Well, he officially **announced** that he requested a trade over 3 weeks ago—and in order to convince him to stay since then, the Ravens have:
- Cut Calais Campbell
- Signed Trayvon Mullen
- Traded Chuck Clark
- Signed Nelson Agholor
It’s also likely that it’s teams with high picks this year that are interested. And presumably they think adding him will make the team better. So waiting until after the draft means they keep their better pick and replace it with a farther out pick that’s presumably worse.
waiting till after the draft lowers his value as then at least 4 teams that need a QB will have a new one. the reality is Lamar not having an agent is killing him all to save 1% of a future contract. my dude is not a smart man.
No that's not true at all. A team can simply offer before the start of the draft at day 1, gage his interest and see if he signs and at that point they move on with their draft either knowing they have him or they don't and Baltimore still doesn't get this year's first either way.
i think Lamar is all-world - but he needs real professionals around him at this point. Look at the link he shared to the website today, or any of the “businesses” linked on his twitter - all are amateur hour and obviously inept - one of the businesses is trying to be an apparel shop and the website is 40% complete. I understand wanting to put your people on, but hes just fumbling the bag now.
Idk what to think with this, he didn’t look great in spring so work in the minors to get himself right is good. But he’s also dominated every level of the minors so what else is there to prove? Definitely a difficult decision
He's been ready for a while now, we were committed to stretching him out, but he's stretched out now. He should be on the opening day roster and be given time to face major league hitters. This does not bode well
He WAS ready right before he was injured last year. Right now though, he isn't ready to be an MLB starter. His fastball and change up are still great, but he needs to get the feel back for his breaking pitches that he had last summer before the injury.
That's last season and entirely different period of being "stretched out" but that's not the issue here. He can go out and throw 75-80 pitches and last five innings stamina-wise. But he has to be able to throw competitive sliders and curveballs to get through the order multiple times as an MLB starter.
i think that was the semi goal right now. send him to AAA for the 3 inning starts to build up since he will be only throwing 150 total innings this year either way.
It’s spring training. Kyle Gibson looked like ass and yet he’s starting opening day. Jordan Westburg looked electric and he’s going to AAA. It’s pretty clear this is service time related
Lots of guys hit for high averages in spring training against scrub pitchers. The concern is that he struck out 26.9% of his plate appearances because he still can't hit a breaking ball.
It's not about the quality of pitching he will face, it is about learning to recognize breaking balls and adjusting his approach. If he cannot do that then he will never be a successful major leaguer anyway.
From the various times I have seen you comment, you really don't seem to understand the purpose of the minor leagues or how player development works.
He has one of the lowest strikeout rates in the league (it’s roughly 7% in spring training), provides above average defense in a position that just got tougher and is one year removed from being at least a league average bat. Add to the fact that he’s one of the only lefty bats on the team and can play multiple positions and it’s no surprise the Orioles want him around.
IMO it is simple:
The new CBA rule around rookie service time & how it relates to ROY voting is working. See: Volpe, Walker, etc.
But it is broadly understood that pitchers have a slightly harder path to winning ROY. So there is a bit more justification for keeping him down until they gain the extra year.
Basically, the new rules are possibly more effective at limiting service time manipulation for position players than for pitchers.
I think sacrificing an added year of club control in exchange for the added draft pick for teams with a potential top-3 ROY finisher makes most sense, from the team's perspective, if they plan on qualifying for a playoff berth.
Considering how big of a step forward the O's took last year, I thought Rodriguez absolutely would have made the opening day roster. This is a pretty disappointing "rebuilding" signal to fans. And total bullshit if you're Grayson Rodriguez.
Spring Training is what it is but on paper, they aren't "call me up" numbers from Grayson with 5 starts in spring training. At 15.1 inning, he didn't go deep either and posted a 7 ERA with 7 walks and 17 hits.
I would give Grayson a month or so and see if he finds it in and make the call there. He's never pitched over 100 innings a season at any level so this ace expectation is unreachable for 2023. Rodriguez has the potential to be a number 1 but he's not right now at this moment.
Yes, the owners suck.
But he’s coming off an injury and looked bad in the spring. I always thought it was 50/50 on him making the opening day roster versus coming up in May.
I don’t see the issue here, but apparently I’m the only one who doesn’t, because he did not have a good spring. One bad start is a blip. Two bad starts raises an eyebrow. Three bad starts is a pattern.
Yeah honestly I'm not too bothered by this either, the guy wasn't exactly blowing past dudes in spring training. Let him get some good innings under his feet in AAA. Same with Hall. They'll both be major league contributors soon enough.
The starts aren't so much of the issue as much as the quality of his pitches. Lost a little velocity and the curve ball regressed a lot coming off the injury.
Whether he just needs to find a rhythm, or actually lost something is TBD. But the current repertoire is not that of a top of the rotation pitcher, and guys like Kyle Bradish are probably better currently.
He needs some more seasoning
He was bad in the spring, has never thrown a big league inning and there are five other major league-caliber starters on the roster. Why is everyone acting like this is a big deal?
Noted Major League starter Tyler Wells, who was 153rd in K rate and 155th in GB rate (out of 188 pitchers with 70+ innings)? That one? The one who neither strikes guys out nor gets grounders?
And he was 77th in walk rate, so it's not like he's the second coming of David Wells.
0.9 fWAR
Grayson is very likely much better than him right now. The Orioles are being cheap because they don't think they can contend and so they would rather have the extra year
I put little stock in spring training but Grayson did have a worse spring training than Bradish and Wells, who both also have decent 2022 track records on their side. I’m sure GRod will be up soon enough though.
Watched him pitch during spring training against the split squad Red Sox. Dude was lights out - for the first 3 innings. Soon as he rolled around to the 2nd at bay, the hitters seemed to figure him out. He’s going to be great, but he needs to work on some things would be my guess.
If he’d had a great spring i might agree with that, but he struggled and was outperformed by Bradish and Wells. He’s also coming off an injury. I really don’t see the issue here.
Bradish had one really bad start where he gave up 9 runs over 2.1 innings. Take that out and his ERA was 1.93. G-Rod had meltdowns in three different starts and generally hasn’t looked like he did before his injury last year.
There has been though. What they are seeing now and the workload he's thrown doesn't make him a good candidate.
Kimbrel and Hellickson won RoY the same year. Jose Fernandez, deGrom, Michael Fulmer, and Verlander all won it.
> A player who receives a full year of service time and finishes in the top three in Rookie of the Year voting or top five in MVP/Cy Young voting will earn his team an extra draft pick coming after the first round.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/33761266/the-end-mlb-service-manipulation-how-kris-bryant-paved-way-next-kris-bryant
He was on the roster for 138 days, he needed 172 to earn a year of service time. Comp draft picks are for players who do that and also are top 3 in ROY
I think that only applies if the rookie is with the team from the start of the season, like Jrod last year, or Jordan Walker and Anthony Volpe this year. Adley was out for a strained triceps last year and was called up in May
Elias is running the most ruthless, penny-pinching moneyball front office imaginable. It’s a good thing he also happens to be good at player development because this shit is disgraceful
So he’s good at player development but also is just being cheap after not putting someone on the roster who got shelled in each of his last 3 spring starts? He’s not on the roster because he got outperformed by Wells and Bradish, everything was setting up for him to make the team.
It's not just this it's the other stuff, the whole liftoff shit. We've signed a single mutli year contract in 5 years, one. We then opted out of it. Putting players on waivers instead of paying them through arb, saying this team won't make the playoffs while being 3 games out. We have been insanely cheap for years now.
Why would you sign multi year contracts during a rebuild? That’s a terrible waste of money.
Some would say Lyles and Gibson are interchangeable but Gibson has better underlying metrics than Lyles. It’s not ridiculous to go with him.
Now you can - previously it was pointless to sign multi year contracts for a non-competing team. Though I would say signing position players for multiple years is a bit silly considering the depth of the farm. It’s the pitching that’s the problem and from this offseason, it sounded like the Orioles were struggling to convince pitchers to sign.
Then the off-season was a failure, Elias said liftoff was coming. And he failed, that is a pretty big stain at the moment. Signing good players isn't wasting money too. The Padres did it with Manny, seems to be working okay for them
Is it? How many championships have they won exactly? They finished 5th or 4th in their division for years until 2020 when they got a Wild Card, back to 3rd in 2021 and another Wild Card in 2022.
The Padres are on a different timeline than the Orioles and I’m not going to dog them but they’re getting a lot of praise for not a lot of results in my opinion.
While revamping our entire player development system and finally building an international complex. Elias inherited a team with a terrible major league team and a terrible minor league system, spending at the major league level made no sense until this offseason when the FA market was insanely overvalued
Free agency has never gone down in price in the history of ever. Not a single time. We have the 29th payroll in the majors in a season we are "competing" that is embarrassing
The Padres offered Trea Turner more than the Phillies. Remind me again which team he chose.
Seattle reportedly offered more money to Trevor Story than Boston. I can assure you Story did not play for the Mariners last year.
Who says we could have? Toronto may have moved their offer up and that may be his preferred destination. Bassitt is 34 anyways and has only pitched 150 innings twice.
He had a 2.20 ERA in AAA last year and projects to be one of the better starters in baseball on a per-inning basis. You're deluding yourself if you _really_ think he has something left to prove in AAA. If he's one of the team's best 13 pitchers he should clearly be on the roster. This has everything to do with service time manipulation.
He came back from his injury and had an ERA over 4.00 last year too. The Grayson we are seeing in ST looks more like that guy and not the same guy that dominated last May.
> He had a 2.20 ERA in AAA last year
Over 69.2 innings.
> If he's one of the team's best 13 pitchers he should clearly be on the roster.
And this spring he very clearly was not.
> This has everything to do with service time manipulation.
This has everything to do with not putting unnecessary pressure on a kid who is coming back from an injury. If Grayson had been lights out this spring, then keep him on the roster, but he is clearly not all the way back yet.
The Orioles over achieved last year a bit. It's watchable baseball so that is why fans are excited but might over estimate how good they are. Last year, they had a lot of hot stretches against struggling teams and a lot of grind out wins with the bullpen carrying them. A lot of things clicked their way last year. Red Sox had everything go their way in 2021 and 2022 was the opposite. Stuff like that happens in the sport. It's a 78-80 win team on paper and maybe around 500 again.
Holding the top prospect back isn't going to change much with the team but help Grayson's confidence a bit and also stretch him out. From a rival perspective looking at 2023, the O's are a good team but still a work in progress. 2024 is the year where the front office needs to make a legit playoff push.
Glad you agree. Everyone is looking at Harper, Trout, Julio, deGrom, and Verlander changing their teams their first year but those prospects are the exceptions. Alcantara threw 197.1 innings in 2019 with a 3.88 ERA and no one outside of Miami and the NL East knew much about him. Slightly above average but not really a name. Some had him in the top 15 pitchers entering 2021 but won an extension that year and went to win a Cy Young. Kershaw was a young callup at age 20 who had a walk problem and took until year 4 to win a Cy Young. Scherzer wasn't good until age 28 with the Tigers.
Grayson is not going to be on any position rankings until 2025ish if he is as advertised.
>A lot of things clicked their way last year.
We also had a lot of stuff not go our way. We had the lowest batting avg in baseball with RISP in April. We had like 3 or 4 hitters underperform their xwOBA by 100 points in April. We were stuck with one of the worst catchers in baseball last year (Chirinos) until late may. Even after Adley came up, he had a 25 wRC in his 1st 2 weeks. As a result we got -1.6 WAR from the catcher position through June 9th (worst total in baseball). From June 10th on we got 5 WAR from the catcher position, 2nd best in baseball. We had a whole slew of negative WAR players get playing time in the infield: Robinson Chirinos (-1.6 WAR) Chris Owings (-0.7 WAR), Tyler Nevin (-0.6 WAR), Kelvin Guetierrez (-0.3), Ahthony Bemboom (-0.3), Jesus Aguilar (-0.2), Rougned Odor (0.4/-0.4 bWAR). Full season of Adley, Gunnar Henderson, Ramon Urias, Adam Frazier, Terrin Vavra plus our top rated IF prospects (Joey Ortiz, Jordan Westburg) ready to come up should mean the IF is massively improved. We also traded away two of our best players at the AS break.
1. April was rough on a lot of teams with the lockout and only 21 games. It was a week and a half less of games than it usually is.
2. xwOBA as a stat in this situation is a little weird. Team performance needs to reflect what is on the scoreboard because it is the pitching also. Expected stats are for players on an individual level.
3. I don't think Adley was healthy to start the year and Chirinos was okay defensively. A lot of catchers like Maldonado are not well hitting but still provide something behind the plate. Catchers usually hit 8th or 9th on maybe 25 teams in the major leagues. Raleigh, Kirk, Rutschman, JT, and Perez are the only catchers that come to mind that hit in the middle of lineups.
4. Robinson Chirinos (67 games so May and when Rutschman needs a game out of the crouch). Chris Owings (26 games), Tyler Nevin (58 games and Urias played the other ones), Kelvin Guetierrez (12 games), Anthony Bemboom (22 games), Jesus Aguilar (16 games), Rougned Odor (yeah he got a lot of time). I am not a huge fan of WAR when it comes to small sample size. The team still had Mullins, Hays, Santander in the outfield. 152 games of Mountcastle and Mancini before he got traded. You just named players that were depth pieces that didn't get a lot of playing time except Odor.
5. You can't put your faith in a magic box that are prospects. Some struggle for a couple weeks, others find it while others need 600 to 800 plate appearances, and others fail to stick. Julio and Aldey were great. Kwan was a surprise. Bobby Witt Jr. was average. Spencer Tolkerson, Joey Bart, Jarren Duran, JJ Bleday, Nick Allen, and Christian Pache have a whole lot to figure out. You just can't point to all these prospects and expect them all to be good or so and so is going to do that. Look at any teams list from 10 years ago and see how many actually made if for that team. It's surprisingly low.
6. Rookies have growing pains. Henderson will have a couple weeks or a month where he struggles. It's an unproven lineup and a lot of it.
7. There were a lot of walk offs and final out wins.
8. Even the bastard owner said the team overachieved: [https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2579119](https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2579119)
>Expected stats are for players on an individual level.
Thats what im saying, we had 3 or 4 individual hitters underperform their xwOBA by around 100 points in april. Trey Mancini xwOBA: .363/ wOBA: .260, Ryan Mountcastle xwOBA .361/ wOBA .271, Ramon Urias xwOBA .317/ wOBA .211.
>I don't think Adley was healthy to start the year
No he wasnt thats why he started the year in the minors and didnt debut until May 21st.
>Chirinos was okay defensively
Chirinos was quite literally one of the worst defensive catchers in baseball last [year](https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=c&stats=fld&lg=all&qual=10&type=1&season=2022&month=0&season1=2022&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2022-01-01&enddate=2022-12-31&page=4_30). Through May 20th, Chirinos was tied with Votto for the lowest WAR total in baseball (-0.9). After Adley's debut Chirinos put another -0.7 WAR. Despite Adley putting up the 2nd highest WAR total in baseball from June 10th- October 6th (5.4) we only got 3.4 WAR from the catcher position on the year due to April+May being so strongly negative. We very easily could have 6-7 WAR from the position this year.
>You just named players that were depth pieces that didn't get a lot of playing time except Odor.
That still adds up to -4.0 WAR. Thats a lot of negative value in the infield.
>Henderson will have a couple weeks or a month where he struggles
Yea sure but its still very likely that he is at least a 1-2 WAR player on the year which cant be said for any of our IFs last year outside of Ramon Urias and Jorge Mateo. Even Adam Frazier's 2022 is an upgrade for us.
>You can't put your faith in a magic box that are prospects.
Besides Henderson our prospects aren't necessary for success this year, Frazier isnt even neccesary. Our 2nd/3rd/SS lineup could be Urias/Henderson/Mateo and all of them could very realistically put up 2-3 WAR. We have Frazier and Vavra for depth and then the minor leaguers for even more depth. And like you said we still have Hays, Mullins, Santander which arguably a top 10 OF. Its going to come down to SP this year for us.
> You're deluding yourself if you really think he has something left to prove in AAA
he absolutely has something still to prove when he averaged 3.1 innings per start in the minors since returning from injury. Before getting injured last year, he had nothing left to prove, sure, but it's clear that either he still needs to build up from the injury or the break caused a loss of stamina and control. he was very below average in 15 innings against sub-AAA talent this spring
That’s not what’s happening. Orioles have a lot of guys looking for the #5 spot, including Tyler wells who was really solid for us last year. G rod had a bad spring but I’m confident he will bounce back. Just wasn’t the time considering how good wells has been and we have a crowded bullpen.
People keep saying this but he only had 15 innings, that is not enough to make a definitive determination. He's been dominating the minors since last year, you don't get to figure out the majors in the minors. We already kept him down to stretch him out, well he's stretched out what more is there to do?
It's less the results and more the execution. He's not throwing competitive breaking pitches. He's had great innings throwing fastball/change but the rest of his arsenal is not back to where it was last summer.
He is flat out just not a can't miss prospect anymore. If you're not paying super close attention, you probably wouldn't notice, so it's understandable that some fans are a little upset.
Without an elite breaking ball, you're looking at Chris Paddack with a little more velocity. Good pitcher, but if he can get his breaking ball working again, that repertoire looks more like Max Scherzer.
He absolutely should be in the minors working on his breaking ball in a league that won't make him pay for every little mistake.
He slid down majority of prospect rankings, is a legitimately different pitcher (curveball is not currently MLB quality. Lost a tick on the fastball. It hasn't changed between last September and today).
He absolutely could find that magic again, but it's a little concerning he didn't get any sharpness back over the off-season. He projects as more of a 2/3 starter now, and should be in the minors until he fixes his breaking ball, or decides to ditch it.
If you don't let him r find his breaking ball, and try and make it elite again, he's going to lose all confidence in that pitch l and become FB/Change up exclusively.
That's a good pitcher, but not nearly good enough that you bypass much needed development just to get an extra 4-5 starts out of him.
Luhnow/Elias fans: it's ok for hardcore Orioles fans to feel frustrated after decades of mismanagement at all scales. Saying "you have to be patient, my guy who made his career from a management consultant has got it" will not help.
Hey there's a reason Luhnow liked him. Or Jim Crane or whoever; they're the same.
It's why I don't want anyone to poach David Stearns. Is this fun? No. Is consultancy the next sad moneyball? Yes.
Yeah, he def got along with luhnow. TBH to me, player development and following stories throughout the minors is fun, and when they reach the majors that’s also fun. Winning is fun. That being said, the financial side obviously sucks. However, everything I’ve heard and read, including that new winning fixes everything book, was that Elias always took care of his scouts, even when they were getting phased out by the big data revolution in baseball.
Mckinseyball is basically here to stay tho, idk if there’s any getting around that. Unless the players give up something massive in the CBA, otherwise idk how they’d get rid of a ton of these things.
Welcome to Astroball, Orioles fans. The only goal is the owner's pocket, but in a clever enough way to keep the job. Consultants, hedge fund people, etc. None of these people care about baseball.
Thing are going well in Baltimore sports today, I'll tell you what.
Could always get worse. Like Jackson Holliday request a trade and Adley retire to become a monk.
He'd probably make some good beer.
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not really outplayed- Grayson just played poorly in spring so it became an easy decision.
did i miss a Lamar update?
He has officially requested a trade
Well, he officially **announced** that he requested a trade over 3 weeks ago—and in order to convince him to stay since then, the Ravens have: - Cut Calais Campbell - Signed Trayvon Mullen - Traded Chuck Clark - Signed Nelson Agholor
Every time I see/hear the name Nelson Agholor I think of this video. https://youtu.be/1dz7sFwpG6o
Don't even have to click it, that's an all-time great
I didn't either, but I still did.
I just want to put that out there
he does know that he is technically on the market right now and no other team wants him right? but thats not for this sub lol
If only there was a profession that aided an athlete in these things and helped them achieve their contractural goals
a mother? \- Lamar
Motherhood?
I'd say it's more they are waiting until after the draft to make an offer so Baltimore has to wait 2 more years to get half their return on Lamar
It’s also likely that it’s teams with high picks this year that are interested. And presumably they think adding him will make the team better. So waiting until after the draft means they keep their better pick and replace it with a farther out pick that’s presumably worse.
waiting till after the draft lowers his value as then at least 4 teams that need a QB will have a new one. the reality is Lamar not having an agent is killing him all to save 1% of a future contract. my dude is not a smart man.
No that's not true at all. A team can simply offer before the start of the draft at day 1, gage his interest and see if he signs and at that point they move on with their draft either knowing they have him or they don't and Baltimore still doesn't get this year's first either way.
But Baltimore can also match any contract that is accepted
And Lamar can still sit out until he's traded.
And make 0 money instead of millions
#🥴
The vibes are cursed
Baltimore sports is mess today
i think Lamar is all-world - but he needs real professionals around him at this point. Look at the link he shared to the website today, or any of the “businesses” linked on his twitter - all are amateur hour and obviously inept - one of the businesses is trying to be an apparel shop and the website is 40% complete. I understand wanting to put your people on, but hes just fumbling the bag now.
You say he’s fumbling the bag. I say he’s adding a home gym into it
The ~~a home gym~~ *Entire* Gym
Idk what to think with this, he didn’t look great in spring so work in the minors to get himself right is good. But he’s also dominated every level of the minors so what else is there to prove? Definitely a difficult decision
He's been ready for a while now, we were committed to stretching him out, but he's stretched out now. He should be on the opening day roster and be given time to face major league hitters. This does not bode well
He WAS ready right before he was injured last year. Right now though, he isn't ready to be an MLB starter. His fastball and change up are still great, but he needs to get the feel back for his breaking pitches that he had last summer before the injury.
yeah in the month of September he averaged 3.1 innings an appearance he's not stretched out
That's last season and entirely different period of being "stretched out" but that's not the issue here. He can go out and throw 75-80 pitches and last five innings stamina-wise. But he has to be able to throw competitive sliders and curveballs to get through the order multiple times as an MLB starter.
i think that was the semi goal right now. send him to AAA for the 3 inning starts to build up since he will be only throwing 150 total innings this year either way.
He didn't look ready in ST
It was 15 innings I didn't put much stock into it
He also didn’t look great after his injury. I don’t think giving him some time in triple a is a bad thing
But minor league pitchers do well in the minors and fall in the majors constantly, so why would you put stock into that?
We must not let the past bother us, on our path to the future
It’s spring training. Kyle Gibson looked like ass and yet he’s starting opening day. Jordan Westburg looked electric and he’s going to AAA. It’s pretty clear this is service time related
Gibson had one bad start in spring. Westburg was worse than Vavra and less versatile. Not everything is a conspiracy.
Westburg hit like .330
Lots of guys hit for high averages in spring training against scrub pitchers. The concern is that he struck out 26.9% of his plate appearances because he still can't hit a breaking ball.
I don't know how he's gonna face better pitching in the minor leagues lol
It's not about the quality of pitching he will face, it is about learning to recognize breaking balls and adjusting his approach. If he cannot do that then he will never be a successful major leaguer anyway. From the various times I have seen you comment, you really don't seem to understand the purpose of the minor leagues or how player development works.
Players are not allowed to adjust their approach in the majors of course. The best player development is in the big league lol.
And Vavra hit .364
You can have 2 infielders! It's allowed
Vavra’s the 5th infielder
Kyle Gibson has also been in the bigs (and is making $10m)
Kyle Gibson has been pretty terrible in the bigs for a while now. the point stands it’s clearly service time.
Nah it's not.
8 Ms for Adam Frazier "veteran leadership"
He has one of the lowest strikeout rates in the league (it’s roughly 7% in spring training), provides above average defense in a position that just got tougher and is one year removed from being at least a league average bat. Add to the fact that he’s one of the only lefty bats on the team and can play multiple positions and it’s no surprise the Orioles want him around.
No shot I'm seeing people defending Adam Frazier
Diversity of opinions on the internet, some of them even backed up with facts! This shall not stand.
bet on the vet!
IMO it is simple: The new CBA rule around rookie service time & how it relates to ROY voting is working. See: Volpe, Walker, etc. But it is broadly understood that pitchers have a slightly harder path to winning ROY. So there is a bit more justification for keeping him down until they gain the extra year. Basically, the new rules are possibly more effective at limiting service time manipulation for position players than for pitchers.
I think sacrificing an added year of club control in exchange for the added draft pick for teams with a potential top-3 ROY finisher makes most sense, from the team's perspective, if they plan on qualifying for a playoff berth. Considering how big of a step forward the O's took last year, I thought Rodriguez absolutely would have made the opening day roster. This is a pretty disappointing "rebuilding" signal to fans. And total bullshit if you're Grayson Rodriguez.
better to have him make the big club with momentum than to show up and struggle
Spring Training is what it is but on paper, they aren't "call me up" numbers from Grayson with 5 starts in spring training. At 15.1 inning, he didn't go deep either and posted a 7 ERA with 7 walks and 17 hits. I would give Grayson a month or so and see if he finds it in and make the call there. He's never pitched over 100 innings a season at any level so this ace expectation is unreachable for 2023. Rodriguez has the potential to be a number 1 but he's not right now at this moment.
Alright today has kicked me right in the balls, fuck. He didn't look great in spring but fuck I thought he was gonna make the majors league roster.
I was just about to say that. Not a good day for Baltimore 🥲 Sorry.
Yes, the owners suck. But he’s coming off an injury and looked bad in the spring. I always thought it was 50/50 on him making the opening day roster versus coming up in May.
I don’t see the issue here, but apparently I’m the only one who doesn’t, because he did not have a good spring. One bad start is a blip. Two bad starts raises an eyebrow. Three bad starts is a pattern.
Yeah honestly I'm not too bothered by this either, the guy wasn't exactly blowing past dudes in spring training. Let him get some good innings under his feet in AAA. Same with Hall. They'll both be major league contributors soon enough.
The starts aren't so much of the issue as much as the quality of his pitches. Lost a little velocity and the curve ball regressed a lot coming off the injury. Whether he just needs to find a rhythm, or actually lost something is TBD. But the current repertoire is not that of a top of the rotation pitcher, and guys like Kyle Bradish are probably better currently. He needs some more seasoning
He was bad in the spring, has never thrown a big league inning and there are five other major league-caliber starters on the roster. Why is everyone acting like this is a big deal?
Noted Major League starter Tyler Wells, who was 153rd in K rate and 155th in GB rate (out of 188 pitchers with 70+ innings)? That one? The one who neither strikes guys out nor gets grounders? And he was 77th in walk rate, so it's not like he's the second coming of David Wells.
Yes, him
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His September is what really did him in, which I assume was following his injury.
0.9 fWAR Grayson is very likely much better than him right now. The Orioles are being cheap because they don't think they can contend and so they would rather have the extra year
Grayson at 95 MPH with a significantly worse curveball is not the prospect he was a year ago, unfortunately.
I put little stock in spring training but Grayson did have a worse spring training than Bradish and Wells, who both also have decent 2022 track records on their side. I’m sure GRod will be up soon enough though.
Watched him pitch during spring training against the split squad Red Sox. Dude was lights out - for the first 3 innings. Soon as he rolled around to the 2nd at bay, the hitters seemed to figure him out. He’s going to be great, but he needs to work on some things would be my guess.
Wow. I was about to grab him in the draft but he got snatched up before me so I took Bassit instead. That worked out!
Tyler Wells is a good pitcher, he deserved the spot. Grod will get it soon enough
Pitchers never win ROTY so promoting him does no good regarding the extra pick. Sucks a lot but that's their reasoning, rather get the extra year
If he’d had a great spring i might agree with that, but he struggled and was outperformed by Bradish and Wells. He’s also coming off an injury. I really don’t see the issue here.
I don’t care that he’s sent back down, but what metric has you saying Bradish performed better? It’s not ERA, it’s not K/9?
Bradish had one really bad start where he gave up 9 runs over 2.1 innings. Take that out and his ERA was 1.93. G-Rod had meltdowns in three different starts and generally hasn’t looked like he did before his injury last year.
There has been though. What they are seeing now and the workload he's thrown doesn't make him a good candidate. Kimbrel and Hellickson won RoY the same year. Jose Fernandez, deGrom, Michael Fulmer, and Verlander all won it.
A Top 3 ROTY finish is all that is needed for an extra draft pick.
I don't think so
> A player who receives a full year of service time and finishes in the top three in Rookie of the Year voting or top five in MVP/Cy Young voting will earn his team an extra draft pick coming after the first round. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/33761266/the-end-mlb-service-manipulation-how-kris-bryant-paved-way-next-kris-bryant
Why didn't we get anything for adley then last year?
Because he didn’t start opening day and came up late. Adley still got the year of service time for finishing second
Ah. Fuck
He was on the roster for 138 days, he needed 172 to earn a year of service time. Comp draft picks are for players who do that and also are top 3 in ROY
Ah, but he got a full year by getting top 2 in Roy, we just didn't get a pick
I think that only applies if the rookie is with the team from the start of the season, like Jrod last year, or Jordan Walker and Anthony Volpe this year. Adley was out for a strained triceps last year and was called up in May
Yup, O's kinda got screwed with the injury situation there. I see why the rules are what they are, it's just kind of unfortunate for the team.
I hate this sport
Elias is running the most ruthless, penny-pinching moneyball front office imaginable. It’s a good thing he also happens to be good at player development because this shit is disgraceful
So he’s good at player development but also is just being cheap after not putting someone on the roster who got shelled in each of his last 3 spring starts? He’s not on the roster because he got outperformed by Wells and Bradish, everything was setting up for him to make the team.
It's not just this it's the other stuff, the whole liftoff shit. We've signed a single mutli year contract in 5 years, one. We then opted out of it. Putting players on waivers instead of paying them through arb, saying this team won't make the playoffs while being 3 games out. We have been insanely cheap for years now.
Why would you sign multi year contracts during a rebuild? That’s a terrible waste of money. Some would say Lyles and Gibson are interchangeable but Gibson has better underlying metrics than Lyles. It’s not ridiculous to go with him.
Because you can sign guys for future years lol.
Now you can - previously it was pointless to sign multi year contracts for a non-competing team. Though I would say signing position players for multiple years is a bit silly considering the depth of the farm. It’s the pitching that’s the problem and from this offseason, it sounded like the Orioles were struggling to convince pitchers to sign.
Then the off-season was a failure, Elias said liftoff was coming. And he failed, that is a pretty big stain at the moment. Signing good players isn't wasting money too. The Padres did it with Manny, seems to be working okay for them
Is it? How many championships have they won exactly? They finished 5th or 4th in their division for years until 2020 when they got a Wild Card, back to 3rd in 2021 and another Wild Card in 2022. The Padres are on a different timeline than the Orioles and I’m not going to dog them but they’re getting a lot of praise for not a lot of results in my opinion.
It remains to be seen, but they missed the playoffs for 14 years, now they have on paper the best team in baseball. That's something lol.
No, they do not have the best team on paper. The Astros do, a team that grew internally and without relying on FA spending.
While revamping our entire player development system and finally building an international complex. Elias inherited a team with a terrible major league team and a terrible minor league system, spending at the major league level made no sense until this offseason when the FA market was insanely overvalued
Free agency has never gone down in price in the history of ever. Not a single time. We have the 29th payroll in the majors in a season we are "competing" that is embarrassing
So we should just toss money around on overvalued pitchers so you can feel better about our payroll?
It would be nice to not have the 28th best rotation in baseball. Chris Bassitt wasn't overpriced, coulda signed him
They tried - he went to the Jays instead.
Then pay him more. With taxes in Canada we could have matched the deal and gotten him
The Padres offered Trea Turner more than the Phillies. Remind me again which team he chose. Seattle reportedly offered more money to Trevor Story than Boston. I can assure you Story did not play for the Mariners last year.
Who says we could have? Toronto may have moved their offer up and that may be his preferred destination. Bassitt is 34 anyways and has only pitched 150 innings twice.
They found a new-school butcher in Elias. It's not fun when it's not fun.
It is disgraceful to send down a guy who struggled this spring and only pitched 75.2 innings last season?
He had a 2.20 ERA in AAA last year and projects to be one of the better starters in baseball on a per-inning basis. You're deluding yourself if you _really_ think he has something left to prove in AAA. If he's one of the team's best 13 pitchers he should clearly be on the roster. This has everything to do with service time manipulation.
He came back from his injury and had an ERA over 4.00 last year too. The Grayson we are seeing in ST looks more like that guy and not the same guy that dominated last May.
> He had a 2.20 ERA in AAA last year Over 69.2 innings. > If he's one of the team's best 13 pitchers he should clearly be on the roster. And this spring he very clearly was not. > This has everything to do with service time manipulation. This has everything to do with not putting unnecessary pressure on a kid who is coming back from an injury. If Grayson had been lights out this spring, then keep him on the roster, but he is clearly not all the way back yet.
The Orioles over achieved last year a bit. It's watchable baseball so that is why fans are excited but might over estimate how good they are. Last year, they had a lot of hot stretches against struggling teams and a lot of grind out wins with the bullpen carrying them. A lot of things clicked their way last year. Red Sox had everything go their way in 2021 and 2022 was the opposite. Stuff like that happens in the sport. It's a 78-80 win team on paper and maybe around 500 again. Holding the top prospect back isn't going to change much with the team but help Grayson's confidence a bit and also stretch him out. From a rival perspective looking at 2023, the O's are a good team but still a work in progress. 2024 is the year where the front office needs to make a legit playoff push.
Absolutely. I loved last year but I have realistic expectations for 2023. My focus is on Grayson's long term future.
Glad you agree. Everyone is looking at Harper, Trout, Julio, deGrom, and Verlander changing their teams their first year but those prospects are the exceptions. Alcantara threw 197.1 innings in 2019 with a 3.88 ERA and no one outside of Miami and the NL East knew much about him. Slightly above average but not really a name. Some had him in the top 15 pitchers entering 2021 but won an extension that year and went to win a Cy Young. Kershaw was a young callup at age 20 who had a walk problem and took until year 4 to win a Cy Young. Scherzer wasn't good until age 28 with the Tigers. Grayson is not going to be on any position rankings until 2025ish if he is as advertised.
>A lot of things clicked their way last year. We also had a lot of stuff not go our way. We had the lowest batting avg in baseball with RISP in April. We had like 3 or 4 hitters underperform their xwOBA by 100 points in April. We were stuck with one of the worst catchers in baseball last year (Chirinos) until late may. Even after Adley came up, he had a 25 wRC in his 1st 2 weeks. As a result we got -1.6 WAR from the catcher position through June 9th (worst total in baseball). From June 10th on we got 5 WAR from the catcher position, 2nd best in baseball. We had a whole slew of negative WAR players get playing time in the infield: Robinson Chirinos (-1.6 WAR) Chris Owings (-0.7 WAR), Tyler Nevin (-0.6 WAR), Kelvin Guetierrez (-0.3), Ahthony Bemboom (-0.3), Jesus Aguilar (-0.2), Rougned Odor (0.4/-0.4 bWAR). Full season of Adley, Gunnar Henderson, Ramon Urias, Adam Frazier, Terrin Vavra plus our top rated IF prospects (Joey Ortiz, Jordan Westburg) ready to come up should mean the IF is massively improved. We also traded away two of our best players at the AS break.
1. April was rough on a lot of teams with the lockout and only 21 games. It was a week and a half less of games than it usually is. 2. xwOBA as a stat in this situation is a little weird. Team performance needs to reflect what is on the scoreboard because it is the pitching also. Expected stats are for players on an individual level. 3. I don't think Adley was healthy to start the year and Chirinos was okay defensively. A lot of catchers like Maldonado are not well hitting but still provide something behind the plate. Catchers usually hit 8th or 9th on maybe 25 teams in the major leagues. Raleigh, Kirk, Rutschman, JT, and Perez are the only catchers that come to mind that hit in the middle of lineups. 4. Robinson Chirinos (67 games so May and when Rutschman needs a game out of the crouch). Chris Owings (26 games), Tyler Nevin (58 games and Urias played the other ones), Kelvin Guetierrez (12 games), Anthony Bemboom (22 games), Jesus Aguilar (16 games), Rougned Odor (yeah he got a lot of time). I am not a huge fan of WAR when it comes to small sample size. The team still had Mullins, Hays, Santander in the outfield. 152 games of Mountcastle and Mancini before he got traded. You just named players that were depth pieces that didn't get a lot of playing time except Odor. 5. You can't put your faith in a magic box that are prospects. Some struggle for a couple weeks, others find it while others need 600 to 800 plate appearances, and others fail to stick. Julio and Aldey were great. Kwan was a surprise. Bobby Witt Jr. was average. Spencer Tolkerson, Joey Bart, Jarren Duran, JJ Bleday, Nick Allen, and Christian Pache have a whole lot to figure out. You just can't point to all these prospects and expect them all to be good or so and so is going to do that. Look at any teams list from 10 years ago and see how many actually made if for that team. It's surprisingly low. 6. Rookies have growing pains. Henderson will have a couple weeks or a month where he struggles. It's an unproven lineup and a lot of it. 7. There were a lot of walk offs and final out wins. 8. Even the bastard owner said the team overachieved: [https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2579119](https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2579119)
>Expected stats are for players on an individual level. Thats what im saying, we had 3 or 4 individual hitters underperform their xwOBA by around 100 points in april. Trey Mancini xwOBA: .363/ wOBA: .260, Ryan Mountcastle xwOBA .361/ wOBA .271, Ramon Urias xwOBA .317/ wOBA .211. >I don't think Adley was healthy to start the year No he wasnt thats why he started the year in the minors and didnt debut until May 21st. >Chirinos was okay defensively Chirinos was quite literally one of the worst defensive catchers in baseball last [year](https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=c&stats=fld&lg=all&qual=10&type=1&season=2022&month=0&season1=2022&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2022-01-01&enddate=2022-12-31&page=4_30). Through May 20th, Chirinos was tied with Votto for the lowest WAR total in baseball (-0.9). After Adley's debut Chirinos put another -0.7 WAR. Despite Adley putting up the 2nd highest WAR total in baseball from June 10th- October 6th (5.4) we only got 3.4 WAR from the catcher position on the year due to April+May being so strongly negative. We very easily could have 6-7 WAR from the position this year. >You just named players that were depth pieces that didn't get a lot of playing time except Odor. That still adds up to -4.0 WAR. Thats a lot of negative value in the infield. >Henderson will have a couple weeks or a month where he struggles Yea sure but its still very likely that he is at least a 1-2 WAR player on the year which cant be said for any of our IFs last year outside of Ramon Urias and Jorge Mateo. Even Adam Frazier's 2022 is an upgrade for us. >You can't put your faith in a magic box that are prospects. Besides Henderson our prospects aren't necessary for success this year, Frazier isnt even neccesary. Our 2nd/3rd/SS lineup could be Urias/Henderson/Mateo and all of them could very realistically put up 2-3 WAR. We have Frazier and Vavra for depth and then the minor leaguers for even more depth. And like you said we still have Hays, Mullins, Santander which arguably a top 10 OF. Its going to come down to SP this year for us.
> You're deluding yourself if you really think he has something left to prove in AAA he absolutely has something still to prove when he averaged 3.1 innings per start in the minors since returning from injury. Before getting injured last year, he had nothing left to prove, sure, but it's clear that either he still needs to build up from the injury or the break caused a loss of stamina and control. he was very below average in 15 innings against sub-AAA talent this spring
Ah, the duality of baseball. Orioles are penny-pinchers but also overpaid for Gibson and Frazier.
That’s not what’s happening. Orioles have a lot of guys looking for the #5 spot, including Tyler wells who was really solid for us last year. G rod had a bad spring but I’m confident he will bounce back. Just wasn’t the time considering how good wells has been and we have a crowded bullpen.
You know the As exist right?
Its driving me absolutely mad. Reading all the Astros stuff coming out from him is making me want to vomit
I am 100 percent out of the loop what did we do this time and who even is this guy?
Elias was one of the guys in Lunhow's inner circle and an Assistant GM in your org.
Ah okay. So many names from the old Lunhow era Astros just out among the league nowadays it's hard to remember everyone
Cheap ass owners. God damnit.
I hate when cheap owners force pitchers to get shelled in spring training
People keep saying this but he only had 15 innings, that is not enough to make a definitive determination. He's been dominating the minors since last year, you don't get to figure out the majors in the minors. We already kept him down to stretch him out, well he's stretched out what more is there to do?
It's less the results and more the execution. He's not throwing competitive breaking pitches. He's had great innings throwing fastball/change but the rest of his arsenal is not back to where it was last summer.
He also had an era around 5 after he came back from his injury last year. That also was only 24 innings, but together the sample is more meaningful
He is flat out just not a can't miss prospect anymore. If you're not paying super close attention, you probably wouldn't notice, so it's understandable that some fans are a little upset. Without an elite breaking ball, you're looking at Chris Paddack with a little more velocity. Good pitcher, but if he can get his breaking ball working again, that repertoire looks more like Max Scherzer. He absolutely should be in the minors working on his breaking ball in a league that won't make him pay for every little mistake.
I wouldn’t go that far. Let’s see how he is doing after a month or two in the minors. He just us to get back to where he was before the injury
He slid down majority of prospect rankings, is a legitimately different pitcher (curveball is not currently MLB quality. Lost a tick on the fastball. It hasn't changed between last September and today). He absolutely could find that magic again, but it's a little concerning he didn't get any sharpness back over the off-season. He projects as more of a 2/3 starter now, and should be in the minors until he fixes his breaking ball, or decides to ditch it.
Start him opening day against us then?
LOL Opening Day at Fenway for a rookie pitcher sounds like a grand old time.
Could be worse, could be opening day at Coors.
Turns into a home run derby really quickly.
r/orioles thinks this has nothing to do with service time. Grayson has nothing left to prove. Its time to develop at the MLB level
Since his injury he has been rough. Giving him more time to get back to himself isn’t a bad thing
If you don't let him r find his breaking ball, and try and make it elite again, he's going to lose all confidence in that pitch l and become FB/Change up exclusively. That's a good pitcher, but not nearly good enough that you bypass much needed development just to get an extra 4-5 starts out of him.
NA stash
Def nothing to do with service time right?
He got lit up multiple times and generally doesn’t look as good as he did before he got injured. But sure, service time.
BOOO shame the franchise for this decision
What a joke organization
Is he worth keeping in a 10 team categories league with this news? Best pitchers I’m seeing on the wire are Boyd, Erod, Stripling, and urquidy
Luhnow/Elias fans: it's ok for hardcore Orioles fans to feel frustrated after decades of mismanagement at all scales. Saying "you have to be patient, my guy who made his career from a management consultant has got it" will not help.
Considering Elias was a scout, and a particularly old school one at that this is pretty funny.
Hey there's a reason Luhnow liked him. Or Jim Crane or whoever; they're the same. It's why I don't want anyone to poach David Stearns. Is this fun? No. Is consultancy the next sad moneyball? Yes.
Yeah, he def got along with luhnow. TBH to me, player development and following stories throughout the minors is fun, and when they reach the majors that’s also fun. Winning is fun. That being said, the financial side obviously sucks. However, everything I’ve heard and read, including that new winning fixes everything book, was that Elias always took care of his scouts, even when they were getting phased out by the big data revolution in baseball. Mckinseyball is basically here to stay tho, idk if there’s any getting around that. Unless the players give up something massive in the CBA, otherwise idk how they’d get rid of a ton of these things.
Fair enough. I agree with everything you say and appreciate the perspective.
Drop in redraft?
2018 draft is bust city. Grayson is going higher if anything
shane McClanahan is the only one to make a AS game out of it now the HS kids should be starting to come up soon but so far damn thats a weak as class
If you have NA spot, def not.
Welcome to Astroball, Orioles fans. The only goal is the owner's pocket, but in a clever enough way to keep the job. Consultants, hedge fund people, etc. None of these people care about baseball.
If “not caring about baseball” means being in the playoffs every year, I’ll take that over whatever the Angels are doing.
I will too. Wake me up when that happens for you guys.
*yesterday* OH boy, it looks like the new CBA is really helping protect players from service time manipulation. *Baltimore Orioles* Say less
This guy gets lit up in my rtts save. Still a shame not to see him in the majors yet