MLBTR Chat Transcript

Correct about the O’s trying to contend while bringing along position players at the same time.

Too many posters here think that minor league stats immediately translate to major league play. Seldom do. Players at that are promoted to AAA usually move pretty much in tandem with other players that started in the minor leagues with them. But when they hit the majors they’re competing against players that have played at that level for years, and sometimes a decade or more. The game is faster. The tricks competitors routinely deploy are seldom seen at the minor league level.

I loved the O’s in ’22, ’23’ and half of ’24. Their position players had learned to play strong fundamental baseball. But they started rotating veterans to the bench and then off the roster. The young players surely are the future; but the O’s defense, baserunning, and situational hitting began collapsing as the youngsters got more playing time on ’24. This was on display the first few games of this season. And it’ll get worse as Mullins and Mateo are surly gone after the season at the latest; while O’Hearn, Urías, and Mountcastle may not be in their future for much longer.
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Brenden Hyde is a solid ML manager. He’s succeeded being patient yet firm with young players to get them to play winning ML baseball.

Figured the O’s would take a step back in ’25. Fortunately they were not dumb enough to sign a name starting pitcher to an excessive long-term contract, whereby if the man gets injured they may be stuck with a bad contract for years. They did the smart thing and built up the bullpen – which is fine since MLB is now a bullpen
game anyway.

As noted, not all top prospects succeed. The O’s FO knows that from past experience. They were smart to hold onto all their top prospects to find out who will be long-term O’s.