Meoli on the 1st base situation

[Sports Guy]

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/sports/orioles-mlb/jon-meoli-orioles-first-base-offseason-ryan-mountcastle-WRDLJBG22VHFRHGHBJ3JGT66YM/

[Jim'sKid26]

Good article. Thanks for sharing.

Who are the Baltimore Orioles and are their young players good enough to win in 2025?

Mountcastle and O'Hearn are known quantities. Neither has the offensive upside of Mayo and Kjerstad. Mountcastle's defense at 1B is excellent, perhaps even GG caliber. Neither Silent J or O'Hearn are stellar defenders in RF. Mayo's defense at 1B is an unknown at this point.

If the Sigbot has a "crystal ball" function and can tell us if Heston and Coby will hit near their respective potentials in 2025 then that's the direction you take. You play the young guys.  If not, then all the kerfuffle over the draft strategy and not taking pitchers early seems rather hollow. 

Edited 2 hours ago by Jim'sKid26
spelling

[interloper]

It's a really tough nut to crack and I don't envy Elias' position here. 

I think there are a few different avenues they can take:

1. Keep the quality MLers in Mounty and O'Hearn and make Mayo earn his playing time again, or fill in for an injury.
2. Trade Mounty and push the chips in on Mayo as the strong side platoon at 1B. 
3. Trade Mounty and sign a veteran RH 1B, and make Mayo earn his playing time. 

I think any way you slice it, O'Hearn is back. He's too good of a pinch hitter and he can play a little RF when needed. He makes contact and takes good ABs, and is a respected veteran. 

But I also distinctly remember missing Mounty when he was hurt, so despite his power outage in 2024 he's still a quality bat. 

Really tough call. In the end I think they will go with #1 because it's the least risky. 

[Moose Milligan]

A good summary but doesn't tell us anything we haven't already thought of or discussed.

If I had to guess, I bet they get rid of O'Hearn but keep Mounty.  They're going to see how Mayo looks in ST.  They let Santander walk in free agency, Kjerstad takes his spot in the outfield.

 

[Jim'sKid26]

1 minute ago, Moose Milligan said:

A good summary but doesn't tell us anything we haven't already thought of or discussed.

If I had to guess, I bet they get rid of O'Hearn but keep Mounty.  They're going to see how Mayo looks in ST.  They let Santander walk in free agency, Kjerstad takes his spot in the outfield.

 

One thing he did not mention is the impact on the DH.

Adley will DH some against RHP. Does Mayo DH some against LHP? I would think so.

[Safelykept]

9 minutes ago, interloper said:

It's a really tough nut to crack and I don't envy Elias' position here. 

I think there are a few different avenues they can take:

1. Keep the quality MLers in Mounty and O'Hearn and make Mayo earn his playing time again, or fill in for an injury.
2. Trade Mounty and push the chips in on Mayo as the strong side platoon at 1B. 
3. Trade Mounty and sign a veteran RH 1B, and make Mayo earn his playing time. 

I think any way you slice it, O'Hearn is back. He's too good of a pinch hitter and he can play a little RF when needed. He makes contact and takes good ABs, and is a respected veteran. 

But I also distinctly remember missing Mounty when he was hurt, so despite his power outage in 2024 he's still a quality bat. 

Really tough call. In the end I think they will go with #1 because it's the least risky. 

Igo with #1 too. It's made easier As being a FA  and Mayo still needing time to develop AAA.

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

One thing he did not mention is the impact on the DH.

Adley will DH some against RHP. Does Mayo DH some against LHP? I would think so.

Probably.  I don't know if we have a full time DH next year, but I think we'll have a rotation of guys taking that spot, which is wrong, IMO.

Adley's OPS last year as a DH was .854 vs. .650 as a catcher.  

And that's not an outlier.  For his career, he's got an .859 OPS as a DH compared to .740 as a catcher.

The Orioles have to know this.  I know Adley won't want to give up catching, but that's his problem.  We should be able to all agree that he's not all-world behind the plate.  I'm in full favor of giving the majority of the at bats at DH to Adley and using him as a backup catcher instead of the primary and breaking him in at first base.  This assumes that we pick up a good defensive oriented catcher in free agency to be the primary and we'll see where Basallo is early next season.

I get it, no one saw Adley having these issues this early in his career, everyone thought that he'd be a stalwart at catcher for 10+ years.  But things don't always go as planned and if his bat is better when he's DHing, that's what it is.  

I don't care if he was the #1 overall pick as a catcher, I don't care if he's been an all-star, I don't care if he's a face of the franchise...the bat plays better when he's not behind the plate and the defense isn't great enough to warrant him staying back there.  

 

[Fiver6565]

There’s no way I’d go into 2025 with Mayo as the primary first baseman. If this was a couple years ago, sure roll with the kid. But the dude showed absolutely nothing at the plate in the majors. Like not even enough to bat ninth and just take his lumps for a little bit. Not saying that’s who he’ll always be, and I know SSS, but you can’t go into the year with a black hole there and expect to contend. Keep Mounty and O’Hearn, and make Mayo earn it. If and when he dies, great prob Allen to have. And if he doesn’t, we’ll at least you’ve got first base covered. 
 

The April games matter as much as the September ones. If we learned nothing else in 2024, we certainly learned that. I don’t trust Mayo one bit after the flailing I witnessed in September. 

[wildcard]

It's not a question of if Kjerstad, Holliday and Mayo play in the majors for the O's.  It's a question on when.    They all can't break in at the same time.   That is too risky for a contending O's team.

Santander goes FA and signs elsewhere.   So Kjerstad gets first shot at showing he can be a productive major leaguer in RF.    Holliday and Mayo are held at AAA to see how Kjerstad does.

Holliday goes 2nd probably sometime in May.    Mayo stay at AAA until Holliday show he can be a productive major leaguer at 2B.  

So Mounty and O'Hearn stay at 1B/DH until mid season when one can be traded to make room for Mayo.  

That is my guess.

[CTBear]

23 minutes ago, interloper said:

It's a really tough nut to crack and I don't envy Elias' position here. 

I think there are a few different avenues they can take:

1. Keep the quality MLers in Mounty and O'Hearn and make Mayo earn his playing time again, or fill in for an injury.
2. Trade Mounty and push the chips in on Mayo as the strong side platoon at 1B. 
3. Trade Mounty and sign a veteran RH 1B, and make Mayo earn his playing time. 

I think any way you slice it, O'Hearn is back. He's too good of a pinch hitter and he can play a little RF when needed. He makes contact and takes good ABs, and is a respected veteran. 

But I also distinctly remember missing Mounty when he was hurt, so despite his power outage in 2024 he's still a quality bat. 

Really tough call. In the end I think they will go with #1 because it's the least risky. 

A big reason Mounty was missed was his defense, especially with Gunnar’s accuracy issues at times. If Mayo can’t play better 1B defense than O’Hearn than I don’t see how we can afford to lose Mounty this year. 

[wildcard]

16 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Probably.  I don't know if we have a full time DH next year, but I think we'll have a rotation of guys taking that spot, which is wrong, IMO.

Adley's OPS last year as a DH was .854 vs. .650 as a catcher.  

And that's not an outlier.  For his career, he's got an .859 OPS as a DH compared to .740 as a catcher.

The Orioles have to know this.  I know Adley won't want to give up catching, but that's his problem.  We should be able to all agree that he's not all-world behind the plate.  I'm in full favor of giving the majority of the at bats at DH to Adley and using him as a backup catcher instead of the primary and breaking him in at first base.  This assumes that we pick up a good defensive oriented catcher in free agency to be the primary and we'll see where Basallo is early next season.

I get it, no one saw Adley having these issues this early in his career, everyone thought that he'd be a stalwart at catcher for 10+ years.  But things don't always go as planned and if his bat is better when he's DHing, that's what it is.  

I don't care if he was the #1 overall pick as a catcher, I don't care if he's been an all-star, I don't care if he's a face of the franchise...the bat plays better when he's not behind the plate and the defense isn't great enough to warrant him staying back there.  

 

There is absolutely no way the O's move Adley off catching.

In 2023 Adley had a 786 OPS as catcher and a 874 OPS at DH.   That is the Adley the O's expect going forward.    Something happened in 2024 to Adley.   Elias and Hyde can say he was not injured all the want but I am not buying it.    

 

[Safelykept]

12 minutes ago, CTBear said:

A big reason Mounty was missed was his defense, especially with Gunnar’s accuracy issues at times. If Mayo can’t play better 1B defense than O’Hearn than I don’t see how we can afford to lose Mounty this year. 

Mayo cant and we wont lose Mounty this year.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

36 minutes ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

One thing he did not mention is the impact on the DH.

Adley will DH some against RHP. Does Mayo DH some against LHP? I would think so.

This strategy of using Adley at DH (when not catching) seemed to be a good one until the second half of this past season. I think long term Adley will be fine, but the Orioles need the Adley from his first two years for this to work. Otherwise getting a capable full time DH might be better instead of rotating different hitters who may or may not hit well enough.

I'm inclined to agree we will see some combination of Adley, Mayo and Kjerstad as the DH in 2025 over let's say a J.D. Martinez type getting 500 at bats.

Edited 1 hour ago by OsFanSinceThe80s

[eddie83]

9 minutes ago, wildcard said:

It's not a question of if Kjerstad, Holliday and Mayo play in the majors for the O's.  It's a question on when.    They all can't break in at the same time.   That is too risky for a contending O's team.

Santander goes FA and signs elsewhere.   So Kjerstad gets first shot at showing he can be a productive major leaguer in RF.    Holliday and Mayo are held at AAA to see how Kjerstad does.

Holliday goes 2nd probably sometime in May.    Mayo stay at AAA until Holliday show he can be a productive major leaguer at 2B.  

So Mounty and O'Hearn stay at 1B/DH until mid season when one can be traded to make room for Mayo.  

That is my guess.

Holliday will be the starter on OD. Mayo is the most likely to be in the minors next year. 
 

At the end of day and Elias knows this it’s about Santander. The first order of business is whether to retain O’Hearn. If Santander returns you can always move O’Hearn in a deal. Elias can’t and will not let the Santander sweepstakes play out and be left with nothing. 

My guess is Mountcastle stays. If they do move him I could see a 1yr deal for a Goldschmidt or Turner type bat   

 

[Moose Milligan]

12 minutes ago, wildcard said:

There is absolutely no way the O's move Adley off catching.

In 2023 Adley had a 786 OPS as catcher and a 874 OPS at DH.   That is the Adley the O's expect going forward.    Something happened in 2024 to Adley.   Elias and Hyde can say he was not injured all the want but I am not buying it.    

 

What's the downside of moving him off catcher?

He's not an elite defender.  I haven't checked the stats but I know some posters here really take issue with his pitch framing skills.

The bat has been anywhere from bad to average to fairly decent at catcher when it's been stronger consistently as a DH.

If you're so opposed to the idea of moving him off catcher, it's based on emotion and not logic.  Overall career numbers at DH are better...even hoisting up 2023 like it's some kind of a win, his OPS was almost .100 points better as a DH.