The Diamondbacks Series

[Just Regular]

We will see Zac Gallen, who shouldered a tremendous load last season - 3250 regular season and 550 postseason pitches.

Ketel Marte and Christian Walker are having big years, but no one in the lineup is really hot now.    Joc Pederson is a Ryan O'Hearn menace to RHP but we'll have both our LHP, and they have Randal Grichuk as a reserve.    Corbin Carroll's slow start is one of the most peculiar this side of Julio Rodriguez but of course he could explode anytime.    Bobby Witt kind of blew the contract benchmarks out of the water for great young players.

Closer Paul Sewald has thrown 2 out of 3 days, and their 7th/8th inning guys both threw Wednesday/Thursday as they won a pair of 1-run games in Cincinnati to finish a road sweep.

One of the riskiest things Elias has done is deem Adley, Gunnar and Grayson not strong enough to really try in 2022.    He had good judgment going to Texas, and I hope somebody's memoir some day gives a good account of that day.     All the good vibes now how they are fearless and confident - they were that way in 2022 as well.    What's incorrect in these power rankings:

1. 2024 Orioles

2. 2023 Orioles

3. 2022 Orioles

4. 2023 Diamondbacks, NL champions

Yennier Cano and others will help now and in the future, but in fall 2022 Adley, Gunnar, Grayson, Kyle Bradish and Felix Bautista were all healthy and there's no guarantee that will recur any other year.

[KojiSplit]

It’s worth mentioning the O’s will be facing Brandon Pfaadt and Ryne Nelson their 4th and 5th starters. I can’t remember the last time the O’s have faced starters with era’s over 4.5 as it’s been 3.5 and below since Ross Stripling.

Me and my friend are going Saturday so looking forward to Nelson getting tagged and Means pitching well.

[Moshagge3]

Carroll has heated up a little bit from his terrible start, going 6 for his last 21 with a home run.

I don't understand the point you're making about 2022. Adley and Gunnar were playing every day down the stretch. Bautista was closing games and Bradish was in the rotation. Grayson was not healthy, he was coming back from a lat strain. The Orioles went 15-18 in September and October, that's why they missed the playoffs. If you want to blame Elias for 2022, blame him for having crappy placeholders at the beginning of the year like Chris Owings and Robinson Chirinos that put the team in a 14-24 hole before Adley came up.

[Mooreisbetter27]

5 minutes ago, Moshagge3 said:

Carroll has heated up a little bit from his terrible start, going 6 for his last 21 with a home run.

I don't understand the point you're making about 2022. Adley and Gunnar were playing every day down the stretch. Bautista was closing games and Bradish was in the rotation. Grayson was not healthy, he was coming back from a lat strain. The Orioles went 15-18 in September and October, that's why they missed the playoffs. If you want to blame Elias for 2022, blame him for having crappy placeholders at the beginning of the year like Chris Owings and Robinson Chirinos that put the team in a 14-24 hole before Adley came up.

Yeah I was a little baffled trying to make sense of that last 2 paragraphs myself haha.  I finally gave up.  

[btdart20]

2022 was pre-lift off.  We were part of the pack but did not have solid base of vets to push from.  

[Just Regular]

2 hours ago, Moshagge3 said:

Carroll has heated up a little bit from his terrible start, going 6 for his last 21 with a home run.

I don't understand the point you're making about 2022. Adley and Gunnar were playing every day down the stretch. Bautista was closing games and Bradish was in the rotation. Grayson was not healthy, he was coming back from a lat strain. The Orioles went 15-18 in September and October, that's why they missed the playoffs. If you want to blame Elias for 2022, blame him for having crappy placeholders at the beginning of the year like Chris Owings and Robinson Chirinos that put the team in a 14-24 hole before Adley came up.

The point is about the long term strategy earlier in 2022.    Elias could have throttled Grayson and Gunnar less in 2022 (Grayson 2021 as well), and then for August and September 2022 the Club would have had whatever Mancini and Lopez could have contributed.

The Rays beat them by 3 games for the final berth in 2022.    Grayson Rodriguez was greener than he had to be in Game 2 of the 2023 ALWC series.    He was one of the Club's best pitchers available until the lat strain occurred 6.1.2022, and was back by September.

Mike Elias has done an excellent job, but some of it has involved embracing tradeoffs that championship caliber players probably found unpleasant.    None of them have signed on with him to date.

[Malike]

I was looking at the schedule for this for a couple of days. They originally had Irvin, Means, Kremer vs. Pfaadt, Nelson and Gallen. Last night it showed Irvin, Kremer, and Means vs. Pfaadt, Gallen and Nelson. It's back to the first order again. It seems pretty clear they want Kremer to match up with Gallen.

[Say O!]

With 2 lefty starters (Means & Irvin), we may hopefully see some curbing of the stolen base trend against the Os where CIN and WAS ran at will.  Interestingly, the top 4 teams in BSR per fangraphs are (in order) CIN, KCR, WAS, MIL.  Followed by PHI, Os, MIN.  The Diamondbacks are 15th, with really only Carroll as running threat. 

[Just Regular]

Some chance we'll get the Austin Hays roster move in the next few hours.

I noticed he played RF in Bowie last night.     

Arizona's development of Brandon Pfaadt was interesting to prospect watchers.    He threw 167 minor league innings in 2022 to lead his league by a lot, kind of the same as Gallen did with MLB pitchers, postseason included, in 2023.  

 

Edited May 10 by Just Regular

[btdart20]

23 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

Arizona's development of Brandon Pfaadt was interesting to prospect watchers.    He threw 167 minor league innings in 2022 to lead his league by a lot, kind of the same as Gallen did with MLB pitchers, postseason included, in 2023.  

Pfaadt is interesting.  Despite average-ish velo, 95th percentile BB% paired with a 81st percentile Chase%.  Control but gets hitters to expand the zone.  I kinda expect that to lead to a higher K% than he has...  

I wonder if our LHH will key on the 4S or CH.

[Malike]

LHB have a .948 OPS against Pfaadt this season, he almost had identical R/L splits last year at .858 and .867. RHB are OPSing .512 against him this season.

[dystopia]

Hopefully both Kjerstad and Cowser start. 

[SteveA]

The Diamondbacks have the biggest platoon differential in MLB, in terms of OPS.   They have a .651 OPS vs RHP, and a .866 OPS vs LHP. 

That 215 pt difference is higher than any other team's.

We are throwing two lefties at them this weekend, and 3/8 of our bullpen is lefthanded.

That is a bit of a concern.

[Just Regular]

Ryne Nelson I just learned was a reliever in college for Oregon.    He was 2019 draft like Adley so maybe some familiarity there.

 

[sportsfan8703]

2/3 from the NL champs. We knew Gallen would be a tough matchup. You know you’re good when you expect to win every game.