Rates & Barrels - Bad Days, Managing Lofty Expectations & Seattle's Surging Bats

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

Eno, DVR, and Jed discuss a brutal day at the office for Ryan Pressly and Chase Meidroth, before looking at the Orioles' sluggish start to 2025 and the rash of injuries that have played a role along the way, as well as the organization's approach to pitching. Plus, they talk about the changes in Seattle where the Mariners have put together a top-five offense to begin the season, and wonder if new philosophies will make that improvement stick all year.Rundown1:24 Ryan Pressly's Historically Bad Day13:18 Bouncing Back From a Blunder19:29 It Actually Happens...A Lot32:38 Making Sense of a 13-21 Start in Baltimore40:14 What Would You Have Done Differently?50:34 The Mariners Have Been a Top-Five OffenseFollow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.socialFollow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.sociale-mail: [e-mail] our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFeSubscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrelsHosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno SarrisWith: Jed LowrieProducer: Brian SmithExecutive Producer: Derek VanRiper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Rains and Barrels, it's Wednesday, May 7th. Derek Van Ryn, Per Innoceris, Jed Lowry here with you on this episode. We discuss a few peculiar happenings from Tuesday night. There were two very bizarre things. One kind of historically unusual, one kind of embarrassing but also prompting a question like how do you recover from this? A question that I think Jed can shed some specific light on too. We're gonna talk about the Orioles a bit because good teams can have bad starts too. At least that's what I'm attributing

this slow start to the Orioles. Just kind of bad luck, confluence of events, we'll dig into what's going on there. Maybe some things we would have done differently if we had the GM shoes on for the past year, year and a half, and then we'll take a look at the Mariners' surging offense. We broke down Julio Rodriguez a couple of weeks ago on the show, feels like a couple of years ago now, it was a couple of weeks ago, but the Mariners have a top five offense offense we'll dig into how much of that we believe in through the first month and change of the season if you haven't joined our discord yet you can do that with the link in the show description if you're watching us on YouTube smash that like button for us we'd really appreciate that

let's start with the weird occurrences from Tuesday and we're going to start with Ryan Presley's bad day at the office. It was a brutal line. Ryan Presley gave up 9 runs, 8 were earned on 5 hits in a walk without recording and out, adding more than 5 runs to his ERA in the process. You know, I think if you had the story that dropped today, one day earlier, it would have been calling your shot in the most extreme and unfortunate way for Ryan Presley. Yeah, there's a lot of people claiming that I'm just piling on because of last night, but that's almost a 3,000 word piece that had to be seen by multiple

editors and a graphics team. So that was done way before the game. So I have to just get that out there. I just looked at the closers for the people that had three set three plus saves and had the worst stuff plus, and he was basically second to worst. You know, I've, I've on the show said that I don't really necessarily trust Luke Jackson, who's on there. Tommy Canely does have a good change-up but I also don't trust like an 80% change-up guy's my closer. I don't know. It's just something I've had stuck in my head ever since Luke Gregerson was throwing like 60% sliders and never really got the closer job in San Diego. So it was just a list of closers I thought would basically weren't going to continue

in the season. To be honest, we've also set on this pod since spring that he didn't look right. He wasn't getting the strikeouts. He was nibbling. He didn't seem as dominant as he was in the past. The fastball has really come down to the point where he has to pitch backwards off of the curveball. And that does work for starters and it can work for middle relievers.

I think that's the tie in here a little bit with Gregor and Conley and Jackson is I don't think you can pitch backwards as a closer. I think a closer has to dominate. It has to like have a dominant fastball. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that's true. I think that you have to have the stuff to get guys out in the zone. If you know as a hitter walking up to the plate

that the guy doesn't have the stuff to get you out in the zone, you can be a lot more thoughtful and pick your spots. The pitches in the zone that can beat you, those are the ones that set up the pitches that are out of the zone that are going to get you to chase. I think, you know, has talked about this from a data standpoint before, but Jed, when you'd step in against the closer trailing in a situation where it was going to be curtains without making something happen, how did you change your approach in those situations?

Once again, depends on the situation. If you're, you know, it's a one run game. If it's a three run game where I'm at, you know what the situation is. I think that situation dictates the approach a lot of times in those at bass, right? And that's that's something that, you know, I learned from, you know, Terry Francona early on in my career. Like, you know, if you go up there and we're down by three and you know, you hit a ball good, but it's an out, right? Like you hit a ball good to the outfield, it's not, that doesn't really help us as a team, right? And so his whole point is, you know, we gotta get, we gotta build a rally here. We gotta get guys on base. And if we're down by one and you get a good pitch,

absolutely wanna let, you know, have you let it rip. But I think it's more situational dependent and then player dependent too, right? Like I'm going to be in a very different position and have a very different approach than David Ortiz is. He's a guy that you don't want him, you know, in a one run game or if he's the tying or go ahead run, you don't want him going up there trying to just get on base.

You want him to let it rip. But David also knew in a situation where we're down by three, he's trying to get something going, right? Cause the solo home run when you're down by three off a closer doesn't move the needle for the team. This is exactly why I did not actually like extra inning play before the Ghost Runner, which I don't know if that's controversial,

but extra inning play before the Ghost Runner was I think objectively bad baseball. Because what it was, was usually a one run game, and what it was, was hitters going up there trying to jack that, win that game, either it was tie or one run, you know, they're always just trying to hit a jack, and all the pitchers do is know

that they're trying to hit a jack. So it's like a lot of pitches outside the zone. It's not that many walks. Strikeout rate used to go up through the roof and the run environment went really low. Like sometimes you just see like, come on, like this, like just somebody take a walk. Somebody do something other than try to hit the winner. Everybody's tired. That's right. Everybody wants to go home. Like, you know, it's free baseball, right? Like, we're not getting paid overtime.

Right. And you'd be with parents, any parents there with kids that have made them stay there are like, come on. The fastest way, the simplest way to score a run is to just hit a homer, right? So if everybody goes up there and is just swinging for the fences, you know, eventually it's going to happen. But when it does and it just this feeds into this whole idea of, you know, the entertainment value that we've

talked about, right? Is like entertainment, you know, home runs are really fun for a very short amount of time. But if everybody's up there trying to hit a home run every single at bat. It's a bad product. I wondered when they introduced the ghost runner, if putting the runner on first instead of second was actually going to be the better way to go because then you'd at least give the team's pitching a chance to get a double play. All right, you give them a little bit of a path out.

Up the incentive for a bunch. You could just walk. You don't want to, exactly. Yeah, but you get up another runner. You could just walk the guy. Yeah, but you could just you could just walk. You don't want to. You don't want to exactly, you know? Yeah. But you get up another runner. You could just walk the guy. Yeah. You could just put another runner on and it solves that if that's the

path that you want to take. But, but yeah, I mean, if you start with, you know, then, then you're to you know, his point, like then you're just bunting and with first and second. So yeah, I think second was the right choice just because it kind of forces you to play the game to the whole adage of you know Get them over get them in that's where baseball is so great right is like yeah That's where baseball is so great is that same situation can play out in the first inning and you're building out and the anticipation There's not a clock, you know, we have the pitch clock obviously now

Which you know keeps the flow of the game going and you don't have a lot of wasted time. The clock is giving way outs. You can build anticipation through these moments where you have a runner on second and everyone's like, all right, we all know what the objective is here. Can you do it? Yeah, it creates immediate tension having the runner on second instead of on first.

So I think that's where having seen it play out, I'm glad they chose what they did because commissioner Derek would have botched it and put the runner on first, I'm glad they chose what they did because Commissioner Derrick would have botched it and put the runner on first. I'm admitting it. You would have had a legion of, you know, statisticians and, you know, lieutenants telling you all these things though if you were the commissioner.

And you would have, it would have been a far more considered opinion when you made your choice to put them on second. Well, yeah, I mean, I'm glad I wouldn't be left to my own devices. They considered something at some point where it was like, you know, in the 10th, it's a run on first, and in the 11th, it's a run on second or something. But I didn't, it'd be funny to walk out there

on the run on third and the 13th, just like, that game's over. Just ended, just ended. Yeah, exactly. Preserving pitching is important, too, for the following day, right? When you have the pitcher health and just all the limitations on roster space, all these factors, like the quicker you can end a game once you get to extra innings, probably the better for all the reasons

that we're outlining. As far as that Presley.ing goes. Amen, amen. Yeah, Jed's like, yeah, I've been out here for four hours. Like, I played in that pre-clock era. Like, we've done this long enough. And I gotta do it again tomorrow. And I gotta do it again tomorrow. Yeah, right.

The amazing thing about the Presley outing, and it got people who don't normally go surfing on Stat Head right away to go surfing on Stat Head, so if you're on Blue Sky or X, you probably saw this already. Hank Borowy was the only other player in baseball history to allow nine runs and outing without recording it out. That happened all the way back in 1951. I had no idea who Hank Borowy was and actually had a good big league career

and won the NL ERA title in 1945. So not a footnote in baseball history whatsoever. It's not a good list to be on, but there are good pitchers on this list. I mean, Carlos Rodin's on there. Yeah, Steven Matz is a decent pitcher. Is it a list you want to be on twice? Yeah.

I look at that list and it reminded me of Homer talking to Bart and Bart saying this is the worst day of my life and Homer corrects him and says this is the worst day of your life so far and it's like something like this happens to you. You're like there's no way this happens again. Paul Wilson's on the list twice. Paul Wilson went 1-1 on a draft. You're right part of Generation K and we looked it up before the show. Out're right, part of Generation K. And we looked it up before the show. Out of the three members of Generation K, who had the highest strikeout rate between Paul Wilson, Jason Isringhausen,

and Bill Pulsifer? And we did confirm that it was, in fact, Jason Isringhausen. We had no idea. Did he do the most in relief? Yeah, I mean, the longest career. I mean, like, I think... Yeah, longest career, too. career to just you know the different roles But still just one of those things that got me down the rabbit hole, but yet yesterday today

I learned who Hank Borwe was and we won the ERA title in 1945 We put LOL Mets to bed on Tuesday with Will Salmon on this podcast, but you know part of it was and on this podcast, but you know, part of it was Generation K. And then I think the next one was that when they got publication, when they got pub and like, you know, people were excited, it went so horribly. So like Generation K like really didn't work out. And the next one was I think, best infield ever. Do you remember that one with the best infield ever on it? And they had something's in the best in field ever on it and They had they had something was it was like Ray Sanchez

Edgardo Alfonso and I don't know two other guys I forget who would it would have been right now But they had a there was a best infield ever cover that was like also didn't go so Those are tough Declarations to make you And have them age well. They really are. You're putting yourself out there. You're saying something is the best ever. And it's still a living thing. It's John Olerud, Elgardo Alfonso, Robin Ventura, and Ray Ordonyes. Yeah, definitely the four guys I think of when you said best in field ever.

All four of those guys pop into my head. With all due respect to them. No, they not all great players all great players I mean the same mistake it's a it's a writer thing like sometimes you just like trying to push the story as far as it can go and sometimes you push it too far so one other pretty odd thing happened and it happened to the White Sox on Tuesday night White Sox looked like they're in pretty good spot here on the road in Kansas City, up three two. And Kam Booser induces a nice pop-up. Chase Meadroth moves underneath it

and it bounces off his head into right field. And there was a chance to get the runner at second. Throw from right field gets air mailed. They could have got the force out. Whole thing wouldn't have mattered. That didn't happen. They go on to lose on the road, which when you're in a position like the White Sox, like this stuff just sort

of happens. My question for Jed was when you have a moment like this, just an embarrassingly bad moment, Chase Midroth is a young player, hopefully going to be a big leaguer for a long time. What do you do in the clubhouse as a teammate, as a manager? What's the response to that? How do you how do you move forward and get him to kind of psychologically move past that moment and just get back to being a young big leaguer finding his way? Because that highlight and that moment is going to be glued in the minds of White Sox fans for at least a little while.

The hope is you can find the humility in the moment, right? And but that has to start with the player because, you know, I think that it's an embarrassing moment. I mean, I think that's that's one where as a player, you you kind of have to take a step back from the situation, you know, recognize that that's not who you are as a player. you know, recognize that that's not who you are as a player. And then, you know, I think that the best way to approach that is humility. And it probably will probably allow you to move past it more quickly. If you if you see the humor in it, you want to be very mindful of of the personality of the kid. Is anybody in a leadership role for the White Sox, just approach that with knowing what the kid's personality is and because it probably will be a delicate moment.

You don't want that on your highlight reel. So hopefully he's got, and it sounds like he's got a lot of opportunities to create some highlights that will overshadow that. I have a lot of respect for Will Venable and as a long longtime baseball guy, I bet his instinct would be to be like, hey, that's using your head out there.

Just like make a joke out of it. But you do have to be careful. Like that could be seen as making fun of him. You know, and that, oh, we're all laughing at you if it's not a player that, you know, jokes like that. Or, you know, so I think you're right. And, you know, I think it's really interesting, because this is at the Major League level.

So playing time, how you play dictates it. And it's no longer as much about your potential and what you could be and developing you. It's more about winning games. And you saw, frankly, some nervous energy out of that dugout, you know before and after that they have one Successful save out of four and cam boozer is actually my favorite reliever in that bullpen and he has a terrible walk rate So he started this off with walking the leadoff runner That's the first mistake, you know, and already Will Venable's pacing and

they're even talking in the booth. I think it's the Royals announcers to be fair, but they're talking in the booth about how they look nervous and, you know, then that play happens. They don't do that. There's another play that happens at second base where the ball goes to Jacob Amaya up the middle and Amaya slides and stops it, but he rushes it. He thinks he has to make the play at second. So he does, it tries to do a glove to glove from second, but he's onto the ground. So he's on the ground and tries to shove the ball through the air with his glove. If he had just sat up, you know, Chase Medaroth was like four feet away from him.

If he'd sat up and got the ball out and thrown it, the guy would have been out, you know? So you know, they rushed that play. Jacob Umaya is trying to say, I'm a major league shortstop. I belong. I need this job. Like this is, there's that tension that comes with trying to win at the major league level with players that are still kind of in that development phase. So that must be, this is something we're going to come back to because it's the theme of the show today. But I think it's so difficult to run a young team like

this because they don't have a history of winning, you know, at the major league level. And even the players you bring in may not have had that history. Otherwise they'd be with somebody else. You know what I mean? Like you were bringing in, I Michael Taylor I'm not saying he doesn't have history winning I'm just saying like he's not gonna be the one who's gonna be like I know how to win I don't know how to win rings and you guys just all get on my back, you know That's not the type of player Taylor has been so you have these kind of veterans who are trying to prove that they still You know should be you know trade for me at the deadline, you know, they're trying to get off that team You know, they're trying to like They're trying to get off that team. They're trying to play well enough to get off that team.

So they don't really care too much about wins and losses as long as their name wasn't associated with it. And then you have these young players who are just trying to prove they belong in the major leagues. You have a manager who's trying to prove he belongs. So it's all just really high stress. And you see this. I bet you know, you see this, I bet you, you know,

chase is looking up at that ball and you know, given the moment, none of these situations are lost on players, right? Like, you know, when you're not playing well as a team and like the, how that pressure mounts, he probably looked up and that ball, that, that ball, it probably looked like a golf ball, you know, and it's going up and yeah, the emotion of it all, the emotion of it all. And I, I, let me, let me just share a story, you know, when I was, I think it was my rookie year, but it was early on in my career. Clay Buchholz is on the mound. We're in Detroit. I'm playing shortstop. He goes to field a

ground ball, um, like a, a swinging bunt, right? And he goes to pick it up and he's still young in his career, falls on the ground, right? Doesn't make the play. Let's just say, an inning later, I come up, I hit a ground ball with a runner on first base and I faceplant straight out of the box. And, you know, Frank Kona comes out later, you know, and maybe it was a reverse situation

because he comes out to the mound. I think it was later, the reverse situation, because he comes out to the mound. I think it was later the reverse situation because he comes out to give Clay a breather and his line is like, you know, if I could just keep lowering a buckles on their feet, I think we'll be OK. That's where I talk about the humor of that. Right. Like, you know, this is like like the ground ball that I hit was, you know, by no means was a routine double play, but like faceplant You know they throw the ball down the second I think the second baseman at the Tigers at the time he was like

Oh, there's no way we're turning to and then looked up and realized I was still like 10 feet out of the box I just like lobbed it over to first so You're early in your career. You know the the emotions are high. You know, you don't really know what the hell you're doing You're you know, you're just living on instinct, right? And you're, and, and when those emotions run high, the game speeds up and, you know, one little thing, all of a sudden you're, you know, I'm running down to first and I'm face planting the third, you know, the third base batter's box. So the emotions change the game.

I've just taken a cue off this, this and I've seen a fair amount of little league managers by this point and they've kind of run the gamut. And right now I'm sort of having this trouble with this interfacing with this one with this kind of high energy and kind of like maybe a little bit of whining to the umpire and like pulling players off when they make mistakes. And like my North Pole, like if I had the perfect manager, it would be like sort of Frank Kona. I spent a lot of time around Bochy, right?

Bochy, you just stand next to him and you're calmer. Like there's just something about him. It's like the drawl, it's just his energy. He just makes you feel more calm. And I do think, I'm not saying well Venable doesn't have this, there's, you know, that's And I do think, I'm not saying Will Venevel doesn't have this. There's, you know, that's how I thought of him as a player. He's a lifelong baseball rat.

Like the Northern California, Max Venevel is like a well-regarded dude and Will is his son. They both play in the big leagues. He is calm and he will find this energy. But I think the hardest thing and the most important thing is to broadcast like we're gonna have another chance, we're gonna have another day,

you have a chance at redemption, like you will do better next time. Like there's something about that energy, like even that little joke, it's like the joke was affirmative. If I can keep you on your feet, we will be great. You know what I mean? And like, so there's something about that.

And I know there's something like Buck Scholl-Walter is a successful manager and he has a slightly different energy feeling to me, but I bet you there's some calmness in the clubhouse that I'm not seeing. You know, there may be an outward bluster towards the umpires or something and more of a calmness in the clubhouse, but can you speak on that

like kind of calmness that managers exude and how that relates to you as a player? The manager sets the tone, right? That the personality of the manager is ultimately what the team's energy is. And I love what you said about being affirmative, because there's gonna be times where you're gonna have to have hard conversations.

And I've been on the receiving end of those hard conversations. But I've had to, you know, I've been on the receiving end of those hard conversations. But I think if the feedback is affirmative, that like, this is something that we can get better at. And with the understanding that this is a really hard game that's built on failure. And so if you introduce doubt into a player in a game of failure, that is a really simple formula

for it to spiral out of control. I think this feeds into what you said once, I don't know if it was on like Potter just before, because we talk a lot before too. But you said something about like, when you're doing these outreach programs or when you're talking about building up, building up either a little league

or even the fear like in Brazil, trying to build baseball in Brazil, there's something similar up either a little league or even if you're like in Brazil, trying to build baseball in Brazil, there's something similar about being a little league manager or doing a program in Brazil, which is that maybe the main focus isn't winning the game. And I know that's tough because you do want to build people who want to win games. I understand you want to win games going forward. I think playing does that.

I think players are competitive and want to win games. I think even things like fundamentals, I think they learn from playing. They learn, I need to be there. I need to be there from playing the game. So I think playing does a lot of that. I think as a coach, I think one of the most important things as a coach or manager is to build lifelong baseball fans. I think it's the way you put it once and you know that requires that sort of calm affirmative energy What can we work on? You know that sort of stuff? You know, I think that's the foundation for any the any of this stuff right is is you want to teach respect for the game? You want to teach that that was something Terry Francona told us every single spring training

Respect the game right like I remember even in the minor leagues when he came down and he spoke to us, that was one of the biggest messages that he delivered. What does that mean though? Was respect. It means that like you play the game the right way. It means that you learn. You try hard.

Effort level is high. You are trying to do things the way that the game, you know, should be played, just in terms of effort and not making a mockery of it. I think that in my mind, the way I interpret that is the effort is there. You respect your teammates, you respect your opponent, right? Of course you want to go out there and you want to win and you want to be the best you

can be. So a celebration, how does that fit in? Celebration is fine if it's sort of about yourself and what you've done as opposed to what the other person failed or something. Yeah. Like you're celebrating with your teammates, right? Like I think, I think celebrating with your teammates is perfectly fine. Right.

And there's times like at the big league game where emotions are, you know, emotions are high and there's a history between guys that creates some drama, but that's at the big leagues. That's a very different entertainment product, that's a very different idea than Little League. We're not looking to get in fights in Little League. The stakes are, I understand that they're high and everybody thinks that their kid

is gonna be the next Hall of Famer. The stakes are really not that high. And I think it's more important to respect the game, to build on the love and appreciation of the game. Because I think, you know, long term, the best thing we can do for baseball is to build the fan base, right? Build the love of the game. Because then then we just have more buy in from every level.

Because the numbers, you know, numbers don't lie't lie like not everybody's gonna play in the major leagues right and talent is not gonna you know necessarily determine that either and so I think that if we can take our most talented players at every level and the players that you know that might not be as talented and if we can teach them to respect the game and to love the game, then the game in general is in a better place. I think that's something across like all youth sports is just that realization of fair expectations for your kids and saying hey, you know, a few of you in at the high school level will go on to play some level of college ball and of the few of you that do that, maybe one of you will play some level of college ball and of the few of you that do that maybe one of you will play some level of professional ball. That's the best case scenario for most teams that are out there

and I think everybody thinks the team that they're playing on has more than one kid that could go pro and I think that's just that's where some of the other problems start to creep in and I think the other big thing that that Eno hit on is just like you got to have respect for everybody around the game I think you see stories all the time Parents going off on officials umpires it that needs to stop like that needs to change that needs to be something that we all Collectively do better with because there's no reason for that We don't have to take the most heated moments

from a major league game and put those on children umpiring little league games. And yet somehow we do that. Not the three of us, but we see people doing this at the parks where our kids are playing. The managers themselves are kids inside too and they want to win, you know, and everybody everybody's there wants to win. The value is really just teaching the games and the values of the games and the value of the game and baseball in particular, right? Again, I think baseball, you know, is a game that most reflects life, right? You're going to have way more failures in life than you are successes. And we always say like from a hitter'sters perspective the best ones fail

seven out of ten times so for you to have the confidence to step up there the next at bat after getting out you know and knowing knowing that you're gonna fail seven out of ten times but still believing when you step in the box that you are going to succeed every single time right every single time I stepped into the box, I knew that I was either gonna do exactly what I was trying to accomplish, right? And 99% of the time that was get a hit.

Sometimes it was get a guy over or whatever it is. Like I was gonna be successful in what I was going to do in my mind, right? But then I also knew that wasn't realistic once that bat was over. And so there's almost like two Jed Lowries you have to manage as a manager. Like the one who's walking up to the plate

and the one who's walking back. You have to have both those guys on your team. You want every single one of your players, you want, and as a player, as a manager, you want every single one of your players going up to the plate or taking the ball on the mound and knowing that he's going to execute every single pitch or he's gonna get a hit Every single at bat right you want that like that level of confidence

But you also don't want it to like bleed into this like where you have this hubris that now all of a sudden You know you're acting as if that's going to happen right like I think there's a balance of humility with confidence that comes with the game of baseball. And then if you just look at the mechanics of the game, you know, if we're just talking from a position player standpoint, you have a lineup, right? And doesn't matter what position you are in the lineup, you are gonna have your opportunity, right?

And if you are prepared or not, your opportunity is coming up to turn, right? Like you're batting ninth, doesn't matter. Like you, whatever you have, whatever you're prepared for that day, you're gonna get that opportunity. And you know, if you're not, you know, prepared, then the odds of you succeeding go down, right?

And then on the flip side of that, and on the defensive side, you can't hide, right? Every single, every single pitch, you have to think and you have to visualize that that ball is coming to you because the one time you're not ready, that ball comes your way and you're not ready, that's when things get embarrassing.

Baseball lends itself to micro analysis that ends up being loud wrong in the end. I think the ups and downs of 162 games are they're natural, right? And I think framing it, framing it appropriately can be challenging. I think the vibes right now around a team like the Orioles are like weirdly bad. And I think that's like pent up frustration in the fan base that's deserved. I think you have high expectations that are built upon a multi-year rebuild, building a great farm system, having that taste of success and expecting it to

continue for a while. And I think we can sort of connect the dots between some of these things we're talking about and some things that are happening right now with this team. David Schoenfeld at ESPN had a piece that came out today actually, and the title, the headline was, are the O's blowing their contention window and the vibes are bad because they're 13 and 21 you know entering play on Wednesday and they've just lost 9 to 1 on Tuesday night so they're 8 below 500 and you can look at the surface and say this is a playoff team the last two seasons onward and upward they should be the

playoff team again I picked them to win the AL East. I've already backed away from that for a few different reasons. But part of the reason why it has not gone well for the Orioles so far is a really simple explanation. Gunnar Henderson had an oblique injury this spring that leaked into the start of the season. Adley Rutchman has not played like Adley Rutchman just yet. He hasn't been the same guy since late June. Had that, I think it was a foul tip off his hand. Just hasn't quite hit like pre-June 2024 Adley yet. Jordan Westberg's been on the IL. Golden Couser's been on the IL. Tyler O'Neal's been on the IL. Oh those are just the position players. Grayson Rodriguez hasn't started a game yet this year. Zach Eflin's been hurt. Bradish and Wells are still working their way back from major injuries.

You add it all up, which baseball prospectus does on their injury ledger tool, the wins above replacement, lost to injury by the Orioles this year, second only to the Yankees, which I think is heavily connected to the absence of Garrett Cole and a couple injuries they've dealt with. But this has been a brutally bad luck sort of start, just from a pure health perspective, and that alone makes me say, hey, it's probably not as bad as you think. Even if the Orioles don't make the playoffs this year,

they could be one of the first teams out, they could rally, they could make it, all those things are possible. It could spiral, it could turn into a really disappointing year, that's possible too. How do you, as an organization, kind of hit reset on the fly? How do you keep perspective when teams that are historically rebuilt the way the Orioles have been rebuilt tend to have nice long windows? And I think they still could even if there's a bump in the

road in 2025. You know, that's an interesting question. I was just looking at some of the, you know, the run differentials here. Like you're talking about a team that's given up 193 runs so far and only scored 130. So, you know, if you're just looking at expected win losses, they're actually outperforming their run differential right now, which is a little scary.

But I think they have the talent and I think that, you know, it is young talent that even though they have had success they're in a moment in time where they're going through a lot of adversity as a team and I think it's it's going to take manager and team leaders to you know step in and right the ship in a way that like you know we're just talking about like you know everything is going to be okay we are a talented group. Yes, we need to get healthy,

but I think that they need to, I think there's a collective effort that look in the mirror and remember who you are as a player. Don't try to be more than who that player is. We don't need everybody to go up there and be a hero. We need everybody to be collectively who they are, and then the results come.

When you start getting into these moments where there are multiple players that are really talented, that start trying to do too much, it tends to lead to negative performance or drops in performance because you're actually trying to carry the team by yourself as opposed to staying within yourself and just being the best at what you,

like at your skill set, right? When I was going through a bad moment too, I was always, you know, re-evaluate where I was, what my mental state was, what I was trying to do, what my intent was. And I think a lot of this boils down to, you know, looking in the mirror and recognizing who you are as a player,

and maybe there's conversations that need to happen from a manager and or general manager's position where they have to set expectations of who each player is. And I'm sure all those conversations happened but I think there's probably some way to like just take a deep breath and reevaluate and say, you know, this is what I need you to be. Adley Rutchman. This is who I need you to be. I don't need you to hit 350 and throw every base runner out.

Like I need you to continue to have these quality at bats, hit the ball hard. Like I don't, you know, I'm not, I'm not in that clubhouse, but I think it's, it's ultimately about taking a step back, recognizing who you are as a player and not trying to be any more than that. I think there was probably there's some good energy on that regard when it comes to somebody like Cedric Mullins who last year was struggling a little bit offensively and I think you know there was like still this energy like hey you're still our best center fielder like you're gonna go out there and play and you managed to get through that now he's

Blooming offensively again. So, you know, I think some of that is there There's also just the requirements of once you have pretty good players. It's hard to necessarily get people runway I think you know There's a couple players that maybe could be helping them right now that are playing for other organizations that Frankly, I can't go back and save revisionist style like, oh, this is the time they should have given Connor Norby third base and just run with it. Ramon Urias is a capable major league player. Norby may not have been any better than him in those situations.

And I can't say that I can think of right now like a place that Kyle Stowers should have played and should have just been given the runway. We've been asking for Heston Kirstad to get the runway and he's getting the runway and he's not necessarily proving that, he needed to get that runway before. So, that's an interesting part that like, I think what people will think of,

especially we have, when we have this, you pointed this out, this is Kyle Stowers, Homer's like if you're in Baltimore right now, you this is something you don't want to see. It's like, oh, yeah. Mason Miller, Mason Miller versus Kyle Stowers over the weekend. It was a one run game. Bases were loaded two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

He threw a pitch one or two. It was in the zone on the outer part of the plate and Stowers took it out the opposite way to walk it off. Only two homers allowed so far this year for Mason Miller. Brooks Baldwin yanked a 99-mile-hour fastball that was on the inner part of the plate out for a homer in Oakland. I don't think it ended up being a blown save though. I think he still finished that one off if I remember correctly. But yeah, you see stuff like that and you see the start Kyle Stowers is having and you think, oh, come on, like we're not scoring runs. And Kirstad is not the guy we thought they were.

Put on the GM shoes of the president of baseball operation shoes. And they're definitely nicer than the shoes I walk around in. So that feels pretty good. Nice, nice cushion, nice support. Maybe I should buy better shoes. Ask yourself what you would have done differently. And I think if you want wanna say that they really botched that trade giving up Norby and Stowers,

it's not because they gave up Norby and Stowers, it's because they traded for Trevor Rogers, probably with an idea that they could change some things to fix him, and that hasn't worked out so far. So you have to leave room for criticism. Like we can't just appeal to authority and be, you know, like we can authority and be like, oh, they're probably doing the best they can. There are things that we can say we can point at. They're professionals.

They're running major organizations. We're in the media. We're allowed to do this. So I think the place that I point is actually pitching. Now I know that their offense is down, but I buy the story that you're spinning here a little bit. Gunner's going to get going. I think Adelaide's going to get going. I even think Tyler O'Neill is gonna get going. But

to be fair, if they still had Stowers, they may not have spent the money on O'Neill. They might have had that money for a pitcher, right? And so I just saw this interesting thing. I saw something floating around that Michaelis made, you know, Mitty made a mistake and I was like trying to find it. And it's like something old actually. It was at the end of the year last year, they had like a sort of end of year press conference. And Michael said, a lot of my moves and concerns at the trade deadline had been toward the pitching side.

That sort of ended up not being our shortcoming in the second half. So that's on me, but we're gonna take time to look at things professionally, talk to everybody in the warehouse, take every bit of information, we come up with a plan not to have this happen again. So it seems like he's saying, I spent too much resources on pitching. I guess to some extent,

maybe that's, I shouldn't have traded Stowers and Norbury for Rodgers to some extent, right? Yeah, maybe that was because if you make that trade in the off season, maybe you get a different pitcher. Maybe there's more available in the off season. We talked about it at the deadline, you don't know who's available. I think there's something wrong in their pitching evaluation to some extent. I'd hate to be like just a stuffist, but Grayson and Rodriguez would change this a little bit,

so there is a little injury portion to this. But other than Grayson and Rodriguez, they don't have a starter that has above average stuff plus. Stuff plus is not everything, but stuff plus is, stuff is what the market values, right? So they've, I think, made this idea that like, okay, we're gonna value command. Kramer has command, Povich has command,

Morton used to have command, Zach Efflin has command, Kyle Gibson has command, Tomoyuki Sugano has a 91 mile an hour fastball, but he has a bunch of pitches in command. So it seems like they've made a bet on command. And I think that can be smart more along the margins. So sign Sagano for 13 million and maybe beat the market because he has good command, he has five pitches.

But internally, try to develop stuff because you need both things to succeed, I think. Number one pitching rotation, this is a good hand about my article today, number one pitching rotation by Stuff Plus is here. The Philadelphia Phillies. So you got Zach Wheeler, you spent a bunch of money to get him. You got Aaron Nola, you built him up inside. Christopher Sanchez, you traded Curtis Mead for him. You traded an actual, like a good bat prospect and you developed him.

Right? Ranger Suarez, you found him. So like, you know, Jesus Lizardo, you traded for him, you know? So they have the best stuff rotation baseball and they worked at it. And they didn't even stop. They were like, we have four, let's get Lizardo. You know what I mean? Like that kind of energy I think is missing when it comes to the Baltimore rotation or pitching staff. It's like, oh we found some guys and they're

going to be pretty good and we're, I don't know man, why not be better? Why not spend more money there? Why not go harder at that? Why not develop more stuff? Why not have a stuffist, you know, in your in your rotation instead of just all a bunch of command artists. So I think that's where I would actually come in maybe the most forceful. I would follow that up and say, I wonder if their internal philosophy towards pitching is similar to something like what we see in Chicago with the Cubs where we look at them on the outside

and we're like, that's a good rotation when it's all in place, but it's not a great rotation. And it seems like it's command over stuff or stuff modeled differently in that instance. Two of the things I was thinking about as you were talking, though, Kyle Bradish seemed like a pretty good like, hey, this guy's getting better in our organization. Stuff numbers were going up. Arsenal got a little wider and he got hurt.

So that was a bad break. That happens. Pitchers get hurt. Second point, though, is that they did trade for Corbin Burns and by all accounts like they don't miss Joey Ortiz and DL Hall They threw it. I don't think that was a question on the on the rundown. I don't think it was an overpay I mean, I don't think that was either I think that was your Corbin Burns. That was fine. And now again hindsight's 2020 The more information we have the easier is to go back and rewrite history We're six starts into Corbin Burns' new deal with Arizona, can you find a single Orioles

fan that today wants to give him that deal, seeing how his season started with the K-rate down with the shoulder inflammation? Things change really, really fast. Every front office is going to make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. I'm not trying to be the Mike Elias apologists either, but I think their issues have been pitching for a few years. They haven't quite made the right deals or changes in their development process to develop

enough internal pitching and we're all sitting here saying, go get an ace. They should have been the team that traded for Lazardo. That was the guy. That feels like the move that got away the Phillies getting Lizardo instead of the Orioles Kind of feels like a big deal right now. Yeah, could they got and Lizardo when they got Rogers? I think Lizardo may have been hurt at the deadline last year if memory serves me right so you there prioritized right now over later and

So anyway, all this is to say like I I don't think it's as bad as it looks on the surface But I do worry that with new ownership in place and the start they're off to they're hitting that lower end outcome where People's jobs are on the line like they're gonna do something to try and make a change be that hitting coach pitching goes Yeah, they have already changed hitting coaches. They changed pitching coordinator. They've done a fair amount of leadership changes already in the last two years. I'm looking up their payrolls right now.

They got 65 million bucks on the injured list right now. Their payroll this year, so I get why expectations are higher in Baltimore. Their adjusted payroll right now looking at 2025 is 165 million bucks. And you know, last year they spent 109. So they spent, you know, $55 million more this year. You know, that's the biggest year over your increase

in single and just in payroll, like that, that way. That's a big jump. And so, you know, when you go and you spend the way that they've built this thing up to, you know, kind of bring in all of the talent that they have, especially on the position player side. And then, you know, they obviously went out and they spent a fair amount of money on the,

on the pitching side, right? The bringing in Sagana, Morton, you know, Eflin's making 18. So, you know, Kittredge, they're paying nine. So, you know, Trevor Rogers only making two six. So that one's, you know, and then Bradish and Wells are both in our, but those are, you know, two pitchers as well on the, on the injured list.

So, you know, you start looking at where a lot of this money, you know, is going. A lot of it is on the injured list and, and, you know, they're going to have to find a way to weather this storm and stay in the hunt right because you can't win you can't win your division you can't you know in in April but but you can lose it they're kind of teetering on that especially in a in a division with with the Yankees and you know you look at the Yankees even though they're missing Garrett Cole they're underperforming their expected win-loss

right like that that looks like an offensive juggernaut right now. You know, they're outside of the Cubs have the, yeah, the second highest run scored in the league. You know, Boston is a good team. You know, Tampa's always gonna find a way to win. So that's a, you know, and Toronto is, they're competitive, but you got some compression there at the top of the division that they're, you know, and Toronto is, they're competitive, but you got some compression there at the top of the division that they're gonna have to, you know,

they're gonna have to weather this really quick. And, and I'll take it back, like, you know, I think from a position player perspective too, I think little things help in these situations too, like having a goal greater than yourself, just to help, help put some wins on the, you know wins on that side of the ledger. And I think getting into doing the situational things that move the needle, I think that is something that they can look at and try to find objectives that are bigger than just

yourself. I keep thinking about the long streak they had going without getting swept in a series. They had one where they either won or split series in division at a record-breaking pace. This core has done some really good things too. So I think they can tap into that in some sort of way and say, hey, look, we're good. We are a good team.

We will be a playoff team again. This is still something that can all come together. I'm glad you started talking about top end offenses because our last topic today are the Mariners. We talked about Julio Rodriguez a couple weeks ago. The Mariners have been a top five offense. There is a lot we can unpack here. The big question is like, do you believe it? But Jay Jaffe wrote a great piece about this and kind of reiterates the fact that they brought Edgar Martinez back. They brought in Kevin Seitzer, who was a hitting coach in Atlanta when that lineup went off

just a couple of years ago. And I'm wondering how real this is. Like do you buy into adjustments, the philosophy of the coaches in the ears of these bats? And Enos talked about before, we do see players in Seattle, their second year dealing with that ballpark, have better results, getting acclimated to what is turned into one of the most difficult places

in the big leagues to hit. So, Eno, how much are you buying into the steps forward of this organization, having a guy like Jorge Polanco playing at just a ridiculous level right now, but when you start looking back at what he's done when healthy, it's not as much of a leap if you put it in that sort of context.

What's probably more surprising than the power to me is the 11.3% K rate so far this year. That is unbelievable improvement to tack that onto a fast start power wise. Yeah, I think I might have brought this up before, but I just was surfing through their pull, pulling the air percentage and opposite field ground ball percentage, which is now over at savant. It's called the batted ball profile leaderboard and you can do it by team. And I just thought I thought it was interesting if I took the top 10 and pull air percentage and then looked at the top 10 and opposite field ground ball percentage, there are three

teams that are top 10 in both. And those three teams are the Mariners, Twins and Tigers. That's funny because I've always thought of the Twins as a pull in the air and damn the torpedoes approach. They've always been top in barrels and strikeouts. Maybe they've added this opposite field ground ball as a two strike approach or just a way to soften the strikeout rate.

Maybe that's what's happening there. The Tigers, I think sometimes their offensive numbers are masked by their stadium. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if the Tigers have a good approach and are a good lineup. And then the here the Mariners who've always been high in pool air, but have added this opposite field ground ball percentage this year. And are about to have one of the best Mariners offenses they've ever had,

which is saying something. Cause this is a team that one time set the record for wins. Yeah. I think the thing that stands out not just for her, but Jorge Polanco, uh, and for the whole team is where they stand in strikeout rate. Despite a home park that augments strikeouts, they have the 17th highest strikeout rate. So I think that's the key is sort of a little bit more of a move it along mentality maybe. Move that guy along, take the ball where it's given to you and let's put this ball in play.

You know, it's also a smart thing to do in Seattle because, you know, being too pull air focused in Seattle and being too power focused in Seattle, I think is not a great idea because it's cold there and it's not going to really reward fly balls the same way. So, you know, if I had a team in the old Oakland, if I had a Giants team that I was running or if I had a Mariners team I was running, I would consider this approach. Number one in opposite field ground balls, just so you know who it is, it might be obvious, I'm going to keep talking for a second so you can think about it, it's the Padres.

The Padres who now have the best strikeout rate in baseball. And maybe they're pushing it a little bit hard because they're reaching up pitches outside the zone and their barrel rate is really low, but it's working. Tatis, like Polanco, has cut his strikeout rate in half. They're getting timely hits. Part of getting timely hits is getting hits. You know?

So, you know, you can kind of make your own luck a little bit by putting the ball in play. I've said this before, It's all intent, right? So if you're going up there with the intent to try to pull a home run every single time, first of all, you're not going to get the pitch at the major league level to be able to do that every single time. Like these guys are way too good. The stuff is too good. The execution is too good, but you have to have the intent that if you get the pitch to do that,

that you're ready for it, ultimately the situation will dictate some of that, right? And if you just have a bunch of guys going up there trying to hit pull air home runs, inevitably the pitchers are good enough and have good enough stuff to prevent that from happening. It might happen every once in a while, but that's where intent matters more than anything else.

And if, and you know, with the intent of, you said it earlier, you know, take what you're given, it changes the dynamic because now all of a sudden, if you're ready for the opportunity when it presents itself to pull that ball in the air on a pitch that you are actually capable of doing it on, then you're ready to pull that ball in the air on a pitch that you are actually capable of doing it on, then you're ready to do that, right? If the intent is results-based, then you're gonna change your approach to try to get a specific result.

If the intent is more process-based, then the results happen. Yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of what the the cue has been is just changing what you're trying to do in your process and in the pull quote that I thought at least what could have been the pull quote from this was something that came up in an MLB.com piece. It was Jorge Polanco talking about Egger. He said when Egger got here he just preached on that middle-of-the-field approach. Everybody knew who Egger was so we just listened to him trying to work on that so I took it to the offseason and

Jay's piece at fan graphs Jay Jaffe's piece breaks down how Polanco's also changed on the left side of the plate He's also swinging the bat harder some of that could be how he's orienting himself at the plate, but there's Like it being healthy to write like it It's like ticking three boxes all at once like you you made a mechanical change you got healthier and you've changed what you're actually trying to do all of those things can make some pretty massive adjustments happen from a luck standpoint i don't use this too often but if you're talking about like who's over their skis when it comes to

ex-Woba just their expected production versus their actual production yes you're gonna find that some of these some of these guys are over their skis like Jorge Planko has a 466 ex-Woba he has a 479 Woba those two numbers are maybe closer than you think that's not that that lucky, you know what I mean? And then you start looking at other ones, ex-Wobas and their actual ex-Wobas, and there's not another player on this team that is lucky by that number.

I guess the closest is Dylan Moore with a 376 Woba and a 361 ex-Woba. Again, two numbers that are pretty close together. So this isn't a team that like you were gonna be like, oh yeah, they're just getting lucky. I think this is a good approach. Maybe some players that have been undervalued. When I think of JP Crawford,

I think of a type of player that is undervalued, which is he controls the zone and he's added some bat speed over the years. And now he kind of he's putting together you know one of his better seasons offensively and he's doing it at a time where you know he's near peak age you know and you know that describes some of their other guys and then I think Julio is gonna get going we've broken down enough but Cal Raleigh is a go-get-it type hitter he gets he

makes contact out in front of the plate further than anybody else in baseball. And that might be problematic if your whole team did it, but it's kind of cool to have one guy who does it because he has the most homers on the team. And if you need a homer, it's a great time to have Calralli come up. Absolutely. They get different types of hitters in that lineup. They get different guys with different functions, like putting kind of different problems in the minds of opposing pitchers. You don't want Calralli going up there and just trying to, you know, carve balls the other way, right? Like the intent will be dependent on the individual and the approach that that player is best suited at producing.

So, but once again, like I think knowing who you are as a player, and really focusing on your intent unlocks more potential. If we were just playing home run derby, the idea would be to just pull the ball in the air, right? But that's not what this is. You have somebody trying to get you out 60 feet away, not just put it in there. So that's where I always come back to intent. One thing that they do, you know, at least on the margins is they value athleticism in a way that's maybe not obvious. Luke Railey has like top end sprint speed and a top arm

and hits the ball really hard. And people are like, well, he's not that great against left-handers and he strikes out too much. Well, what about the other good things he does? You know, and Dylan Moore is cut, you know, that dude's cut. And he's just like this cut dude that can play every position. And yeah, he strikes out too much or yeah, you know, he may not be an

everyday regular at any one position, but that's a really valuable player to have on your team. And I will once again say, go look at the career home road splits for Dylan Moore. If Dylan Moore's career happened somewhere else, we'd probably talk a lot more about him. He's been a good player outside of T-Mobile, which, as we said earlier, it's become the toughest place in baseball to hit.

We need to go, but I think we're collectively in on this Mariners lineup transformation being mostly real and sustainable. Maybe they're not top five all year, but they're certainly better than they were as a group a year ago, I think, when the dust clears at the end of 2025. And if they get healthier in that rotation, there you go. Maybe this is the year they get back into the postseason and make some noise on our way out the door. A reminder, you can get a subscription to the athletic athletic dot com slash rates and barrels. Find you

know, I'm blue sky, you know, Sarah's got beast guide at social. I'm DVR, a beast guide at social. Jed's not there. Jed's onous.bsky.social, imdvr.bsky.social. Jed's not there. Jed's on Instagram. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. That's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Thursday. Thanks for listening. Looking for a community that has it all? Welcome to Crossings, the urban hub of West Lethbridge. At Crossings you'll find a vibrant village designed for living, working and connecting. With top-notch schools, a state-of-the-art rec center, retail spaces and parks, it's more than a neighborhood, it's a lifestyle. Enjoy NHL

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