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Please stop pitching Cano in the ninth


banks703

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10 minutes ago, ChosenOne21 said:

Also worth noting that Cano has had two bad games in September and one poor one. But he didn't give up a single earned run in August and only two in June. I have truly never seen a reliever this good be this picked apart by these boards.

Look at inherited runners and their scoring % also. The numbers are a little better than how he’s pitched in September but they’re still heavily propped by his ridiculous first six weeks or so.

Since Felix went down Cano has thrown 9 innings of 6.00 ERA ball and he’s been bailed out A LOT by some amazing defense.

In this span:

K/9 is down to 2

BB/9 up to 3

HR/9 up to 1 

Again I’m not necessarily criticizing Cano. My rant is that for some reason they’re beholden to Cano in the ninth even when the matchups do not favor it. Without Felix every one of the other guys should be used to matchup, Cano included.

BTW he has six blown saves, which is .. uhhh A LOT for a guy who was the primary setup guy for 8/10 of the season. 

 

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46 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

 I think Elias is hoping they can hold off the Rays and then get those days off and have his bullpen regroup with some rest.

He’s not the only one hoping that.  Going straight into a wild card series would be very difficult.  A few days off would do wonders for our bullpen. 

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They are all some flavor of old, but it was kind of a "hmmm" moment in Jay Jaffe's piece this week overviewing the overall success of MLB's 2023 rookies that Cano and Fujinami along with DL Hall are all rookies themselves.

Maybe not this one, but some of the multiverses that may be the 7th, 8th and 9th inning group for a champion.

Our tournament roster might have double digits technical rookies.

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3 hours ago, tntoriole said:

There was a reason Dan Duquette went after Andrew Miller.  Even with Zach Britton being the Felix of 2014 and Darren O’Day being the Cano ..he went and got Andrew Miller which was crucial in getting through Detroit and to the ALCS.   Yes, it cost Eduardo but it was key. 
An equivalent move would have been Josh Hader.

The Padres made it clear that they weren’t trading Hader (or Snell).

I agree that they should have been seeking relief pitching at the deadline, but let’s not allow this to turn into some kind of false narrative (“Elias could have gotten Josh Hader and chose not to”). 

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The recent moves (the Irvin one especially and yes I openly criticized it) has put them in bad spots with having to run guys like Cionel and Cano, Baumann, Danny .. etc out there for as many as three straight days. I don’t know exactly what I would have done different outside of not optioning Irvin but I probably would not have claimed Jorge Lopez. 

As crazy as it is, given his own struggles at various parts of this season, I think I would run Cionel out there for the ninth (if we’re attaching ourselves to set roles, which I despise) over Cano. Cionel has been nails the last five or six weeks. I know that he wasn’t available last night. I just mean generally speaking, if they’re anointing a “Closer” while Felix is out, I think I would rather have Cionel in that role right now. 

And yes the starters not giving enough innings is draining the pen. Cleveland is a tough matchup for the O’s bullpen guys because the Guards don’t strike out. In 425 ABs Naylor has K’d 66 times this year. That’s not quite Tony Gwynn territory but Tony Gwynn (my all-time favorite player with Vlad Sr.) also was never the power threat and run producer that Naylor is. Naylor is really impressive but a matchup nightmare for the O’s. 

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1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

Nobody, and I mean nobody would have taken Lopez and his contract off waivers this late in the year. Even if they did, so what? 

Sending Irvin down was a terribly short-sighted move. I was shocked when they did it because it left them with no bulk reliever and that meant way too many one innings relievers would need to be used.

During a 17 game stretch, this bullpen needed at least two bulk relievers to survive.

But I think Elias is hoping they can hold off the Rays and then get those days off and have his bullpen regroup with some rest.

@Tony-OH do you feel a sense of stubbornness from management with certain moves? What I mean is, we all have seen Flaherty wildly underperform. We’ve seen Jorge struggle. We’ve seen others struggle but management has been slow to respond/react even though we as spectators can clearly see that certain guys just aren’t doing enough. It seems to me that they are slow to move but also that it’s (in the case with Flaherty) almost like they refuse to concede a bad move.

I am on record many times praising the Flaherty trade but I am the first to admit that he really has not worked out for the O’s. Essentially they chose Flaherty over Irvin (which I think was the wrong choice) so it almost feels like they will die on these hills, like ‘well, even though I absolutely despise this expensive vacuum, I’m not throwing it out to get a new one because I spent all this money on this one so I’ll just deal with it being terrible’

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8 minutes ago, banks703 said:

The recent moves (the Irvin one especially and yes I openly criticized it) has put them in bad spots with having to run guys like Cionel and Cano, Baumann, Danny .. etc out there for as many as three straight days. I don’t know exactly what I would have done different outside of not optioning Irvin but I probably would not have claimed Jorge Lopez. 

As crazy as it is, given his own struggles at various parts of this season, I think I would run Cionel out there for the ninth (if we’re attaching ourselves to set roles, which I despise) over Cano. Cionel has been nails the last five or six weeks. I know that he wasn’t available last night. I just mean generally speaking, if they’re anointing a “Closer” while Felix is out, I think I would rather have Cionel in that role right now. 

And yes the starters not giving enough innings is draining the pen. Cleveland is a tough matchup for the O’s bullpen guys because the Guards don’t strike out. In 425 ABs Naylor has K’d 66 times this year. That’s not quite Tony Gwynn territory but Tony Gwynn (my all-time favorite player with Vlad Sr.) also was never the power threat and run producer that Naylor is. Naylor is really impressive but a matchup nightmare for the O’s. 

We shouldn't have one ninth inning pitcher. Perez should get the highest leverage LHB matchups and Cano should get the RHB. Last night should have been Perez but he wasn't available.

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28 minutes ago, e16bball said:

The Padres made it clear that they weren’t trading Hader (or Snell).

I agree that they should have been seeking relief pitching at the deadline, but let’s not allow this to turn into some kind of false narrative (“Elias could have gotten Josh Hader and chose not to”). 

Agreed, we can fault them for not improving the team. If there is a fair comp it would be one of the players that did move for less than we could have offered.

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1 minute ago, Aristotelian said:

We shouldn't have one ninth inning pitcher. Perez should get the highest leverage LHB matchups and Cano should get the RHB. Last night should have been Perez but he wasn't available.

Exactly. This is what I have been suggesting.

I personally despise the set roles but it seems that the O’s subscribe to them. I am only suggesting that if there is a guy who they are penciling into the ‘closer’ I might prefer Cionel right now but I agree, the highest leverage situations when the matchups dictate should determine who throws the ninth. The problem right now though is that they have to get to the ninth to give anyone a chance to save a game. 

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4 minutes ago, banks703 said:

@Tony-OH do you feel a sense of stubbornness from management with certain moves? What I mean is, we all have seen Flaherty wildly underperform. We’ve seen Jorge struggle. We’ve seen others struggle but management has been slow to respond/react even though we as spectators can clearly see that certain guys just aren’t doing enough. It seems to me that they are slow to move but also that it’s (in the case with Flaherty) almost like they refuse to concede a bad move.

I am on record many times praising the Flaherty trade but I am the first to admit that he really has not worked out for the O’s. Essentially they chose Flaherty over Irvin (which I think was the wrong choice) so it almost feels like they will die on these hills, like ‘well, even though I absolutely despise this expensive vacuum, I’m not throwing it out to get a new one because I spent all this money on this one so I’ll just deal with it being terrible’

If you are trying to say they should have just cut Flaherty, you are completely wrong. 

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13 minutes ago, banks703 said:

As crazy as it is, given his own struggles at various parts of this season, I think I would run Cionel out there for the ninth (if we’re attaching ourselves to set roles, which I despise) over Cano. Cionel has been nails the last five or six weeks. I know that he wasn’t available last night. I just mean generally speaking, if they’re anointing a “Closer” while Felix is out, I think I would rather have Cionel in that role right now.

I think they’re doing the thing that you’re saying you want them to do. 

Last night really doesn’t give us any guidance because, as you said, Cionel wasn’t available. But at the end of both of the games we were leading against HOU, Hyde played the matchup game in the 9th. Alvarez and Tucker coming up? Cionel gets the ball and yields to Cano to pitch to McCormick. Peña, Altuve, and Bregman coming up? He goes with Cano and follows up with Cionel against Alvarez to close it out. 

Assuming they don’t get Felix back (at least in true *MOUNTAIN* form), I think that Cano/Perez platoon deployment is the best they’re going to be able to do in the 8th and 9th. But I also think they know that already.

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1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

If you are trying to say they should have just cut Flaherty, you are completely wrong. 

Nope. That’s not what I’m suggesting. What I mean is that they could have moved him to the pen sooner.

I like Flaherty. I’m on record as stating that I hope that he’s a candidate to return in 24 but he’s been largely ineffective as a starter for the O’s. I would rather have him in the pen right now with Irvin getting innings as a starter than to have optioned Cole. 

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2 minutes ago, e16bball said:

I think they’re doing the thing that you’re saying you want them to do. 

Last night really doesn’t give us any guidance because, as you said, Cionel wasn’t available. But at the end of both of the games we were leading against HOU, Hyde played the matchup game in the 9th. Alvarez and Tucker coming up? Cionel gets the ball and yields to Cano to pitch to McCormick. Peña, Altuve, and Bregman coming up? He goes with Cano and follows up with Cionel against Alvarez to close it out. 

Assuming they don’t get Felix back (at least in true *MOUNTAIN* form), I think that Cano/Perez platoon deployment is the best they’re going to be able to do in the 8th and 9th. But I also think they know that already.

I would have preferred they allowed DLH to pitch to Giminez last night over Cano. 2 of the 3 batters in the 9th were lefties. Giminez’s splits on the season are actually better against a lefty but recently he’s struggled against them. To me, the right move was to match up DLH there. I realize that he threw Thursday night but he was throwing well last night. 17 pitches.

Either Cakes or KB said it on the broadcast - get the first out - I’d take my chances with DLH against Gimenez there over matching up Cano with Gimenez. 

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42 minutes ago, e16bball said:

The Padres made it clear that they weren’t trading Hader (or Snell).

I agree that they should have been seeking relief pitching at the deadline, but let’s not allow this to turn into some kind of false narrative (“Elias could have gotten Josh Hader and chose not to”). 

Yes, ultimately they chose not to deal.  But 3 days before the deadline it was still being widely speculated whether the Padres would or wouldn’t.    Would we have had to overpay in prospects? Absolutely.  

Jim Bowden in The Athletic July 28th 

 

What would it take for the Braves to pry Josh Hader away from the Padres? — Sam A. 

I think it would take a package along the lines of right-handed pitcher AJ Smith-Shawver and shortstop Vaughn Grissom for the Braves to land Hader, an impending free agent, at the deadline. That’s if the Padres decide to sell.

 

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