Terrin Vavra 2023

[Frobby]

Surprised to find out this thread doesn’t exist yet, though there are other threads mentioning Vavra in the title.  

Anyway, just wanted to point out that Vavra now has his OBP up to .364.  He literally doesn’t have an extra base hit, in his still pretty small sample of 46 PA for the season.  But he’s doing Job One, which is getting on base.  And he’s been on base in 9 of his last 20 PA.   Nice to see him making a contribution, and hopefully a few XBH will come soon.  
 

[UMDTerrapins]

I always liked his at-bats in the minors. Has really nice bat control. With so many MI’s with power in our organization, he’ll be easy to dismiss. But he could hit for a high average and get on base at a good rate with regular playing time, imo. 

[Spy Fox]

Vavra will probably continue to spend a lot of this season in AAA, but if he's still around when the position player logjam clears up, he could be to the 2020s contending Orioles what Ryan Flaherty was to the 2010s contending Orioles. A defensively versatile bench guy who won't kill you with the bat if he needs to start for a while.

Vavra has less power than Flaherty, and is probably a weaker defender. So he'll have to keep earning it with the stronger OBP portion of his skillset.  

[Billy F-Face3]

His lead taking RBI is a reminder of why I liked him so much last season. Like you said, great bat to ball skills. When Jim Palmer talks about him, Jim always mentions how pesky a batter like Vavra was to pitchers like Palmer when Jim played, because they wouldn't chase pitches out of the zone.

[sportsfan8703]

Vavra is carving out a nice bench role on this team. He’s even played 3rd and LF the last few games. It takes experience to come up in a pinch hitting role. I think he learned a lot and adjusted the last time we sent him down. 

[wildcard]

The bench  is forming with guys that can pinch hitter and platoon with McKenna, O'Hearn, Vavra and McCann.   However when Urias comes back one will have to go and Vavra or Ortiz  looks like the most likely to me.

Edited May 22, 2023 by wildcard

[Billy F-Face3]

Vavra is the type of batter you can put ahead of your biggest power hitters to set up a 3 run home run.

[Sanfran327]

Despite their massive contributions to the last two wins, I still can't help but feel like Vavra and O'Hearn are on the chopping block when it's time to bring up Cowser and Westburg. Even with our record the way it is and the success we've had through 47 games, I won't feel like we are truly going for it until we get at least Cowser up here. Westburg would be nice, but we still have to account for Urias coming back sometime (probably) soon.

[Just Regular]

The XBH zero is approaching Caleb Joseph RBI watch as a stat oddity, but he's about as good as Adam Frazier's little brother can be.      Maybe Yankee Stadium gets him into the HR column!

He's a player where a biographical detail he has chosen to share creates much of my impression who he is.    A son of a MLB coach who got to put balls on a tee for Joe Mauer.      I don't know that there's a physical tool that rates well on the MLB scale, but skills are there.     

Adley got the one and only good dose of the Captain America super serum.

[interloper]

6 hours ago, wildcard said:

The bench  is forming with guys that can pinch hitter and platoon with McKenna, O'Hearn, Vavra and McCann.   However when Urias comes back one will have to go and Vavra or Ortiz  looks like the most likely to me.

On the one hand, it's hard to send Ortiz packing when he's basically a dream utility IF. Plus defense at 3 infield positions, hits the ball hard. 

On the other hand, he's kind of redundant with Urias being a RH IF. 

Tough call. But with the way Mateo is struggling, I'm leaning keep Ortiz right now. We'll see as we get closer.

[Hank Scorpio]

They are probably begging another org to value Vavra as part of a package.

[RZNJ]

Doing better lately but if I had to choose, I’d probably keep Ortiz and O’Hearn up and send Vavra down when Urias comes back. 

[NedFromYork]

I have always liked him, love the OBP tool.  He averaged 13 HRs per 162 in the Minors so there is hope for 8-10 at the MLB level if he was playing regularly.

[Too Tall]

Vavra may not be his younger brother, but he does strike me as a younger version of Frazier. If he can carve out a similar career, good for him. Someone will value this.

[Brooks The Great]

4 hours ago, Sanfran327 said:

Despite their massive contributions to the last two wins, I still can't help but feel like Vavra and O'Hearn are on the chopping block when it's time to bring up Cowser and Westburg. Even with our record the way it is and the success we've had through 47 games, I won't feel like we are truly going for it until we get at least Cowser up here. Westburg would be nice, but we still have to account for Urias coming back sometime (probably) soon.

I've been saying for a good while that McKenna needs to go once Cowser is up (I actually wanted him DFA'd after the April 1st drop against the Red Sox and I stand by that), and that's still the case. A lot of people on this board seem to think McKenna's hitting performance thus far justifies him staying on the roster, but I don't buy into the small sample size performance (if he puts up just 2 or 3 hitless games in his next few starts, his numbers aren't going to look like anything special), and I don't think that McKenna's value as a 5th outfielder defensive replacement merits him being on the roster once Westburg and Cowser are up. 

What I think most posters are underrating about Vavra in terms of him sticking on the roster is his ability to serve as the emergency catcher in games where Adley is DH'ing and McCann catching. That allows a player like Gunnar to pinch hit for McCann if Gunnar starts a game on the bench, or allows Vavra himself to pinch hit for McCann. That's going to have a lot of value to this team because McCann isn't a good hitter in general, especially not against righties.

Vavra makes pitchers work, he gets on base, he's a good contact hitter, and even though he's not a great defender anywhere, he has a lot of defensive versatility. That has value to this team in late game situations.