Eloy Jimenez aquired

[dystopia]

17 minutes ago, maybenxtyr said:

I think the price was steep for Rogers, but it was still a necessary trade. I don't know what to expect for the rest of this season,  but I fully expect them to try to get him on track in 2025.

What was necessary about it?

[LookinUp]

2 hours ago, Roy Firestone said:

He might be good for a while, but long term it isn't likely he will be the player he once was. We have him on a little run right now, and I'm thrilled for him and us. But  it's not likely he'll suddenly lock in and recapture his past success over the course of a season.

He's in the top tier of MLB in exit velocity and barrel %. He routinely squares the baseball.

His stats stink because he hits so many ground balls. 

I have no idea how likely it is to fix this stuff, but the White Sox essentially trashed analytics. It's certainly possible that the O's can take a prime age player who still has excellent bat to ball skills and make a tweak that gets him back to the player he was before. 

This kind of reminds me of Verlander going to Houston. I'm not saying he has Verlander upside, but he has real upside and there's reason to believe he can achieve that again.

[Baseball fandom]

2 hours ago, Roy Firestone said:

So happy for Eloy who looked and sounded so grateful and joyful in the post game show yesterday. I hope he can keep it up, but there is a reason he was essentially dumped by the White Sox. Money. This late in the season Eloy is the 2024 version of Aaron Hicks. He might be good for a while, but long term it isn't likely he will be the player he once was. We have him on a little run right now, and I'm thrilled for him and us. But  it's not likely he'll suddenly lock in and recapture his past success over the course of a season.

Yeah but what is it with him saying they they they. Hey Eloy you are a Oriole now it's ok to say we. 

[Frobby]

4 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

I believe that Eloy is more respected around the league as a hitter than Mountcastle. Former all star. More of a vet. And just more physically imposing. 

The physically imposing stuff matters with arguing and the umps. 

Does an ump want to argue with Eloy or Jackson Holliday?  They don’t want that big dude in their face.

 

I think someone else pointed out that Jiménez is not a former all star.   I seriously doubt that any of the things you mentioned cause umpires to give him more respect than they give Mountcastle, and I certainly don’t think any extra respect they’d give him would somehow carry over to other batters in the lineup.  

I do think that Mountcastle chases more pitches out of the zone than Jimenez, and that hurts Mountcastle with getting borderline calls with umps.  Jimenez isn’t exactly selective, but he’s a bit more choosy than Mountcastle.  

Serious question: how often have you seen Jiménez play?   Personally, I’ve never seen him before the trade except for some subset of the 8 games he’s played against the Orioles in his career.  So he’s pretty much a blank slate to me.  

 

[Baseball fandom]

I felt like I was the lone wolf here on the Jimenez trade but I really liked the trade. I was hoping Baltimore will catch lightning in the bottle for this one time super sized prospect and maybe they have. When it was made I actually liked it better than the Rogers and Soto trades. I felt like they gave up too much in my opinion for those 2 struggling as bad as they were/are.

Edited August 5 by Baseball fandom

[maybenxtyr]

20 minutes ago, dystopia said:

What was necessary about it?

Do you believe that they had enough starting pitching to get through the rest of the season? 

 

Do you think he's going to pitch as poorly as he did in his first start the rest of the season? I don't. 

 

What about the toll on the BP having Suarez or Povich pitching? I fully expect Rogers to outperform either of those 2 for the rest of the season. 

 

 

[emmett16]

It’s nice to see him get some hits, but I’d hold on getting too excited.  Here are his 5 hits: 

102 @ 7 = single 

101 @ -11 = double 

73 @ 17 = single 

101 @ 12 = single 

94 @ 4 = single 

The only other ball he’s put in plays was 91 @ -13 = groundout. 
 

I’d say he’s been pretty lucky and that luck isn’t exactly sustainable.  He’s hit the ball well averaging 93.6 on his 6 balls in play so far.  But as you can see almost everything is on the ground or at a low trajectory(avg. LA 2.6).  I think he’s going to have some hot spells along with some cold frustrating periods.  I don’t really think our development team is going to change his swing in the short term to get the ball in the air more.  If he starts to strikeout a lot and if his avg. EV starts to drop he will become pretty useless.  
 

Ride the hot hand, but don’t be supposed if he hits a cold patch before long. 

 

 

 

 

 

[G54377]

If he put's balls in play and can do the little things (the Roy Firestone stuff), that would at least be a change of pace from all our other RH bats. 

[now]

4 minutes ago, G54377 said:

If he put's balls in play and can do the little things (the Roy Firestone stuff), that would at least be a change of pace from all our other RH bats. 

Good point... tho I certainly don't miss the Austin Hays version of putting ball in play (automatic DP).

[interloper]

17 minutes ago, Baseball fandom said:

I felt like I was the lone wolf here on the Jimenez trade but I really liked the trade. I was hoping Baltimore will catch lightning in the bottle for this one time super sized prospect and maybe they have. When it was made I actually liked it better than the Rogers and Soto trades. I felt like they gave up too much in my opinion for those 2 struggling as bad as they were/are.

I'm with you, I was a fan of the trade. We'll see how things progress, but for now he's been a good Westburg replacement in terms of a RH bat. Could all go south quickly, who knows, but I liked the low-risk gamble. 

[Frobby]

32 minutes ago, now said:

Good point... tho I certainly don't miss the Austin Hays version of putting ball in play (automatic DP).

More unnecessary Hays calumny.  Hays has hit into DP’s in 9.1% of his DP opportunities in his career, well below the major league average of 10.2%.   This year, he was at 3.5%, having hit into one DP all season.  If you’re going to bash a player after he’s gone, at least have a factual basis for it.

[dystopia]

58 minutes ago, maybenxtyr said:

Do you believe that they had enough starting pitching to get through the rest of the season? 

 

Do you think he's going to pitch as poorly as he did in his first start the rest of the season? I don't. 

 

What about the toll on the BP having Suarez or Povich pitching? I fully expect Rogers to outperform either of those 2 for the rest of the season. 

 

 

No I don’t think we had enough starting pitching, but I don’t think we should have allowed ourselves to get fleeced. Rogers is probably only going to be marginally better than Povich going forward. 

[LookitsPuck]

1 hour ago, Baseball fandom said:

I felt like I was the lone wolf here on the Jimenez trade but I really liked the trade. I was hoping Baltimore will catch lightning in the bottle for this one time super sized prospect and maybe they have. When it was made I actually liked it better than the Rogers and Soto trades. I felt like they gave up too much in my opinion for those 2 struggling as bad as they were/are.

I'm also in the pro-Eloy acquisition camp here. 

Mainly because it's low risk/high reward *relative to his role*. 

Everybody keeps wanting Coby Mayo, and rightfully so - but there's no guarantees: he'll hit, he'll field well enough to stick with the club the remainder of the year. And if we look at the rest of the club, the right hand hitting side of things has been lackluster especially since Austin Hays was traded. To that end, you keep Eloy out of the field and DH him, then there's up side. He's had multiple 10+ game stretches this year where he hit well. And if the O's see something correctable in his swing - and clearly statcast likes some of his characteristics - then there could potentially be more in the tank. He's only 27. 

He could be Aaron Hicks or Ryan O'Hearn turning things around with the O's. Or he could be Jesus Aguilar. But there's so little risk, why wouldn't you pick him up? He's costing next to nothing this year, and I believe the White Sox are splitting the buyout next year if the O's don't pick up the team option.

Really pulling for him. Especially since the O's are down another RHH because of Westy.

[maybenxtyr]

34 minutes ago, dystopia said:

No I don’t think we had enough starting pitching, but I don’t think we should have allowed ourselves to get fleeced. Rogers is probably only going to be marginally better than Povich going forward. 

I was a big fan of Stowers, and I wanted Norby up getting the majority of starts at 2B, so I get where you're coming from. Both players have power potential but they both have a lot of swing and miss in their game. 

 

I didn't like the trade at the time but I've come around on it. There's no way of knowing how long this window will be open with the current group of players, but having at least 4 of the rotation spots accounted for moving forward has some value. 

[LookitsPuck]

47 minutes ago, dystopia said:

No I don’t think we had enough starting pitching, but I don’t think we should have allowed ourselves to get fleeced. Rogers is probably only going to be marginally better than Povich going forward. 

Yeah, I'm in this boat.

Here's the main thing:

• Povich has a higher upside, but comes with the risk of a rookie pitcher, and we saw how poorly Grayson and Bradish pitched in their first half year of their career
• Suarez might be gassed as he's pitched extremely poorly in his last 8 appearances: 6.88 ERA, 5.26 FIP, 914 OPS. 
• Irvin in his last 9 appearances was somehow worse than Suarez: 8.72 ERA, 6.10 FIP, 1.038 OPS

So, I think the Rogers acquisition was a desperation move. There were so many better options on the market. Rogers was at the bottom of the list for me. Is he better than Povich? At this moment? Yes. Is he better than a gassed Suarez? Yes. Is he better than a heavily regressed/potentially gassed Irvin? Yes.

But there's no denying just how terrible Rogers peripherals are. His Statcast is extremely poor...it looks a lot like Irvin's. His velocity is down. He has an injury history. He hasn't been good for years. I think Elias is just rolling the dice that Rogers previous 9 starts weren't a mirage/smoke and mirrors. It's very hard to find a glimmer of hope in his peripherals, though. 

So, I'm not optimistic that Rogers will be that much better than Povich/Suarez/Irvin. But maybe he'll go 5-6 IP and not be a complete trainwreck on most starts. 

Edited August 5 by LookitsPuck