2016 Regular season thread

[UVA_Guy81]

I'm almost starting to wonder if I should change my position on going in these starters getting high salaries during free agency because this team desperately needs a top of the rotation guy if we want to be serious contenders. A Greinke or Price would've been a huge get for this staff and taken some pressure off of some of these guys possibly. We haven't had one since Mussina and just can't seem to develop a starter at all, no matter how many 1st round draft picks we use on them.

 

[hattersgonnahate]

May see some sort of rotating guys from AAA to the O's back and forth to give them days off in the minors. Then bring up a fresh guy for some games.

That's the idea I had in mind. It seems to me that the "relay start" strategy is already partially doable even with the current roster, though:

• When Gausman comes back, there will be 8 players who can legitimately start a game.
  
  
• This allows you to assign them to 4 teams of 2 and expect each player to cover 4-5 innings on average. Ideally, the rest of the bullpen (Brach + O'Day + Britton + 1-2 additional short relievers) would be used only sparingly.
  
  
• The #5 spot in the rotation would be skipped whenever the schedule allows it; when it's unavoidable, you can either let a Triple-A call-up start that game or use the "bullpen game" tactic.

 

[hattersgonnahate]

Addendum on the "rotation of relay teams" strategy:

• Another possibility is to use a relay team for only 3 of the rotation spots (which requires 6 starter types) and manage the remaining 2/5 of the games "normally."
  
  
• The two strategies will be spaced out evenly-- for example, the 1st/3rd/5th of every five games would involve a relay start, while the 2nd/4th games would be handled normally.
  
  
• If no additional pitchers are used during the relay starts, this will give the bullpen 1.5 games of rest on average. (Obviously, they will be used more often than that, as you can't expect the relay starts to always require only 2 pitchers. But this may still be preferable to the "4 teams of 2" strategy since it removes the need to handle every 5th game in a highly unusual way.)

==> The bottom line is simply this: If you have 6-8 guys who can throw ~150 IP on average, you might as well spread out the workload evenly to allow for short starts without doing crazy things with the remainder of the bullpen.

 

[mikeytheman247]

Or possibly bring in an extra bullpen guy or a 6th starter and go with just a 3 man bench.

Yea that's what I suggested when I did my preseason roster prediction. Just had a bench of Riemold, Joseph, and Flarthey.

If Kim is going to play 1 game a week whats the point of keeping him on the roster.

 

[skinz2winz]

The club is stuck with Kim. Could we possibly throw him in a trade with the Padres for Shields? We need a top end starter very badly and we are only 9 games in.

 

[hattersgonnahate]

The club is stuck with Kim. Could we possibly throw him in a trade with the Padres for Shields? We need a top end starter very badly and we are only 9 games in.

If Kim is going to play 1 game a week whats the point of keeping him on the roster.

I doubt that the Padres would be interested in that trade... Besides, you could make the argument that Shields might be trending down based on his FIP last year.

That being said, I actually wouldn't mind playing Kim more often if he's going to continue taking up a roster spot. (Again, it's a tiny sample size... but so far, Kim has done more for the team than Alvarez did, despite having fewer plate appearances. Surely a platoon can be considered?)

 

[all4ripken]

Well this all has turned around quickly in a bad way...

 

[all4ripken]

And just like that they grab the lead....WOW

 

[all4ripken]

And then some lol, Trumbo with 2 bombs in the 7th

 

[mikeytheman247]

They can hit that's for sure. Its just if the bullpen is dead before the summer even starts.

 

[tedman2012]

They can hit that's for sure. Its just if the bullpen is dead before the summer even starts.

with wilson , bundy and tj all working as longmen the pen shouldn't be a worry . but when matusz comes up someone has to go and i hope it's worley but he is getting paid to much in the o's book .

 

[hattersgonnahate]

They can hit that's for sure. Its just if the bullpen is dead before the summer even starts.

That's exactly why I came up with the "rotation of relay teams" idea-- if the bullpen workload is going to be high, you might as well allocate two players to most games as "co-starters" as a means of minimizing the variance in bullpen usage.

with wilson , bundy and tj all working as longmen the pen shouldn't be a worry . but when matusz comes up someone has to go and i hope it's worley but he is getting paid to much in the o's book .

Hmmm... I actually have the exact opposite opinion (i.e. I'd rather keep Worley and drop Matusz if I have to choose between them). Here's why:

• Worley's career ERA and FIP are better than Matusz's (3.81 / 3.78 vs 4.76 / 4.36). Matusz does have better numbers in 2013 and 2015, but you have to wonder if this is partially because he has pitched fewer innings in those seasons (because he's mostly used as a lefty specialist, etc.)
  
  
• If our rotation remains questionable, you'll need as many players who can function as long relievers as possible. But Matusz's extreme L/R splits make him an arguably worse option for this role than Worley is.

Then again, you could argue that the issue isn't really Matusz vs. Worley:

• You could still keep Matusz on the 25-man roster as a short reliever. But if that's his role, the question then becomes "Is Matusz really the 4th best option after Brach + O'Day + Britton?" Practically speaking, that means the issue could be framed as Matusz vs. Givens, and I'd prefer keeping Givens.
  
  
• If Matusz's main value is as someone who can get lefties out, I'd recommend keeping both Worley and Matusz while dropping McFarland, who's worse than Matusz versus both lefties and righties. Basically, Matusz would only be kept as a lefty specialist / long reliever despite not being a particular good option for that role simply because someone else on the team is even worse.

 

[jeffro151]

Damn it McFarland.

 

[UVA_Guy81]

That's exactly why I came up with the "rotation of relay teams" idea-- if the bullpen workload is going to be high, you might as well allocate two players to most games as "co-starters" as a means of minimizing the variance in bullpen usage.




Hmmm... I actually have the exact opposite opinion (i.e. I'd rather keep Worley and drop Matusz if I have to choose between them). Here's why:

• Worley's career ERA and FIP are better than Matusz's (3.81 / 3.78 vs 4.76 / 4.36). Matusz does have better numbers in 2013 and 2015, but you have to wonder if this is partially because he has pitched fewer innings in those seasons (because he's mostly used as a lefty specialist, etc.)
  
  
• If our rotation remains questionable, you'll need as many players who can function as long relievers as possible. But Matusz's extreme L/R splits make him an arguably worse option for this role than Worley is.

Then again, you could argue that the issue isn't really Matusz vs. Worley:

• You could still keep Matusz on the 25-man roster as a short reliever. But if that's his role, the question then becomes "Is Matusz really the 4th best option after Brach + O'Day + Britton?" Practically speaking, that means the issue could be framed as Matusz vs. Givens, and I'd prefer keeping Givens.
  
  
• If Matusz's main value is as someone who can get lefties out, I'd recommend keeping both Worley and Matusz while dropping McFarland, who's worse than Matusz versus both lefties and righties. Basically, Matusz would only be kept as a lefty specialist / long reliever despite not being a particular good option for that role simply because someone else on the team is even worse.

After tonight's performance by McFarland, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if that happened.

 

[UVA_Guy81]

Texas paying us back for putting up a 9 spot on them last night apparently.

 

[hattersgonnahate]

After tonight's performance by McFarland, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if that happened.

There is a reason that I didn't include McFarland as one of the candidates for being part of a relay team... if he still has options remaining, dropping him to make room for Matusz should be an easy decision.

Who will need to head back to Norfolk when Gausman comes back, though? Givens?

 

[UVA_Guy81]

There is a reason that I didn't include McFarland as one of the candidates for being part of a relay team: He's considered a long reliever not because he can pitch for multiple innings, but rather because he's arguably the worst option available in the bullpen. If he still has options remaining, sending McFarland back to AAA to make room for Matusz should be an easy decision.

Who will need to head back to Norfolk when Gausman comes back, though? Givens?

He would get my vote. He's allowing around 2 guys to get on an inning. I think he needs to go back to Norfolk and work on some things and maybe get some confidence back.

 

[tedman2012]

He would get my vote. He's allowing around 2 guys to get on an inning. I think he needs to go back to Norfolk and work on some things and maybe get some confidence back.

only thing is givens is a 1 inn guy that buck tries to get 2 inn from . if givens would have been first man up he would have held that game . wilson if buck would've went with him instead of holding him back to back up wright we win . i think if not for bucks over thinking and just win the game we would've swept the rangers .

rickard needs to get some bench time to work on his craft . maybe these 2 days off will help him . i hope so it seems teams have picked up how to pitch to him .

 

[UVA_Guy81]

only thing is givens is a 1 inn guy that buck tries to get 2 inn from . if givens would have been first man up he would have held that game . wilson if buck would've went with him instead of holding him back to back up wright we win . i think if not for bucks over thinking and just win the game we would've swept the rangers .

rickard needs to get some bench time to work on his craft . maybe these 2 days off will help him . i hope so it seems teams have picked up how to pitch to him .

I'm not so sure about that. Givens has been shaky the whole season so it'd be very hard for me to believe he would've faired any better.

As for Rikkard, I just hope he's not like Paredas in the way that he is hot to open the season but cools off when pitchers start figuring him out and he can't make adjustments against them.

 

[mikeytheman247]

:47pm: Free agent right-hander Kyle Lohse is drawing interest from the Tigers, Reds and Orioles, and Baltimore has made an offer to the Scott Boras client, reports MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (via Twitter). It’s not known whether the 37-year-old has received any other contract offers.