341 replies to this topic

[dude]

Those guys listed aren't anything special, IMO. I like several of them, they just aren't unique talents as a group. I wouldn't call them nothing, but I do think it's fair to say Duquette did nothing novel to acquire them and that nearly every team has a similar crop of youngish talent.

 

Which is different than nothing.

 

GRod is a top10 RHSP.  Hall is a top 10 LHSP.  Mountcastle is a top 4 1B.

 

They've got a decent group of upper level pitching, actually more bodies than they can reasonably assess in the Majors.

 

They have a number of other guys that are worth considering.  Dan wasn't in charge of the mid-'18 sell off.

 

Dan did a couple things well but I think he was generally bad at his job and literally tanked his effort even before we knew he was going to Toronto.  He was, I'd guess, intentionally poor in 2015.  By 2017 started to realize that he might want a paycheck and started sucking up to the inner circle again.

 

I think, in terms of acquiring Talent, he did a generally poor job, at times intentionally so and wound up deferring to Brady/John/Lou....but we still have a group of players, including guys like Nunez and Santander that some people think is building a 75-81 win team in 2021, with only new additions from the waiver wire.

 

The Orioles had a lot of success from 2012-2016 that had little to do with some Talent acquisition plan. 

They could have done more on 'Now' the Talent front.

They did very little in most avenues of MiL Talent....yet the core of that group is still in the top 15 (better when you include the failure of the 2018 season).

 

Without being good at Now or Later Talent acquisition, they were able to produce good Now results and decent Later results.

 

Imagine if they were any good at either end....or Heaven forbid, both.

[BSLChrisStoner]

6 for his first 22, 2 homers, 2 doubles. 

[BSLChrisStoner]

Santander up to .250  ...   (as of the 7th tonight). 

 

.250 / .278 / .481

[BSLRoseKatz]

Currently batting .400/.429/.950 with RISP 

[TwentyThirtyFive]

He better learn to take some walks

[NickStevens]

Agree with the walks. A sub-.300 OBP isn't going to cut it. It's the primary reason why I still believe Santander is a really good OF bench piece on a winning club. Switch hitter, can play all three spots (CF in an extreme pinch), good pop, hits righties fairly well. 

[BSLChrisStoner]

Agree with the walks. A sub-.300 OBP isn't going to cut it. It's the primary reason why I still believe Santander is a really good OF bench piece on a winning club. Switch hitter, can play all three spots (CF in an extreme pinch), good pop, hits righties fairly well. 

Yeah, I think that is his floor, and that's not bad at all. 

 

But there is ceiling above that with him slugging as he is. The ball jumps off the bat, high exit velo. 

The other thing to watch is the average.  If he can bat .285 vs. 260; everything looks that much better. 

He did walk at a decent clip through High A.  Maybe that will be added to his game in the Majors with increased development. 

[JeremyStrain]

Yeah, I think that is his floor, and that's not bad at all. 

 

But there is ceiling above that with him slugging as he is. The ball jumps off the bat, high exit velo. 

The other thing to watch is the average.  If he can bat .285 vs. 260; everything looks that much better. 

He did walk at a decent clip through High A.  Maybe that will be added to his game in the Majors with increased development. 

It's funny how something like reputation can affect that part of the game though.

 

If pitchers think he's a fluke, and attack him aggressively, there are less pitches out of the zone to take for a walk. If they believe he's fairly legit and kind of dangerous, they will start pitching him outside of the zone more and hope that his discipline isn't strong enough to lay off of them. This is all part of the adaptation game we all talk about but probably never really consider. The next adapting he has to do is going to be laying off breaking balls out of the zone, cause guys are going to start nibbling with their pitches that move and try to get him to chase. If he can do his homework and know who likes to throw what in different situations, he's got a good shot at improving the walks at this level. 1-2 against Strasburg, he's throwing me the power curve low and outside. 0-2 against Britton, here comes a low sinker. THAT'S where guys earn their money these days, putting in the work and studying.

 

He just hasn't had to yet cause guys are still going at him and throwing stuff over the plate. Pitchers will adjust soon, now that he's been getting a little notoriety, and then it'll be his turn to adjust, or not.

[BSLRoseKatz]

https://baseballsava...t-r-hitting-mlb

 

Based on this he's seeing 41.2 percent of his pitches in the zone compared to 44.3 percent last year

[JeremyStrain]

https://baseballsava...t-r-hitting-mlb

 

Based on this he's seeing 41.2 percent of his pitches in the zone compared to 44.3 percent last year

Sounds about right. It's been dropping a couple percent each year. Unless he goes out and has a Mike Trout like coming out party, I'd expect it to be gradual. Not every pitcher is going to decide to take him more seriously at the same time.

 

Just flipping through those it looks like his launch angle is a good bit higher, and I know we have all speculated what the difference may be with these regime vs others and having to do something with launch angles, exit velo and other more recent metrics. Nothing super concrete yet, and like I was saying he's still gotta get through pitchers adapting to him, and then adjust after they make changes, but things are going in a good direction for him. He's just gotta work on those breaking pitches, laying off them, knowing when they are coming etc. Those are eating him up this year so far. All part of adapting though, I like his odds so far.

[Mike B]

Sounds about right. It's been dropping a couple percent each year. Unless he goes out and has a Mike Trout like coming out party, I'd expect it to be gradual. Not every pitcher is going to decide to take him more seriously at the same time.

 

Just flipping through those it looks like his launch angle is a good bit higher, and I know we have all speculated what the difference may be with these regime vs others and having to do something with launch angles, exit velo and other more recent metrics. Nothing super concrete yet, and like I was saying he's still gotta get through pitchers adapting to him, and then adjust after they make changes, but things are going in a good direction for him. He's just gotta work on those breaking pitches, laying off them, knowing when they are coming etc. Those are eating him up this year so far. All part of adapting though, I like his odds so far.

I think what we are seeing is Santander adjusting to what the pitchers did to him at the end of last year.  He is a strong and pretty athletic guy, like you I think he still has work to do, but he is showing signs of being someone who can be part of future Oriole plans.

[JeremyStrain]

I think what we are seeing is Santander adjusting to what the pitchers did to him at the end of last year.  He is a strong and pretty athletic guy, like you I think he still has work to do, but he is showing signs of being someone who can be part of future Oriole plans.

Yeah it's generally not a quick process. Sometimes there's a hot streak when they first come up, and after the 2nd or 3rd time seeing a guy pitchers will go, ok this worked better than that, so lets build on that. That's probably about where he was early this season, guys were going, ok at the end of last year he was really hitting, so lets go at him a bit and see if it's a fluke, and now he's tearing up balls in the zone, and crushing FB, so pitchers are about at that point now where they go, ok, he's hitting .350 on FB, but lets see how he does with my breaking stuff. If he hits his way through that, then it'll be a bit more of a chess game and back and forth, if he doesn't then all he's going to see for the next couple months are breaking pitches.

 

Ryan Howard was like this. He had that tear early in his career where he looked like the second coming of Frank Thomas, but I saw him a ton when he got called up to AA, and I saw right away he had a huge hole in his swing, low and away for breaking stuff. Later it ended up he didn't hit them well low and inside either. He tore up AA, tore up the ML, but when guys started getting him out  it was those low curveballs or sliders that were eating him up. He still did really well because trouble with throwing breaking pitches at the bottom of the zone, they miss a lot, and he had a pretty good eye so he drew a lot of walks too. It was just something about his swing plane and the extension he got with his arms.

 

Not that I see any comparisons there, just my favorite pitching adjustment story, cause pitchers knew it, and Ryan never really adjusted but he made them pay when they missed or hung something. If a guy threw that breaking pitch in at him and it hung a little bit, it was gone. Kind of a small margin of error when that's what you're shooting for as a pitcher. Hopefully Anthony keeps improving on this stuff and lays off those breaking pitches out of the zone and gets his walks up more. He's striking out a good bit less this year, which usually means pitch recognition is up, but also ties to those 60% of pitches they are throwing him out of the zone.

[BSLSteveBirrer]

Yeah it's generally not a quick process. Sometimes there's a hot streak when they first come up, and after the 2nd or 3rd time seeing a guy pitchers will go, ok this worked better than that, so lets build on that. That's probably about where he was early this season, guys were going, ok at the end of last year he was really hitting, so lets go at him a bit and see if it's a fluke, and now he's tearing up balls in the zone, and crushing FB, so pitchers are about at that point now where they go, ok, he's hitting .350 on FB, but lets see how he does with my breaking stuff. If he hits his way through that, then it'll be a bit more of a chess game and back and forth, if he doesn't then all he's going to see for the next couple months are breaking pitches.

 

Ryan Howard was like this. He had that tear early in his career where he looked like the second coming of Frank Thomas, but I saw him a ton when he got called up to AA, and I saw right away he had a huge hole in his swing, low and away for breaking stuff. Later it ended up he didn't hit them well low and inside either. He tore up AA, tore up the ML, but when guys started getting him out  it was those low curveballs or sliders that were eating him up. He still did really well because trouble with throwing breaking pitches at the bottom of the zone, they miss a lot, and he had a pretty good eye so he drew a lot of walks too. It was just something about his swing plane and the extension he got with his arms.

 

Not that I see any comparisons there, just my favorite pitching adjustment story, cause pitchers knew it, and 

Ryan never really adjusted but he made them pay when they missed or hung something. If a guy threw that breaking pitch in at him and it hung a little bit, it was gone. Kind of a small margin of error when that's what you're shooting for as a pi

tcher. Hopefully Anthony keeps improving on this stuff and lays off those breaking pitches out of the zone and gets his walks up more. He's striking out a good bit less this year, which usually means pitch recognition is up, but also ties to those 60% of pitches they are throwing him out of the zone.

This is why I never understood why pitchers threw Adam Jones a strike. He was going to swing anyway. Seems like the pitchers figured that out with Ryan and stopped pitching to him but never did figure that out with Jones.

[Mike B]

This is why I never understood why pitchers threw Adam Jones a strike. He was going to swing anyway. Seems like the pitchers figured that out with Ryan and stopped pitching to him but never did figure that out with Jones.

I don't think the pitchers figured out anything with Ryan Howard.  From 2005 to 2011, he was one the most feared power hitter in the NL.  He got hurt off and on in 2012 and 2013, and also got out of shape and never got it back.  

 

Pitchers do not take 7 years to figure it out.  They throw strikes, because they are programmed to throw strikes and they also realize that the best hitter fails near 70% of the time.   Baseball history is full of free swinger types,and some are in the HOF.  Bottom line Jones could hit and did so for a long time.

[JeremyStrain]

I don't think the pitchers figured out anything with Ryan Howard.  From 2005 to 2011, he was one the most feared power hitter in the NL.  He got hurt off and on in 2012 and 2013, and also got out of shape and never got it back.  

 

Pitchers do not take 7 years to figure it out.  They throw strikes, because they are programmed to throw strikes and they also realize that the best hitter fails near 70% of the time.   Baseball history is full of free swinger types,and some are in the HOF.  Bottom line Jones could hit and did so for a long time.

Yeah, it's not that they suddenly figured out how to pitch him, he just kind of fell off after the injuries, bat slowed down a bit, got more vulnerable.

 

Even during his killer run, they knew how to pitch him, the trouble was that not many guys could throw a breaking pitch at the knees, keep it in the zone and not hang it. Ryan knew he could let the percentages be with those two bottom corners, he focused on what he could do well which was top half of the zone, especially in, so if someone missed up or out over the plate a bit, he made them pay, if not, he could lay off it and take the walk knowing how hard it was to get that corner for an out.

 

Adam actually had a pretty spectacular heat map for his career. Not a single zone below 75% contact in the zone. He got eaten up outside of the zone pretty good, especially low, which is I'm sure the narrative we all remember cause it seems like guys knew and that's all he got in a big spot, but kinda like my point with Anthony, make them pay for throwing something in the zone, and then it's just a matter of not chasing pitches when they start to avoid it on you.

[BSLChrisStoner]

Balt Sun: The Orioles’ Anthony Santander is ‘just on fire.’ Here are five stats that stand out in his breakout season.

[Mike B]

I always try not to make decisions on a player when they are in a very good streak, or a very bad streak, but Santander is certainly making a case that he has a long term future.  He came on last year, both at the plate and with the glove and is building on it so far this year.

 

His second home run last night was an eye opener.  Pearson kept hitting 99 and Santander hung in there.  Pearson got too much of the plate and Santander drove the ball into the Orioles BP.  That was a special at bat.   In addition, his pull power, is very impressive.  He has hit 3 balls onto Eutaw Street in the last 3 games.  I wonder if anyone has done that before.

[BSLChrisStoner]

The pull power / quick bat is sick.  The opposite field power can make him a lot of $. 

[Mike B]

The pull power / quick bat is sick.  The opposite field power can make him a lot of $. 

He is very strong....I have been critical of DD's list of rule 5 guys, but if Santander hits big, it helps justify the other 75 guys he picked.  

[TwentyThirtyFive]

Granted its still a SSS but there is a lot to like in the advanced stats. K% is down. BABIB still is only .264. Hitting more line drives and flyballs. We'll see how the league adjusts to him but encouraging signs. The one thing thats pretty safe to say is that the power is real. Will he hit for enough average or walk enough is really the only question. I dont love the defense but it's passable.