107 replies to this topic

[JHTerp01]

Greg, I am curious as to where you stand on this rushing theory.

If Manny comes up, struggles and never becomes anything, what makes you think that if we waited until June of next year that he would have turned out ok even if he had struggled?

Do you think his maturity level is going to be that much higher in 9-10 months from now and that the difference in his maturity level at that time would be the difference between success and failure in terms of how he deals with adversity?

I am in this camp as well. If he comes up and hits .150 these next 6 weeks and then busts and it is due to these 6 weeks, then the guy was a mental midget to begin with and never would have amounted to anything regardless.

[SportsGuy]

I am in this camp as well. If he comes up and hits .150 these next 6 weeks and then busts and it is due to these 6 weeks, then the guy was a mental midget to begin with and never would have amounted to anything regardless.

Yep...This has been my argument for years about the theory of rushing.

Now, don't get me wrong..If they drafted MM out of HS and brought him up to the majors when he signed, that is rushing. But that is an extreme example and not one worth really discussing.

[SportsGuy]

BTW, Manny has a 1400 OPS his last 10 games.

That includes 8 XBH and 1 more walk than strikeout(5 to 4).

He has a 917 OPS vs lefties this year and an 871 post AS break OPS.

He has 42 XBH in 402 at bats.

Over 600 at bats, that is 63 XBH for a season..by a kid who just turned 20 and is playing at a high level.

Is he AROD, Trout, Harper good at his age? No...But he has shown that he can be very good and shouldn't be that overmatched at this level.

He is also on a 72 walk pace as well.

[mdak06]

Roch reported that MM will wear #13.

I wonder how many walk-up tickets will be sold tonight.

[CrimsonTribe]

I've been far too busy to watch baseball lately, but I think I'm going to have to dust off the old mlb.tv subscription tonight.

[Remember The Alomar]

Roch reported that MM will wear #13.

I wonder how many walk-up tickets will be sold tonight.

The record is 11k, correct? What was the walk up sales for Wieters--around 7-8k?

The weather is supposed to be decent by 7 PM; it'll in the mid 80's with thunderstorms not rolling in until 10-11. It is a Thursday, but there is a great give-away tonight.

I'm guess 3-4k.

[SportsGuy]

The record is 11k, correct? What was the walk up sales for Wieters--around 7-8k?

The weather is supposed to be decent by 7 PM; it'll in the mid 80's with thunderstorms not rolling in until 10-11. It is a Thursday, but there is a great give-away tonight.

I'm guess 3-4k.

They average 3K walk ups a night.

They should get 5k+.

I was at the Wieters game...stadium was electric that night.

[Oriole85]

Can't believe I have had tickets to tonight's game for months thanks to the $4 bleacher seats promotion.

Everyone had the weekday, August 9th game against the Royals circled on their calender for months.

[Oriole85]

Love the move.

Much more refreshing than the service time garbage we've had to deal with the past 4 years. When a player is ready you call them up to help if you want to win.

Remember when everyone made a big deal about Zach Britton not staying down for "service time" reasons? Let's worry about that problem in 6-7 years instead of today. Will Britton even be on the Orioles in a few years is very much in the air, let alone will he be on it in 6 years.

[RichardZ]

From a purely developmental perspective, I think this is the wrong move. I have a hard time believing a guy who has been average offensively all year long is ready for ML pitching but we'll see. He's had some hot streaks before this season and most likely thats what his current hitting is. I suspect he'll struggle, probably be worse than a Betemit/Andino platoon and not get the AB's at Bowie that he should be getting. Will it hurt him longterm. Probably not.

[BSLChrisStoner]

FanGraphs: Orioles rush Machado, Good for Them
http://www.fangraphs...-good-for-them/

[You Play to Win the Game]

FanGraphs: Orioles rush Machado, Good for Them
http://www.fangraphs...-good-for-them/

Great article, Chris - thanks!

Some useful snippets:

The first thing to note is that the Eastern League isn’t exactly an offensive haven. The average hitter in the EL this year is hitting .260/.331/.392, and the run environment for the league is just 4.31 runs per game. This isn’t the PCL or the Cal League, where you need to hit .350 just to call it a respectable season. Machado’s line might not look all that sexy, but it is good for a 122 wRC+, and ties him for the 18th best offensive season of any qualified player down there. He’s not tearing up the league, but relative to his peers, his overall line is still pretty good.

Then, there’s the park to consider. Our minor league wRC+ doesn’t include park factors right now, but if it did, Machado would jump to around 130 or so. Dan Szymborski’s published minor league park factors give Bowie a 95, which makes it the most pitcher friendly park in the Eastern League. Not surprisingly, Machado has shown a pretty large home/road split, hitting .254/.327/.398 at home and .279/.375/.478 on the road. Bowie isn’t Petco or anything, but it’s not a great place to hit, and we need to keep that in mind when looking at Machado’s overall numbers.

Still, given that he was only good-not-great in Double-A, he’s probably not ready to come in and dominate in a playoff push. For context, when the Marlins promoted Miguel Cabrera from Double-A at age 20, he was hitting .365/.429/.609 as a 20-year-old, and was still only capable of putting up a 105 wRC+ as a rookie. The two level jump is a big one, especially for an inexperienced kid who probably hasn’t seen a lot of high quality off-speed stuff yet. Odds are pretty decent that he’s going to struggle, and that he’s not going to represent any kind of real upgrade over Betemit down the stretch.

That it probably won’t be enough isn’t really the question. Is it worth trying in a season where the team has given fans a reason to come back to the park, even if the odds are stacked against them? Absolutely. The cost of promoting Machado at this point is quite low. If he flops, then he’ll simply start next year back in the minors, and they’ll still be able to manage his service time if they want to get that extra year of team control. The only way they lose that extra year is if he’s good enough to force them to keep him in in the Majors for the next seven years, which also sounds like a pretty good outcome for the Orioles.

Perhaps the more interesting decision will come in September if the team is still hanging around in the wild card race. The Orioles also promoted Dylan Bundy to Double-A after his start for Frederick last night, and if they get into September and need an additional arm, they’ll have a premium stuff teenager knocking on the door. That one might be a tougher call, given how hard they’ve tried to manage his workload this year, but limiting his innings in April and May might serve to give them confidence that he’s still got something left for September. If Machado hits and the Orioles win, we could be having this same conversation about Bundy’s promotion in three weeks.

Not sure I agree about Bundy being an option (although it wouldn't shock me), but the rest is really good stuff.

[SportsGuy]

From a purely developmental perspective, I think this is the wrong move. I have a hard time believing a guy who has been average offensively all year long is ready for ML pitching but we'll see. He's had some hot streaks before this season and most likely thats what his current hitting is. I suspect he'll struggle, probably be worse than a Betemit/Andino platoon and not get the AB's at Bowie that he should be getting. Will it hurt him longterm. Probably not.

I guess this depends on how good you think Andino is(both offensively and defensively) and if you think Betimet's defense will hurt us when he is in there.

I think, overall, its unlikely Manny will make a major impact...but that doesn't mean its a poor move to bring him up.

[Greg Pappas]

Greg, I am curious as to where you stand on this rushing theory.

If Manny comes up, struggles and never becomes anything, what makes you think that if we waited until June of next year that he would have turned out ok even if he had struggled?

Do you think his maturity level is going to be that much higher in 9-10 months from now and that the difference in his maturity level at that time would be the difference between success and failure in terms of how he deals with adversity?

Yes, another 9-10 months of minor league instruction and progression is pretty huge in the development process. Especially when a young man is not expected to spend five years in the minors. Manny is at AA for a reason. That reason is to develop the skills he needs to be a successful ML player. Pushing him too quickly can retard the process. Will it? I'd venture to say probably not... he'll most likely be okay even if he struggles here... but why risk it? The answer likely lies in a pennant race- and the inability of Duquette to have found a viable solution for 3B before the deadline.

As well, I think the successes of Mike Trout and Bryce Harper have raised the 'young phenom bar' awfully high. FWIW I don't think that Duquette thinks Manny is going to be Trout/Harper-esque... but rather he's hoping for better performance than what we have had... and that's truly all any of us can hope for. If he's better than Betemit/Andino... then this was a good thing.

[SportsGuy]

Yes, another 9-10 months of minor league instruction and progression is pretty huge in the development process. Especially when a young man is not expected to spend five years in the minors. Manny is at AA for a reason. That reason is to develop the skills he needs to be a successful ML player. Pushing him too quickly can retard the process. Will it? I'd venture to say probably not... he'll most likely be okay even if he struggles here... but why risk it? The answer likely lies in a pennant race- and the inability of Duquette to have found a viable solution for 3B before the deadline.

As well, I think the successes of Mike Trout and Bryce Harper have raised the 'young phenom bar' awfully high, and their uncanny gifts may have GM's believing that their highly-ranked youngsters can do it to. FWIW I don't think that Duquette thinks Manny is going to be Trout/Harper-esque... but rather he's hoping for better performance than what we have had... and that's truly all any of us can hope for. If he's better than Betemit/Andino... then this was a good thing.

But he is going to get ML development now...And then, maybe he goes to the AFL(unless he won't be eligible?).

And then, ST comes around and he would obviously be there.

So, really, the MiL development you are talking about is what he would get between now and the end of Bowie's season..which is what, early Sept?

So we are talking about 3-4 weeks of MiL development.

[Mackus]

I think, overall, its unlikely Manny will make a major impact...but that doesn't mean its a poor move to bring him up.

I agree with this. There is some upside (Manny plays really well), and the downside is minimal (Manny struggles for a couple weeks and goes back to Bowie or Norfolk). It's not like Betemit and Andino have been amazing at 3B and we'll lose a lot of production if Manny struggles.

I do think that it's unlikely he makes a major contribution over top of what those guys were giving us. Andino cannot hit and Betemit cannot field. I don't know if the overall package Manny can give us right now will be much of an improvement, but I expect his offense to be better than Andino and his defense to be better than Betemit.

[Greg Pappas]

From a purely developmental perspective, I think this is the wrong move. I have a hard time believing a guy who has been average offensively all year long is ready for ML pitching but we'll see. He's had some hot streaks before this season and most likely thats what his current hitting is. I suspect he'll struggle, probably be worse than a Betemit/Andino platoon and not get the AB's at Bowie that he should be getting. Will it hurt him longterm. Probably not.

Good post.

[Greg Pappas]

But he is going to get ML development now...And then, maybe he goes to the AFL(unless he won't be eligible?).

And then, ST comes around and he would obviously be there.

So, really, the MiL development you are talking about is what he would get between now and the end of Bowie's season..which is what, early Sept?

So we are talking about 3-4 weeks of MiL development.

True... 3-4 weeks... his promotion is probably not a big deal.

[Oriole85]

They average 3K walk ups a night.

They should get 5k+.

I was at the Wieters game...stadium was electric that night.

The record was the day where word got out Adam Jones that Adam Jones was about to sign the extension. I was at the Wieters game too, that was great, wish I could go tonight.

They probably won't release this, but it be interesting to know how many ticket sales there were total after the Machado promotion was announced since walk-ups are only counted after 5 PM.

[Oriole85]

How does this affect his service time?

It starts, as I've already noted many were making a big deal about Zach Britton's service time last year. Anyone concerned right now about his? It's a good problem to have, we want to remain viable and it's sure worth whatever service time we lose from him.