Around Baseball 2025

[Laika]

41 minutes ago, Olerud363.354 said:

 

Jackson Holliday's age 21 season is pretty similar to Bobby Witt Jrs age 22 season. 

Witt was better, but just a bit.   A lot of development left here. 

 

Witt was twice as good by WAR and showed way more explosive tools 

Witt 2021 --> 100th percentile sprint speed and baserunning value, 75th percentile arm, 69th percentile xSLG and 65th percentile Avg Exit Velo, upper tier bat speed 

Holliday --> 25th percentile bat speed :(   , 26th percentile arm strength :(   , 5th percentile range , somehow 8th percentile baserunning against 82nd percentile sprint speed to he's a dumb baserunner 

All Holliday has shown is a decent approach (chase and squared up type stats). I think he could still be a 4 WAR player or something like that in some years. Lots of work to do though. 

[Brownie19]

6 minutes ago, Laika said:

Witt was twice as good by WAR and showed way more explosive tools 

Witt 2021 --> 100th percentile sprint speed and baserunning value, 75th percentile arm, 69th percentile xSLG and 65th percentile Avg Exit Velo, upper tier bat speed 

Holliday --> 25th percentile bat speed :(   , 26th percentile arm strength :(   , 5th percentile range , somehow 8th percentile baserunning against 82nd percentile sprint speed to he's a dumb baserunner 

All Holliday has shown is a decent approach (chase and squared up type stats). I think he could still be a 4 WAR player or something like that in some years. Lots of work to do though. 

The shine has certainly wore off.

[Terminator]

In the past 10 seasons the Colorado Rockies have more playoff wins than the Baltimore Orioles

[Orgfiller]

17 minutes ago, Terminator said:

In the past 10 seasons the Colorado Rockies have more playoff wins than the Baltimore Orioles

Yup, that's the one.

[John_Havok]

3 hours ago, Laika said:

Nah, you have to start to wonder if their system was just overhyped or they were succeeding with stuff at the plate that the league was always capable of adjusting to. 

• Rutschman has collapsed. You can blame injuries but he's almost 28 and has been on a steady decline. 
• Holliday does not look like a future star at all. He looks like a guy who might be able to scrape together some decent years but that's it. 
• Cowser has been whiff addict even when he was good. 
• Mayo hasn't been able to translate to the MLB yet.
• Mountcastle even collapsed last year.
• Kjerstad complete bust? 
• Henderson and Westburg smaller steps back
• Some of their recent higher draft picks (Honeycutt, Bradfield) ain't working out 
• Mullins collapsed as a player while they had him 

Their farm goes from pretty much #1 to like, 15th in one year. And that's after selling MLB pieces at the deadline. And that ranking is bouyed mostly by Beavers and Basallo, who will graduate soon. So their farm system going forward is heavily reliant on their 2025 draft class working out. Personally I don't even see how it's a top half farm system and I think people are just too hesitant to completely tank them in one season.

You can blame a lot of it on injuries but when everyone is getting hurt can you really say it's bad luck? Maybe it's systemic and related to the kinds of training they do. IIRC they had multiple players with oblique/intercostal injuries. 

Prospects break your heart, this is why using them as capital is usually the smart play when you have the chance. These franchises that rely on getting 3-5 extra picks every year and run a team with youth really can't get married to their prospects. They have to supplement when they can, and if they aren't willing to do that with money, they have to do it via trade. 

Milwaukee is probably the only success story with this at present (rays in the past but they're sliding) and they might actually be trading their front line pitchers before the deadline even if they're in contention. 

These teams should be sinking every dollar they can spare into player development (the brewers clearly did) to ensure they get the most out of all their handout draft picks in the minors and trade some for bonafide big leaguers whenever they need to. Hoarding them all just doesn't pan out 9 times out of 10. 

[Jimcanuck]

1The Red Sox are doing a good job building from the farm.  Of course they could be this year's O's.  And the O's could win 100 games.  That's baseball.

 

[Orgfiller]

39 minutes ago, Jimcanuck said:

1The Red Sox are doing a good job building from the farm.  Of course they could be this year's O's.  And the O's could win 100 games.  That's baseball.

 

The Red Sox will generally play at the top of the FA market when they deem it necessary. The O's have not shown any sort of willingness to do so.

[jaysblue]

9 hours ago, BTS said:

Baltimore's rotation is currently projected as:

Bradish

Rogers

Kremer

Povich

Wells

Looking forward to those losers finishing last again.

I'm not an Orioles fanboy, but they can be a team that goes from last to first in the AL East with all that young talent they have. They're not your typical cellar dweller like the Rockies, White Sox or Pirates. 

On the pitching side, yes they need to add at least one or two elite starters. If they do and the rest of the team stays healthy, they could be a sneaky team to watch out for in 2026. 

[jaysblue]

3 hours ago, Jimcanuck said:

Yep.  I traded for Holliday for next to nothing in one of my leagues lol

Laika is very quick to write players off

He likes to flip flop and writes guys off all the time. 

If Holliday goes out and has a 4-5 WAR season, he'll start saying the opposite. 

[Jimcanuck]

3 minutes ago, jaysblue said:

He likes to flip flop and writes guys off all the time. 

If Holliday goes out and has a 4-5 WAR season, he'll start saying the opposite. 

Yep, unprincipled

[jaysblue]

55 minutes ago, Jimcanuck said:

1The Red Sox are doing a good job building from the farm.  Of course they could be this year's O's.  And the O's could win 100 games.  That's baseball.

 

Yup that's baseball.

Orioles in 2024 were a 91 win team. They can easily go from being a 75-win team as they were in 2025 to a 90-win team next season with some good luck, health, rotation upgrades and young players taking a next step forward. 

 

[Olerud363.354]

3 hours ago, Laika said:

Witt was twice as good by WAR and showed way more explosive tools 

I'll admit I'm nitpicking, and you are right Haladay's tools are pretty lame....

but twice as good by WAR is less meaningful 2-1 then it is 8-4.   In the limit of that framework some guy with 0.2 WAR is infiinitely better than someone with 0 WAR.   Need to use "wins above nothing" for the ratio to be meaningful.   

For some reason Witt's age 22 season he had a .314 xwOBA and Holliday a .312 xwOBA about the same.  Their expected hitting, defense was similar.  Witt's advantage was all baserunning. 

I do see Halladay's tools are blue... so not sure how their xwOBAs (2022 and 2025) ended up so close.

 

[jaysblue]

3 hours ago, Terminator said:

In the past 10 seasons the Colorado Rockies have more playoff wins than the Baltimore Orioles

That Rockies 2018 team was actually pretty good haha. 

Arenado and Story were elite. They had Blackmon still who was offensive force. Dahl looked like he could have been something special with the bat. On the pitching side, their rotation was actually solid with Marquez and Freeland having 4 WAR seasons lol.

Rockies in 2007 were a fun team to watch. The days when they had Matt Holiday, Tulo, Atkins, Helton, Spilly, Hawpe and Ubaldo haha. 

[Laika]

3 minutes ago, Olerud363.354 said:

I'll admit I'm nitpicking, and you are right Haladay's tools are pretty lame....

but twice as good by WAR is less meaningful 2-1 then it is 8-4.   In the limit of that framework some guy with 0.2 WAR is infiinitely better than someone with 0 WAR.   Need to use "wins above nothing" for the ratio to be meaningful.   

For some reason Witt's age 22 season he had a .314 xwOBA and Holliday a .312 xwOBA about the same.  Their expected hitting, defense was similar.  Witt's advantage was all baserunning. 

I do see Halladay's tools are blue... so not sure how their xwOBAs (2022 and 2025) ended up so close.

 

Witt hit the ball hard and had elite legs. That let him overcome not walking almost ever and having a horrible chase rate. 

Holliday has better plate discipline and walk rates but hits the ball like an old Ty France.

They aren't really comparable. Witt was a SS demonstrating elite tools and deficiencies in things that can sometimes be improved (plate discipline). It's not an instructive comp. I don't really know how to find good 21 year old comps for Holliday because how many 21 year olds get full MLB seasons and have 25th percentile bat speed? Probably not many. What was the bat speed on Addison Russell or Nomar Mazara? 

Holliday has paths to being good but with 25th percentile bat speed and bad defense so far, and 25th percentile Launch Angle Sweet Spot (launch angle optimization, basically) I am not sure I like his odds. If he cuts his K % in half he could be Jeff McNeil. Is he Jake Cronenworth? These are good players. If he becomes a Launch Angle Sweet Spot savant in the offseason he could even be Jonathan Aranda. Improved defense + hitting like that and he's a star. Tough. 

[Olerud363.354]

17 minutes ago, Laika said:

Holliday has paths to being good but with 25th percentile bat speed

Bo Bichette apparently has 12th percentile bat speed, 1 percentile range, 21 percentile speed and 36 percentile arm, 12th percentile chase yet must do something else well.  

I bet Jose Ramirez had awful statcast first couple of years to.  

Maybe Holiday will do what Bichette or Ramirez do. 

[Olerud363.354]

1 minute ago, Olerud363.354 said:

Bo Bichette apparently has 12th percentile bat speed, 1 percentile range, 21 percentile speed and 36 percentile arm, 12th percentile chase yet must do something else well.  

Guy that hits the ball 440 feet off Ohtani doesn't seem like he would have 12th percentile bat speed.  Squares it up a lot, but how do you hit it 440 feet with 12th percentile bat speed? https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/bo-bichette-666182?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

Maybe the bat speed thing is biased somehow.  I guess must have different speed of swing as his Ohtani homer was 79 mph compared to a reported average of 69.  

[hanton]

1 hour ago, Olerud363.354 said:

Guy that hits the ball 440 feet off Ohtani doesn't seem like he would have 12th percentile bat speed.  Squares it up a lot, but how do you hit it 440 feet with 12th percentile bat speed? https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/bo-bichette-666182?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

Maybe the bat speed thing is biased somehow.  I guess must have different speed of swing as his Ohtani homer was 79 mph compared to a reported average of 69.  

Bo is more of a slasher than a basher so maybe that's why? 

Bo had 2 of the top 5 quickest swings in gm7

 

[Jimcanuck]

Unfair to compare anyone to Witt Jr.  He looks like a generational talent.

Halladay acquitted himself alright for his 1st full season.  Projections have him at 108 wRC+ for 2026.  At peak who knows where he will be.  FG gives him a 60 FV game power.

[Laika]

3 hours ago, Olerud363.354 said:

Bo Bichette apparently has 12th percentile bat speed, 1 percentile range, 21 percentile speed and 36 percentile arm, 12th percentile chase yet must do something else well.  

I bet Jose Ramirez had awful statcast first couple of years to.  

Maybe Holiday will do what Bichette or Ramirez do. 

Freddie Freeman also has a slow bat 

There are exceptions to every rule

[Terminator]

18 hours ago, jaysblue said:

I'm not an Orioles fanboy

[John_Havok]

14 hours ago, Laika said:

Freddie Freeman also has a slow bat 

There are exceptions to every rule

It's one of those spectrums I think... like with EV, you might see a guy's average EV creep up without a corresponding increase in max EV, so you'd probably question what the average EV increase means overall. 

Avg bat speed... I kinda see it the same way. We know Bo can get the bat around in a hurry if he wants/needs to based on seeing those 80+ mph swings. He just doesn't utilize it very often. 

[Laika]

31 minutes ago, John_Havok said:

It's one of those spectrums I think... like with EV, you might see a guy's average EV creep up without a corresponding increase in max EV, so you'd probably question what the average EV increase means overall. 

Avg bat speed... I kinda see it the same way. We know Bo can get the bat around in a hurry if he wants/needs to based on seeing those 80+ mph swings. He just doesn't utilize it very often. 

Bo does have a bit more bat speed than his avg bat speed tells you. His Fast Swing % was 42nd percentile in 2023 (vs like 22nd for his avg bat speed). 

The difference was less pronounced in 2025 but still there. 

I don't think I have ever seen "max bat speed" data. I think all of the bat tracking stuff uses the player's top 90% swings by bat speed, so they throw out all the weird junk swings at the slow end. 

It would be interesting to see something like... MAX BAT SPEED which ignored the 5 hardest swings (noise?) but then averages the next ten fastest swings. There are probably a handful of players who have above average bat speed ability they just choose to not swing like that most of the time. 

[John_Havok]

12 minutes ago, Laika said:

Bo does have a bit more bat speed than his avg bat speed tells you. His Fast Swing % was 42nd percentile in 2023 (vs like 22nd for his avg bat speed). 

The difference was less pronounced in 2025 but still there. 

I don't think I have ever seen "max bat speed" data. I think all of the bat tracking stuff uses the player's top 90% swings by bat speed, so they throw out all the weird junk swings at the slow end. 

It would be interesting to see something like... MAX BAT SPEED which ignored the 5 hardest swings (noise?) but then averages the next ten fastest swings. There are probably a handful of players who have above average bat speed ability they just choose to not swing like that most of the time. 

I wonder this too, like for sprint speed, they only measure it when the player is actively trying to run as fast as they can. If they averaged in all the slow trots to first on groundouts to 2b... the numbers would be silly. 

[Laika]

11 minutes ago, John_Havok said:

I wonder this too, like for sprint speed, they only measure it when the player is actively trying to run as fast as they can. If they averaged in all the slow trots to first on groundouts to 2b... the numbers would be silly. 

I am sure Tango thought of everything 

Maybe there is in fact not *much* variance within a player's top 90% fastest swings, or the variance looks about the same player to player. I think it makes sense that most players are executing their quickest swings, most of the time. Even defensive hacks they are waiting then swinging fast. 

Probably not comparable to sprint speed measurement as there is lots of meaningless jogging in baseball 

[John_Havok]

26 minutes ago, Laika said:

I am sure Tango thought of everything 

Maybe there is in fact not *much* variance within a player's top 90% fastest swings, or the variance looks about the same player to player. I think it makes sense that most players are executing their quickest swings, most of the time. Even defensive hacks they are waiting then swinging fast. 

Probably not comparable to sprint speed measurement as there is lots of meaningless jogging in baseball 

Probably. It's just when the player's choose to swing slowly could certainly infiltrate the numbers when using the top 90% of swings. They also include all swings above 60mph where EV results in 90+ mph. Since Bo's avg exit velo is 91mph, alot of those 60-74.95 mph swings are going to be included in his bat speed calcs. 

in 2025 he managed 72nd percentile EV (91mph) with 12th percentile bat speed. 

Looking at a few other jays from 2025 with low tier bat speed (Clement, Lukes, IKF, Gimenez) the relationships make more sense. 

IKF - 1st percentile EV, 2nd percentile bat speed (seriously... this guy should not be playing)

Clement - 8th percentile EV, 5th percentile bat speed

Lukes - 19th percentile EV, 6th percentile bat speed. 

Gimenez - 8th percentile EV, 13th percentile bat speed. 

Conclusion: Bo is a freak

 

[Laika]

14 minutes ago, John_Havok said:

Probably. It's just when the player's choose to swing slowly could certainly infiltrate the numbers when using the top 90% of swings. They also include all swings above 60mph where EV results in 90+ mph. Since Bo's avg exit velo is 91mph, alot of those 60-74.95 mph swings are going to be included in his bat speed calcs. 

in 2025 he managed 72nd percentile EV (91mph) with 12th percentile bat speed. 

Looking at a few other jays from 2025 with low tier bat speed (Clement, Lukes, IKF, Gimenez) the relationships make more sense. 

IKF - 1st percentile EV, 2nd percentile bat speed (seriously... this guy should not be playing)

Clement - 8th percentile EV, 5th percentile bat speed

Lukes - 19th percentile EV, 6th percentile bat speed. 

Gimenez - 8th percentile EV, 13th percentile bat speed. 

 

 

[John_Havok]

35 minutes ago, Laika said:

 

Low swing speed but high EV = the new market inefficiency 

[Terminator]

In addition to bringing Iglesias back, the Braves also traded Nick Allen to the Astros for Mauricio Dubon.

Dubon is a lot better but the Astros are trying to get under the tax. Allen is projected to be about 4 million bucks cheaper and also has 3 more years of control to Dubon's one.

[G-Snarls]

According to MLB Network almost every team in baseball has checked in with the Cardinals on trading for Brendan Donovan.  More talk on him than any other player on the trade market apparently. 

[jaysblue]

6 hours ago, Terminator said:

I'm a big AA fanboy, you know that!