This is the kind of thing that drives me crazy

[Tony-OH]

26 minutes ago, Warehouse said:

 

That is a much better Baumeister than I saw with Aberdeen this year. Whatever the Rays did, they found something. Still, you have to give up something to get something and this team was in dire need of Eflin, so I still have no issues with him being traded. 

 

[oriolediehard]

I wish we had the Rays pitching scouts and coaches!!

[Frobby]

On the specific question of whether the O's push their starting pitching prospects' workloads far enough, I had a look at all MiL pitchers in the AL who had thrown at least 90 innings, by team, and broke them into groups of 90-99, 100-109, 110-119, and 120+ innings.   This chart summarizes my findings:

Team	120+	110-119	100-109	90-99	Total 90+	Total 110+
BAL	0	1	4	9	14		1
NYY	4	4	2	6	16		8
BOS	0	3	1	5	9		3
TBR	5	4	4	1	14		9
TOR	1	0	5	2	8		1
CLE	7	3	3	2	15		10
MIN	1	3	3	3	10		4
KCR	3	4	4	7	18		7
DET	0	2	4	7	13		2
CWS	2	3	5	4	14		5
HOU	1	4	6	6	17		5
SEA	4	6	3	4	17		10
TEX	1	1	4	8	14		2
OAK	2	1	2	5	10		3
LAA	4	1	4	4	13		5
AL Ave.	2.33	2.67	3.60	4.87	13.47		5.00

Now, there is some incomplete information here.   It won't pick up a pitcher who had 70 innings with one organization and 20 with another, for example.  It doesn't pick up innings that were thrown in the major leagues, so it misses guys like Cade Povich who has 77 innings in the minors and another 59 in the majors.  It obviously can't tell you which organizations lost pitchers to injuries.  And, it doesn't account for the age and experience of pitchers, which can matter a lot with regard to how much workload a team is comfortable with for a pitcher.   

All that said, you can see that the Orioles are at the very bottom of the number of pitchers who have thrown 110+ innings.   They only have one, Alex Pham, who is at 115.   The average team has 5, and two teams have as many as 10.  The O's also are one of only three AL teams that have no pitcher who has thrown 120 innings.  The average team has 2.33, and Cleveland has 7.    I might also add that there are a good number of pitchers on the list who have thrown 130+ innings or more.   

On the other hand, the O's have a pretty normal number of pitchers (14) who have thrown at least 90 innings (average was 13.47 and the median was 14).  There are some teams like Boston and Toronto who have a lot fewer than that.

All in all, I wouldn't say the Orioles are at the very top of the "baby the pitchers" list, but they are certainly leaning heavily in that direction, based on this data (with the caveats I gave above).

Edited September 6 by Frobby

[Frobby]

Another thing I should say is that my chart doesn't speak to pitch efficiency or how may pitches teams allow their pitchers to throw.   That data isn't easily collected.   But it could be that O's pitchers don't throw a ton of innings because they walk a lot of guys and reach their pitch count limits sooner than a typical team's pitchers do.

[Can_of_corn]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

That is a much better Baumeister than I saw with Aberdeen this year. Whatever the Rays did, they found something. Still, you have to give up something to get something and this team was in dire need of Eflin, so I still have no issues with him being traded. 

 

I have no issues with the trade itself but it's a bit disheartening how quickly these guys have improved with new teams.

Edited September 6 by Can_of_corn

[Tony-OH]

14 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Another thing I should say is that my chart doesn't speak to pitch efficiency or how may pitches teams allow their pitchers to throw.   That data isn't easily collected.   But it could be that O's pitchers don't throw a ton of innings because they walk a lot of guys and reach their pitch count limits sooner than a typical team's pitchers do.

Nice work on the chart, but I do think the pitch limits are more notable than innings since all innings are not the same. but as you said, I can't imagine that being an easy workload to gather that data.

[Frobby]

8 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Nice work on the chart, but I do think the pitch limits are more notable than innings since all innings are not the same. but as you said, I can't imagine that being an easy workload to gather that data.

It could be done, if I were willing to look at the game logs of the 202 pitchers who've thrown 90+ innings.   Yeah, not happening.

[Allan Bryant]

14 hours ago, Grt 2BA FL Gator said:

I agree with the first two questions and agree that this offseason will be big for the middle one. The Kimbrel move has been a failure as far as FA and we really haven’t dabbled much there yet.  

This offseason we’ve got a new owner and any governors that existed before (which we know with Angelos family there always was) should be off.

I love the hitters we’ve developed and the overall talent that has come through. And if we want to leverage our strength and trade from it, I’m good with that too. We just need more pitching all the way around and hope that Elias is reflective and creative on how to get that done. 

Most of what you said , I agree with you on .  As for your Kimbel comment , I can’t say it is great or even good move .  Kimmel does have long and successful career, however by the time he arrived here , his skills declined unfortunately . 
I do share your thoughts about how Elias will procure more much needed pitching talent for our team.  Governor Wes seems work well with Orioles future plans and Rubenstein’s financial resources should help Elias expand his options to keep Orioles best players and keep the pipeline flowing simultaneously . 

[Aristotelian]

9 hours ago, Frobby said:

On the specific question of whether the O's push their starting pitching prospects' workloads far enough, I had a look at all MiL pitchers in the AL who had thrown at least 90 innings, by team, and broke them into groups of 90-99, 100-109, 110-119, and 120+ innings.   This chart summarizes my findings:

Team	120+	110-119	100-109	90-99	Total 90+	Total 110+
BAL	0	1	4	9	14		1
NYY	4	4	2	6	16		8
BOS	0	3	1	5	9		3
TBR	5	4	4	1	14		9
TOR	1	0	5	2	8		1
CLE	7	3	3	2	15		10
MIN	1	3	3	3	10		4
KCR	3	4	4	7	18		7
DET	0	2	4	7	13		2
CWS	2	3	5	4	14		5
HOU	1	4	6	6	17		5
SEA	4	6	3	4	17		10
TEX	1	1	4	8	14		2
OAK	2	1	2	5	10		3
LAA	4	1	4	4	13		5
AL Ave.	2.33	2.67	3.60	4.87	13.47		5.00

Now, there is some incomplete information here.   It won't pick up a pitcher who had 70 innings with one organization and 20 with another, for example.  It doesn't pick up innings that were thrown in the major leagues, so it misses guys like Cade Povich who has 77 innings in the minors and another 59 in the majors.  It obviously can't tell you which organizations lost pitchers to injuries.  And, it doesn't account for the age and experience of pitchers, which can matter a lot with regard to how much workload a team is comfortable with for a pitcher.   

All that said, you can see that the Orioles are at the very bottom of the number of pitchers who have thrown 110+ innings.   They only have one, Alex Pham, who is at 115.   The average team has 5, and two teams have as many as 10.  The O's also are one of only three AL teams that have no pitcher who has thrown 120 innings.  The average team has 2.33, and Cleveland has 7.    I might also add that there are a good number of pitchers on the list who have thrown 130+ innings or more.   

On the other hand, the O's have a pretty normal number of pitchers (14) who have thrown at least 90 innings (average was 13.47 and the median was 14).  There are some teams like Boston and Toronto who have a lot fewer than that.

All in all, I wouldn't say the Orioles are at the very top of the "baby the pitchers" list, but they are certainly leaning heavily in that direction, based on this data (with the caveats I gave above).

The leaders in the 110+ club are CLE, SEA, and TB, some teams with pretty strong record of developing pitchers. However, there could be a correlation/causation issue, i.e. these clubs may draft more elite pitchers who are ready to throw more innings.

[foxfield]

On 9/4/2024 at 11:39 AM, Tony-OH said:

Do you really think anyone is basing their opinions ONLY on these two pitchers after they were traded?

It's valid to question the Orioles pitching drafting and development because they have never drafted and developed a major league pitcher and Elias has been drafting since 2019. 

The Orioles keep their pitchers on very strict pitch and innings counts, but still are having just as many injuries as any other minor league organization. These are just facts, not opinions.

Tony

Of course it is valid to question the Orioles pitching  drafting and development. It’s obvious there is a lag in both. 
 

But I think we make too much of it. It’s like criticizing the lack of a WS title.  If that never comes it will certainly be a valid criticism. But in rebuilding completely from the ground up it is clear they focused more on a foundation of player talent. 
 

I think going forward more focus should be seen in this area just as we should rightfully expect more success in the post season. 
 

If drafting stays the exact same for another 5 years he won’t be here imho. I join you and everyone else in hoping to see more pitching success from inhouse. But I am also more than comfortable in where we are today. 

[RZNJ]

21 minutes ago, foxfield said:

Tony

Of course it is valid to question the Orioles pitching  drafting and development. It’s obvious there is a lag in both. 
 

But I think we make too much of it. It’s like criticizing the lack of a WS title.  If that never comes it will certainly be a valid criticism. But in rebuilding completely from the ground up it is clear they focused more on a foundation of player talent. 
 

I think going forward more focus should be seen in this area just as we should rightfully expect more success in the post season. 
 

If drafting stays the exact same for another 5 years he won’t be here imho. I join you and everyone else in hoping to see more pitching success from inhouse. But I am also more than comfortable in where we are today. 

Elias went into this draft knowing he had young positional depth pretty much set for the next 5 years.   He also knew he would probably have to give up young pitching at the deadline.   We didn’t draft our first pitcher until the 4th round.    If he didn’t change his philosophy this year what makes you think he will in future years?

He clearly believes he can replenish the pitching without prioritizing it in the draft.   We will see.

[foxfield]

1 hour ago, RZNJ said:

Elias went into this draft knowing he had young positional depth pretty much set for the next 5 years.   He also knew he would probably have to give up young pitching at the deadline.   We didn’t draft our first pitcher until the 4th round.    If he didn’t change his philosophy this year what makes you think he will in future years?

He clearly believes he can replenish the pitching without prioritizing it in the draft.   We will see.

That is certainly an argument.  But that would be like saying you have the #1 Farm system so keep doing the exact same thing.  It doesn't work like that.  I think many people are shorting how unlikely it has been to hit on so many prospects in a big way.  All have not, and to be honest Holiday Mayo and Basallo still have more to prove as does Kjerstad.  

But the Orioles have had a huge hit list in 5 years.  Yes many were high picks.  But many names that went around our guys are not here.  With the obvious exception of Witt.  All of that said I do agree with you that he has so far not prioritized pitching.  I do not agree that automatically means that continues forever.  It has been a choice and with the possible exception of this year...it's been a pretty good one.

[Aristotelian]

Seth Johnson on the Phillies' "philosophy": Orioles are data driven, Phillies are more "old school". I don't get much out of this but it's a data point.

https://www.nbcsportsphiladelphia.com/mlb/philadelphia-phillies/seth-johnson-mlb-debut-phillies-orioles-trade/613582/

“I think the big thing is that Baltimore is very data-based,” he said. “Here’s a nice blend of the numbers and baseball strategy. Kind of old school. And I’ve been really enjoying it so far. For me, it’s kind of simplified everything. Concentrating on basic concepts like moving the fastball around. Not worrying about pitch shapes all the time. Just going out here and trying to pitch.”

[EddeeEddee]

On 9/4/2024 at 8:44 AM, HowAboutThat said:

Exactly. If you have to surrender your few worthwhile pitching prospects in order to get something back that you need, doesn’t that indicate that the overall strategy is flawed?
 

i’m sure it’s way too early to think about next year‘s draft, but we’re going to have four choices in the first three rounds.

here’s hoping for fresh wisdom in those choices

I doubt solid MLB pitchers can be acquired just by trading position players the vast majority of the time.  Look at how we acquired Bradish and Povich -- by trading solid (at the time anyway) MLB level pitchers.  In those trades we were on the other end, but we forced teams to trade good young pitchers for Bundy and Lopez respectively.  Now we did acquire McDermott and Seth Johnson by trading Trey Mancini.  So it does happen that pitching can sometimes be acquired trading only a position player, but Mancini had had a strong major league career to that point.  My point is I don't think you can expect to acquire pitching only by trading position players -- but if you can it may need to be a strong veteran that is not easy to part with.

Perhaps we could acquire Tarik Skubal for just Jackson Holliday -- or Holliday plus one or two other strong position prospects.  But that would be a whole other level of a blockbuster trade.

Also, I'm not sure how we can say the system is bereft of homegrown minor league pitching talent and then complain that we traded Baumeister and Chace -- two homegrown minor league pitchers that everyone here seems to agree are talented.  We can criticize the trade, but clearly there was and probably still are some desirable arms in the system that we'd rather not trade.  No, none of the ones Elias drafted have made it to the bigs yet, but maybe those two would have been among the first.  

 

[EddeeEddee]

1 hour ago, Aristotelian said:

Seth Johnson on the Phillies' "philosophy": Orioles are data driven, Phillies are more "old school". I don't get much out of this but it's a data point.

https://www.nbcsportsphiladelphia.com/mlb/philadelphia-phillies/seth-johnson-mlb-debut-phillies-orioles-trade/613582/

“I think the big thing is that Baltimore is very data-based,” he said. “Here’s a nice blend of the numbers and baseball strategy. Kind of old school. And I’ve been really enjoying it so far. For me, it’s kind of simplified everything. Concentrating on basic concepts like moving the fastball around. Not worrying about pitch shapes all the time. Just going out here and trying to pitch.”

Interesting.  We live in a data obsessed world now but it's not the answer to everything.  There should be a mix.