It’s a slump. It happens. Some thoughts.

[interloper]

I have no problem with Mateo playing right now. He saved Burnes a lot of runs with a couple of excellent double plays last night. The #9 hitter is not the issue. 

[Brooks The Great]

22 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

Mateo has a .931 OPS vs LHP. Last year it was .746. He can play SS and even some OF.  More than fine for a platoon tyoe player. 
 

Mayo is does not have a good glove at 3rd. I like Urias but he hasn’t been hitting. 

Again, as I mentioned in my post that you're replying to, the OPS is a mirage propped up by 2 home runs. Mateo won't keep that up, even against lefties.

If Mateo settles at .700-.750 OPS against LHP for the season, which is a reasonable projection, he'll be OPSing below that range the rest of the season. That's NOT worth his glove at 2B. 

[Brooks The Great]

3 minutes ago, interloper said:

I have no problem with Mateo playing right now. He saved Burnes a lot of runs with a couple of excellent double plays last night. The #9 hitter is not the issue. 

You say "right now" as if his production at the plate will continue. It won't, it's only going to get worse. And it's not good to begin with.

There's no reason to believe in Mateo aside from small sample size luck. He's just being given preferential treatment because he's a vet, and, similarly to Ryan McKenna, Elias refuses to cut ties with a bad player. That's not good baseball.

[Bemorewins]

As much as I love and believe in Holliday's talent and potential, we have seen time and time again now that prospect rankings matter very little when it comes to getting immediate results at the Major League level. Jackson Chourio was what #2 prospect and what is he doing right now? - .207/.254/.322/.576

Those numbers are not better than Jorge Mateo believe it or not.

It goes further than that though. Look at most of the top prospect from last year who have graduated to the MLB. Yes you have Gunnar, Volpe, Casas, Westburg, Jung, Jackson Merrill, and De La Cruz. But look at how bad Carroll has regressed. Look at Francisco Alverarez, Jordan Walker, Brett Baty, Crow-Armstrong, Frelick, Evan Carter, and Wyatt Langford.

I would say that the odds are way less than 50-50 given just those 20 or so examples that even a young stud makes an immediate impact. Sure we can be optimistic/hopeful. But the reality is that in 2024 making the jump from AAA to MLB may be harder than ever. And there are no guarantees that your most promising young players will be able to figure things out right away. That's just not very realistic. 

[RZNJ]

6 minutes ago, Brooks The Great said:

You say "right now" as if his production at the plate will continue. It won't, it's only going to get worse. And it's not good to begin with.

There's no reason to believe in Mateo aside from small sample size luck. He's just being given preferential treatment because he's a vet, and, similarly to Ryan McKenna, Elias refuses to cut ties with a bad player. That's not good baseball.

Urias .497 OPS might be a mirage and Mateo .706 OPS might be a mirage but they both happened and right NOW I’ll take the Mateo mirage.

Edited May 14 by RZNJ

[TommyPickles]

I trust Hays to play some CF.

Since 2020, he's been worth +2 DRS as a centerfielder in 274.2 innings at the position. 

In that time, Mullins has been worth +15 DRS as a centerfielder in 4,044.1 innings.

 

I'm not saying he's a better defender than Mullins. I also know there are a lot of different and imperfect stats when it comes to defense. But I think it's promising that he's averaging +1 DRS every 137 innings as a CF, considering Mullins is averaging +1 DRS every 270.

I also think Mullins will heat back up.

 

[Mooreisbetter27]

43 minutes ago, Brooks The Great said:

Urias has a proven track record of good defense at 3B and as a much better hitter than Mateo. That's why it's better for the team to play Urias instead of buying into the mirage of another "hot" start by Mateo. Mateo is still the same bad player he's always been.

Ultimately, I prefer calling up Mayo after Super 2 passes. Until then, I'd rather see Urias in the lineup. Everyone is getting fooled into thinking Mateo has played well. He hasn't, he's just been lucky running into a couple home runs. That's not sustainable, and it's foolish to believe that Mateo is anything else other than the player he's shown himself to be since 2022. 

 

Mateo has a proven track record of defense as well.  And he's the fastest player on the team while Urias is most likely the slowest player on the team.  Do you watch the games?  Because Urias LOOKS bad.  He doesn't look like he's hitting into bad luck... he just looks like he can't hit.  Nearly everything with him is a groundball to the left side or a pop up.  I'm not worried about either one of them hitting HR's, but Urias looks completely feeble at the plate and has cost us multiple times in the field this year already, most recently in the game against Arizona.

Now, I too, would like you have Mayo over either.  But if we're reassigning or releasing someone to bring up Mayo, it's Urias over Mateo and it's not really close.  

[Three Run Homer]

I'm worried about Cowser.  Taking pitches right down Broadway is the kind of stuff he did last season.  Either he's just guessing or he has zero confidence.  The strikeouts are piling up and he's the guy I least want to see up when you just need a productive out.  

[LGOrioles]

8 minutes ago, Three Run Homer said:

I'm worried about Cowser.  Taking pitches right down Broadway is the kind of stuff he did last season.  Either he's just guessing or he has zero confidence.  The strikeouts are piling up and he's the guy I least want to see up when you just need a productive out.  

Gunnar did the same thing the first few months last year too while striking out 31% of the time through June. His xwOBACON is elite (8th in MLB among batters with 100 PA’s). He just needs to make some adjustments like Gunnar did last year. 

[Bemorewins]

6 minutes ago, LGOrioles said:

Gunnar did the same thing the first few months last year too while striking out 31% of the time through June. His xwOBACON is elite (8th in MLB among batters with 100 PA’s). He just needs to make some adjustments like Gunnar did last year. 

I agree that Cowser needs to make some adjustments. But I don't know if Gunnar is the right comparison. Gunnar Henderson is a much better/more talented player than Cowser. Gunnar's ability to adjust as soon as he did may not apply to Cowser.

[interloper]

1 hour ago, Brooks The Great said:

You say "right now" as if his production at the plate will continue. It won't, it's only going to get worse. And it's not good to begin with.

There's no reason to believe in Mateo aside from small sample size luck. He's just being given preferential treatment because he's a vet, and, similarly to Ryan McKenna, Elias refuses to cut ties with a bad player. That's not good baseball.

In what way does "right now" imply that he will continue to be this good? It implies the opposite - that he's not usually this good so let's play him while he's doing well. 

[LGOrioles]

50 minutes ago, Bemorewins said:

I agree that Cowser needs to make some adjustments. But I don't know if Gunnar is the right comparison. Gunnar Henderson is a much better/more talented player than Cowser. Gunnar's ability to adjust as soon as he did may not apply to Cowser.

Gunnar is better. But there’s definitely a similarity there in terms of making hard contact and the struggles Cowser is going through right now and Gunnar went through last year.

Gunnar looked like he was guessing last year too. On this date in 2023, he had 13 looking K’s. Cowser currently has 9. 

 

Edited May 14 by LGOrioles

[LGOrioles]

2 minutes ago, LGOrioles said:

 

 

Edited May 14 by LGOrioles

[OriolesMagic83]

1 hour ago, TommyPickles said:

I trust Hays to play some CF.

Since 2020, he's been worth +2 DRS as a centerfielder in 274.2 innings at the position. 

In that time, Mullins has been worth +15 DRS as a centerfielder in 4,044.1 innings.

 

I'm not saying he's a better defender than Mullins. I also know there are a lot of different and imperfect stats when it comes to defense. But I think it's promising that he's averaging +1 DRS every 137 innings as a CF, considering Mullins is averaging +1 DRS every 270.

I also think Mullins will heat back up.

 

Good point.  Hays had great/elite? speed when he first got to the majors and was very good defensively.  I think he would have had no problem handling CF then.  All his injuries have diminished his speed and probably made the O's gunshy to put him in CF much.  I guess the Mateo in CF experiment is over.  He showed promise.  He made some great plays, but also missed some very makeable plays.  I guess the O;s figured the payoff wasn't worth the learning curve.

[RZNJ]

6 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

Good point.  Hays had great/elite? speed when he first got to the majors and was very good defensively.  I think he would have had no problem handling CF then.  All his injuries have diminished his speed and probably made the O's gunshy to put him in CF much.  I guess the Mateo in CF experiment is over.  He showed promise.  He made some great plays, but also missed some very makeable plays.  I guess the O;s figured the payoff wasn't worth the learning curve.

Good call.  I had to check.   Hays was up around the 90th percentile in sprint speed in both 2017 and 2019.   There was notable regression starting in 2020.