Cedric Mullins

[Jagwar]

8 hours ago, Pickles said:

I don't think they brought him up to send him back down but it might have been interesting if Mullins hadn't gotten hurt.  

I like the approach.  He looks fine at the plate.

I haven't liked the defense in CF.  He doesn't look like a good CF to me.

He should have caught the ball in the 8th last night; Mullins almost certainly does.

He definitely should have caught the ball in the 9th today.  Certainly the more worrying play, as he took a bad jump AND got his feet tangled up.

I chalk it up to him still figuring out the Camden Yards outfield and the second deck. Let's see how he is doing after 30 games in. 

[DirtyBird]

2 hours ago, owknows said:

he's had some pretty awesome results. Can't really argue with that. I think he's a great GM.

But you really don't think it would have been better to give last year's 2nd half Odor/Phillips/Aguilar AB's to Vavra, Westburg, and Stowers for example?  Really?

Outside of a hot start, Vavra just wasn’t any good and Westburg hadn’t had much time in AAA. Maybe Stowers should have gotten more AB’s. But the other two, not really.

[Sports Guy]

8 hours ago, Pickles said:

I don't think they brought him up to send him back down but it might have been interesting if Mullins hadn't gotten hurt.  

I like the approach.  He looks fine at the plate.

I haven't liked the defense in CF.  He doesn't look like a good CF to me.

He should have caught the ball in the 8th last night; Mullins almost certainly does.

He definitely should have caught the ball in the 9th today.  Certainly the more worrying play, as he took a bad jump AND got his feet tangled up.

Yea I agree..he had that hall glance off his glove the other day too.

Now, he has to get used to the second deck and things like that but he doesn’t have the look of a natural CFer early on.

[NCRaven]

6 hours ago, owknows said:

he's had some pretty awesome results. Can't really argue with that. I think he's a great GM.

But you really don't think it would have been better to give last year's 2nd half Odor/Phillips/Aguilar AB's to Vavra, Westburg, and Stowers for example?  Really?

I think it might have been better, especially since I don't think last year's team was as ready to contend as this year's so playing the youngsters was still a low risk-high reward situation.  Having said that, I think that neither Vavra nor Stowers did much with their opportunities and, in the long run, I don't think that either of them have a future with this team. 

If the goal is to get to the playoffs and win a World Series, I don't think that anything we didn't do last year would have resulted in a better record than we already have this year.  If it weren't for Tampa Bay starting 20-3, which clearly was not sustainable, we'd easily have the best record in the AL right now.

[Billy F-Face3]

11 minutes ago, NCRaven said:

If it weren't for Tampa Bay starting 20-3, which clearly was not sustainable, we'd easily have the best record in the AL right now.

On the bright side of that, is it's keeping us hungry and striving to surpass them. It's all about the climb. We're going to keep climbing past them, and in the process it puts the rest of the league in the rear view mirror until the playoffs happen.

Competition makes us all improve in whatever it is in sports or in life that we do.

[owknows]

21 minutes ago, NCRaven said:

I think it might have been better, especially since I don't think last year's team was as ready to contend as this year's so playing the youngsters was still a low risk-high reward situation.  Having said that, I think that neither Vavra nor Stowers did much with their opportunities and, in the long run, I don't think that either of them have a future with this team. 

If the goal is to get to the playoffs and win a World Series, I don't think that anything we didn't do last year would have resulted in a better record than we already have this year.  If it weren't for Tampa Bay starting 20-3, which clearly was not sustainable, we'd easily have the best record in the AL right now.

Saying that neither Vavra or Stowers did much their opportunities is sort of the point. They didn't really get opportunities. They got scattered ABs with no real chance to groove. As we all know, there is often an adjustment period in transitioning to the pinnacle of the sport.

We've seen it this year with Henderson, Westburg and to some extent already with Cowser. The difference between their paths and the paths followed by Vavra and Stowers, was that the club stuck with those guys... trotting them out there til they figured it out.  Because that's what it takes.

Now you can make an argument that the club didn't think as highly of Vavra and Stowers as they did of Henderson, Westburg, and Cowser. And certainly that's a fair argument.

But I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that Odor, Phillips and Aguilar earned ANY AB's that could have gone to finding out whether Vavra and Stowers would sink or swim.

And I think it's also fair to say that even now, we don't realistically know what we have in either player.

 

 

 

[NCRaven]

1 minute ago, owknows said:

Now you can make an argument that the club didn't think as highly of Vavra and Stowers as they did of Henderson, Westburg, and Cowser. And certainly that's a fair argument.

But I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that Odor, Phillips and Aguilar earned ANY AB's that could have gone to finding out whether Vavra and Stowers would sink or swim.

And I think it's also fair to say that even now, we don't realistically know what we have in either player.

I’m not arguing that any of Odor, Phillips or Aguilar deserved anything, especially late in the season.  I do believe that the front office did not evaluate either Vavra or Stowers as difference makers in the way that they thought of the current group of prospects that are getting substantially more playing time at the ML level. 
 

Finally, I think that the FO believes that they have a better feel for what those two players are than we do.

[owknows]

27 minutes ago, NCRaven said:

I’m not arguing that any of Odor, Phillips or Aguilar deserved anything, especially late in the season.  I do believe that the front office did not evaluate either Vavra or Stowers as difference makers in the way that they thought of the current group of prospects that are getting substantially more playing time at the ML level. 
 

Finally, I think that the FO believes that they have a better feel for what those two players are than we do.

I'm sure the FO has a "feel" for them.

But as we both know... "feel" is not that same as actual MLB experience in determining whether their "feel" is correct.

Quite often, "can't miss" players, miss.

And quite often merely "good" AAA players become "very good" MLB players.

And the best prognostication from the front office as good as this one, still gives up on the occasional Yaz, Chris Walker, Tanner Scott, etc..

My criticism of this front office... in fact my only criticism of them... is that they have on occasion stifled the ability to determine what they have in players that deserve to be seen... by either acquiring bad players in head-scratching moves (Phillips/Aguilar).. or by sticking with bad players they pulled out of the dumpster who have no real value to the team (Odor.. and many others).

I don't think this is all that controversial a point.

[ChosenOne21]

Vavra has been worth -0.5 WAR over 138 MLB at-bats. Obviously the minor league track record is better, that's a small sample size, and he's 26 about to enter his prime, but I'd be shocked at this point if Vavra's career is better than a couple of solid seasons. Who do you want to give him at-bats over, Frazier? I seriously doubt he's an improvement there, nor does he have a future that justifies letting him struggle while we're in the playoff hunt.

Stowers, yeah, who knows? Wouldn't mind seeing him get another opportunity, but the outfield is so crowded I think it's more likely he gets dealt.

[owknows]

1 hour ago, ChosenOne21 said:

Vavra has been worth -0.5 WAR over 138 MLB at-bats. Obviously the minor league track record is better, that's a small sample size, and he's 26 about to enter his prime, but I'd be shocked at this point if Vavra's career is better than a couple of solid seasons. Who do you want to give him at-bats over, Frazier? I seriously doubt he's an improvement there, nor does he have a future that justifies letting him struggle while we're in the playoff hunt.

Stowers, yeah, who knows? Wouldn't mind seeing him get another opportunity, but the outfield is so crowded I think it's more likely he gets dealt.

Vavra's time has come and gone.

The time to see what he had in Vavra was last year. But instead we gave AB's to Odor/Phillips/Aguilar.

That's kinda the point.

Would we potentially give someone AB's over Frazier..?. yeah.. when Frazier was slumping I probably would have. But it would have been Ortiz, not Vavra. The continuous push of high quality players coming from the minors isn't going to stop. It's a conveyor belt. And now the focus shifts to Ortiz and Norby.

So Vavra has been squeezed out by a vet who doesn't figure in their future plans. And now Ortiz and Norby stand to suffer the same fate... because the conveyor keeps on moving whether you like it or not... And those two players stand to become the next high quality farm resources that we won't have a chance to evaluate for their true MLB potential... because coming on their heels is Holliday.

And you say but Stowers... who knows...? But the conveyor's still moving... so as you suggest, he's another guy who'll likely be dealt at a discount. Because the org has set him up as a failed MLB player by giving AB's to Phillips and Aguilar. But no matter... the conveyor's moving.. here comes Kjerstad and Fabian... maybe even Rhodes.

The point of all of this is that this organization built one helluva farm. It cost them years of drought and fan disappointment. To keep that going, they're going to have to extract maximum value out of every player that is worthy of MLB... either by play or by trade. And it is a little irksome to me to see them squander hard-won capital because they're fielding Odor, Phillips, Aguilar, Mateo, et al. instead of evaluating their own players.

[Just Regular]

Ben Clemens rolling out Fangraphs traditional trade value series pegs him right next to Joe Ryan in the back of the Top 50.

Year	Age	Projected WAR	Contract Status
2024	29	3.4	Arb 2
2025	30	2.9	Arb 3

 

Arb

I’m a sucker for great up-the-middle defenders. Luckily for Mullins, so are the vast majority of big league GMs. Mullins is durable and he’s a 70 defender in center field. Even if he couldn’t hit at all, he’d be a surefire starter for most teams in baseball based on those two factors alone. That makes for a lofty floor; it’s hard to imagine a world where a team trading for Mullins does worse than a rock-solid everyday player.

Mullins has been much better than that over the past three years, and I wouldn’t bet on it changing anytime soon. He gets on base and hits a ton of doubles, making him an ideal top-of-the-order bat. He’s under contract for two more years, which is about the only downside worth mentioning. That’s not even a clear downside, though; at that point, Mullins will be entering his age-31 season, an age when defensive value often declines.

The value proposition here is really clear: Trade for a great defender who will likely hit well, for a few key years, starting right now. After that, wipe your hands clean and move on. I considered moving Mullins up the list even more despite the limited service time, and at the end of the day, only four hitters in Mullins’s future free agency class (the 2025-26 offseason) placed ahead of him on the list. You might not think of him as a star, but this level of defense coupled with above-average hitting is a tremendously valuable combination.

[Spy Fox]

1 hour ago, Just Regular said:

Ben Clemens rolling out Fangraphs traditional trade value series pegs him right next to Joe Ryan in the back of the Top 50.

Year	Age	Projected WAR	Contract Status
2024	29	3.4	Arb 2
2025	30	2.9	Arb 3

 

Arb

I’m a sucker for great up-the-middle defenders. Luckily for Mullins, so are the vast majority of big league GMs. Mullins is durable and he’s a 70 defender in center field. Even if he couldn’t hit at all, he’d be a surefire starter for most teams in baseball based on those two factors alone. That makes for a lofty floor; it’s hard to imagine a world where a team trading for Mullins does worse than a rock-solid everyday player.

Mullins has been much better than that over the past three years, and I wouldn’t bet on it changing anytime soon. He gets on base and hits a ton of doubles, making him an ideal top-of-the-order bat. He’s under contract for two more years, which is about the only downside worth mentioning. That’s not even a clear downside, though; at that point, Mullins will be entering his age-31 season, an age when defensive value often declines.

The value proposition here is really clear: Trade for a great defender who will likely hit well, for a few key years, starting right now. After that, wipe your hands clean and move on. I considered moving Mullins up the list even more despite the limited service time, and at the end of the day, only four hitters in Mullins’s future free agency class (the 2025-26 offseason) placed ahead of him on the list. You might not think of him as a star, but this level of defense coupled with above-average hitting is a tremendously valuable combination.

I wonder how many more Orioles will make the list. Adley and Gunnar seem like locks. Holliday as well? Seems like a solid chance to me since James Wood, Nationals prospect at AA and ranked slightly below Jackson in most places, was #50. 

[Spy Fox]

1 minute ago, Spy Fox said:

I wonder how many more Orioles will make the list. Adley and Gunnar seem like locks. Holliday as well? Seems like a solid chance to me since James Wood, Nationals prospect at AA and ranked slightly below Jackson in most places, was #50. 

NVM -- I see Holliday was already mentioned in the Honorable Mention section, so not on the ranked list.

[Malike]

It's quite easy to armchair GM. Elias should have done this, Elias should have done that. I think the chink is the team played much better than he thought last year and he let it ride as they were in contention until the last week of the season. I feel like this season he didn't expect this team to take such a drastic jump and was hoping to get a better look at some guys and they just played crazy baseball through July 17th. 

Cowser hasn't hit a lick since he came up and his defense has been awful. Westburg hit when he came up and was pretty solid all around but he's not hitting right now and is 0-8 with 4K's in the  two games he's been in since the break, and I think they are going to start staggering the young guys and the veteran players as the grind continues.

They clearly think they have a chance at the division and it seems obvious that they aren't going to hand AB's to players on a daily basis who aren't producing and are playing bad defense.

[BRobinsonfan]

19 hours ago, Baltimorecuse said:

Bull.  I thought the people calling for  Cowser to replace Urias were out of their minds.

I didn't care if they called up Cowser.  What could be worse than McKenna?  I hoped Cowser would come out blazing like Willie McCovey all those years ago.  My beef with the "Cowser is the Messiah" crowd  is their dependence on minor league stats.  

So if we don't use minor league stats to evaluate minor league talent, then why keep them?