Grayson Optioned

[Aristotelian]

2 minutes ago, Pickles said:

It certainly is frustrating.  I support sending him down.

I think the question is really what do you do with him at AAA?

Work on mechanics and command and don't promote him again until he has some sustained success.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Weird, I remember most everyone agreeing with the decision to send him down after having a horrible spring.

They did say OH Facebook.

[Billy F-Face3]

Just now, Aristotelian said:

Weird, I remember most everyone agreeing with the decision to send him down after having a horrible spring.

Maybe that's because I was saying it before Spring Training was over and before the decision was made. I was saying it after the 2nd time he got rocked in the 4th inning. So maybe 2nd week of March? I don't remember precise timing. I also didn't get approved to join here until after Spring Training was over. So as mentioned previously, it wasn't on the Message Board here.

[Pickles]

9 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Work on mechanics and command and don't promote him again until he has some sustained success.

I'd imagine they want to control his innings a little bit.  I was wondering what their plans were in that regard.

[Aristotelian]

31 minutes ago, Billy F-Face3 said:

Maybe that's because I was saying it before Spring Training was over and before the decision was made. I was saying it after the 2nd time he got rocked in the 4th inning. So maybe 2nd week of March? I don't remember precise timing. I also didn't get approved to join here until after Spring Training was over. So as mentioned previously, it wasn't on the Message Board here.

The sentiment here shifted from cautiously optimistic to alarm bells going off around 3rd week of March. I think most of the board understood it was a real possibility he wouldn't make it and I don't think anyone was laughing. So maybe "everyone" except everyone on this board.

[Bemorewins]

9 hours ago, Just Regular said:

Its fine.     He was never going to pitch every 5th or 6th day for 185 days, and it'll be a benefit to acquire Club control of 2029.    

Grayson had a path to earn his FA after 2028, and couldn't muster the performances needed to hold it.

I'd still bet on him as the likeliest Game 1 starter in October if we get there, though in the first round I wouldn't expect any Oriole Arm to face more than 18 batters unless one of those laughers we never get.

You must really believe in a serious turnaround by him while at AAA. Because they is NOTHING about what he has done this season that suggest any trust for any playoff appearance for him this year. 

You also must not believe in the front office’s ability to acquire an upgrade in the rotation with all of these assets/prospects at the deadline.

Kudos to you for the supreme confidence in Grayson!

[Sports Guy]

Big Ben said to me on Twitter that he believes it’s a mechanical issue because the fastball command isn’t good and that he didn’t believe he altered anything since the injury.

[Bemorewins]

7 hours ago, kaj21206 said:

I can't argue against his demotion, but I wonder if having him pitch in long relief when he was recalled would have been more beneficial.  I still think that helps young pitchers become acclimated to MLB.  It's just not done anymore.

Pitching in middle relief would do nothing for him to f he can’t command his pitches. He would just get lit up coming out of the bullpen. Until he gets better fastball command, he is not a Major League pitcher. If/when he does though, look out sky’s the limit.

[Bemorewins]

6 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Well, he also has not been very successful at developing pitching.

Bradish is probably the best example of taking a guy with a good arm and developing him into a decent starter. Kremer probably could be in that category as well to an extent. Maybe if you want, you can add in Tyler Wells, but was basically developed at the major league level vs the system.

The Orioles do strange things in "developing" starters in that they piggy back them, bring them in relief sometimes, suddenly give them a one or two inning start, and rarely letting them go over 80 pitches in any outing.

Neither Grayson or DL Hall have developed much under them and they were the best two arms they had. The only highly paid guy they drafted and have tried to develop is Baumler and he can't stay healthy.

They have put all their eggs in the position prospect basket but won't trade any of the ones that end up with value but prefer to stack them at AAA while playing veterans at the major league level.

If you can't develop an arm like Rodriguez and Hall, you have to question your pitching development guys. 

 

 

Tony, reason would suggest based upon where we will probably be in the standings at the trading deadline window and with the over abundance of position prospects, a trade has to be forthcoming at some point right?

At some point Elias will pull the trigger I have to believe.

[accinfo]

I suspect he goes down and starts but they limit his innings to shorter stints for 3 or 4 games.  Try to pitch 2-3 good innings then go to 4, 5 and beyond.  That way they limit his innings.   Look at what happened to Bradish last year.  His was a so called injury but he came back the second half and has been pretty consistent since.  

[Bemorewins]

That may be an issue he has. But the biggest issue is that he can’t pitch to spots. And that won’t play at this level, especially not against good Major League hitters.

Most of the time consistently it was either pitches middle middle OR way out of the zone that were not competitive. How many times did he get ahead 0-2 and then proceed to throw 3 balls that weren’t even close to the zone and work the hitter back ahead in the count? How many 0-2 pitches were either right down the shoot or a foot to a foot and a half high OR in the dirt and missed badly?

[Billy F-Face3]

While I can empathize with the folks who feel like they have a systematic problem developing pitching, I also think we are failing to acknowledge some successes. Look at how many waiver claims and rule 5 guys are on the pitching staff. It's a Hodgepodge of misfits from other organizations. And yet, somehow this organization has helped them to become adequate pitchers in the big eagles. In 2022 we witnessed Tyler Wells, Cionel Perez, Felix Bautista, Austin Voth, and Bryan Baker, just to name a few, complete their seasons successfully. Most of those guys have continued with it this year, and they've managed to develop Yennier Cano into one of the most dominant relief pitchers in baseball.

In the starting rotation, we've witnessed Dean Kremer and Kyle Bradish have extremely successful completions of their 2022 seasons.

I can understand the frustration of not having fully developed good starting pitchers since Mike Mussina, or maybe even Sydney Ponson & Eric Bedard if we want to be generous, but since then it was all different regimes in the front office with very little infrastructure.

A baseball player is only human. Baseball is hard. 99% of the people who ever play baseball won't even make it to the Big Leagues. It's even more difficult to have a long successful career once they get there.

I think we should be fair and acknowledge where there has been success, and hope they can continue to improve and develop as an organization to help our pitchers become better versions of themselves.

[Billy F-Face3]

*"big eagles" was supposed to say Big Leagues.

[Frobby]

You look at Grayson’s game log, he pitched 10 games, 5 of which were pretty good (0-2 ER) and 5 of which were below average to awful.  He only had consecutive bad outings once, in his 2nd/3rd starts.   I’m fine with sending him down until he can get more consistent, but it’s not like he was awful all the time up here.  He’ll be back.  

[sevastras]

11 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Or you could say that you can see why Elias favors hitters because the systems he has put into place are much better at developing them.

Bryce Miller was a 4th round pick in 2021.  You see what he's managed to do so far?

Other teams manage to develop pitching.

I was intent on reading the entire thread, however you comment made me think a bit. The Orioles have been pretty great at developing bullpen arms for the last 10 years or finding them and turning them around. They have been pretty decent at scabbing together some starting pitchers and diamonds in the rough but have developed anyone since maybe the 90s. How is it they can pull someone from the Mexican league and make them pretty darn good for a year or two, or fix a certain mechanical issue with a fairly veteran guy but can’t seem to take a player from draft to top of the line pitcher?  (Thinking “out loud”) Maybe it isn’t simply evaluating a draft prospect pitcher and plugging him into a system and rather, it is super difficult to be a top ten starter and those special few just kind of need to find their own way and own grove.