it’s fact.  

Obviously our bullpen has been very good.  I’ve been trumpeting that almost daily in the bullpen thread.   There’s no doubt Elias has been very good at finding good relievers in trades and waiver claims, etc.   It’s harder to do with starting pitchers, though Wells has proven to be a terrific Rule 5 pick (though how he was picked behind Sceroler, I’ll never know).   I do not think our rotation is good enough to make a deep postseason run.   That’s why I said there’s more work to do.
 

For the life of me I'll never understand posters that call factual posts negative and then spout their rosy opinions on where guys will end up. 

Currently, the Orioles have two starters in the rotation with 6+ ERAs (Kremer and Bradish) and while they're FIPs suggest they should be better, neither has made you confident when they're out on the mound. 

I like to look at XWOBA to get an idea of how a pitcher is getting hit and ultimately how well they can be expected to do going forward. 

Wells            .278
Rodriguez    .316
MLB avg     .322
Gibson         .338
Bradish        .339
Kremer        .398   

If I'm looking at these early numbers, I'm feeling better about Bradish bringing his performance closer to major league average but not so sure about Kremer. His lack of command this year and seeing him get hard pretty consistently even though he can miss bats. The only pitcher this year with a higher XWOBA was Cole Irvin at a grotesque .426 and why he finds himself in AAA. 

It's worth noting that Elias's guys are Wells, Bradish, Gibson and Irvin, while the previous regime acquired Rodriguez and Kremer. 

Either way, the starting rotation is the weak part of this team and unfortunately, we said the same thing going into this offseason and Elias brought in Gibson and Irvin to shore it up. While Gibson has been solid, Irvin has been a disappointment so far, and neither were the TOR this team needed every five days.

Thankfully Elias did what he's great at, and found two guys like Cano and Coulumbe who are cheap and were money in April. I do have concerns that the bullpen will be burnt out if they can't get more innings out of heir starters. I do think Bradish will settle down and be able to provide more consistent length but Kremer is more worrisome.

Rodriguez has been great of late, but of course, the Orioles seem to be on the five innings and done more with him so far no matter how well he's pitching so right now, the team really needs Gibson and Wells to give them consistent length.

 

 

 

[Tony-OH]

Just now, wildcard said:

I think Hall is making progress in learning to pitch instead of just throw.   He says he in not completely healthy yet.  Needs to strengthen his back with weight training.     I just want him to start at AAA and become more consistent.  Get his pitch per inning count down to 15.

Not saying you are wrong, but where did Hall say that about his back?