Who is exceeding, meeting or failing to meet expectations at the quarter pole?

[Malike]

Just now, Frobby said:

Who is publishing favorites to win the Cy Young Award?   If Burnes is 2nd, it’s not because he’s been the second best pitcher in the league so far, it’s because he’s done reasonably well and people think he’ll do even better for the rest of the year.  Anyway, if you expect a guy to be among the top 5-6 pitchers in the league and he does that, then he’s meeting expectations.  

I'm going to guess the odds makers.

[wildcard]

Are our expectation of Kimbrel too high?   Last year the Phillies had  71 save opportunities.  Kimbrel had 28 of them.  That is less than 40% of the  Phillies total save opportunities.   Seems like our expectation for Kimbrel are much higher.

Edited May 14 by wildcard

[Ripken]

Unfortunately, Kimbrel is meeting my expectations.  The back end of the pen was a concern last year and became a huge concern the moment Bautista went down.  Kimbrel wasn't even close to addressing that.  Otherwise, the disappointments are Mullins, Hays and Urias but tail ends of a roster are just that.  I'm still in favor of getting Mayo, Kjerstad and Holliday some/more playing time.  I certainly hope they have finally learned that Wells is not a starting pitcher.

[Safelykept]

5 hours ago, Frobby said:

Here are my votes.  I didn’t include anyone with less than 50 PA or 15 IP.

Exceeding expectations

Henderson .892 OPS, 2.7 rWAR

Westburg .871 OPS, 1.8 rWAR

Cowser .831 OPS, 0.7 rWAR (ignoring recency bias)

O’Hearn .883 OPS, 1.0 rWAR

Mateo .706 OPS, 0.6 rWAR

Irvin 4-1, 2.90 ERA, 0.9 rWAR

Suarez 2-0, 1.96 ERA, 0.8 rWAR

Webb 0-2, 1.47 ERA, 0.4 rWAR

Akin 1-0, 3.00 ERA, 0.2 rWAR

Coulombe, 0-0, 2.30 ERA, 0.5 rWAR

Meeting expectations

Rutschman .834 OPS, 1.7 rWAR

Mountcastle .797 OPS, 1.2 rWAR

Santander .731 OPS, 0.5 rWAR

McCann .541 OPS, - 0.5 rWAR

Burnes 3-2, 2.68 ERA, 1.0 rWAR

Kremer 3-3, 3.73 ERA, -0.2 rWAR

Rodriguez 4-1, 3.71 ERA, 0.3 rWAR

Cano 2-1, 2.21 ERA, 0.4 rWAR

Baumann 1-0, 4.02 ERA, -0.1 rWAR

Failing to meet expectations 

Mullins .592 OPS, 0.4 rWAR

Urias .492 OPS, 0.0 rWAR

Hays .311 OPS, -0.9 rWAR

Wells 0-2, 5.87 ERA, -0.3 rWAR

Kimbrel 4-1, 3.86 ERA, 8 saves, 3 blown saves, 0.0 rWAR

 

Obviously, many of these are debatable, and largely depend what your expectations were to begin with.  For example, Adley is having an excellent season, but I expect excellence from him.  He’s probably exceeding my expectations a little, but not enough to put him in the exceeding expectations category.  My expectations for Baumann were low, and he’s doing about what I expected.  

Bottom line, we have more guys exceeding expectations than failing to meet them, but there’s plenty of room for improvement   

 

Good list. its only the quarter pole, and being often critical of him I'd have to say Mountcastle has far exceeded my expectations > On pace to WAR 4.5 to 5, which would put him in rare company of some past O's first baseman

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, wildcard said:

Are our expectation of Kimbrel too high?   Last year the Phillies had  71 save opportunities.  Kimbrel had 28 of them.  That is less than 40% of the  Phillies total save opportunities.   Seems like our expectation for Kimbrel are much higher.

You realize that’s totally misleading, right?  The O’s have had 22 save opportunities this year and Kimbrel’s had 11 of them.  That’s because any time a reliever enters a game in the 6th inning or later, if he gives up the lead that’s a “save opportunity” that was blown, even though that reliever would never have been in the game later to get the save.   

[Sports Guy]

Any player that has slumped is below expectations.  These guys aren’t allowed to have slumps!!

[forphase1]

7 hours ago, Frobby said:

Here are my votes.  I didn’t include anyone with less than 50 PA or 15 IP.

Exceeding expectations

Henderson .892 OPS, 2.7 rWAR

Westburg .871 OPS, 1.8 rWAR

Cowser .831 OPS, 0.7 rWAR (ignoring recency bias)

O’Hearn .883 OPS, 1.0 rWAR

Mateo .706 OPS, 0.6 rWAR

Irvin 4-1, 2.90 ERA, 0.9 rWAR

Suarez 2-0, 1.96 ERA, 0.8 rWAR

Webb 0-2, 1.47 ERA, 0.4 rWAR

Akin 1-0, 3.00 ERA, 0.2 rWAR

Coulombe, 0-0, 2.30 ERA, 0.5 rWAR

Meeting expectations

Rutschman .834 OPS, 1.7 rWAR

Mountcastle .797 OPS, 1.2 rWAR

Santander .731 OPS, 0.5 rWAR

McCann .541 OPS, - 0.5 rWAR

Burnes 3-2, 2.68 ERA, 1.0 rWAR

Kremer 3-3, 3.73 ERA, -0.2 rWAR

Rodriguez 4-1, 3.71 ERA, 0.3 rWAR

Cano 2-1, 2.21 ERA, 0.4 rWAR

Baumann 1-0, 4.02 ERA, -0.1 rWAR

Failing to meet expectations 

Mullins .592 OPS, 0.4 rWAR

Urias .492 OPS, 0.0 rWAR

Hays .311 OPS, -0.9 rWAR

Wells 0-2, 5.87 ERA, -0.3 rWAR

Kimbrel 4-1, 3.86 ERA, 8 saves, 3 blown saves, 0.0 rWAR

 

Obviously, many of these are debatable, and largely depend what your expectations were to begin with.  For example, Adley is having an excellent season, but I expect excellence from him.  He’s probably exceeding my expectations a little, but not enough to put him in the exceeding expectations category.  My expectations for Baumann were low, and he’s doing about what I expected.  

Bottom line, we have more guys exceeding expectations than failing to meet them, but there’s plenty of room for improvement   

 

Great list, and pretty much in line with how I view things, with a few exceptions.

1) Santander - failing to meet expectations.  His numbers are down across the board, BA, OBP, SLG and of course OPS are all lower than they have been the past 2 years.  I expected him to match his recent production if not exceed them and instead to date he is below those numbers, and have looked ugly at times doing so.  He has looked a bit better in the outfield than in the past, so that's a bit of a plus.

2) Adley - exceeding expectations.  While he's not walking quite as much, thus a lower OBP, he is hitting for way more average than his career numbers would suggest, and so far his OPS at .834 exceeds his career average of .812, and is better then he finished both in 2022 (.806) and 2023 (.809).  His defense has been excellent, though his arm accuracy and strength has been a bit worse that I expected.  Overall though, he's hitting better than I anticipated at this point.

 

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, forphase1 said:

 

1) Santander - failing to meet expectations.  His numbers are down across the board, BA, OBP, SLG and of course OPS are all lower than they have been the past 2 years.  I expected him to match his recent production if not exceed them and instead to date he is below those numbers, and have looked ugly at times doing so.  He has looked a bit better in the outfield than in the past, so that's a bit of a plus.

 

Obviously, there’s a line somewhere between being a slight disappointment and failing to meet expectations.  This is a down year offensively around the league, so Santander’s .731 OPS is still good for a 112 OPS+, not as good as 2022-23 but above his career mark of 109.  He’s on pace for 28 HR and 100 RBI.  So, I gave him the benefit of the doubt.   I can understand why some would put him on the other side of that line.  

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, Safelykept said:

Good list. its only the quarter pole, and being often critical of him I'd have to say Mountcastle has far exceeded my expectations > On pace to WAR 4.5 to 5, which would put him in rare company of some past O's first baseman

fWAR only has him at 0.7, so on pace for 2.8.  I don’t feel like he’s having a 5 WAR season, but I do think he’s having an above average season by his standards.  Not quite far enough above average for me to put him in the exceeding expectations category, but I can see the case for it.  

[Frobby]

7 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Might be nit picking but you have to have low expectations for McCann for him to "meet expectations" while OPsing .541 and being worth -0.5 rWAR. He's playing like a guy who is at the end of the road at 33-years old.

He’s basically 2-3 hits under what he did last year so I cut him a break.  I think rWAR feels a bit harsh to me.  He’s at -0.2 fWAR.   

[Safelykept]

6 minutes ago, Frobby said:

fWAR only has him at 0.7, so on pace for 2.8.  I don’t feel like he’s having a 5 WAR season, but I do think he’s having an above average season by his standards.  Not quite far enough above average for me to put him in the exceeding expectations category, but I can see the case for it.  

You're original post that i responded to was 1.2 WAR (as per you're post) So now its 0.7 as per f vs r, whatever that means. Again I responded to you're post that had him at 1.2 rWAR, as does BBREF. 1.2 times 4 is closer to 5 than 2.8.

[Frobby]

19 minutes ago, Safelykept said:

You're original post that i responded to was 1.2 WAR (as per you're post) So now its 0.7 as per f vs r, whatever that means. Again I responded to you're post that had him at 1.2 rWAR, as does BBREF. 1.2 times 4 is closer to 5 than 2.8.

Oh, I understand that.  I didn’t have time to post both rWAR and fWAR when I wrote my post, so I just posted rWAR.  But fWAR feels more in line with my impressions of Mountcastle’s season so far.   That’s totally subjective on my part.  I feel like a .797 OPS for a 1B is good, not great, even in a down offensive year league wide.  Anyway, I’d be quite happy if the rest of Mountcastle’s year went like the first quarter has gone. He’s played really good defense this year too.  

[Safelykept]

5 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Oh, I understand that.  I didn’t have time to post both rWAR and fWAR when I wrote my post, so I just posted rWAR.  But fWAR feels more in line with my impressions of Mountcastle’s season so far.   That’s totally subjective on my part.  I feel like a .797 OPS for a 1B is good, not great, even in a down offensive year league wide.  Anyway, I’d be quite happy if the rest of Mountcastle’s year went like the first quarter has gone. He’s played really good defense this year too.  

and the defense? Again I'm a Mountcastle detractor, but if I'm wrong i tip my cap(and its only at the quarter polr) but he has played above expectations 

[Moose Milligan]

Exceeding expectations:

Irvin.  I said before the season I thought he'd have a monster season but had no idea it'd be like this.

Gunnar:  Thought he'd be more of the same as last year, maybe a bit of a sophomore slump but he's MVP level even with his recent skid.  His defense looks legit, too.  He's making the leap in year 2 to superstar player.

Adley:  Hitting for a higher average than I would have expected, now it looks like the power is coming around, too.

Cowser:  Low bar to hurdle here, didn't know what to expect/low expectations help him here.  

O'Hearn:  Thought he'd still be good but not this good.

Mounty:  Glad to have been wrong about him after being all over him last year.  His defense is excellent, I think he'll be in the running for a GG this year.

Westburg:  1.8 bWAR already, had no idea this was coming.  Looking like an invaluable member of the team moving forward.  Steady, quiet excellence.

Mateo:  Thought he might not even have a spot on the team this spring but his defense is electric at 2nd base.  Would like to see more steals from him, though.

Kremer:  He's been great. I don't know how his bWAR is -0.2, 46 innings of a 1.022 WHIP has to be worth more than that.  I thought he'd be solid, I didn't think he'd be this good.

Suarez:  Out of nowhere for 23 innings of 0.913 WHIP.  Amazing.

Akin:  I'll get some flak for this but I don't care.  I didn't expect much from him, so anything positive is a step in the right direction.  1.056 WHIP out of the pen, I'll take that all day.  21 strikeouts in 18 innings.  Remains to be seen if he can do this all year, but I think he's fully healthy and back to throwing strikes.  

Failing to meet expectations

Jackson Holliday:  But I'm not upset about it.  

Kimbrel:  But of course.

Cedric:  This hurts because I love the guy but he looks awful at the plate.  He's still somewhat indispensable because of his range in CF but the second half of last year was bad and it's even worse this year.  

Tony Santander:  Almost don't want to put him here because he's a notorious slow starter so expectations probably should have been adjusted.  

Cano:  Low on the list here because I expected him to be not as effective this year as he was last year.  But he's a good candidate for a roller coaster appearance and he's bailed himself out with some outstanding defensive plays.  1.328 WHIP isn't ideal for someone in his spot.

I'm not gonna put injured players on here so that spares Hays and G-Rod from making the failing to meet expectations list.  

 

[HowAboutThat]

Ok, I’ll play:

As far as field performance goes, I’m happy with everybody, especially Mateo. His defense is terrific. Overall, the Defense is great, and an occasional flub is rare enough to let it go.

My favorite guy right now is Westburg. He has an “Everyman” quality about him that makes his success more impressive.

very glad he wasn’t traded.

Hays and Mullins have been bad but I’m not too worried, and they both still offer splendid defense.

My biggest player disappointment is Urias. He’s doing literally nothing, and his defense hasn’t been good either. 

the bullpen has been a thrill ride, and not really in a good way. 

Frobby didn’t ask this, so it’s a tangent, but the biggest disappointment is that Elias is letting MLB-ready guys waste away in AAA.

Trade them. Play them. But do SOMETHING with them.