How does Westburg get playing time vs RHP?

[Bemorewins]

21 minutes ago, Low Country Bird said:

Isn't Ortiz a top 100 prospect?  Keith Law likes Ortiz just as much, if not more, than Westburg.  And this just isn't true as most other publications have them pretty close.  Tony has Westburg one spot over Ortiz.  My point was if Westburg is getting all that attention and playing every day, Ortiz should have gotten the same.  

Well, there is some reason that the Orioles chose to value them differently. And I don't think it was arbitrary. 

As I stated to other posters, I'm not one of those people/posters who falls in love with prospects and has preferences of one over another. If the Orioles decided to do the reverse and give Ortiz the spot and leave Westburg down, that would have been fine with me. If they decide to trade one or both that will be okay with me too. 

My main interest is in the Orioles competing for championships and having a parade on Pratt St.

[Aristotelian]

5 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

It's really hard for anyone to argue with this. Elias showed his hand a bit by bringing Ortiz up to ride the pine. Now he will say all the right things about Ortiz, but actions speak louder than words. The real question may be does the rest of baseball think higher of Ortiz than Elias? 

Personally I think he can be a very good everyday major league shortstop and a GG caliber second baseman. I would have played him over Mateo and Frazier, but's hard to get into Elias' head.

Afterall, he started Westburg only six games at 2B while giving him most of his time at SS and 3B in AAA this year then starts him at 2B in his major league debut? It seems like the development side is not always on the same page with how the players will be used at the major league level. 

Westburg should start tonight against the lefty, so the real key is whether or not he starts on Wednesday against the righty. 

As others have said, Ortiz is a similar prospect level and was treated as an up down guy bench piece for most of his major league time this year. It remains to be seen how Elias plans to use Westburg against righties. 

Most of us are hopeful he gets the Adley/Gunnar treatment and not the Stowers/Ortiz treatment. I'm done trying to guess along, but Elias is way too unpredictable with his usage of rookies. 

And before anyone gets too upset with me for saying that, I'm not bashing Elias. I'm just pointing out a fact. The team is winning and at the end of the day, a GM gets graded on wins and losses at this point so right now he's getting an A. 

 

I think we are jumping the gun a bit reading the tea leaves on the usage of Ortiz. He happened to be on the 40 man due to age and he filled a short term need. He still has a chance to develop into a full time player. He only has 200 ABs at AAA and we know that is not enough for Elias to do a permanent promotion. There is a world in which someone is injured, traded at the deadline, or plays their way out of a job and Ortiz is an everyday player in August.

[Frobby]

23 hours ago, interloper said:

I know that. Hyde doesn't care, is what I'm saying. They have a track record of ignoring reverse splits. So why do we think they'll start caring now?

Serious question: do you think that the Orioles’ front office or Hyde are unaware that certain players have reverse splits?   That they’re just too dumb to look them up?

[NCRaven]

38 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Afterall, he started Westburg only six games at 2B while giving him most of his time at SS and 3B in AAA this year then starts him at 2B in his major league debut? It seems like the development side is not always on the same page with how the players will be used at the major league level. 

I think the main reason Westburg got so many games at SS in Norfolk was that Ortiz was in Baltimore.  Had Ortiz been in Norfolk, he'd probably been playing regularly and getting those reps at SS with Westburg getting more at 2B and 3B.  I doubt that they played Westburg at SS because the believe it would be his future ML position.  I fully expect him to get most of his ML reps at 2nd or 3rd.

[Hank Scorpio]

10 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Serious question: do you think that the Orioles’ front office or Hyde are unaware that certain players have reverse splits?   That they’re just too dumb to look them up?

But how do we account for the disregard? It's weird to me, but there's gotta be some kind of explanation for it. I'm very curious as to what data they're utilizing to make the decisions b/c the more traditional perspective would suggest they're ignoring splits that would have some benefit for our guys.

I'm sure there's a reason. They don't do stuff by accident or just throw spaghetti against the wall.... (and thank God for that.)

Far be it from me to question 48-29. They obviously have navigated this thing successfully thus far. Kudos (and THANK YOU) to the powers that be for what they have accomplished thus far. Whatever works.

[interloper]

45 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Serious question: do you think that the Orioles’ front office or Hyde are unaware that certain players have reverse splits?   That they’re just too dumb to look them up?

No, what did I say that suggested that? That's why I used the word "care". I never said they were dumb or ignorant of them.

They're aware of them, but either they don't believe in them (which is fine I guess, I've heard there's some evidence to suggest reverse splits don't hold up), or they think at the ML level that pitchers will "overpower" those reverse splits. 

I think there's a little too much stubbornness about actively disregarding reverse splits, is all. Like if Kyle Stowers is up here struggling, for example, why not at least try him against guys he's shown a history of hitting well? You have nothing to lose at that point. 

Edited June 27, 2023 by interloper

[jrobb21613]

Let’s just move on from Frazier and dfa him. 

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, NCRaven said:

I think the main reason Westburg got so many games at SS in Norfolk was that Ortiz was in Baltimore.  Had Ortiz been in Norfolk, he'd probably been playing regularly and getting those reps at SS with Westburg getting more at 2B and 3B.  I doubt that they played Westburg at SS because the believe it would be his future ML position.  I fully expect him to get most of his ML reps at 2nd or 3rd.

Let's say that is true, does that make sense to you? The minor leagues are about the development of prospects. Westburg should have been playing the positions he was mostly going to play at the major league level. Prieto can play SS. It's pretty short sighted to play Westburg mainly at SS if you don't plan to play him there. BTW, he was actually pretty good this year at SS. He was very consistent and made some nice plays. While arm angles and ability to throw moving away from his target are not great, I do think he could play SS effectively enough at the major league level as a fill in. 

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

I think we are jumping the gun a bit reading the tea leaves on the usage of Ortiz. He happened to be on the 40 man due to age and he filled a short term need. He still has a chance to develop into a full time player. He only has 200 ABs at AAA and we know that is not enough for Elias to do a permanent promotion. There is a world in which someone is injured, traded at the deadline, or plays their way out of a job and Ortiz is an everyday player in August.

There's no jumping anything. It is clear to everyone paying attention that Adley/Gunnar were treated differently then Stowers/Ortiz/Vavra. Now I'm not saying that Elias still think Ortiz can't be an everyday player, but he allowed him to be buried on a bench while Mateo and Frazier got PAs over him. If that were the case, he should have been in AAA because Henderson and Urias can cover down on 2B and SS when needed. 

You bring up the Lester's of the world to fill in for a bit. But regardless of the reason, he was treated like Stowers and not like a top prospect. We now have to see if Westburg will get the same treatment. We won't know for sure until the Orioles face a right-handed starter.

[Aristotelian]

46 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

There's no jumping anything. It is clear to everyone paying attention that Adley/Gunnar were treated differently then Stowers/Ortiz/Vavra. Now I'm not saying that Elias still think Ortiz can't be an everyday player, but he allowed him to be buried on a bench while Mateo and Frazier got PAs over him. If that were the case, he should have been in AAA because Henderson and Urias can cover down on 2B and SS when needed. 

You bring up the Lester's of the world to fill in for a bit. But regardless of the reason, he was treated like Stowers and not like a top prospect. We now have to see if Westburg will get the same treatment. We won't know for sure until the Orioles face a right-handed starter.

Agreed Ortiz is being treated different from Adley/Gunnar. I think it is too early to say whether he will be equivalent to Stowers/Vavra. I am suggesting there may be a third category. Or more likely, these are all looked at case by case. One thing different about Ortiz is he was forced onto the 40-man roster prior to gaining what Elias appears to consider promotion worthy AB's in AAA.

I do not think spending two weeks on the MLB bench will have any long term detrimental effect on Ortiz. I don't really see it as a signal of anything except that he is not on Adley/Gunnar level. 

[MurphDogg]

Conventional wisdom seems to be that Westburg is the third best shortstop on the roster (behind Gunnar and Mateo) and the 5th best shortstop in the system (behind Holliday and Ortiz).

If I had to put an over/under on how many games Westburg starts at shortstop in his Major League career, and I were to assume a 10+ year MLB career, I would probably place it somewhere in the Brian Roberts / Jerry Hairston zone of 50 to 113 games started.

Even if they traded / DFA'd Mateo, my guess is that his roster spot would be taken by Ortiz, so I don't think Westburg will be in the top 2 shortstop options for the Orioles anytime in the near future, and the #3 option at shortstop doesn't play shortstop very often.

[NCRaven]

2 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Let's say that is true, does that make sense to you? The minor leagues are about the development of prospects. Westburg should have been playing the positions he was mostly going to play at the major league level. Prieto can play SS. It's pretty short sighted to play Westburg mainly at SS if you don't plan to play him there. BTW, he was actually pretty good this year at SS. He was very consistent and made some nice plays. While arm angles and ability to throw moving away from his target are not great, I do think he could play SS effectively enough at the major league level as a fill in. 

Good discussion.  For me, I just question whether they see Westburg at SS long-term given Holliday's and Henderson's presence in the system.  That's why I think it was a short-term contingency situation.  Crazy how well Prieto has hit, not to mention Norby.  And, Mayo is ripping up AA.  If Henderson, Holliday, Westburg is our IF of the future, a second string infield with Mayo, Prieto and Norby could be as good as some ML teams.

[spiritof66]

4 hours ago, Frobby said:

Serious question: do you think that the Orioles’ front office or Hyde are unaware that certain players have reverse splits?   That they’re just too dumb to look them up?

I do think Elias doesn't believe batters' reverse splits are meaningful, at least for the most part. I have to think that Elias doesn't disagree very strongly with that, if at all, since he doesn't appear to be directing Hyde to pay more attention to reverse splits. If I'm right about that, Hyde and Elias are not alone. Bill James has written several times that he believes that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, batters' apparent reverse splits are an illusion resulting from small sample size, differences in the quality and types of pitchers faced, etc. There's a more recent, fuller statement of James' views that I can't find, but here's one from 2008:   

Over time, every hitter will hit better when he has the platoon advantage than when he does not.   There may be an exception, maybe two exceptions.  You see a lot of reverse splits or backwards splits in one-year data. . ..lefties hitting better against lefties, etc.   Over time, at least 99% of hitters are going to hit better when they have the edge, and certainly the difference is significant. 

https://www.billjamesonline.com/article646/

I am pretty sure that that James' more recent statements on the subject are very similar.

Pitchers are entirely different. They can have "real" platoon splits of different sizes, or even reverse splits, depending on the pitches they throw and how they throw them.