Westburg/Urias activated

[Ceciltrav]

2 hours ago, allquixotic said:

The guys who helped us win in the first half coming back in time for the playoffs might move the needle for us having a successful playoff run (winning the WC). But we really need our starters and ideally Bautista.

You just don't know what you are going to get with Bautista when he is back?  Is it pre-injury Bautisa who knows?  TJ is tricky look at Means he never really fully recovered and he had to go under the knife again?  I hope he is good to go but people need to manage their expectations...

[LookitsPuck]

15 minutes ago, Ceciltrav said:

You just don't know what you are going to get with Bautista when he is back?  Is it pre-injury Bautisa who knows?  TJ is tricky look at Means he never really fully recovered and he had to go under the knife again?  I hope he is good to go but people need to manage their expectations...

Even if they make the playoffs, Bautista isn't going to make it back in time. I do think the O's can't go into next season assuming Bautista is going to be healthy or effective. They really need to acquire a couple bullpen arms and not keep getting folks off the scrap heap. And they can't rely on Soto or even Seranthony to have a key part of the pen. I think Elias has tremendously struck out with anything and everything Phillies bullpen pieces (Kimbrel, Soto, Seranthony). Seranthony has a 0.3 WAR in 22 games, Soto -0.2 in nearly all low leverage situations, and Kimbrel with a -1.1. And the O's are out double digit millions, Seth Johnson, Moises Chace, Austin Hays for what amounts to negative value across the 3 of them. That's...not great. 

Could things change in 2025 w/ Seranthony and Soto? Sure! I mean, Seranthony looks decent, but Soto is a situational arm who can be downright dominant or otherworldly incompetent. But Elias can not go into 2025 without picking up 2 reliable bullpen arms. 

[spiritof66]

This is the story, or part of the story, of the last two Orioles' seasons: trying to balance winning games and reaching the postseason (and, last year and and for a long time this year, a division title) with building for the future. However you balance those two, there is a risk of harming the team. The way the Orioles have been and are being built, relying on a bunch of young position players to blossom at around the same time, enhanced that risk.

Sometimes these two objectives line up pretty well, after weakening the team for a short time, as they did with Westburg, Henderson and Rutschman, and to a lesser degree Cowser. Sometimes the objectives don't fit together very well, as has been the case with Holliday and Mayo. The possibility of that misfit was, and is, inherent in the way this team was built. Maybe the harm to the team's overall performance from playing the young guys could have been reduced by better coaching or more effective communication with the coaches, but there was really no way for this team to avoid the problem.

[OriolesUpAndDowns]

I posted this in another thread as well. 

Does anybody trust Holliday on defense in the late innings of a playoff game?