Orioles Acquire Jonathan Heasley from Royals

[sportsfan8703]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

They’re nothing alike.   This is a depth move that costs almost nothing.  

That’s looking like the case. In the Uwasawu thread there were hopes he’d be a 6th/7th inning sneak relief pickup. It appears he’s not so sneaky and some team will guarantee him starts. 

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, sportsfan8703 said:

That’s looking like the case. In the Uwasawu thread there were hopes he’d be a 6th/7th inning sneak relief pickup. It appears he’s not so sneaky and some team will guarantee him starts. 

I’m not losing any sleep over it.  I’m more concerned with upgrading the quality of the middle part of our rotation than I am with acquiring depth, which is what he is.  

[wildcard]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I’m not losing any sleep over it.  I’m more concerned with upgrading the quality of the middle part of our rotation than I am with acquiring depth, which is what he is.  

IMO the O's are looking for a starter who is better that McDermott, Irvin or Heasley in the 2nd half.   Wells will be hard to beat in the 1st half.

[sportsfan8703]

Depth move. We lost Khreibel and Gilaspie from last year. They were good for what their role was. Optionable AAA RH relief depth. Hensley will fill that now. 

We’re also near the bottom in waiver priority. So if a team needs to make 40 man room and we identify a guy, then it makes sense. 

Elias is working on the edges of the roster. Like the Braves GM. He just isn’t taking on $22 million in dead money to do so. 

[RZNJ]

17 minutes ago, ChosenOne21 said:

You never know, but you have a pretty good idea. I'm going to guess that the overwhelming majority of players who were at one time their team's #71 prospect never sniff the majors let alone have a meaningful career there.

This is also true of the vast majority of #17 prospects.

I'm not saying we shouldn't sign Dominican players as teenagers. I'm saying there are dozens of players with similar profiles to Espinal that can be had for a song, so it's not worth fretting that we traded him. We'll probably sign a couple of "Espinals" in January.

I'm not saying Espinal can't have a major league career, but I'd put the odds well under 1%. I think the odds Heasley has a successful season for us are greater than 1%.

I’d agree with just about everything you say here regarding odds.   Would Elias have traded Thomas Sosa or Luis DeLeon for Heasley?  I don’t think so.  I’m just saying there’s a chance Espinal blows up like DeLeon did.  A chance.  Elias and crew obviously thought this was good for the Orioles so that’s why I said “generally”.  I’m not specifically against this trade because they see things they like about Heasley.  We’ll see.   Take away the option and “generally” speaking these are the types of pitchers you can claim off of the waiver wire.

[Tony-OH]

25 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

I’d agree with just about everything you say here regarding odds.   Would Elias have traded Thomas Sosa or Luis DeLeon for Heasley?  I don’t think so.  I’m just saying there’s a chance Espinal blows up like DeLeon did.  A chance.  Elias and crew obviously thought this was good for the Orioles so that’s why I said “generally”.  I’m not specifically against this trade because they see things they like about Heasley.  We’ll see.   Take away the option and “generally” speaking these are the types of pitchers you can claim off of the waiver wire.

I don't think Espinal has the upside of De Leon. He's known more for his control than his stuff with a hope that his stuff will take a jump. He was definitely one of the better arms in the DSL for the Orioles, but at the same time, there's a long way to go for him. 

If the Orioles can fix Heasley, and their recent history suggests they very well may be able to, then getting a major league ready pitcher with an option for a contending team is worth a DSL lottery ticket. I think these are the kinds of moves you make when you're a real contender. 

That doesn't mean that Espinal may not turn into something, but the odds are truly against him, especially without a jump in stuff. Remember, I get a pretty good idea about these guys from my conversations and Sosa was put on the list despite his bad stats because of his upside. Espinal is more of the other way by getting on the list by performing well but with less ceiling.

Sosa also grew three inches between 17 and 18 years old.

[Aristotelian]

14 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

I would assume he’s a guy that maybe could be a reliever.

Small sample of one pitch but I'm seeing Eric Gagne comp with that changeup. 

[nvpacchi]

The one thing about Heasley that stands out the most is his fastball shape relative to his arm slot.

Granted he only threw 99 4-seamers in a small sample last year, but the shape is at least encouraging.  Fastball ride 10% better than the average fastball at his arm slot (between 5.75 ft and 6 ft).

This ranks 21 out of the 117 pitchers in that arm slot range who threw at least 90 4-seamers last year.

His fastball is also flatter than average given the arm slot - another good sign.

I don't know enough about his breaking pitches to comment, but is encouraging that he is working on refining his mix at Tread as he already has a good starting point with his fastball shape.

Lottery pick for sure, but he at least starts from a good base off which to build and potentially unlock something more.  And as others mentioned the Royals aren't churning out SPs.  They whiffed on Kowar, Lynch, Lacy, Singer, and Hernandez - ouch!

Edited December 19, 2023 by nvpacchi

[LookinUp]

1 hour ago, RZNJ said:

I’d agree with just about everything you say here regarding odds.   Would Elias have traded Thomas Sosa or Luis DeLeon for Heasley?  I don’t think so.  I’m just saying there’s a chance Espinal blows up like DeLeon did.  A chance.  Elias and crew obviously thought this was good for the Orioles so that’s why I said “generally”.  I’m not specifically against this trade because they see things they like about Heasley.  We’ll see.   Take away the option and “generally” speaking these are the types of pitchers you can claim off of the waiver wire.

I love my prospects. I didn't even love the Hernaiz trade and we had like 5 guys ahead of him. That said, it's part of what good pipelines do. The fact that we just got a AAA/ML arm with upside for someone that came from our INTERNATIONAL PIPELINE, to me, is a massive news story unto itself.

1 hour ago, Aristotelian said:

Small sample of one pitch but I'm seeing Eric Gagne comp with that changeup. 

From your lips to god's ears, brother. I'm not predicting Gagne, but this group definitely gets the benefit of the doubt with guys like this. My guess is he'll end up a solid middle reliever for at least a major part of 1 season for us. Anything more is gravy.

[jamalshw]

2 hours ago, RZNJ said:

I’d agree with just about everything you say here regarding odds.   Would Elias have traded Thomas Sosa or Luis DeLeon for Heasley?  I don’t think so.  I’m just saying there’s a chance Espinal blows up like DeLeon did.  A chance.  Elias and crew obviously thought this was good for the Orioles so that’s why I said “generally”.  I’m not specifically against this trade because they see things they like about Heasley.  We’ll see.   Take away the option and “generally” speaking these are the types of pitchers you can claim off of the waiver wire.

I agree to some extent, but claiming guys off waivers is a bit harder for the Orioles now than in years past given the teams ahead of them that can put in a claim first. So essentially, the Orioles have to give up a lottery ticket to jump the line. 

[interloper]

I like this pickup. It's a waiver claim in every way other than technically. Royals were gonna DFA this guy and we jumped in to make sure we got him. We need a few shuttle guys to absorb double-headers and sudden injuries/illnesses/parental leave situations, and he's a reasonable speculative dude to do that. 

[Jim'sKid26]

1 hour ago, nvpacchi said:

The one thing about Heasley that stands out the most is his fastball shape relative to his arm slot.

Granted he only threw 99 4-seamers in a small sample last year, but the shape is at least encouraging.  Fastball ride 10% better than the average fastball at his arm slot (between 5.75 ft and 6 ft).

This ranks 21 out of the 117 pitchers in that arm slot range who threw at least 90 4-seamers last year.

His fastball is also flatter than average given the arm slot - another good sign.

I don't know enough about his breaking pitches to comment, but is encouraging that he is working on refining his mix at Tread as he already has a good starting point with his fastball shape.

Lottery pick for sure, but he at least starts from a good base off which to build and potentially unlock something more.  And as others mentioned the Royals aren't churning out SPs.  They whiffed on Kowar, Lynch, Lacy, Singer, and Hernandez - ouch!

Love this post!

Tread guys love their sweeper throwers. This must be where that change came from. 

Given his arm slot and his FB characteristics, do you think a sweeper can be effective for him? Seems to me he's under valuing his CB and CH. I'd love to think he could be a 4 pitch SP. Realistic?

[ScGO's]

I think I read somewhere that he throws up a lot before he pitches. Maybe we have really good Sports Psychologists.  That CH looked good, but I saw more positive statistics about the CB. The option is nice. If they decide they don't like him during ST, they can cut him. But I think he's a AAA arm to start the year.

[nvpacchi]

1 hour ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

Love this post!

Tread guys love their sweeper throwers. This must be where that change came from. 

Given his arm slot and his FB characteristics, do you think a sweeper can be effective for him? Seems to me he's under valuing his CB and CH. I'd love to think he could be a 4 pitch SP. Realistic?

Thank you!  Its really tough to say.  I think that trying to measure breaking and offspeed pitches by shape is extremely difficult, and is one things I'm trying to explore more when I have the time.  Fastball shape is easiest given a much more straightforward set of parameters to measure it against.

However I will say, among a lot of the relievers that measure out similar to Heasley on fastball shape (release point, ride, vertical attack angle, velo) a lot of them heavily use slider/sweeper.  Jason Adam stands out the most, but then you have a guy like Ryan Pressly who has almost an exact match on fastball shape (not as flat as Heasley the differentiator) and throws both a great curve and slider.

Jury's out probably comes down to feel and which pitch a dude thinks he can spin and locate consistently.

[RarityFlaherty]

59 minutes ago, ScGO's said:

I think I read somewhere that he throws up a lot before he pitches. Maybe we have really good Sports Psychologists.  That CH looked good, but I saw more positive statistics about the CB. The option is nice. If they decide they don't like him during ST, they can cut him. But I think he's a AAA arm to start the year.

Was there more than just that one story of him throwing up on the mound? In the story I saw, he did throw like 4 scoreless innings before they took him out, so it seems like he did pretty well working through feeling sick that day.