Grayson Optioned

[UMDTerrapins]

It would have been amazing if he just arrived as a finished product. That would also be insanely rare. For the first time in his life he can’t just out-weapon hitters. He’s got the tools and he’ll be really good for us. I’m confident this will be good for him in the long haul. 

[Sports Guy]

28 minutes ago, Brian88 said:

 

He had 5 walks through 4 innings, so he pitched a cleaner final 2 innings.

The strike% isn’t good. He was over 99 a few times and missed 12 bats, so the swingstr% was good.

[Bahama O's Fan]

20 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

He had 5 walks through 4 innings, so he pitched a cleaner final 2 innings.

The strike% isn’t good. He was over 99 a few times and missed 12 bats, so the swingstr% was good.

At least they finally got him pitching more than 5 innings in AAA.

[Orioles0615]

Its all because of the injury last year. He was great until then

[baltfan]

Hope he gets a little confidence back and starts to locate better.  We won’t see him for a couple of months I would guess. 

[ChuckS]

5 hours ago, baltfan said:

Hope he gets a little confidence back and starts to locate better.  We won’t see him for a couple of months I would guess. 

That would be disappointing and a lot of variables could determine that, most notably the health of our rotation. I agree he’s not just down for a start or two, but I could see him back in 3-4 weeks depending on the circumstances. 

[Just Regular]

I'll just use here as a SP5 discussion spot while we see however long this reset runs, or if a trade acquisition gets here first, but I read this morning BAL will use the off day to skip the SP5 next rotation, and Bradish will close out the roadtrip in Milwaukee on four days rest Thursday.

This will make next Saturday 6/10 the next calendar day the Club will need a guy, and between now and then, Hyde functionally gets a 9th reliever for the rest of the roadtrip and the Friday Royals game opening the next homestand.    

 

[Going Underground]

Grayson was also pitching on eight days between starts.Ge might have been a little wild 

[joelala]

12 hours ago, RZNJ said:

This is just who he’s been since coming back from the lat injury.  The big question is did the injury cause him to unintentionally change his mechanics or do the old mechanics cause him discomfort.

This. At some point since he was drafted the mechanics changed pretty significantly and this seemed to coincide with him vaulting to the status he currently enjoys. 

[Tony-OH]

Yesterday looked like work on your fastball and curveball command day as he threw the fastball 66% (62) and the curveball 17% (16) of the time.

Now there is discussion about "tipping" and one thing I noted is there is a distinct difference between his curveball release point which his higher most of the time than his other pitches.

The light blue is the curveball. It may be the reason he only got 4 swings (two misses) in his 16 curveballs and only recorded three called strikes. 

That tells me the batters are able to pick that pitch up pretty well, despite the good vertical movement of the pitch. You have to wonder if they see a "hop" out of the hand that tells them curveball.

This next chart I think explains his issues. Batters just don't respect that he can throw his offspeed pitches over the plate.

Is it really surprising that out of the 32 offspeed pitches he threw, he got only 6 swings? I count only 9 offspeed pitches as strikes. You can't even see the non competitive pitches off this chart. 

At the end of the day, he can overpower AAA hitters with his 96-99 MPH fastball even with them sitting on it, but clearly he can not do the same thing to major league hitters. Overall he threw 45 pitches in the strike zone, 49 out. That's not good.

Until he can command his offspeed pitches, he should not be back up in the majors regardless of the stats.

 

[waroriole]

Looks like a lot of wasted pitches still. 
 

 

[RZNJ]

2022 Pre-injury at AAA.  14 walks in 56 IP

2021 27 walks in 103 innings 

Post injury - NOT THE SAME

[Frobby]

15 hours ago, RZNJ said:

This is just who he’s been since coming back from the lat injury.  The big question is did the injury cause him to unintentionally change his mechanics or do the old mechanics cause him discomfort.

I hadn’t considered the latter alternative.  Good question. Of course, I can’t even say if his mechanics look different, and if so, how.  

[RZNJ]

13 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I hadn’t considered the latter alternative.  Good question. Of course, I can’t even say if his mechanics look different, and if so, how.  

My own personal belief, without even looking at his pre-injury mechanics is that he lowered his arm slot.    His pitches tend to be high and he gets arm side run on his fastball and changeup and doesn’t get on top of his curveball enough.  I remember watching a pre-injury game at Norfolk last year on Mila.tv and his changeup moved pretty much straight down and he had great command of it. 
 

I was encouraged by his Toronto start.  You can see how much better he commanded the fastball and he was getting on top of it.  He was actually getting called strikes and swings and misses down at the knees.  
 

If there are no physical reasons which would prevent it, then it should just take looking at old video and making the adjustments.  Sounds too easy which leads me to speculate that maybe there is a physical reason.

Edited June 4, 2023 by RZNJ

[Ohfan67]

2 hours ago, RZNJ said:

2022 Pre-injury at AAA.  14 walks in 56 IP

2021 27 walks in 103 innings 

Post injury - NOT THE SAME

His walk rate at AAA this year is about 3.5 times higher than the numbers you listed for pre-injury.  Definitely not the same guy.