RHH Outfield Targets

[Orioles0615]

2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

The Brent Rooker suggestion wasn’t a bad one.  But sure I would want to give up one of  but 3 prospects to get him.  Have to look into that more though.

A guy I really like is McCarthy in Arizona but he’s a lefty, so that doesn’t really solve our problem.

Right handed OFers that play good CF defense are really not readily available around the league.

If you just need a 4th OFer type guy, that’s a little easier to find.  If you need an everyday guy (because you traded Kjerstad or Mullins), it may be smarter to trade for a ML ready prospect.  Maybe some of your vets can get you that.

The problem there, of course, is that you are relying on another young, inexperienced player. 

I threw out Rooker in one thread I would be all over him if he is available 

[Cheetos]

You say that but yet every time someone says something about spending you condescendingly respond as if they advocating pinching pennies instead of spending wisely.  

[Warehouse]

8 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I think Tony just had a career year in a contract year and is unlikely to replicate it moving forward.  He went on a massive hot streak for two months this summer and everyone's in favor of bringing him back.  He's a fan favorite, I get it, but to pretend like his production is irreplaceable is silly.  

I disagree that Tony has the better bat.  Teoscar is a pipe dream, there's no real chance that we could get him.  But whatever, we're here and this is the argument.  Teoscar's 13.0 rWAR over the past 4 seasons is better than Tony's 8.0 rWAR over the same period.  

If people are going to harp on defense, fine.  But the WAR is the WAR, Teoscar has shown more value over time.  Even if you want to go fWAR, it's Teoscar at 12.3 over the past 4 seasons and Tony at 8.  

If people want to argue that there's more value with Tony because he's a switch hitter and that allows for some more lineup/matchup flexibility, that's fine, I won't argue against that either.  But Teoscar is the better player, he's been more valuable over time and that can't really be refuted.  

I think 3 years is the more relevant window. In that time, Teoscar has 8.3 fWAR vs. 8.2 fWAR for Tony, so basically a wash.  

In that window, Teoscar has had a .341 BABIP vs. a .257 for Tony.  If that gap normalizes, Tony’s value is going to be better.  

Further, Tony has much less swing-and-miss with a 20.5% strikeout rate over the past three years vs. 29.5% for Hernandez. Arguably, the team could stand to benefit from more contact and less hacking.

With Tony going into his age 30 season vs. Teoscar going into his age 32 season, the aging curve should be less harsh for Santander.  

Finally, as you concede, the switch hitting factor is important.  It allows us to always have an ideal matchup. However, it’s even important at Camden. It allows Tony to take 70-75% of his PAs from the left side with a short porch in right while the ability to hit from the right side mitigates the left-handed skew of the roster.  The WALL will hurt Teoscar’s numbers.  He hit 35 home runs this year but only 28 would out at Camden Yards.

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, Warehouse said:

I think 3 years is the more relevant window. In that time, Teoscar has 8.3 fWAR vs. 8.2 fWAR for Tony, so basically a wash.  

In that window, Teoscar has had a .341 BABIP vs. a .257 for Tony.  If that gap normalizes, Tony’s value is going to be better.  

Further, Tony has much less swing-and-miss with a 20.5% strikeout rate over the past three years vs. 29.5% for Hernandez. Arguably, the team could stand to benefit from more contact and less hacking.

With Tony going into his age 30 season vs. Teoscar going into his age 32 season, the aging curve should be less harsh for Santander.  

Finally, as you concede, the switch hitting factor is important.  It allows us to always have an ideal matchup. However, it’s even important at Camden. It allows Tony to take 70-75% of his PAs from the left side with a short porch in right while the ability to hit from the right side mitigates the left-handed skew of the roster.  The WALL will hurt Teoscar’s numbers.  He hit 35 home runs this year but only 28 would out at Camden Yards.

Well if you wanna move the goalposts...go right ahead.

Tony's got less swing and miss but Teoscar has the better OBP.  And while it's not great, it's better than what Tony brings to the table.  We need less swing and miss but we also need better OBP skills.

But if the Wall is always going to be a point of contention then there's no reason to talk about bringing in right handed bat with any kind of power if all we're going to do is throw up our hands and just go "well, the Wall..." at every given opportunity.  Are we really just going to throw in the towel for RHB power hitters because of the Wall all the time?

If that's the case, then we're just arguing which low power/no power RHB to get who can hit lefties relatively well and provide good defense.  At that point, Slater's acceptable.  

My final point on Tony is this:  Everyone here conveniently forgets how the posters here were fit to be tied with the way he started this season....which wasn't actually completely awful, a .715 OPS in April and a .708 in May.  Then the love affair began when he had a great June and July and of course quieted down when he flattened out to his career norms for the last two months of the season.

He had a great year overall, but that was on the strength of two months.  I'm not going to do the research but I don't think he'd ever put up back to back months like that in his career before.  Wanting Tony back is more emotional than anything as the 2.9 rWAR he put up can be replaced.  

That said, if he resigns for a 2-3 year deal at a good rate, I'm good with that, too.

 

 

[DrinkinWithFermi]

1 hour ago, Pickles said:

No, I get it.  I'm kind of asking you to defend something you didn't say.

I think Santander is probably gone, but if we could resign him for 3 years we should definitely explore that.

He's gone because he's pried himself out of our range; not because it's "time to move on."

I think there's a very good chance that one of the losers of the Soto sweepstakes will overpay Santander enough in terms of years or dollars or both that we (the sensible folks anyway) will be okay with his departure.

59 minutes ago, 24fps said:

Certainly Orioles fans on this message board.   But it's a self-selected and mutually reinforcing community so that outcome should be no surprise.

That's one way of framing it.

Not a good way, but a way.

43 minutes ago, Warehouse said:

In that window, Teoscar has had a .341 BABIP vs. a .257 for Tony.  If that gap normalizes, Tony’s value is going to be better.  

If that's the 3 year average, then I think it could be argued that it is already normalized, and Hernandez is a much faster runner than Santander so it should be expected that his BABIP will be much higher than Tony's.

[Warehouse]

21 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Well if you wanna move the goalposts...go right ahead.

Tony's got less swing and miss but Teoscar has the better OBP.  And while it's not great, it's better than what Tony brings to the table.  We need less swing and miss but we also need better OBP skills.

But if the Wall is always going to be a point of contention then there's no reason to talk about bringing in right handed bat with any kind of power if all we're going to do is throw up our hands and just go "well, the Wall..." at every given opportunity.  Are we really just going to throw in the towel for RHB power hitters because of the Wall all the time?

If that's the case, then we're just arguing which low power/no power RHB to get who can hit lefties relatively well and provide good defense.  At that point, Slater's acceptable.  

My final point on Tony is this:  Everyone here conveniently forgets how the posters here were fit to be tied with the way he started this season....which wasn't actually completely awful, a .715 OPS in April and a .708 in May.  Then the love affair began when he had a great June and July and of course quieted down when he flattened out to his career norms for the last two months of the season.

He had a great year overall, but that was on the strength of two months.  I'm not going to do the research but I don't think he'd ever put up back to back months like that in his career before.  Wanting Tony back is more emotional than anything as the 2.9 rWAR he put up can be replaced.  

That said, if he resigns for a 2-3 year deal at a good rate, I'm good with that, too.

 

 

To be clear, I wouldn’t necessarily advocate bringing back Tony.  My point was just that I view Tony and Teoscar as very similar players.  

I’d probably favor Tony between the two given age and switch-hitting/fit with Camden, but there are reasonable arguments to slightly favor Teoscar.  MLB.com, CBS, and MLB Trade Rumors all rank Tony high than Teoscar in their lists of top free agents, but a case can be made that this simply a reflection of Santander’s career year.

It’s going to be very difficult to get a RH hitter to sign here.  I think we may try to target someone via trade, possibly Taylor Ward or Lane Thomas.

[Can_of_corn]

1 hour ago, Warehouse said:

I think 3 years is the more relevant window. In that time, Teoscar has 8.3 fWAR vs. 8.2 fWAR for Tony, so basically a wash.  

In that window, Teoscar has had a .341 BABIP vs. a .257 for Tony.  If that gap normalizes, Tony’s value is going to be better.  

Further, Tony has much less swing-and-miss with a 20.5% strikeout rate over the past three years vs. 29.5% for Hernandez. Arguably, the team could stand to benefit from more contact and less hacking.

With Tony going into his age 30 season vs. Teoscar going into his age 32 season, the aging curve should be less harsh for Santander.  

Finally, as you concede, the switch hitting factor is important.  It allows us to always have an ideal matchup. However, it’s even important at Camden. It allows Tony to take 70-75% of his PAs from the left side with a short porch in right while the ability to hit from the right side mitigates the left-handed skew of the roster.  The WALL will hurt Teoscar’s numbers.  He hit 35 home runs this year but only 28 would out at Camden Yards.

Tony only hit 18 at home.

[e16bball]

O’s fans dumping Santander to sign Teoscar:

[DrinkinWithFermi]

28 minutes ago, e16bball said:

O’s fans dumping Santander to sign Teoscar:

I don't think we should sign either guy, but to play devil's advocate, Hernandez does hit for a much higher average, gets on base more, and steals way more bases than Santander due to his much better speed.

[Warehouse]

14 minutes ago, DrinkinWithFermi said:

I don't think we should sign either guy, but to play devil's advocate, Hernandez does hit for a much higher average, gets on base more, and steals way more bases than Santander due to his much better speed.

I agree on avg and stealing but their OBP has been pretty similar since 2022.

2022-2024, from Baseball Savant ML Search

	Tony	Teoscar
BB%	8.3	6.4
K%	20.5	29.6
BA	.244	.265
xBA	.242	.258
OBP	.315	.318
xOBP	.315	.313
wOBA	.340	.340
xwOBA	.333	.344
BABIP	.257	.341
ISO	.234	.209
Whiff	21.6	35.0

[Aristotelian]

4 minutes ago, DrinkinWithFermi said:

I don't think we should sign either guy, but to play devil's advocate, Hernandez does hit for a much higher average, gets on base more, and steals way more bases than Santander due to his much better speed.

Will be interesting to compare their contracts. All things equal I'd probably prefer Teoscar, but Santander is a great fit for our park. 

[OriolesMagic83]

3 hours ago, DrinkinWithFermi said:

Yeah, if they want him (or basically anyone else for that matter), he's theirs. Must be nice lol.

And I don't mind platoons, but everyday guys are pretty cool too. Shame we can't just sign Juan Soto, but this ain't MLB: The Show on Playstation.

I guess we could sign that Santander guy though...

You know what players like about the Dodgers?  How much money they're going to get paid.  

[eddie83]

3 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

You know what players like about the Dodgers?  How much money they're going to get paid.  

Yeah. I can’t see Orioles getting Hernandez regardless of whether he would be a fit or not. 

[e16bball]

6 minutes ago, DrinkinWithFermi said:

I don't think we should sign either guy, but to play devil's advocate, Hernandez does hit for a much higher average, gets on base more, and steals way more bases than Santander due to his much better speed.

I think it’s probably a strong sign that they’re basically the same player when one of the top differences you’re citing is that the guy with the .320 OBP over the last 3 years “gets on base more” than the guy with the .317 OBP.

Yes, they’re not identical. But…it’s still sorta like returning a couch because you really wanted a sofa.

[DrinkinWithFermi]

4 minutes ago, e16bball said:

I think it’s probably a strong sign that they’re basically the same player when one of the top differences you’re citing is that the guy with the .320 OBP over the last 3 years “gets on base more” than the guy with the .317 OBP.

Yes, they’re not identical. But…it’s still sorta like returning a couch because you really wanted a sofa.

And it was a 31 point difference here in 2024.

Or, using a different framing technique, a 16 point difference over the last 4 years.

Sticking with the 3 year sample size though, Hernandez hit for an average over 20 points higher than Santander and stole more than 3 times as many bases during that stretch.