After Two Weeks of Pie...

[Fan4Life]

I disagree with this.

I think anybody who wanted to give Pie a legit chance that now thinks his opportunity should be taken away from him is completely wrong and lacks any sort of patience and understanding that sometimes players don't start the season hitting great all the time.

You either wanted to give him a legit chance and you still do, or you never did at all. The "option" of having wanted to give him a legit chance, and thinking that these 13 games were enough of a chance, isn't really a legitimate opinion to have, IMO.

I agree completely. Not to mention that offensively, much of the pitching Pie has seen, has been the best in the AL East.

[ray52#1MLB EVER]

What about Reimold or Montanez ? I think they are both better than pie. Check out there spring training stats and aaa numbers so far.

[Mackus]

Isn't Hamilton and Scott examples of a players that bloomed late? I agree the "odds" say Montanez isn't likely to be an everyday player. But, we would have said that about Scott and Hamilton when they were 26 and hadn't shown much. I know Hamilton had issues with drugs, but the point remains.

Scott is the exact timeline I think Montanez has to follow to become a regular, he may a bit ahead in reaching the majors but he's behind in terms of having good MiLB numbers.

Scott broke in slowly, he was never handed a starting role until he got here. That's how Montanez is gonna have to do it. Come up as a bench player, start 1-2 games a week. If he hits well, he'll get more time. If both Pie and Reimold botch their chances, then he gets a long term opportunity. If he continues to do well, like Scott did, then he can be given a chance to earn a spot full time.

Scott is a great comparison for Montanez. He made the most of every opportunity he had, but was never given the type of opportunity Pie and Reimold are gonna get.

I hope Montanez can do the same thing, but it doesn't mean I'm gonna make him the starting LF for the rest of the season. I fully support him replacing Freel, but not Pie (or Reimold when his time comes).

[DrungoHazewood]

Melvin Mora did it.

You don't build a good team by relying on outliers. You can count the number of players in history who were generic utility players at 28 and MVP candidates by 32 on one hand. Maybe a couple of fingers.

[OrioleWay27]

So veteran players who struggle in the first two weeks should get the benefit of the doubt while young players who struggle in the first two weeks should be cut?

Yes, considering we have options in the minor leagues who could help us win.

Veteran players with a track record getting the benefit of the doubt while youngsters failing and quickly getting cut or demoted is something almost every single major league teams does. I can't believe you're actually asking these questions.

[RShack]

But the argument for replacing Pie is becoming less "absurd" by the day, unfortunately.

If by that you mean your preferred 3-month window is getting incrementally smaller, then I see your point.

If you mean something else, I'm not sure what you're saying.

[DrungoHazewood]

Yes, considering we have options in the minor leagues who could help us win.

Veteran players with a track record getting the benefit of the doubt while youngsters failing and quickly getting cut or demoted is something almost every single major league teams does. I can't believe your actually asking these questions.

Doesn't make it right. I can't believe you're actually defending the knee-jerk method of team building.

[Mackus]

I don't understand how age affects the value of your stats. If a guy can hit, he can hit, no matter what his age is.

Age is very, very important in determining how good a player can be. If a young guy is doing very well against older players, either MLB or MiLB, that is a great sign. Look at Markakis or Adam Jones in the minors. They excelled when being younger than average for their leagues. That's why Chris Tillman and Clayton Kershaw are such great prospects, they were the youngest players in AA last year and dominated.

The same works in reverse. If a player is 26 playing against mostly 23 year olds, he's going to hit better in general. So that guy putting up big numbers isn't as impressive as the 23 or 21 y/o doing it.

Again i'm not saying that Montanez will never make it, just that his path is going to have to be different than Pie and Reimold. Those guys did what they had to do as young minor league players. Montanez did not. He had never had a decent minor league season until last year. He's gonna have to do things the hard way like Luke Scott did. He'll never be handed a starting spot and told its his to lose for the next two-to-three months like Pie and Reimold (and Jones and Markakis before them) were. And there is nothing wrong with that, he hasn't proven to deserve that sort of opportunity. Young players with high upside and good track records deserve that opportunity. Journeymen with one great year at AA don't.

[OrioleWay27]

Doesn't make it right. I can't believe you're actually defending the knee-jerk method of team building.

Who said I am defending the knee-jerk method? I was answering two extreme and ridiculous hypothetical questions that another poster asked me.

In this specific case, I don't think Pie is a major league player. I base this on his major league performance over three seasons, however limited, and what I see with my own two eyes. In cases such as this, I advocate making a move which could improve the team immediately.

[JTrea81]

It's not like we would be cutting Pie to play Ryan Freel. It's cutting Pie to play another prospect in Reimold that has worked his way through the system and has shown improvement at every level.

Just because Reimold is older doesn't make him the inferior prospect. You are still playing for the future but you are getting an extended look at Reimold instead of Pie.

[larrytt]

We can't say with any certainty that Montanez is just a 4th outfielder. Not until he goes out and plays. But we can say that the majority of players with careers like Luis Montanez ended up as bench players, if that.

This is exactly what PECOTA does - it finds similar players. And it thinks the players most similar to Montanez are:

Barry Bonnell, '82 - good platoon player in '83, never had a 100 OPS+ otherwise

Larry Littleton, '81 - cup of coffee with the Indians

Sean Berry, '93 - pretty good platoon player for 3-4 years

Glenn Wilson, '86 - .704 major league OPS in career defined by his cannon of an arm.

Tim Costo, '96 - .610 MLB OPS, with a few .800+ seasons in the high minors later on.

Vernon Wells, '06 - ok, that would be nice, but kind of odd comp since Wells was in the majors at 20 and is a good OFer.

Gary Gaetti, '86 - that would be good, too, even if Gaetti had one of the stranger careers ever.

Scott Bryant/Dave Gallagher/Mark Lewis - journeymen

Tim Hulett - yes, that Tim Hulett

The list goes on, but that's a fair sampling. His top comps are platoon players with occasional brushes with being pretty decent players. I guess you could hope for Wells or Gaetti's careers from age 27 or 28 on, and that would be great. But Montanez doesn't have half the defensive chops of either of those guys.

I'm fine with getting Montanez up here and giving him a few hundred at bats in place of a guy like Freel. But I have no expectation of him as anything more than a platoon player with a bad glove.

Did the guys you mention above win the triple crown at AA, hit .295 and slug .446 in their major league debut (112 AB), and then start off at AAA by hitting .447 after 9 games? I don't believe Markakis or Jones put up minor league stats like that. There are plenty of late-blooming players; when one starts to rake pitching at age 27, he's given strong evidence that he's one of them. We won't know for sure until he's given a real shot - like Mora and so many others were.

-Larrytt

[TyCobb]

You don't build a good team by relying on outliers. You can count the number of players in history who were generic utility players at 28 and MVP candidates by 32 on one hand. Maybe a couple of fingers.

You also don't build a good team by relying on top prospects who failed to show the ability to hit MLB pitching. I don't care for Lou either. Nice to have on the Bench now with Reimold in LF.

[DrungoHazewood]

Did the guys you mention above win the triple crown at AA, hit .295 and slug .446 in their major league debut (112 AB), and then start off at AAA by hitting .447 after 9 games? I don't believe Markakis or Jones put up minor league stats like that. There are plenty of late-blooming players; when one starts to rake pitching at age 27, he's given strong evidence that he's one of them. We won't know for sure until he's given a real shot - like Mora and so many others were.

-Larrytt

Yes, every one of them did exactly that.

[J.D.]

You also don't build a good team by relying on top prospects who failed to show the ability to hit MLB pitching. I don't care for Lou either. Nice to have on the Bench now with Reimold in LF.

You also don't build a good team by giving up on good prospects 13 days in, unless you're planning on building via free agency. He's an Oriole, he's 23, and we're not going to contend this year whether it's Pie or Reimold in left field. Why is it so difficult to give a guy a few months to prove something? Yeesh.

[DrungoHazewood]

You also don't build a good team by relying on top prospects who failed to show the ability to hit MLB pitching. I don't care for Lou either. Nice to have on the Bench now with Reimold in LF.

It's rather astonishing that so many folks are so willing to release a guy because he hasn't hit in the majors at an age where Reimold and Montanez were playing in the minors, and not well enough to merit a callup. Montanez had a mid-600s OPS in AAA at 24, while Reimold hit .284/.367/.501 in AA.

Before the Cubs started jerking Pie around he had similar numbers in AAA at 22 to what Montanez did in AA at 26.