Orgfiller

Heineman is getting rocked behind the plate today, brutal for him.

You would have thought he was Vladdy out there at third with how hesitant they were to use him at the beginning.

John Schneider putting in a masterclass in how to use every single one of your relievers in a relatively low intensity game. Just keep rolling the dice until one of these guys doesn't have it today and blows up.

Another aspect where the Orioles really fumbled it isn't even in that they didn't want to spend at all on their roster, but how they spent the money was a terrible use of resources. Sugano + Morton alone combine for a $28M commitment. Tyler O'Neill who lives on the IL is at $16.5M AAV. Andrew Kittredge is $10M, that's the same money that Aroldis Chapman got! So not only did they not leverage their prospect capital and acquire SPs with pedigree, they spent it all on a bunch of old, injury prone, and in some cases (Sugano) unproven players without much upside. Just a gross misuse of resources all around.

Him and Leo Jimenez both for me.

I hope he doesn't enjoy Vancouver too much, he won't be there long.

I wouldn't really say nothing, Ragans was essentially gifted in retrospect, but the price was Aroldis Chapman whom they shrewdly signed coming off a down season in his last Yankees year. He was elite for them and they capitalized by sending him to the contending Rangers, who then would go on to win the WS in some part thanks to his contributions. That's just smart business all around by the Royals. For Erceg, they approached a non contending A's team and sent a couple of 40-45 FV guys in return for him. Standard RP business, sometimes the prospects work and sometimes they don't. Good evaluation on their end to ensure they didn't lose anyone they would regret, although it's probably too early to make such claims. Like I said for Garcia, he was a heralded prospect who contributed in other ways while showing promise under the hood. What you might see as mediocre MiLB performance is a guy that was always young for the level staying afloat with solid K/BB, excellent baserunning and defense, and probably some encouraging EV numbers that they were privvy to. He was still a 1-2 win player in his first two MLB seasons at ages 23 and 24 with promise, not a guy you give up on quickly.

In Salvy's defense, he's been brutally unlucky, even for an old immobile catcher. He's underperforming his xWOBA by 100 points, .250 wOBA vs .350 xWOBA. Maikel Garcia was always an exit velo darling, and had pedigree as a top 100 prospect who plays good defense all over the field. The Royals formula is similar to last season's. They have a superstar in Bobby Witt Jr., a secondary good hitter, and just elite SPs. Bubic emerged this season as an ace to go along with Ragans, Wacha and Lugo (who's been only okay thus far) round out a rock solid top 4 and Lorenzen has been good for them as well. They also added Erceg late last season and Carlos Estevez over the offseason to solidify the back end of their BP and it's doing wonders. Honestly kind of a model mid/small market team. Once Witt broke out they supplemented him via trade and shrewd signings. These smaller market teams can be players in free agency too!

He's been rock steady in May. 26.3% K-BB%. The cliche term would be "he started trusting his stuff more", but he literally just stopped walking hitters and getting more whiffs, so whatever changed has made him a key piece of the bullpen in any spot.

Sooo, Bo might be back.

I don’t know how you can overturn that, he might straight up be safe.

I mean, when you’ve got the best CF defender in the sport, it’s nice to have that guy also play the field.

Not so quietly if your radio frequency is tuned to the right channel.

Kameron Misner is pissing me off.

Vladdy laser HR 👀

Typical ho-hum 109 EV batted ball from Barger, didn't even look like he got all of that one.

Egregious send by the Rays there, hopefully a big break for us.

It's basically 100% guaranteed that he's being kept out for injury recovery management. Last thing we want to do is overwork him coming back from a pretty major injury and having it flare up here and there throughout the season. If he's being kept out against middling RHP there's basically no reason other than injury management.

Oh Varsho you lovely man.

Yariel has been nails as of late.

Hitting for power really is the best.

Rare instance of "healthiest he's ever felt" potentially actually being true. Perhaps the shoulder issue had been holding him back? Who knows. You can fake SSS performance noise but straight up hitting the ball harder, especially at top end velos, is no fluke.

Speaking of Ernie Clement, with his 2 XBH game from last night, he is now up to an 89 wRC+ with elite defense at 3B and 2B. Feels like he was being dragged down by Wagner's pool noodle bat, and seeing some competition from Barger has brought him alive. BS last sentence aside, he's at 0.7 WAR and trending upwards.

I feel like it's kind of going under the radar that Daulton Varsho hit his two hardest batted balls of his career last night. He doesn't qualify yet, and there's some aspect of SSS going on right now, but he's absolutely crushing the ball. His savant page is dead red for all the "hitting the ball well" metrics. It should be no surprise that the team has turned around its power input the moment he was back in the lineup. Barger, Bo, Ernie have all been hitting for XBHs with a far greater frequency. If only Vlad (and Santander if he could hit at all) could get the memo.

Good one Vlad, idiot.