Around Baseball 2025

[jmomcc]

The orioles must think Rodriquez is done health wise. Or at least extremely dodgy. 

[Laika]

Wild trade for Elias to make lol

[jmomcc]

2 minutes ago, Laika said:

Wild trade for Elias to make lol

We knew they hate drafting pitching but this is even more extreme. 
 

I think they might be a serious contender for someone like Valdez. Elias needs do well this year to keep his jobZ 

[jaysblue]

They probably think G-Rod is damaged goods to pull this kind of trade. 

Taylor Ward probably fits Orioles Park well, especially with the left-field wall being moved in. Gives them a 30+ HR bat, though comes with a low BA and OBP. Likely looking at another 2-3 WAR season. Solid, but nothing special. 

Like some others have said on here, wouldn't surprise me if the Angels spent money this offseason, to try and get back to relevance and compete with the other LA team somewhat. 

[Pendleton]

Weird move. I can see how Ward's righty bat fits into the middle of the O's lineup (they are a bit lefty heavy) but could they not have found a similar free agent bat without having to deal from their miniscule pool of pitching? 

 

Their highest paid player is Tyler O'Neil, signed last year for 49.5M/3. Does this move push him to a bench or short side platoon role (if healthy)? 

[BTS]

Baltimore's rotation is currently projected as:

Bradish

Rogers

Kremer

Povich

Wells

Looking forward to those losers finishing last again.

[Pendleton]

9 minutes ago, BTS said:

Baltimore's rotation is currently projected as:

Bradish

Rogers

Kremer

Povich

Wells

Looking forward to those losers finishing last again.

They'll likely sign another back of the rotation type like they did with Sugano last year, but I doubt candidates are lined up at their door right now 

[Olerud363.354]

5 hours ago, Laika said:

Wild trade for Elias to make lol

Anything can happen, especially if Grayson goes to the bullpen but I guess the medicals aren't clean on Rodriguez. 

This idea of medicals isn't black and white.  Medicals aren't clean on Grayson, Hoffman and likely Bieber.  Their value is down but it's all just very gray.   Maybe using a closer without clean medicals will burn you, or maybe it won't.  Maybe Bieber loves his friends, or maybe his arm hurts.

Probably the medicals say Grayson is in for a rough road but isn't completely worthless, and the Angels will take the risk while the Orioles want to contend next year and get more certainty. 

 

 

[Olerud363.354]

1 hour ago, BTS said:

Looking forward to those losers finishing last again.

A big if, but if they were all healthy that is a good rotation.  Just stats-scouting that they were all pretty good at times last couple of years but make between 4 and 20 starts.  

Critical year for them.  One of the reasons I thought Orioles would have an extended run ;is that in the 90s they were similar to the Jays, in that they got a new ballpark, had some success and generated a tonne of money, then were a big payroll team and free-agent spender for a few years.

Part of the extended success model would have been for them to build revenue, which last year destroyed that momentum.   Instead the Jays had a magical year with insane revenue. 

[Terminator]

Orioles Hangout is not taking this trade very well lmao

 

 

[Terminator]

Ward’s arb projection is nearly 14 million. 

Puzzling acquisition to say the least.

Maybe an Orioles fanboy (zero playoff wins btw) could explain this trade for me? Or do you guys even exist anymore? 

[BTS]

19 minutes ago, Terminator said:

Ward’s arb projection is nearly 14 million. 

Puzzling acquisition to say the least.

Maybe an Orioles fanboy (zero playoff wins btw) could explain this trade for me? Or do you guys even exist anymore? 

Baltimore's mismanagement of their OF is hilarious. Two years ago we were talking about their insane depth, now they have:

Ward (2.2 projected fWAR)

Cowser (1.6)

Beavers (1.2)

O'Neil (0.8)

Taveras (0.4)

Kjerstad looks like a complete bust. 

It's one of the worst OFs in baseball, they're paying like 30M for Ward and O'Neil, and they evaporated 4 years of Gray-Rod to do it. 

Refusing to move guys like Cowser/Kjerstad and Mayo when they could have been used to land someone like Crochet and then watching all of those guys bust while Crochet puts up CY seasons in Boston should be a fireable offense. Mike Elias is absolutely terrible at his job. 

 

 

[Laika]

On paper it's such a big loss for the O's that you have to assume Grayson is broken OR there is some kind of attitude issue with him

like, even if you just take Grayson Rodriguez' 2.3 Steamer Projection and assume he provides 2.3, 2.3, 2.3, and 1.8 WAR in his four remaining years of control, and goes 5-10-15M in arbitration, it's almost $70m in projected surplus value. Ward is worth maybe $13 or $14m surplus value and that's it.

[Olerud363.354]

44 minutes ago, BTS said:

Refusing to move guys like Cowser/Kjerstad and Mayo when they could have been used to land someone like Crochet and then watching all of those guys bust while Crochet puts up CY seasons in Boston should be a fireable offense. Mike Elias is absolutely terrible at his job. 

This is just as dumb, or actually dumber then anointing Elias a genius in the midst of a 102 win season.  Elias collected a lot of talent, the talent under-performed.  

Guys like Henderson, Rutchman still have elite projections.  Then they have tonne's of guys projected for like 2 WAR in 100 games and out of that collection some will over-perform so would not surprise me if they are right back in the middle of things next year.  We will see...

The one thing I predicted would happen that has not, and is running out of time to happen, is for the Orioles to get back to 3 million a year attendance.  That was one of the reasons, remembering what the 90s were like, I thought the Orioles were in great shape for a long run of success.   Get the attendance up, get the revenue up, re-invest, keep the wins up, keep the attendance up, re-invest. 

Jays have a good shot at that now.  Critical year for both franchises to become a Red Sox/Phillies/Mets like organization with multi-generation (a generation being a group of players) that can be successful for a couple decades. 

[Olerud363.354]

On the topic of Orioles one fascinating thing is how similar Kirk and Rutschman's lifetime stats are to each other.  Even their "good" and "bad" seasons are kind of similar.   Both are like 15 fWAR lifetime.  Kirk fatter still, shorter and a year younger. 

There was like a moment when Rutchman looked fit, healthy, performing, able to DH when not catching, and Kirk looked like a .250 hitting obese noodle struggling to play 100 games a year.  That was like 12 months ago.  Now they look they same career-stats wise but with a Kirk at a high point. 

[Orgfiller]

10 hours ago, Jimcanuck said:

Actually his xFIP- was 89 in 2024 (11% better than average) and 99 in 2025 (~average).

Yes, hence the comment about his performance declining. He basically performed like a worse version of Chris Bassitt. Not sure if he should even have been offered the QO. Kind of a blessing in disguise for Arizona that he turned it down, not that a 1/22 commitment is awful or anything for an average innings eater.

[Orgfiller]

1 hour ago, BTS said:

Baltimore's mismanagement of their OF is hilarious. Two years ago we were talking about their insane depth, now they have:

Ward (2.2 projected fWAR)

Cowser (1.6)

Beavers (1.2)

O'Neil (0.8)

Taveras (0.4)

Kjerstad looks like a complete bust. 

It's one of the worst OFs in baseball, they're paying like 30M for Ward and O'Neil, and they evaporated 4 years of Gray-Rod to do it. 

Refusing to move guys like Cowser/Kjerstad and Mayo when they could have been used to land someone like Crochet and then watching all of those guys bust while Crochet puts up CY seasons in Boston should be a fireable offense. Mike Elias is absolutely terrible at his job. 

 

 

Did not realize how bad Cowser was in 2025. This is an excellent discovery.

[Olerud363.354]

22 minutes ago, Orgfiller said:

Did not realize how bad Cowser was in 2025. This is an excellent discovery.

The Orioles delusional optimists (like myself) probably deserve some ribbing... (never a fanboy just thought they collected so many young players they couldn't fail).  

However c'mon https://www.thebanner.com/sports/orioles-mlb/orioles-colton-cowser-broken-ribs-injuries-N7F4QE72M5GHHHTYSOPJYX5DIQ/

Guy was injured, just like Bichette in 2024.  This whole... 'never realized that so and so was -1 WAR and completely sucks at the age of 25 lol.  Orioles done' is stupid.  A lot of guys were injured, maybe some randomly under-performed.  Regression to the mean is a thing, even with a team you dislike. 

[Jimcanuck]

53 minutes ago, Orgfiller said:

Yes, hence the comment about his performance declining. He basically performed like a worse version of Chris Bassitt. Not sure if he should even have been offered the QO. Kind of a blessing in disguise for Arizona that he turned it down, not that a 1/22 commitment is awful or anything for an average innings eater.

You posted earlier that he was below average, hence my response.

BA projects him to get 2/45.  A reasonable gamble to reject the QO.  Some team will bet on a rebound.

[Jimcanuck]

Cowser was on and off the IL all year.  Played hurt.

He was hurt on the first game of the season and never fully recovered

[Laika]

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. 

[BTS]

1 minute ago, Jimcanuck said:

You posted earlier that he was below average, hence my response.

BA projects him to get 2/45.  A reasonable gamble to reject the QO.  Some team will bet on a rebound.

The thing about Gallen is that his stuff has fallen off to the point where he doesn't have a single plus pitch, and is basically throwing slop. He looked like Dan Kremer out there this season. Teams will have to believe they can get his stuff back on track, which is probably a tougher sell than gambling on health for someone like Woodruff. 

[Jimcanuck]

5 minutes ago, BTS said:

The thing about Gallen is that his stuff has fallen off to the point where he doesn't have a single plus pitch, and is basically throwing slop. He looked like Dan Kremer out there this season. Teams will have to believe they can get his stuff back on track, which is probably a tougher sell than gambling on health for someone like Woodruff. 

Yes, he's gonna have to re-invent himself into a Hendricks type.  Some team will bet on average performance.

[Laika]

The Orioles collapse will be legendary. People will call it the Wet Fart Dynasty. 

101 wins in 2023 and the best farm in baseball, no salary commitments, a core of bats, some of the strongest 5+ year projections at the team level in baseball..... and in 2 years they are a non playoff team with a bunch of flawed players, no real rotation, and a s***** farm system. 

Some of the core are already getting expensive or approaching FA. Nobody extended other than Basallo, a DH projected for a 107 wRC+.

[Pendleton]

14 minutes ago, Laika said:

The Orioles collapse will be legendary. People will call it the Wet Fart Dynasty. 

101 wins in 2023 and the best farm in baseball, no salary commitments, a core of bats, some of the strongest 5+ year projections at the team level in baseball..... and in 2 years they are a non playoff team with a bunch of flawed players, no real rotation, and a s***** farm system. 

Some of the core are already getting expensive or approaching FA. Nobody extended other than Basallo, a DH projected for a 107 wRC+.

The sky was the limit but somehow they stumbled into the basement and got their foot stuck in the sump pump hole. 

[Olerud363.354]

50 minutes ago, Laika said:

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. 

 

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. 

 

[Jimcanuck]

20 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. 

 

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

Laika is very quick to write players off

[Orgfiller]

30 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. 

 

Definitely not ready to say Holliday is a bust and won't develop further, but Witt Jr. is much more of a freak athlete. 100th percentile speed since he's been in the league, with max exit velos indicative of a premium power hitter, and these tools translated into him also becoming an elite defender at SS. Holliday has already shifted down the defensive spectrum and was horrendous at 2B last season.

Holliday's ceiling is probably like Robinson Cano? But even post prime Cano had a grade/grade+ higher in raw power output. Whereas Bobby Witt Jr. is trending like an inner circle HOF.

[Spanky__99]

Olerud grasping at his Oriole fanboy, everyone joy thread in Maryland. 😅🖕

[mphenhef]

8 minutes ago, Orgfiller said:

Definitely not ready to say Holliday is a bust and won't develop further, but Witt Jr. is much more of a freak athlete. 100th percentile speed since he's been in the league, with max exit velos indicative of a premium power hitter, and these tools translated into him also becoming an elite defender at SS. Holliday has already shifted down the defensive spectrum and was horrendous at 2B last season.

Holliday's ceiling is probably like Robinson Cano? But even post prime Cano had a grade/grade+ higher in raw power output. Whereas Bobby Witt Jr. is trending like an inner circle HOF.

yeah, but Holliday has the Little Debbie look going for him.