I seem to remember all those guys we got at the tail end of their careers. Ron Kittle, Lonnie Smith, Harold Reynolds, Sid Fernandez, Roger McDowell... woof.
I don't think the FO has ever made that sort of information public. Elias ducked the question when asked in early 2023 and only said, "People are, for better or worse, going to have to get used to [Brandon Hyde] and I here for a while."
If Orioles go 12-12 in their final 24 games (which feels like an enormous ask right now), the records required for each team to finish ahead (incl tiebreakers) are:
TBR: 25-1
Sea: 23-2
Det: 22-2
Bos: 22-3
KC: 17-7
Min: 18-8
Hou: 16-9
Cle: 13-12
NYY: 12-13 or 13-12 (Orioles need 1 win in final 3 vs NYY to clinch tiebreaker)
The same tiebreakers (assuming any are 2-way TBs) apply to division championships, seeding among division champions, and wild card seeding.
The minimum I'd like to see from the Orioles is a #4 seed where at least they would get to play 3 games at home. I believe 12-12 is about 75-85% likely to get that done.
Once they drafted Honeycutt, I was hopeful. That’s about it. Before the draft I went over all of the reasons why I didn’t want him, which include the fact that his freshman and junior years are nearly identical, statistically, which shows me a guy who made very little progress,in 3 years. If he hits, great pick. I said he was a tease, because you can dream on everything coming together but it’s a longshot that everything will come together. It’s more dream than anything else.
He struck out 29% as a freshman. He struck out 27.4% as a junior. I don’t see that as progress. Now, maybe the Orioles really do have magic pixie hitters dust but it didn’t seem to work on Zach Watson, Mac Horvath, or Jud Fabian who all have similar profiles to Honeycutt as toolsy outfielders with hit/contact concerns.
As to the pitchers, how many mid to high 90’s pitchers with Brecht’s stuff and control issues have the Orioles even drafted? I think the answer is zero. They seem to like to take guys in later rounds who had all kinds of issues in college and turn them into something. Why not Brecht? I guess we’ll find out.
As I said my first choice was top HS on the board. The Dodgers drafted next after us and took Kellon Lindsay, a speedy SS who might develop power. I’ll root for Honeycutt to be great but my uneasy feeling is that we’re looking at Fabian II or worse.
Look at you, manipulating those stats to make it look like Burnes didn’t actually get a loss hung on him by the lowly White Sox.
I mean, sure, we won the game. And he had a quality start. And left in line for the win. But those are just facts, so how much can they possibly mean when stacked up against some guy’s impressions and recollections?
The notion that the White Sox are surely going to beat up on Burnes — or that he’s more likely to get smacked around than Povich — seems more than a little goofy.
The White Sox have now scored more than 4 runs one time in their last 15 games. And even in that one game, they only scored 2 off the starter (managing to ambush a reliever for 4 late runs, with the help of an error). They’re averaging 2.2 runs per game during this span.
So I don’t think it’s particularly “likely” that they smack anyone around. But if they do, wouldn’t you have to bet on it being Povich?
Burnes has had a lot of trouble…but that’s been against BOS, HOU, and LAD, who are 3 of the 10 best offenses in MLB. The White Sox are the worst, by a mile. In fact, they’re the worst offense this century. Doesn’t make much sense to extrapolate Burnes’s outcomes against those quality hitting teams and apply them to the group he’s going to see tomorrow.
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