Jordan Westburg 2024

[Rbiggs2525]

59 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Truthfully, Westburg hasn’t had a great month, he’s had a great week.  As of April 10, he had a .597 OPS.   Then he got hot.  So yeah, pump the brakes a little.  But I do think he’s going to be very solid.  

I think if you looked solely at OPS you could say that. His EV and expected numbers were much higher. 

[btdart20]

1 hour ago, deward said:

It's a little perplexing to me to see so many people surprised that a player with a first-round pedigree and a strong minor league track record would be finding success in the big leagues. What were your expectations?

He had a cold start in the minors at one point.  What do we do with that?    Can we get back to complaining about Holliday?

I was on the Ortiz > Westburg wagon.  Thought both were going to be good, but like Ortiz' defense better.  I'm not surprised or disappointed. 

[btdart20]

11 minutes ago, Rbiggs2525 said:

I think if you looked solely at OPS you could say that. His EV and expected numbers were much higher. 

Yep...  It's early and ratios are all a flutter.

[Frobby]

13 minutes ago, Rbiggs2525 said:

I think if you looked solely at OPS you could say that. His EV and expected numbers were much higher. 

Per a post in this thread on April 8, at that point he had a .267 wOBA, .337 xwOBA.   Now he’s at .431/.422.   I wouldn’t call .337 xwOBA “great,” but it’s certainly above average, and if Westburg did that over a full season, I’d be quite happy with it.  But I prefer .422!   

[Rbiggs2525]

13 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Per a post in this thread on April 8, at that point he had a .267 wOBA, .337 xwOBA.   Now he’s at .431/.422.   I wouldn’t call .337 xwOBA “great,” but it’s certainly above average, and if Westburg did that over a full season, I’d be quite happy with it.  But I prefer .422!   

I’ll take above average as well. I was trying to think of player comps to Westburg. It may be high hopes but in a smaller park I get Marcus Simeon vibes. Where he’s a consistent good player with a breakout year or two. Other name that came to mind was Mike Lowell.

[Tony-OH]

On 4/16/2024 at 1:10 AM, Frobby said:

I mean, he’s no Machado, but he gets the job done.  We’ll probably see a few deep backhand throws he won’t make, but he should be solid otherwise.  He gets rid of the ball very smoothly and doesn’t require a lot of time to load up.  

There is no metric yet on statcast that measure just arm value from an infielder, only arm strength. Now, OOA takes into consideration the difficulty of the play in comparison to others so that would indicate the ability to throw is measured in that overall. 

So the best we can do is go by is OOA and Westburg has been worth 0 OAA, and -1% success added so far. Now, there is no doubt Westburg has below average arm strength for a 3B. His 80.2 MPH avg last year was 21st percentile last year with AVG 3B being at 86.2 AVG. We don't have enough data for his AVG arm strength this year but his max throwing speed is about the same as last year (less than a MPM difference lower). 

I've seen a few plays this year where he came in and I thought if he had a stronger arm, I think that play gets made. How much that will limit his effectiveness remains to be seen, but I see nothing overall that makes me think he can't be average on the hot corner overall.

Like you said, we're not going to see those amazing backhand to gun throws to nail runners like we've seen from Machado or Gunnar, but he's going to be steady. 

[Frobby]

2 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

 

Like you said, we're not going to see those amazing backhand to gun throws to nail runners like we've seen from Machado or Gunnar, but he's going to be steady. 

Yeah, another thing we’re not going to see from Westburg is head slapping plays where you wonder WTF he was thinking, or plays where he misses the ball because he didn’t attempt to field it in the proper way.  So that’s all good.  

[Tony-OH]

Can we all just agree that the fact he's basing his facial hair from Johnny Ringo in Tombstone is about the coolest facial hair we've seen?

 

[Gurgi]

2 hours ago, deward said:

It's a little perplexing to me to see so many people surprised that a player with a first-round pedigree and a strong minor league track record would be finding success in the big leagues. What were your expectations?

Personally I thought he would hit 25 bombs and 75 rbi.  But I just liked the kid for some reason.

[Bemorewins]

38 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

There is no metric yet on statcast that measure just arm value from an infielder, only arm strength. Now, OOA takes into consideration the difficulty of the play in comparison to others so that would indicate the ability to throw is measured in that overall. 

So the best we can do is go by is OOA and Westburg has been worth 0 OAA, and -1% success added so far. Now, there is no doubt Westburg has below average arm strength for a 3B. His 80.2 MPH avg last year was 21st percentile last year with AVG 3B being at 86.2 AVG. We don't have enough data for his AVG arm strength this year but his max throwing speed is about the same as last year (less than a MPM difference lower). 

I've seen a few plays this year where he came in and I thought if he had a stronger arm, I think that play gets made. How much that will limit his effectiveness remains to be seen, but I see nothing overall that makes me think he can't be average on the hot corner overall.

Like you said, we're not going to see those amazing backhand to gun throws to nail runners like we've seen from Machado or Gunnar, but he's going to be steady. 

I don't think that you are doing this at all - But it is very unfair to Westburg to compare him to Machado. Different skill sets/calibers of players.

IMO Jordan Westburg was never expected to be a Manny Machado type player. Machado was a top 3 pick. Westburg was picked 30th.

But the great thing about having this much talent on the team (and within the org) is that we don't need Westburg to become Machado (one of the best at the position, silver slugger, gold glover, multiple time all star, one of the best defensive third basemen ever) in order for us to reach the promised land.

[deward]

1 minute ago, Gurgi said:

Personally I thought he would hit 25 bombs and 75 rbi.  But I just liked the kid for some reason.

That still seems fair. I've liked him since watching him play for MSU, and was excited that the O's drafted him, so I've been an ardent Westburg supporter since day one. This has been a good couple of weeks for me. 

[glenn__davis]

Like many players Westburg was very streaky in the minors.  He would go on some pretty insane hot streaks but then also some lengthy cold spells.  We hadn't seen him go on a heater yet at the MLB level so nice to see he has that in him.

[jabba72]

Personally I think he should dye his mustache a little darker if he's going to have one.. I can just barely see it. 

[Tony-OH]

19 minutes ago, Bemorewins said:

I don't think that you are doing this at all - But it is very unfair to Westburg to compare him to Machado. Different skill sets/calibers of players.

IMO Jordan Westburg was never expected to be a Manny Machado type player. Machado was a top 3 pick. Westburg was picked 30th.

But the great thing about having this much talent on the team (and within the org) is that we don't need Westburg to become Machado (one of the best at the position, silver slugger, gold glover, multiple time all star, one of the best defensive third basemen ever) in order for us to reach the promised land.

Sure, I agree that Westburg was never supposed to be Machado with the glove and arm. I'm not sure anyone else expects him to be either, but you are right, he's not going to make those Machado like highlight reel plays with his arm.

[OsBeavs]

2 hours ago, interloper said:

I think Westburg would be a good option to leadoff against LHP. I bet we see that at some point. 

Then Gunnar could hit 3rd or clean up. I like that.