Hall vs one year deals

[Billy F-Face3]

10 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

If the choice was between one of those types of guys or giving DL Hall the ball every 5th day and seeing what he can do, at least for the first 2-3 months of the season, what would you rather see the team do?

Im giving the ball to Hall because the upside is huge and if it doesn’t work out, you can get that one year deal type guy at the deadline to supply you some innings or maybe one of your MiL pitchers has developed and can help out.

If we're down to the scraps of free agency/trade negotiations... I'm definately giving the ball to DL Hall and allowing him his opportunity to be a Big League Starting Pitcher. He's gained some experience facing Major League hitters out of the bullpen. And he's always been a very talented and versatile athlete. This means if he gets a shot to develop as a starter, he might come back and dominate just like Grayson Rodriguez did after he got through his own growing pains. 

Plus the Orioles need a lefty to go in the rotation with John Means.

If we can't acquire a really good top 3 starter, then DL Hall is Plan A. If DL Hall struggles to stay consistent when he's starting, then Plan B would be to have Tyler Wells / Cole Irvin start and put DL Hall in the bullpen.

Any one of Wells, Irvin, or Hall is capable of starting. Half way through the season, we will probably see the debut of any one of McDermott, Povich, or Johnson.

Unless we are sure the acquisition is going to give us better production than those guys, then it's better to save the money and just give our guys who are already here a big opportunity to win.

I also think we should be looking to boost our batting order too, so that it's more consistent with RISP. Yes, we were in the top whatever of the league in points, but we were also inconsistent and had to sit through key games where we couldn't score and some players couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

[Billy F-Face3]

Something else to consider. Our new pitching coach comes from the Atlanta Braves pitching staff where he coached Spencer Strider in the bullpen before Strider got his chance to start and develop as a starter. He should be able to provide very good insight for helping DL Hall to develop as a starter.

[VICIOUS]

Put Wells at 5

 

[Sports Guy]

Interesting Info here:

 

[Tony-OH]

15 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Interesting Info here:

 

I like to look at how hitter's hit against a pitch before assigning grades at the major league level.  

Using xWOBA, which is the expected weighted on base percentage (.320 MLB average overall), his .240 xWOBA against his fastball is pretty elite. Now, is it HoF level (80 grade), I'm not sure, but it probably is at least a 70 grade pitch despite "only" average 95.6 MPH last year due to the reasonings in the tweet.

That .241 XWOBA was 21st in baseball for 4-seamers with 10 or more PAs. So very good, but I'm not sure I'd call it HoF level (80-grade).

[CaptainRedbeard]

Pretty interesting. Fangraphs has two pitching models that put a stuff grade on a pitch - Stuff+ and PitchingBot. Hall’s fastball was only average by Stuff+ (101 scaled to 100 average) but excellent by PitchingBot (68 on the 80 grade scale). The two models generally align but will diverge when dealing with pitchers with really quirky deliveries/characteristics, like Hall. For instance, Stuff+ loves Coulombe and PitchingBot hates him, and vice versa with Cano. 

I’m not ready to give up on Hall as a SP. Whether that means having him as a RP on Opening Day to get him further adjusted to MLB hitting for part or all of 2024, or keep him in the AAA rotation, or just plug him into the MLB opening day rotation. They have Coulombe and Perez so there is not a need for him as a lefty in the pen, but if they don’t have him in the pen they need at least one more quality late inning arm. 

[Sports Guy]

8 minutes ago, CaptainRedbeard said:

Pretty interesting. Fangraphs has two pitching models that put a stuff grade on a pitch - Stuff+ and PitchingBot. Hall’s fastball was only average by Stuff+ (101 scaled to 100 average) but excellent by PitchingBot (68 on the 80 grade scale). The two models generally align but will diverge when dealing with pitchers with really quirky deliveries/characteristics, like Hall. For instance, Stuff+ loves Coulombe and PitchingBot hates him, and vice versa with Cano. 

I’m not ready to give up on Hall as a SP. Whether that means having him as a RP on Opening Day to get him further adjusted to MLB hitting for part or all of 2024, or keep him in the AAA rotation, or just plug him into the MLB opening day rotation. They have Coulombe and Perez so there is not a need for him as a lefty in the pen, but if they don’t have him in the pen they need at least one more quality late inning arm. 

You also wonder how the early lower velo numbers affected his stuff+ numbers although we don’t know when those numbers started, so it may have had no effect.

[CaptainRedbeard]

5 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

You also wonder how the early lower velo numbers affected his stuff+ numbers although we don’t know when those numbers started, so it may have had no effect.

Fangraphs doesn’t have Stuff+ for the minors, but you can filter it for MLB innings by date. It was 101 on the year for 2023, but if you only do his stint as a RP at the end of the season when he had his velo back it was 104. But in 2022, it was 117, which is very good - and showing there’s still a sample size question here.

In any case, I don’t know exactly what goes into Stuff+ and PitchingBot or how it’s weighted but Hall doesn’t have high spin or IVB on his fastball (and good not great velo) and that at least likely drags the Stuff+ grade down. It’s the other stuff in the tweet - outlier levels of extension and angle from his unique delivery - that causes it to play up (especially at the top of the zone), and maybe Stuff+ weighs those less than PitchingBot. 

With the outlier type pitchers I find the pitch modeling to be less valuable. Coulombe is short and throws straight over the top falling off the mound and gets crazy spin on everything. Cano is tall and throws from a very low angle without tons of spin or vertical movement but has good velo from that angle and lots of horizontal movement (and very similar profiles on his sinker/change, just different velo). Hall is short and throws from a low slot and very athletic so he gets ton of extension despite his height.

All of these guys’ stuff plays up a lot more from their unique deliveries. 

Worth noting that Stuff+ does really like Hall’s slider, so he’s still at 104 overall. And PitchingBot had him with the #6 overall best projected ERA for pitchers with at least 10 IP (2.48).

[nvpacchi]

2 hours ago, CaptainRedbeard said:

 (Pretty interesting. Fangraphs has two pitching models that put a stuff grade on a pitch - Stuff+ and PitchingBot. Hall’s fastball was only average by Stuff+ (101 scaled to 100 average) but excellent by PitchingBot (68 on the 80 grade scale). The two models generally align but will diverge when dealing with pitchers with really quirky deliveries/characteristics, like Hall. For instance, Stuff+ loves Coulombe and PitchingBot hates him, and vice versa with Cano. 

I’m not ready to give up on Hall as a SP. Whether that means having him as a RP on Opening Day to get him further adjusted to MLB hitting for part or all of 2024, or keep him in the AAA rotation, or just plug him into the MLB opening day rotation. They have Coulombe and Perez so there is not a need for him as a lefty in the pen, but if they don’t have him in the pen they need at least one more quality late inning arm. 

My gut tells me that PitchingBot puts more influence in release height (in that it doesn't penalize low release point pitchers for not having crazy carry on the 4-seam).  The DL Hall tidbit being another bit of confirmation.  The most noticeable to me is Luis Castillo, great fastball results wise, Bot really likes it at 57 stuff, but Stuff+ is meh at 95.  Castillo has a notoriously low release point, helping the pitch come in at a crazy flat angle.

Edited January 11 by nvpacchi

[Just Regular]

Nick Pollack presented during Arizona Fall League on Pitcher List's coming entry to this fray, which I believe will be something behind a paywall.

I'm excited to see DL Hall challenge Juan Soto and will hope for a better result than Brad Pennington v. Ken Griffey, Jr., or Freddie Prinze v. Ken Griffey, Jr.

[Greg Pappas]

I just don't see Hall as a viable option as a starter.  In his six seasons with us (didn't play in 2020), he's never shown the ability to go six innings in his starts, and even five seems a stretch.  His minors' stats have him throwing a total of 353.1 IP with 82 starts and 43 relief appearances.  It's hard to find the specific details, but (best guess) he averaged somewhere around 3.5-4 IP per start.  He's only tossed 33 innings as an Orioles in his career, with all but 3.1 as a reliever, so that's too small of a sample size to consider.  Does this mean he's incapable of better?  No, though I think utilizing him in relief optimizes his talent, over attempting to ask for something he's never given us.  If the O's see it differently, then have at it, but I'll be surprised if it works out favorably.

Edited January 11 by Greg Pappas

[Roll Tide]

4 minutes ago, Greg Pappas said:

I just don't see Hall as a viable option as a starter.  In his six seasons with us (didn't play in 2020), he's never shown the ability to go six+ innings in his starts. His minors' stats have him throwing a total of 353.1 IP with 82 starts and 43 relief appearances.  It's hard to find the specific details, but (best guess) he averaged somewhere around 3.5-4 IP per start.  He's only tossed 33 innings as an Orioles in his career, with all but 3.1 as a reliever, so that too small of a sample size to consider.  Does this mean he's incapable of better?  No, though I think utilizing him in relief optimizes his talent, over attempting to ask for something he's never given us.  If the O's see it differently, then have at it, but I'd be surprised if it worked out.

This …. Let’s not talk about his grade 80 FB. Let’s talk about his secondary pitches. His BB9 in the minors is 5+ . Last year it dropped to 2.3 ….. He didn’t need his 3 & 4 pitches

[Sports Guy]

He should be the no brainer 5th starters as of today.

[Roll Tide]

6 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

He should be the no brainer 5th starters as of today.

You’re off your rocker ….if we don’t pick up someone Wells has been brilliant the 1st half 2 straight years. In fact our best starter in the first half 2 straight seasons.

[Greg Pappas]

24 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

He should be the no brainer 5th starters as of today.

What makes you feel this way?  What has Hall done in six seasons that has you believing it's silly to consider anyone else?

And to be clear, as I said earlier, I wouldn't be shocked if the O's wanted that from him, but it would be a surprise to me.  Especially if it worked on well.  If we don't add a starter, then I'd prefer Cole Irvin get it, as he's done it and has no issue throwing a lot of innings.  Less upside but less risk.

Edited January 12 by Greg Pappas