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OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: Congrats to the Houston Cheaters on their win

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Sounds like I missed some aggravation last couple games, as I haven't been able to watch. Thanks for the snippets of game play, especially I.E..

Frustrating couple of games.
 
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Didn't see the game. Checked the box score and saw in 11 innings 16k's in 37ab's, that's ridiculous, when you can't put a ball in play it's nearly impossible to get a positive result, and this team seems to do this way too much.
 
since70 said:
Didn't see the game. Checked the box score and saw in 11 innings 16k's in 37ab's, that's ridiculous, when you can't put a ball in play it's nearly impossible to get a positive result, and this team seems to do this way too much.
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Andy Haines! I remember when they announced that hire. Looked up the Brewers under his "guidance" and was not impressed. Results matter and Haines has done nothing worthwhile at the ML level.

If they continue w/this staff through the winter and into next year, I'm officially done. I will lock in that threat.

I'm seeing the same signs as the Hurdle era. Service time manipulation when we're already well into July and past the point of it being an issue, yet veterans continue to take roster spots over actual ranked prospects and guys performing well. Players that can and likely will be here past 2022. And yet they languish in AAA. There is simply no excuse for guys like VM, Yoshi, etc to be taking reps from players who actually have a chance to be impactful for us beyond this year. THIS is a huge red flag to me.

Cruz is K'ing too much, zero argument, but he's largely been put in the very bottom of the order, giving him no protection, and veering far from how he was used throughout his minor league career. This is on Shelton.

Bednar's arm is cooked and I think Crowe as well. That's on Shelton.

Wish I was more excited for the draft, but I really am not. Because it doesn't matter as long as the same low hanging fruit is managing our major league players, not to mention guys in the minors where the most development occurs.
 
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ImporterExporter said:
Andy Haines! I remember when they announced that hire. Looked up the Brewers under his "guidance" and was not impressed. Results matter and Haines has done nothing worthwhile at the ML level.

If they continue w/this staff through the winter and into next year, I'm officially done. I will lock in that threat.

I'm seeing the same signs as the Hurdle era. Service time manipulation when we're already well into July and past the point of it being an issue, yet veterans continue to take roster spots over actual ranked prospects and guys performing well. Players that can and likely will be here past 2022. And yet they languish in AAA. There is simply no excuse for guys like VM, Yoshi, etc to be taking reps from players who actually have a chance to be impactful for us beyond this year. THIS is a huge red flag to me.

Cruz is K'ing too much, zero argument, but he's largely been put in the very bottom of the order, giving him no protection, and veering far from how he was used throughout his minor league career. This is on Shelton.

Bednar's arm is cooked and I think Crowe as well. That's on Shelton.

Wish I was more excited for the draft, but I really am not. Because it doesn't matter as long as the same low hanging fruit is managing our major league players, not to mention guys in the minors where the most development occurs.
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I'm subscribing to the "upbeat losing Manager" theory. Shelton was hired to fail, and keep things positive whilst doing so. The real staff will be hired this off-season.

ImporterExporter said:
I know he's in a bad slump, but here's your token service time manipulation and roster move for Greg Allen. Can't wait!

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This is the right move for a variety of reasons. Even as a founding member of the "Jack Suwinski Fan Club" - I'm quite fine with this right now, and see a variety of potential benefits to the move.
 
Sending him down right now is fine. It's not even really "service time manipulation" either, because he'd have to be down for like 2 months to not gain that extra year of arbitration. The super two deadline tends to be in mid June and Suwinski had nearly 2 full months on the roster before that.

He's 0 for his last 27, he needs to take some time in AAA to get his mindset back. I think you can argue that he can get his mindset back in the majors, but I think him hitting the shit out of balls for 2 weeks in AAA against much worse pitchers will help him get back on track better than going "trial by fire" and hoping he can figure it out in the majors.
 
Re: Bednar - the more I think about it the more I think the First Order Condition with relievers should be "if you're out of it, sell high on any relievers where you're convinced you're selling high."

I think even with his recent slump we're selling high on Bednar relative to what he is likely to be going forward. I think you could get a Marte-esque package for him (fringe top-100 guy and a wildcard) and that is probably worth taking.
I say again that as far as raw stuff out of the bullpen goes, Bednar is further from Edwin Diaz and closer to Michael Feliz. Will he fall off a cliff? No. But he may regress from unhittable-all-star to above average 2.5-3ERA guy. A valuable player! But worth selling high. Again - Grilli. Hanrahan. Two guys who fans would have flipped sh1t about moving and two guys that ultimately weren't long-term excellent out of the pen.


Re: Suwinski - it's the right move. He needs to mash in AAA. Allen looked very intriguing in ST and could help up here. He had comfortably won a spot before he went down. I want to see him.
 
The rules surrounding service time are really convoluted, but this guy is always on top of things:



So essentially, Suwinski was set to accrue the full year of service if he wasn't demoted at all, but now that he has, he will get the one day plus all those old days will not count towards ML service anymore. He'd have to stay down for a huge amount of time to not be super two eligible, but this move will mean that he's under team control for 7 full seasons instead of 6.

I think there's a merit argument to make about Suwinski, as he's really struggled and maybe needs to make some adjustments. I think Greg Allen actually looked great in the spring, but at this point.... ? There's not much direction to this team and it seems like we're gonna embrace weird mediocrity (?) at best, while Cruz languishes in poor batting order spots.

Just a meh sandwich all around, I share everyone's sentiment. I am hoping the draft provides some excitement, in general and with us.
 
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DJ Spinoza said:
Just a meh sandwich all around, I share everyone's sentiment. I am hoping the draft provides some excitement, in general and with us.
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To be honest at the halfway mark this has been a mediocre season.

Cruz and Roansy are establishing themselves as regulars but we don't know if they're stars.
Davis is hurt. Gonzales was underwhelming now hurt.
Hayes' offensive profile is in question.
Keller is much better but "Glasnow 2017" better and we don't know how much more helium there realistically is.
Thompson and Brubaker are good back of rotation guys but not much more.
Some of the upper minors hitters have done well (Bae, Suwinski, Marcano), some have had "meh but you're still a prospect at least" type of seasons (Castro, Mitchell) and then Martin and Fraizier have totally busted. Gorski popped but now he's probably out for the year.

The upper minors pitching has been bad. Burrows has fallen off. Maybe Priester salvages things. Yajure is outright done as a pitching prospect IMO.


I don't think there's a lot of great outcomes to point to and say that this season has been a success for this organization. We're probably winning 3-7 more games than last year but it's not obvious to me that next year is going to be another step forward. Unless we get some good pieces externally.
 
DJ Spinoza said:
The rules surrounding service time are really convoluted, but this guy is always on top of things:



So essentially, Suwinski was set to accrue the full year of service if he wasn't demoted at all, but now that he has, he will get the one day plus all those old days will not count towards ML service anymore. He'd have to stay down for a huge amount of time to not be super two eligible, but this move will mean that he's under team control for 7 full seasons instead of 6.

I think there's a merit argument to make about Suwinski, as he's really struggled and maybe needs to make some adjustments. I think Greg Allen actually looked great in the spring, but at this point.... ? There's not much direction to this team and it seems like we're gonna embrace weird mediocrity (?) at best, while Cruz languishes in poor batting order spots.

Just a meh sandwich all around, I share everyone's sentiment. I am hoping the draft provides some excitement, in general and with us.
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Tbh, the only reason I thought this wasn't "service time manipulation" was that I thought Suwinski was already beyond that deadline from when he was called up. I thought the total amount of days on the roster needed to not accrue that year of service was less than 20 days. If he wasn't getting that 7th year of controll, well yeah definitely send him down to get that 7th year.

I think the super-two service time manipulation by teams is crappy, but it's an absolute no-brainer to send a player down to get that 7th year of service.
 
www.mlb.com

Who goes No. 1 on Sunday? We polled execs

LOS ANGELES -- In 2019, the last time the Baltimore Orioles had the No. 1 pick, no one knew for certain who general manager Mike Elias was going to select until the last minute. Back then, they kept three players officially in the mix -- Adley Rutschman, Bobby Witt Jr.
www.mlb.com www.mlb.com

Interesting -- execs seem to think that the Orioles will not take Jones, and most thought they'll take Lee. Honestly, I think this would be a best case scenario for us, as Lee being gone would likely have us simply deciding between Johnson and Collier, with presumably the chance to take the one who will agree to less (or perhaps we prefer one).

Getting Johnson at a solid discount that lets us do whatever we possibly can with the next two picks would be a perfect outcome. Who cares if he might be a 2B? He can flat out hit, and the accolades of him being the best prep hitter in recent memory speak more strongly for him than anyone else IMO. I am still really into the upside move of Green, but it doesn't seem very possible.

I'm expecting to do another round of diving in and flip flopping this weekend, but I'm liking the possibility of Johnson more and more.
 
Kiley's latest mock is out and it has some quite interesting developments. I'll try to be general enough that I hope I won't violate paywall, not that anyone is really reading this outside of a half dozen of us...

Has us going Cam Collier at 4, Chase DeLauter at 36, and Brock Porter at 43. That would be a pretty phenomenal outcome, IMO, as DeLauter's collection of tools is really great and if he didn't get hurt, there's no way this would be possible. Porter is also a great upside prep pitcher, so we'd cover multiple bases here.

What's most interesting about Kiley is that he opens our blurb by stating that he thinks we'd take Jones, Holliday, or Parada if they are there -- this is a pretty significant departure from Callis/Mayo, who really seem to think there's no way we'd take Parada based on Davis being our 1.1 last year. He does have Parada going #3 to Texas, with Jones and Holliday going #1 and #2, so that's basically in line with the other two, who are also mentioning Parada as an option at #3.

His take is essentially that it will be an either/or of us vs. Baltimore in terms of taking the lead in slot pool. If they take Jones, we step into that position with an underslot, whereas if they take Johnson or someone else, we won't be able to do so.

The newest wrinkle is that SS Zach Neto has late buzz and would come at an even bigger savings. I'm less sure I like this option, even though he fits the profile of a college hitter who performed on the Cape. I like the mix of possible players at #4 to the extent that an extreme underslot would be a harder sell to me. Assuming Jones is out of the question entirely, any of the group of Holliday, Johnson, Green, Collier, and Parada are perfectly fine options in my mind, and I might be able to talk myself into Lee. Taking someone on the fringes of the tier and more of an 8-15 pick would be too much gamesman ship for me.

Also of note, he mentions that Green and Cade Horton have some buzz at our pick, which is the first I've seen of either. If we're going a little off the board, I'd rather go really bold with the rising college RHP in Horton than Neto, I think. I guess this keeps my ideal of Green alive.


In any case, getting Brock Porter with one of the second or third picks would be an enormous coup, even to the extent that I think taking a guy like Neto would be worth it. Pipeline has Porter as the 11th ranked guy, he sits 94-97 and throws a plus changeup in high school. 6'4" 208 lbs., he also has feel for spin, and in general he just seems like a notch above what you can usually pick up with the sandwich round picks.

The other prep pitcher that he mentions is LHP Noah Schultz, who seems like a supreme example of an upside pick. 6'9" but doesn't quite throw as hard as Randy Johnson yet, and lacks a ton of experience. He has a firm commitment to Vanderbilt and so would be exactly the kind of guy you need to pull together 3.5M in order so sign, not too dissimilar from Chandler last year (interestingly, Porter also has a Clemson commit).
 
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www.prospectslive.com

2022 MLB Draft - FINAL Mock Draft 5.0 — Prospects Live

Mock Draft 5.0 is here. Who will your team select? Where will Termarr Johnson, Elijah Green, Druw Jones and Dylan Lesko end up? What about college stars like Brooks Lee, Kevin Parada and Jace Jung? MLB scouting personnel helped develop v 5.0. Enjoy.
www.prospectslive.com www.prospectslive.com

For good measure, the final Prospects Live mock, which also has us taking Collier and mentions we've had a ton of scouting presence on him at the Cape. That's no surprise, and Collier sort of figures to be a great best of all worlds type pick. He's got the plus athleticism, age, competitiveness, and should come at a decent slot discount.

I'm still at the point where I think that given the choice, I will take Termarr Johnson's hit tool and not worry about the 2B projection, but pretty curious how it will all play out. Johnson vs. Collier to see where you can get the bigger shave is a perfectly fine position, and here Doyle has Lee going 1st and Green sliding all the way to the Rockies at 10.

Kiley's mock definitely has me starting to hope we somehow walk away with one of Johnson/Collier and Porter, though. That would be a home run, and if you add DeLauter on top of it...
 
DJ Spinoza said:
Kiley's latest mock is out and it has some quite interesting developments. I'll try to be general enough that I hope I won't violate paywall, not that anyone is really reading this outside of a half dozen of us...

Has us going Cam Collier at 4, Chase DeLauter at 36, and Brock Porter at 43. That would be a pretty phenomenal outcome, IMO, as DeLauter's collection of tools is really great and if he didn't get hurt, there's no way this would be possible. Porter is also a great upside prep pitcher, so we'd cover multiple bases here.

What's most interesting about Kiley is that he opens our blurb by stating that he thinks we'd take Jones, Holliday, or Parada if they are there -- this is a pretty significant departure from Callis/Mayo, who really seem to think there's no way we'd take Parada based on Davis being our 1.1 last year. He does have Parada going #3 to Texas, with Jones and Holliday going #1 and #2, so that's basically in line with the other two, who are also mentioning Parada as an option at #3.

His take is essentially that it will be an either/or of us vs. Baltimore in terms of taking the lead in slot pool. If they take Jones, we step into that position with an underslot, whereas if they take Johnson or someone else, we won't be able to do so.

The newest wrinkle is that SS Zach Neto has late buzz and would come at an even bigger savings. I'm less sure I like this option, even though he fits the profile of a college hitter who performed on the Cape. I like the mix of possible players at #4 to the extent that an extreme underslot would be a harder sell to me. Assuming Jones is out of the question entirely, any of the group of Holliday, Johnson, Green, Collier, and Parada are perfectly fine options in my mind, and I might be able to talk myself into Lee. Taking someone on the fringes of the tier and more of an 8-15 pick would be too much gamesman ship for me.

Also of note, he mentions that Green and Cade Horton have some buzz at our pick, which is the first I've seen of either. If we're going a little off the board, I'd rather go really bold with the rising college RHP in Horton than Neto, I think. I guess this keeps my ideal of Green alive.


In any case, getting Brock Porter with one of the second or third picks would be an enormous coup, even to the extent that I think taking a guy like Neto would be worth it. Pipeline has Porter as the 11th ranked guy, he sits 94-97 and throws a plus changeup in high school. 6'4" 208 lbs., he also has feel for spin, and in general he just seems like a notch above what you can usually pick up with the sandwich round picks.

The other prep pitcher that he mentions is LHP Noah Schultz, who seems like a supreme example of an upside pick. 6'9" but doesn't quite throw as hard as Randy Johnson yet, and lacks a ton of experience. He has a firm commitment to Vanderbilt and so would be exactly the kind of guy you need to pull together 3.5M in order so sign, not too dissimilar from Chandler last year (interestingly, Porter also has a Clemson commit).
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I really hope they go BPA, and to me, at 4, that's Green (huge upside, also biggest risk) or Johnson (my preference as I think there is legit Devers/Cano comps). I'm guessing at least 1 of the 2 will be there and given the money we do have, means we shouldn't have a problem signing them.

With that being said, I think the pick is Collier. People might forget we drafted his father and he played, fairly briefly, for us in the late 90's. We've seen the family connection before (Hayes, though that was Huntington era) and Collier would obviously provide at least a small bit of savings. There is some definite worry here as 17 year olds require a shit load of projection but he really hammered JC pitching as basically a HS junior and then got a brief stint in the Cape and held his own, again against guys 20, 21, 22 years old. That's impressive. And given we had a ton of scouts there late (like Solometo the previous year) and him being pulled from the Cape after 9 games means they probably have something lined up. Just a complete shot in the dark theory.

Want no part of Parada, even if the guy ends up being a masher. We took a guy who had the potential to be a bat only player last year at 1.1 and Parada is not likely a C long term so that means 1B/DH and I just don't want to use 4 overall on that profile given the troubles Davis is already facing (mainly injury related). Unless the guy is an absolute can't miss bat, you just don't take 1B/DH that high and that's probably what Parada is long term. Neto and the other super savers just don't interest me when better prospects are there for the taking at 4.

A lot hinges on Baltimore, and I don't think anyone outside Elias and a few others near him have any real knowledge of where they are leaning/going as of today. Probably won't know anything until Sunday morning.

Personally I think they'd do well to take Jones as BPA given they have the money to give him slot and still make a lot of noise with their next few picks.
 
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Agreed on all fronts, though honestly I'm ok with Parada if that's how it breaks. The question there for me is more about the slot game than the bat specifically -- I think it makes some sense to hedge your bet a little bit in terms of Davis, as there's a world where having two guys means keeping both of them fresher at an injury prone position. It's a little too much "what if all prospects make it" for my taste, but when you also consider Endy, it would happen where Parada is a DH/1B masher and can catch occasionally, with Davis being the core guy and Endy being more of the backup who also can play 2B/corner OF.

That said, I don't know if he comes at much of a discount since the teams behind us are all linked to college bats. It's just a little bit of a stretch to me, but personally I like his profile more than I like Lee's, so if we're going college he's the guy I want.

More and more I think the best result is just Johnson. He's a player who has stood out to me from the very earliest things I saw on the draft last year, even when Green had all this buzz as a 1.1 guy before his K issues in summer 2021. I think it'd be great to just take the risk with Green, and maybe with him not having a definite landing spot, there's actually potential for a little slot save there too, but Johnson is just going to hit a ton and the power will probably play up more for us too. I think I'd want him even if there was no slot discount to be had, but the way Callis has talked lately, he's keen on making a deal to get picked as high as possible.

My gut tells me Baltimore is not going to take Jones.
 
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DJ Spinoza said:
Agreed on all fronts, though honestly I'm ok with Parada if that's how it breaks. The question there for me is more about the slot game than the bat specifically -- I think it makes some sense to hedge your bet a little bit in terms of Davis, as there's a world where having two guys means keeping both of them fresher at an injury prone position. It's a little too much "what if all prospects make it" for my taste, but when you also consider Endy, it would happen where Parada is a DH/1B masher and can catch occasionally, with Davis being the core guy and Endy being more of the backup who also can play 2B/corner OF.

That said, I don't know if he comes at much of a discount since the teams behind us are all linked to college bats. It's just a little bit of a stretch to me, but personally I like his profile more than I like Lee's, so if we're going college he's the guy I want.

More and more I think the best result is just Johnson. He's a player who has stood out to me from the very earliest things I saw on the draft last year, even when Green had all this buzz as a 1.1 guy before his K issues in summer 2021. I think it'd be great to just take the risk with Green, and maybe with him not having a definite landing spot, there's actually potential for a little slot save there too, but Johnson is just going to hit a ton and the power will probably play up more for us too. I think I'd want him even if there was no slot discount to be had, but the way Callis has talked lately, he's keen on making a deal to get picked as high as possible.

My gut tells me Baltimore is not going to take Jones.
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I think something to consider is how did our masterclass 2021 draft impact Baltimore and anyone else who subsequently picks 1st overall?

I agree that the O's won't take Jones. It's not their MO (Elias mainly) and if they were to take somebody that shaves 2 million off the slot value, they are in such an advantageous position the rest of the draft. They can target 2 or 3 guys with their following picks and pay them all well over slot, meaning guys who are 1st rounders wouldn't have a problem telling other teams they're not signing and then doing what we did with Bubba Chandler.

Nobody can compete with Baltimore the rest of the way if they go Johnson/Lee at 1. Both of those guys probably come in at least 2M below the slot.

Lee makes sense for them as Baltimore is surging earlier than expected and theoretically Lee is someone you can start in A+ ball and fast track him to the big leagues given his long history of hitting in college and the Cape.

I really don't think much of it matters in relation to us. Unless somebody above us takes Collier, which I don't see happening, he's going to be our pick.
 
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