O's Acquire Thyago Vieira

[accinfo]

21 minutes ago, Philip said:

 Yes, we won, but as fans, we’d rather have won 11-0 than 11-3, and everyone who has ever been happy about that single run in the ninth to spoil the opposition’s shutout would agree.

 

Please don’t speak for this fan.  I don’t care if we win 11-0 or 11-3.

[DirtyBird]

7 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

 

The biggest development out of this is that we probably don’t see Vespi on the shuttle again for a bit because he’s already been optioned 4 times this year. The next time would be 5, meaning he’d have to clear waivers. So get ready for Matt Krook, or Kaleb Ort. 

 

 

[Malike]

1 minute ago, DirtyBird said:

 

We lost another great one!

[Billy F-Face3]

It is a travesty how Nick Vespi gets treated. He is way better than projects like Veira or Yohan Ramirez. He's more reliable than Fujinami was too. 

[DirtyBird]

3 minutes ago, Billy F-Face3 said:

It is a travesty how Nick Vespi gets treated. He is way better than projects like Veira or Yohan Ramirez. He's more reliable than Fujinami was too. 

Easy there, F-Face

[Frobby]

34 minutes ago, Philip said:

I don’t think you read my whole comment.  I said the game realistically wasn’t at risk.
As a fan I want the 11-0 shutout. The Boston fans are able to say,” At least we didn’t get shut out.” That’s why we are always happy to get a meaningless ninth inning run to spoil the shutout when we’re getting whammed. There’s even a term for it; “an FU run.” Yes, we won, but as fans, we’d rather have won 11-0 than 11-3, and everyone who has ever been happy about that single run in the ninth to spoil the opposition’s shutout would agree.

As GM, Mike doesn’t care about an individual game. I made that clear. He wanted to see what Viera could do. My entire point during this exchange is that he already basically knows what to expect from Viera, and it’s not good.

If he wants to try to fix what is wrong, fine. DFA him and send him to AA or AAA and let him work, and if he doesn’t make it through waivers, oh, well. But don’t put him on the 26 and let him try to fix his problems in games that count.

Ive already said that Viera shouldn’t have been on the 26, but given that he was, Mike was obviously willing to give Viera a chance at a live audition. 

What this boils down to is that you looked at Vieira’s past stat sheet and, sight unseen, judged that he wasn’t a major league quality pitcher.   But at the professional level, GMs are looking at a lot more data and information than that, and take calculated risks that guys can be improved.   I’d say those calculated risks on guys like Vieira work out less than half the time, but when they do, they can pay off big.  I don’t think it’s irresponsible for a GM to do that in a careful way.  I mean, Yennier Cano was 28 years old and had a major league ERA of 9.22 when we traded for him.  In his first appearance for us he allowed 7 earned runs in 1.2 innings.   Was it an irresponsible decision to put him on the major league roster, or give him two more appearances that season?  Was it irresponsible to bring him back up the next year despite his 11.58 ERA in 2022?

[Frobby]

24 minutes ago, accinfo said:

Please don’t speak for this fan.  I don’t care if we win 11-0 or 11-3.

I care.  I’d rather we’d had a shutout.  But I don’t care enough to think it was a bad idea to use Vieira in that spot.   That’s the perfect time to try a guy like that.  

[RZNJ]

8 minutes ago, Billy F-Face3 said:

It is a travesty how Nick Vespi gets treated. He is way better than projects like Veira or Yohan Ramirez. He's more reliable than Fujinami was too. 

 

[luismatos4prez]

7 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

The biggest development out of this is that we probably don’t see Vespi on the shuttle again for a bit because he’s already been optioned 4 times this year. The next time would be 5, meaning he’d have to clear waivers. So get ready for Matt Krook, or Kaleb Ort. 

I bet we see Luis Gonzalez next. A guy from the Mexican League who was out of affiliated ball for a couple years (kind of like Cesar Valdez, Albert Suarez, and Miguel Gonzalez). He's 32 with a 3.15 ERA, 2.08 FIP in 20 IP in Norfolk.

[RZNJ]

16 minutes ago, DirtyBird said:

 

I did not know Caleb Ort was even on the 40 man.  For guys with ML experience Ort and Baker have been embarrassingly bad at Norfolk.

Edited May 28 by RZNJ

[Warehouse]

7 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

The biggest development out of this is that we probably don’t see Vespi on the shuttle again for a bit because he’s already been optioned 4 times this year. The next time would be 5, meaning he’d have to clear waivers. So get ready for Matt Krook, or Kaleb Ort. 

I believe the Spring training option an “27th man” option don’t count against the limit, so he’s currently been optioned two times.

[Billy F-Face3]

I'm not optimistic about Viera, but I can also he sympathetic to an argument that says he and the pitching staff (including catchers) need to be more familiar wity each other before knowing what he's really going to do. You can't help a project improve his command within only 2 hours of meeting each other. 

The catchers need to learn his stuff, and the coaches need to be familiar with him as an athlete and a personality to know how to communicate.

I believe the comments Greg Olsen made during the broadcast when Drew French was visiting Viera on the mound yesterday.

Does that mean I think Viera will help us? Not really. But I could understand if they have him another shot because you can't coach a guy/call his pitches properly whom you just met a few minutes before the game for the 1st time.

[RZNJ]

If the problem is mechanical it’s going to be a tough fix.  Viera has a really unorthodox delivery.  It seems like a tough one for a pitching coach to break down and make adjustments.

[Philip]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

What this boils down to is that you looked at Vieira’s past stat sheet and, sight unseen, judged that he wasn’t a major league quality pitcher.   But at the professional level, GMs are looking at a lot more data and information than that, and take calculated risks that guys can be improved.   I’d say those calculated risks on guys like Vieira work out less than half the time, but when they do, they can pay off big.  I don’t think it’s irresponsible for a GM to do that in a careful way.  I mean, Yennier Cano was 28 years old and had a major league ERA of 9.22 when we traded for him.  In his first appearance for us he allowed 7 earned runs in 1.2 innings.   Was it an irresponsible decision to put him on the major league roster, or give him two more appearances that season?  Was it irresponsible to bring him back up the next year despite his 11.58 ERA in 2022?

Frobby, that’s a strawman. When we acquired Cano, we were a 100 loss team. If a guy is lousy on a lousy team, well that’s ok. If he’s lousy on a mediocre team that’s less OK but still OK. Back in the day we were throwing some pitiful guys and Buck constantly said,”this is who we have.”

Now we are expected to win 100 games, and roster spots to spend on terrible players. The guys we have now are BETTER. We don’t need dreadful guys with track records of lousy.

What it boils down to is that Mike saw a terrible set of statistics and decided to take a chance. Thats fine. 

But don’t put him on the 26.

I think this discussion has run its course, so I’m done for now.

Whether Viera is a “qualified major leaguer” or not depends on your definition of the term. But based on his overall performance, Viera has no place on this roster and never did, and couldn’t reasonably be expected to have performed significantly better than he did.

I’d rather have Vespi. He may be terrible too, but I’d give him the chance.

[Tony-OH]

4 hours ago, Philip said:

Well, we saw how THAT turned out.

I don’t think I’m being too hard on Mike, and I don’t think I’m being unreasonable, but I do stand by everything I said.

Putting Viera on the 26 man over Vespi, knowing his track record and how likely he was to fail, was irresponsible.

 

Eh, he still has Vespi and while I had very little hope that Vieira would be any good, I don't think anyone would think he wouldn't even be usable in a 11-0 game. He was here to be the mop up guy until they can DFA him and bring up another arm. the fact that they cleared a spot on the 40-man by DFAing Ort tells me they may be making another move for another last man type or a guy like McDermott or Strowd for a bullpen job. Saying that, they could give Matt Krook a look too.