The Difference between the O's and other Playoff teams

[bpilktree67]

I honestly think there is very little difference in most the teams that made the playoffs.  The most wins was 98 wins and there was 12 teams with 86 wins or more.  It also seems that many of the teams are on the same page with scouting and analytics now hitting wise.  Years back you had moneyball which the A’s used before anyone else.  Then the Astros and few teams started with analytics and seemed to be ahead of the rest of the league but they have caught up now imo.
 Now the move seems to be on launch angle and hitting homers by getting the ball in the air but that seems to be across the league.  Obviously some teams have more money and more talented players but the strategy seems about the same.  The main differences I see is in pitching in the playoffs which is bullpen games and using openers rather then a starter to go 7 innings and carry your team to win now a slight sign of trouble they are taking them out.  With all these short inning guys and pitching them in certain pockets we are seeing very little offense and the hitting with runners in scoring position has been awful.  It all comes down to RISP at bats and getting 1 or 2 big base hits in those situations.  We just haven’t been able to get those hits so far in short series.  

[Safelykept]

7 hours ago, Ripken said:

You mean like not letting Cowser face lefties all year, even though he hit them in the minors, and then having him take the biggest at bat of the entire season against a leftie?  

Someone is obsessed with L/R & R/L matchups, even in the face of reverse splits, to the detriment of the team.

???. Cowser took more swings against LF than any other LH hitter on the team ( not named  Henderson). He was one of the guys they did not platoon.

[sportsfan8703]

The difference is that those playoff teams actually realized it’s the playoffs and adapted their approach.

Maybe we add a vet or two just to add some vets, but I think the players stay the same. We just gotta grow up this offseason. 0-5 is what it is. We have to change as a team. 

[Chromehill]

39 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

The difference is that those playoff teams actually realized it’s the playoffs and adapted their approach.

Maybe we add a vet or two just to add some vets, but I think the players stay the same. We just gotta grow up this offseason. 0-5 is what it is. We have to change as a team. 

It would be nice to add a quality hitting RH bat to outfield who can play a solid CF.  He can platoon with Mullins allowing Cowser and   Kjerstad to play every day.

[Warehouse]

3 hours ago, Safelykept said:

???. Cowser took more swings against LF than any other LH hitter on the team ( not named  Henderson). He was one of the guys they did not platoon.

Cowser also wasn’t good against LHP, putting up a .660 OPS and 35% strikeout rate with expected stats and second half stats that were worse than that.  However, we needed either Cowser or Mullins to play CF.

[TommyPickles]

In fairness to Hyde, his pinch hitters had the best batting average in baseball this season. And it wasn't even close.

[Sports Guy]

Games get managed differently in the playoffs vs the reg season

[Warehouse]

I went and checked how we compared to other playoff teams in platooning and pinch-hitting during the playoffs.  I used the first two wildcard games as the sample to keep it apples to apples with the Orioles’ experience.  For the 8 wildcard teams, I counted the number of line-up changes from game 1 to game 2 and the number of pinch hit PAs and added them together.  For lineup changes, I didn’t consider batting order or positions, only the number of hitters that started game 1 but didn’t start game 2 (only McCann for the Orioles).

The Orioles were middle of the pack - 4th highest moves among the 8 wildcard teams.

#	Team	Lineup changes	Pinch hits PAs	Total
T1	Tigers	3	5	8
T1	Astros	1	7	8
3	Mets	1	6	7
4	Orioles	1	5	6
5	Royals	1	4	5
6	Braves	1	2	3
7	Brewers	1	1	2
8	Padres	0	0	0

For some additional context, only the Orioles and Tigers faced different-handed starters the first two games AND had opposing pitcher handedness change at least 5 times in those games.

Teams that faced same-hand starter both days:

Royals

Astros

Mets

Braves

 

Number times opposing pitcher handedness changed in game:

Astros - 8

Royals - 8

Orioles - 5

Tigers - 5

Mets - 4

Padres - 3

Braves - 2

Brewers - 1 

[gamiliel]

15 hours ago, Ripken said:

You mean like not letting Cowser face lefties all year, even though he hit them in the minors, and then having him take the biggest at bat of the entire season against a leftie?  

Someone is obsessed with L/R & R/L matchups, even in the face of reverse splits, to the detriment of the team.

Exactly!

[EddeeEddee]

The obvious difference between the O's and other playoff teams is the presence of highly paid position player veterans on the other teams.  Even Cleveland and Detroit have some.  Cleveland has a great one in Jose Ramirez and a not very good one in Andres Gimenez.  Detroit has a completely useless one in Javier Baez.  But of course Detroit has had some great ones in the past too, especially Miguel Cabrera.

And of course the Orioles have also had highly paid position player veterans in the past.  Sometimes it works out well like with Miguel Tejada, other times it blows up in your face like with Chris Davis (though really only Peter Angelos thought it was a good idea to give Davis that contract).

It just seems very difficult to win when your best players are only (or almost only) young players.  And by young I mean guys who have been in the league 3-4 years or less.  You never know how long they will take to develop, if they will have any setbacks, or if they will ever reach their potential.  

[Just Regular]

Kjerstad, Holliday, Mayo and Basallo all have question marks but in time I think they become everyday guys, maybe just for a short while in Kjerstad's case.     A good scenario is a set lineup 1-9 by the end of next season.

Elias' stack of LH bats has always needed to become successful enough against MLB LH middle relievers for his strategy to work, and the early season will be the lowest leverage for a perennial playoff contender.

If Basallo is the extension breakthrough, it can all be there Opening Day.

[Warehouse]

9 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

Kjerstad, Holliday, Mayo and Basallo all have question marks but in time I think they become everyday guys, maybe just for a short while in Kjerstad's case.     A good scenario is a set lineup 1-9 by the end of next season.

Elias' stack of LH bats has always needed to become successful enough against MLB LH middle relievers for his strategy to work, and the early season will be the lowest leverage for a perennial playoff contender.

If Basallo is the extension breakthrough, it can all be there Opening Day.

Basallo is not ready regardless of contract status.

[Just Regular]

2 minutes ago, Warehouse said:

Basallo is not ready regardless of contract status.

What is ready?     Primary position C - the 60 players with the most PA in 2024 - the 40th best wRC+ was 81, the 50th best was 62.    Today ZiPS 2025 forecasts him for 86.

I agree he would struggle, but some of my takeaway of the last couple years is the Orioles strategy of devising lesson plans in AAA to "fully" prepare a young bat for MLB pitchers is losing effectiveness.     He has triple the AAA games of Chourio and Merrill combined.

I think in 2024 we saw him kept at catcher, so in time there's the real life stuff of Adley Rutschman and Samuel Basallo having meetings together, and getting them started and our pitchers used to throwing to Basallo sometimes helps the club's 2025 postseason capabilities.

But sure, Roch will write a story in Sarasota he lacks James McCann's mastery of catcher defense, and for the initial 100 or 300 plate appearances he might be as bad as Judge or Holliday.     

The Orioles will probably control his 2031 season for Arb3, if Elias can't leverage him to get club options for much of the early 2030's and  prominent MLBPA members like Ryan Mountcastle, Grayson Rodriguez, Jordan Westburg and others aren't so irritated by the Orioles and other clubs behavior the rules stay mostly the same.     I believe these are rather clearly the best players, even if a club hasn't optimized its $$$/WAR rate of return.

[Safelykept]

On 10/11/2024 at 7:52 AM, Warehouse said:

Cowser also wasn’t good against LHP, putting up a .660 OPS and 35% strikeout rate with expected stats and second half stats that were worse than that.  However, we needed either Cowser or Mullins to play CF.

My response was to a post that stated You mean like not letting Cowser face lefties all year, even though he hit them in the minors, and then having him take the biggest at bat of the entire season against a leftie?  When was he not allowed to face LHP?

[Warehouse]

2 hours ago, Safelykept said:

My response was to a post that stated You mean like not letting Cowser face lefties all year, even though he hit them in the minors, and then having him take the biggest at bat of the entire season against a leftie?  When was he not allowed to face LHP?

He was allowed to face LHP.  My post wasn’t disagreeing with your post.  I was saying that not only did we let him face LHP, we let him do so despite not having much success against LHP. 

I was pushing back against the narrative that we needlessly platooned Cowser.  Not only did we not platoon him, there is a reasonable argument that we should have platooned more than we did.

We needed to play one of Mullins and Cowser in CF. Cowser mostly got the call vs. LHP because he was much better against LHP in the first half of the year, but this flipped in the second half.