FIX THE DANG BULLPEN

[LGOrioles]

19 minutes ago, LookitsPuck said:

This is who Akin is. He’s not a high leverage guy. And he’s inconsistent. This team needs an elite Tier A group. Right now they have…Kimbrel and Coulombe? Not exactly confidence inspiring.

Akin is a fringe, mop up duty arm that can’t be trusted with runners on base.

Cano has completely fallen apart. Giving up too many fly balls and doesn’t have control. 

Tate…it’s too early to tell right now. He’s been solid so far, though.

Webb is solid, but he’s been hittable lately.

This team really needs a lockdown bullpen arm. Basically, they need a Felix type.

I don’t think he’s a high leverage guy but based off his peripheral stats this year and his traditional and peripheral stats in 2022, he’s a solid 6th/7th inning guy. FWIW, ZiPS has him at a 4.08 ERA ROS while Steamer is at 3.39. 

There’s also the fact that there isn’t anyone in AAA waiting who inspires much confidence. This time last week Akin had a 2.78 ERA, 0.6 WAR (26th among MLB RP and 1st on the O’s), and was above the 97th percentile in xERA. There’s nobody in AAA right now they can call up who will perform close to that level right now, so I’d much rather give Akin a few more outings to see if he can even halfway turn it around than send him down for someone who isn’t going to be part of the solution. 

Edited May 29 by LGOrioles

[OriolesMagic83]

30 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

Stretch is coming up with only one off day in June. 30 games in 31 days. 

Then off day 6 games 

off day 6 games and ASB. 
 

Elias is going to have to be judicious in the moves he makes.  Akin has been good vs RHH this year that said he is off right now. Playing TB 7 games and TOR for 4 after tomorrow. Not sure we need 3 LH arms in pen facing them. Issue if of course who to bring up ? 

Was adding Vieira to the MLB roster judicious?  Unless Vieira is pitching in a blowout (preferably one the O's are losing-it happens), someone will probably have to come in a get him out of the mess he has created.  Even if he has great upside, which I question, he's not worth overworking the bullpen for.  I don't think he has the kind of arm Fuji had. 

[e16bball]

1 hour ago, LGOrioles said:

Whereas a guy like Cano is legitimately struggling and getting consistently hit hard.

I actually think Cano is a lot closer to getting back to elite performance than the expected numbers suggest. 

The GB numbers are still absolutely elite (100th percentile) and he’s getting a ton of chases (99th percentile) and whiffs (82nd percentile). And tonight, 3 whiffs on 9 swings, so that number will come up a little further.

Pretty good company amongst the guys with 30+ whiff rate and 60+ GB rate:

Clay Holmes (30.5; 68.3) — .255 wOBA

Camilo Doval (35.1; 64.9) — .288 wOBA

Erik Miller (34.7; 61.1) — .309 wOBA

Declan Cronin (29.9; 61.2) — .279 wOBA

 

The HH rate is staggeringly high, and the average EV is relatedly high, but from watching him all year, I don’t think he’s making that many bad pitches. I do feel like the bad pitches he’s made have mostly gotten smashed so far. The guy has given up 12 flyballs all year coming into tonight, and 4 of them have gone over the fence. 
 

The Wong AB tonight kind of sums up Cano’s season so far, I think. He made 5 good pitches in that at-bat. (1) Whiff on a great sinker, (2) whiff on another good sinker, (3) barely fouls off another great sinker down and in, (4) tough take on an elevated 4-seamer, (5) fouls off a changeup well out of the zone. The 6th pitch was a sinker that just didn’t sink, and Wong smoked it. That’s a pretty damn well-pitched AB to end up with a 102 MPH laser for an RBI.

Anyway, a lot of the misses remind me of mid-season last year. Leaving the sinker (and the slider) up at times, the classic cement mixer effect where they just hang. And they’re getting crushed. It seemed like last year there was a tweak with the elbow that helped drive that sinker back down — perhaps something like that again? If they could just eliminate some of those awful pitches, I think he’d be in business, because the profile is really good otherwise. 

[Malike]

Holmes had a blown save and the Angels beat the Yankees, maybe he's available.

[gtman55]

Back when we DFA'd Bauman, I said the right move would have been sending down Akin. He's just not very good. Sure he'll tease you with a month or two of good ball but he's very average. Cano is Cano. He had his 15 minutes of fame. He intimidates no one. And that's what you need from a high leverage guy. Vieira --- no need mincing words here --- he's not just a project, he stinks. Everyone has tried to fix his command issue and everyone has failed. 

On the other hand, while he's no Bautista I don't mind rolling with Kimbrel this year. I like Coulombe. I think Perez, Webb and Tate are "ok". 

The overall issue is that this bullpen isn't the bullpen a championship squad needs. Elias should have known that. Maybe he thought the offense and starting pitching would make up for our bullpen deficiencies. No team is perfect, I get that. I just don't know how a guy as bright as Elias thought this bullpen would be good enough coming out of Spring Training. Let's hope he makes some moves to get us a couple quality relievers.

[sportsfan8703]

Using the pen for 9+ outs a game is wearing them down. We’re protecting the starters. I think we could see Akin optioned as a way to deload him. 

Does Elias’ strategy actually make sense if you think about it?  He knew coming into the season how much we were going to use the pen. So spend money on proven guys, or prospects as currency, when we’d just wear them down anyway. I think we planned for this. We’ll load up on “fresh” arms around the deadline. 

Fire up the shuttle. 

Deload Akin a bit. Who replaces him?  Baker?  I actually like Baker. Krook is looking alright in AAA as well.

[Aristotelian]

8 hours ago, e16bball said:

I actually think Cano is a lot closer to getting back to elite performance than the expected numbers suggest. 

The GB numbers are still absolutely elite (100th percentile) and he’s getting a ton of chases (99th percentile) and whiffs (82nd percentile). And tonight, 3 whiffs on 9 swings, so that number will come up a little further.

Pretty good company amongst the guys with 30+ whiff rate and 60+ GB rate:

Clay Holmes (30.5; 68.3) — .255 wOBA

Camilo Doval (35.1; 64.9) — .288 wOBA

Erik Miller (34.7; 61.1) — .309 wOBA

Declan Cronin (29.9; 61.2) — .279 wOBA

 

The HH rate is staggeringly high, and the average EV is relatedly high, but from watching him all year, I don’t think he’s making that many bad pitches. I do feel like the bad pitches he’s made have mostly gotten smashed so far. The guy has given up 12 flyballs all year coming into tonight, and 4 of them have gone over the fence. 
 

The Wong AB tonight kind of sums up Cano’s season so far, I think. He made 5 good pitches in that at-bat. (1) Whiff on a great sinker, (2) whiff on another good sinker, (3) barely fouls off another great sinker down and in, (4) tough take on an elevated 4-seamer, (5) fouls off a changeup well out of the zone. The 6th pitch was a sinker that just didn’t sink, and Wong smoked it. That’s a pretty damn well-pitched AB to end up with a 102 MPH laser for an RBI.

Anyway, a lot of the misses remind me of mid-season last year. Leaving the sinker (and the slider) up at times, the classic cement mixer effect where they just hang. And they’re getting crushed. It seemed like last year there was a tweak with the elbow that helped drive that sinker back down — perhaps something like that again? If they could just eliminate some of those awful pitches, I think he’d be in business, because the profile is really good otherwise. 

Also have to keep in mind that Cano has the toughest job on the team. He gets the middle of the order every time and those matchups are occasionally going to result in a crushing home run. His numbers look about like they did in the second half last year--not elite, but still very good. Needs to work on misses in the zone that get hit hard. 

[Sports Guy]

9 hours ago, LGOrioles said:

I don’t think he’s a high leverage guy but based off his peripheral stats this year and his traditional and peripheral stats in 2022, he’s a solid 6th/7th inning guy. FWIW, ZiPS has him at a 4.08 ERA ROS while Steamer is at 3.39. 

There’s also the fact that there isn’t anyone in AAA waiting who inspires much confidence. This time last week Akin had a 2.78 ERA, 0.6 WAR (26th among MLB RP and 1st on the O’s), and was above the 97th percentile in xERA. There’s nobody in AAA right now they can call up who will perform close to that level right now, so I’d much rather give Akin a few more outings to see if he can even halfway turn it around than send him down for someone who isn’t going to be part of the solution. 

Akin is a dime a dozen reliever that is capable of being really good or really bad.

If you cut him today, you wouldn’t notice he was gone.

[Sports Guy]

8 hours ago, e16bball said:

I actually think Cano is a lot closer to getting back to elite performance than the expected numbers suggest. 

The GB numbers are still absolutely elite (100th percentile) and he’s getting a ton of chases (99th percentile) and whiffs (82nd percentile). And tonight, 3 whiffs on 9 swings, so that number will come up a little further.

Pretty good company amongst the guys with 30+ whiff rate and 60+ GB rate:

Clay Holmes (30.5; 68.3) — .255 wOBA

Camilo Doval (35.1; 64.9) — .288 wOBA

Erik Miller (34.7; 61.1) — .309 wOBA

Declan Cronin (29.9; 61.2) — .279 wOBA

 

The HH rate is staggeringly high, and the average EV is relatedly high, but from watching him all year, I don’t think he’s making that many bad pitches. I do feel like the bad pitches he’s made have mostly gotten smashed so far. The guy has given up 12 flyballs all year coming into tonight, and 4 of them have gone over the fence. 
 

The Wong AB tonight kind of sums up Cano’s season so far, I think. He made 5 good pitches in that at-bat. (1) Whiff on a great sinker, (2) whiff on another good sinker, (3) barely fouls off another great sinker down and in, (4) tough take on an elevated 4-seamer, (5) fouls off a changeup well out of the zone. The 6th pitch was a sinker that just didn’t sink, and Wong smoked it. That’s a pretty damn well-pitched AB to end up with a 102 MPH laser for an RBI.

Anyway, a lot of the misses remind me of mid-season last year. Leaving the sinker (and the slider) up at times, the classic cement mixer effect where they just hang. And they’re getting crushed. It seemed like last year there was a tweak with the elbow that helped drive that sinker back down — perhaps something like that again? If they could just eliminate some of those awful pitches, I think he’d be in business, because the profile is really good otherwise. 

Good stuff here.

Cano’s issue is simple imo…if he gets the ball up, it’s flat and extremely hittable.

This was his issue last year and it remains his issues. 
 

It is a bit unlucky to have that many homers on 12 fly balls but he’s also basically putting the ball on a tee when he’s up in the zone, so it’s not surprising the ball gets crushed.

[sportsfan8703]

Keep in mind that we just lost Baumann and Suarez out of the pen. I won’t count Irvin as much because that was more temporary. Akin is on pace for like 90 IP. 

Baker had his postseason struggles, but Baker has the repertoire to be really good. See last April/May. We don’t need a season long performance, just a hot streak at this point. 

[RZNJ]

1 hour ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Using the pen for 9+ outs a game is wearing them down. We’re protecting the starters. I think we could see Akin optioned as a way to deload him. 

Does Elias’ strategy actually make sense if you think about it?  He knew coming into the season how much we were going to use the pen. So spend money on proven guys, or prospects as currency, when we’d just wear them down anyway. I think we planned for this. We’ll load up on “fresh” arms around the deadline. 

Fire up the shuttle. 

Deload Akin a bit. Who replaces him?  Baker?  I actually like Baker. Krook is looking alright in AAA as well.

Baker.  That’s one of those depth pieces you were talking about.  8.47 ERA and a 1.71 WHIP in AAA.   How do you like him now?

[LGOrioles]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

Akin is a dime a dozen reliever that is capable of being really good or really bad.

If you cut him today, you wouldn’t notice he was gone.

If you call up Baker or Heasley to replace him, I would disagree. If you’re replacing him with an above average reliever than you’re right. They simply don’t have that in house right now though. 

[Safelykept]

8 hours ago, gtman55 said:

Back when we DFA'd Bauman, I said the right move would have been sending down Akin. He's just not very good. Sure he'll tease you with a month or two of good ball but he's very average. Cano is Cano. He had his 15 minutes of fame. He intimidates no one. And that's what you need from a high leverage guy. Vieira --- no need mincing words here --- he's not just a project, he stinks. Everyone has tried to fix his command issue and everyone has failed. 

On the other hand, while he's no Bautista I don't mind rolling with Kimbrel this year. I like Coulombe. I think Perez, Webb and Tate are "ok". 

The overall issue is that this bullpen isn't the bullpen a championship squad needs. Elias should have known that. Maybe he thought the offense and starting pitching would make up for our bullpen deficiencies. No team is perfect, I get that. I just don't know how a guy as bright as Elias thought this bullpen would be good enough coming out of Spring Training. Let's hope he makes some moves to get us a couple quality relievers.

Akin is not that good neither is Baumann. Elias is plenty smart enough to know that this BP is less than last year. If he thought the Starters and the offense could carry the BP, so far Hes been right. Yes we need a better BP but at what cost? Lets look at the cost of the backend of last years BP, Bautista, minor league FA agent that the Marlins gave up on (Free). Cano was throw in in the Cade Povich trade(very little) and Coulombe came here for cash cond(almost free) How Bout 2014 Britton, converted failed Starter (2nd round pick), Darren Oday (off waivers, Free) Brad Brach, considered DD best trade, A guy that never played above AA( Free). Givens came the following year (converted SS)  The Trade that is generally considered DD worst trade was Andrew Miller, although He did help us win the Detroit series and provided 1.0 WAR that season while costing us ED Rod, who provided Boston with 14 plus war( we got fleeced) be careful about over paying for relievers.

[Sports Guy]

 

[eddie83]

13 hours ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

Was adding Vieira to the MLB roster judicious?  Unless Vieira is pitching in a blowout (preferably one the O's are losing-it happens), someone will probably have to come in a get him out of the mess he has created.  Even if he has great upside, which I question, he's not worth overworking the bullpen for.  I don't think he has the kind of arm Fuji had. 

It’s the last spot in the pen. Not like they haven’t resurrected others careers. 
 

Have to see how long they give him. They make moves on the periphery all the time.