Bat to Ball Skills - I thought that' what we were drafting and developing

[Sanity Check]

Am I wrong, or maybe remembering incorrectly?  I though we were drafting for premier bat to ball skills that we could develop further.  I'm not seeing it.....well, okay, I see it only up to the AAA level, but after that, we have significant issues.

I'm sure some will tell me I need to be patient, but let's face it, how many of our guys are seemingly getting worse, and not better?  I'm seeing regression, not progression.  I see all the excuses on here about fans needing to have patience, learning curves, adjustments and how tired our guys must be having played so much during this long season.

Why isn't Bobby Witt, Jr. regressing or showing fatigue?  Or Jackson Merrill?  Or, Jackson Churio?  We had the #1 prospects in baseball the last two, or three years?  Henderson, Cowser and Holliday, right?  Henderson was beast for a while, but he's been inconsistent since April/May.  I can't honestly say that I think he's getting better.  The others - Cowser, Holliday, Mayo and to an extent, Rutschman are not progressing like others in the game are.  The jury is still out on Kjerstad, in my opinion.   They are not getting better as the season goes on.  They are not "figuring it out."  Okay, maybe I'm a bit too early - a year, maybe two from being able to honestly assess this, but I don't think I'm too early to be concerned that our guys  - almost to a man - don't seem to be getting better, while I see other young players on other teams, playing just as much and actually getting better.

I know it's not a popular thing around here to be negative, but please, tell me what I'm missing here? 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Sanity Check said:

Am I wrong, or maybe remembering incorrectly?  I though we were drafting for premier bat to ball skills that we could develop further.  I'm not seeing it.....well, okay, I see it only up to the AAA level, but after that, we have significant issues.

I'm sure some will tell me I need to be patient, but let's face it, how many of our guys are seemingly getting worse, and not better?  I'm seeing regression, not progression.  I see all the excuses on here about fans needing to have patience, learning curves, adjustments and how tired our guys must be having played so much during this long season.

Why isn't Bobby Witt, Jr. regressing or showing fatigue?  Or Jackson Merrill?  Or, Jackson Churio?  We had the #1 prospects in baseball the last two, or three years?  Henderson, Cowser and Holliday, right?  Henderson was beast for a while, but he's been inconsistent since April/May.  I can't honestly say that I think he's getting better.  The others - Cowser, Holliday, Mayo and to an extent, Rutschman are not progressing like others in the game are.  The jury is still out on Kjerstad, in my opinion.   They are not getting better as the season goes on.  They are not "figuring it out."  Okay, maybe I'm a bit too early - a year, maybe two from being able to honestly assess this, but I don't think I'm too early to be concerned that our guys  - almost to a man - don't seem to be getting better, while I see other young players on other teams, playing just as much and actually getting better.

I know it's not a popular thing around here to be negative, but please, tell me what I'm missing here? 

Wrong, Adley, Henderson and Holliday.

I don't recall Mayo ever making it to #1 on a list, if he did it was for a mid-season list update.

[Sanity Check]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Wrong, Adley, Henderson and Holliday.

I don't recall Mayo ever making it to #1 on a list, if he did it was for a mid-season list update.

Thanks for the fact check.  Regardless, it doesn't detract from the main point of my topic.....they were ALL still VERY highly regarded and are underperforming expectations, and showing signs of regression - extended regression, not just a slump - and that's my concern.

[Aristotelian]

14 minutes ago, Sanity Check said:

 

I know it's not a popular thing around here to be negative, but please, tell me what I'm missing here? 

Negativity is super popular. Have you been reading lately? 

On the bright side, Gunnar is doing OK. Westburg was progressing steadily until the injury. Kjerstad has looked solid. 

As for other teams, Julio Rodriguez has been a disaster for the Mariners, Evan Carter bombed and Wyatt Langford has been meh. 

Some players progress, some don't, and it's not a linear process.

[Spy Fox]

I think the "not improving" idea is buoyed by some recency bias. Year over year, we've got Gunnar .814->.910, Westburg .715->.815, Cowser .433->.756. Kjerstad, Mayo, and Holliday haven't found their big league footing, but all spent most of the year at AAA and did better there than they did last year. Milder praise, but still not a given. Rutschman is the only one of the group who categorically took a step back this year. 

I do think there's something to be questioned with how several of these guys (Cowser, Holliday, Mayo namely) have not just struggled but been downright awful in their first season of MLB exposure. To me the Holliday/Mayo flops have been the biggest disappointment of the year, or at least right there with the pitching injuries. 

[Jim'sKid26]

Recency bias:

"Is a common distorting effect within systems of performance appraisal. It refers to the appraiser assessing employee performance, not on work undertaken across the full performance management cycle, but only on recent events or activities that can be readily recalled. Recency bias can be countered by keeping a record of appraisee performance over the full period of work that is being appraised."

https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100407676

[Sanity Check]

Interesting.  When is it no longer considered "recency?"  I can check back at that time and we'll see if my concern was warranted.

Serious question - which ones of Henderson, Rutschman, Cowser, Kjerstad, Holliday and Mayo have exceeded your expectations since coming up?

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Sanity Check said:

Interesting.  When is it no longer considered "recency?"  I can check back at that time and we'll see if my concern was warranted.

Serious question - which ones of Henderson, Rutschman, Cowser, Kjerstad, Holliday and Mayo have exceeded your expectations since coming up?

Henderson and Westburg.

Are we supposed to think a guy putting up a nine win season isn't exceeding expectations?

[SilverRocket]

4 minutes ago, Sanity Check said:

Interesting.  When is it no longer considered "recency?"  I can check back at that time and we'll see if my concern was warranted.

Serious question - which ones of Henderson, Rutschman, Cowser, Kjerstad, Holliday and Mayo have exceeded your expectations since coming up?

Henderson has a 1.139 OPS in September, after two unexciting but not terrible months, following an MVP-level first half. He is having literally the best Orioles season since Cal's MVP year in 1991. There've been only three better Oriole seasons from 1970 onwards and they were all from Cal. What were you expecting?

[EddeeEddee]

17 minutes ago, Sanity Check said:

Interesting.  When is it no longer considered "recency?"  I can check back at that time and we'll see if my concern was warranted.

Serious question - which ones of Henderson, Rutschman, Cowser, Kjerstad, Holliday and Mayo have exceeded your expectations since coming up?

It's not possible for any of them to exceed expectations because we're all wrongly expecting them to play like Hall of Famers at any given point in their careers.  

However, I will say Cowser has exceeded my expectations to some degree.  Many analysts predicted he would be a bust.  He certainly has some things to work through but he has been pretty impressive in his rookie year.

And how could Henderson not have at least met anyone's expectations?  He wasn't even drafted in the first round and he's eclipsed the O's SS home run record in his first full season.  You're disappointed only because he's not the best performing SS in the league at the moment. 

[Aristotelian]

35 minutes ago, Sanity Check said:

Interesting.  When is it no longer considered "recency?"  I can check back at that time and we'll see if my concern was warranted.

Serious question - which ones of Henderson, Rutschman, Cowser, Kjerstad, Holliday and Mayo have exceeded your expectations since coming up?

Henderson Rutschman (aside from current slump) and Westburg have all exceeded. Cowser and Kjerstad have been about what I expected (although Cowser has been both better and worse.at times). Too early to tell on Mayo and Holliday.

[allquixotic]

Gunnar isn't the problem. Gunnar is the reason we're no worse off than 3 games out of first place. The reason we're not in first is the injury and/or disappointing performance of Bautista, Means, Bradish, Wells, Westburg, Mateo, Mountcastle, Rutschman, Holliday, Jimenez, Akin, Baker, Slater, Soto, Soto, and Kimbrel.

This is a team-wide outage. That either points to bad coaching or bad training/preparation. Or both.

[Sanity Check]

2 hours ago, SilverRocket said:

Henderson has a 1.139 OPS in September, after two unexciting but not terrible months, following an MVP-level first half. He is having literally the best Orioles season since Cal's MVP year in 1991. There've been only three better Oriole seasons from 1970 onwards and they were all from Cal. What were you expecting?

I was expecting the majority of the other guys to not suck.  Hitting on one, or two of these 7 talents is not a recipe for success.

Yes, I will gladly take what Henderson has done.  As a group, the group has underperformed, despite the cherry-picking of a player or two.

[SilverRocket]

1 minute ago, Sanity Check said:

I was expecting the majority of the other guys to not suck.  Hitting on one, or two of these 7 talents is not a recipe for success.

Yes, I will gladly take what Henderson has done.  As a group, the group has underperformed, despite the cherry-picking of a player or two.

Henderson has far exceeded expectations. Rustchman and Cowser has met them (Rutschman below this year but overall in his career he has been what I expected). I expected more from Kjerstad. Holliday and Mayo are below expectation, but I wasn't really expecting to rely on them in 2024 and was thinking their real impact would be in 2025.

So as a group I would say they've met expectation, and I didn't expect Henderson to already put up a season better than Machado ever had, and better than most of Cal's years.

[Frobby]

Re bat to ball skills: the O’s have fewer strikeouts than the average team, and a better batting average than the average team.  Their bat to ball skills are fine.  

The offense has slumped for about a month.  Some of that is injuries, some of that is just individual players slumping.  Despite that slump, the team is 5th in MLB in runs/game, 2nd in OPS+

Believe me, I’m just as frustrated as you with the ill-timed slump of our offense.   Wish it was over yesterday.  But a bad month doesn’t define how the team has hit this season.