Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 280 | Baltimore Orioles | Profile & Projection

Episode Date: February 21, 2021

You guys ranked the Baltimore Orioles the #27 team in baseball. Jomboy, Jake, & Plouffe preview their season! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Time for another team, profile, and projection. And today we are doing the Baltimore. Oriole. My name's Jimmy. Sitting next to me is Jake. We got Trevor here. We got BPD. We got 20 minutes on the clock.

And we've got Orioles baseball coming your way. Jake, can you tell us what this team did in the off season? If you got some O's and your zapatose, they lost our friend Alex Cobb. He goes to the Angels, which solved all their decades worth of pitching problems. Jose Iglesias also goes to the Angels. He, you know, known as a defensive shortstop extraordinary. He actually hit really well last year. He ended up deaching a lot for them.

Handsome Hanser, Alberto, a friend of the podcast, mashing those lefties, struggling versus righties. He's out of town. And Raynato Nunez, still currently a free agent. I like because the what they added are direct replacements for basically what we're just talking about. Freddie Galvis, he'll be coming into play some shortstop. The ALE East is familiar with him. Jemai Jones, I think he might be a year or two away, but he's the prospect they got in the cobb trade.

And then Yalmer Sanchez, the slick field in second baseman, he should jump in there for handsome hanser. So not a ton of movement on the Baltimore front as they let their young guys develop. Trev, tell me about this Baltimore lineup. we're going to say this every time this is not a set lineup this is the projected lineup so far we'll start with the catcher position Pedro Severino holding it down at the backstop

position but one of the top overall prospects in baseball is coming adly rushman coming soon for the oros they should be excited about that just like they were with weaters back in the day show me your weaters first base

comeback player of the year candidate all around stud he said FU to cancer Tray Mancini We manning the first base bag over there for them Yomar Sanchez as you mentioned at second base Freddie Galvis another new guy will be the shortstop for them

Rio Ruiz at third base and then the outfield we got Ryan Mountcastle center field Cedric Mullins right field Anthony Santander then of course at DH of course at DH Chris Davis but there's some prospects on the way again this isn't

set up, but that's the projected line of Jim. What about that rotation? John Means. We were very excited about John Means. He had a little bit of a down year last year in some ways, better in other ways. John Means, lefty, devastating changeup. He'll be highlighting the rotation. After that, you got a bunch of fun names that I may pronounce wrong.

Dean Kramer, Keegan Aiken, who is a golfer playing baseball. Jorge Lopez, Bruce Zimmerman, Wade LeBlanc, Ashton, Gouin, Grews. do. I mean, it says top relievers here, but it's like Cesar, Valdez, Tanner, Scott, Hunter, Harvey, and Cole Sulser. I got a ton of good names over there. Yeah. Interesting.

Good or bad. Yeah, this Orioles team, when you read out the names, I think Orioles fans might be getting excited because they have some prospects coming up. You know, Jemai, what's his name? Jemai Jones has been lighting up AAA. Huge. Then they also have, like you guys. Mount Castle came up last year.

Trey Mancini's making his return. That's really fun. But I don't know, I don't know much. Chan Sisko, I don't know if we talked about him. We like to say this at the start of most shows. I think we've forgotten the last one. You know more about your team than we do. So Orioles fans, if you're in the weeds,

if you got storylines that we don't know about, we'd love for you to share them. Because I'm a little bit at a loss at like, what are O's fans excited about or what storylines are they following? Do we think that this O's team sealing is fourth place in the division? Orioles, Rays, Yankees,

Red Sox, Blue Jays. The only reason I say that, because if the Red Sox, when the Red Sox are bad, they're very bad. So if the Red Sox do go, but I think the Red Sox surely are better than the Orioles.

I'm just saying, the Red Sox lose, they lose hard. I don't know even, I don't know if I could tell you that this Oriole ceiling is fourth place. Yeah, it's tough, man. I mean, you can start doing the, if everything goes right game. But even, even that gets really tough. I still think it's eyes, eyes on the future. I feel bad, but I feel bad for them a little bit.

I mean, with what the Blue Jays are doing now, the Rays are kind of the Ray's machine. And we're talking about the Red Sox kind of in a rebuild. wondering if the Orioles can even compete with them. You've got eyes on the young guys on this team. Austin Hayes, 25 years old. He's supposed to be able to hit. Intridden to see, right now they've got him penciled in center field. Interesting to see if he can stick there.

Ryan Moutcastle came up, and that dude looks like he's going to be a problem. And then, I mean, the guy that everyone has circled is Adley Rushman. So we'll see if he ends up getting the call later this year. But you've got some young guys you can get behind. And I even like the fact that they have MLB guys. that are going to be supporting them. I mean, Yolmer Sanchez at second base, Freddie Galvis, Trey Mancini, almost pencil him in for comeback of the year.

I mean, talk about a professional hitter. But, yeah, I mean, talent-wise, you know, they're waiting for that Chris Davis contract to come off the books. The pitching just isn't there. You hope means Aiken and Kramer. You can be more excited about them going into next year, I think, is the goal. But, yeah, I mean, especially in the AL East, this team is years away.

Definitely. I mean, your ceiling is fourth in the division. I would say that's 100% accurate. They are a few years away. They do have some exciting prospects. So, like, you know, if you're an Orioles fan, like you've been suffering for how many years now?

Quite some time. Well, 16 was really fun. It's not as bad as you'd think. Those showalter years were good. Yeah. They had, no, they did. They made the playoffs. Delman Young with some big hits.

It's a guy. I mean, look, they put together a good roster, but I mean, it's been three, four years since they've been able to be happy at the ballpark. But some of the guys coming up are really good, man. I mean, Adley Rushman, they're talking about this guy coming up and being like an MVP-type candidate.

Keith Law, who hates on everybody, is loving this guy. So I'm excited to see him. I do own some of his baseball card, so, you know, I'm going to put that out there. Disclaimer, I might be pumping him up a little bit here. But I don't know, man. Like, look, when teams rebuild like they did, eventually you're going to be able to get excited about some prospects, and then they get to the big leagues, and you have to find out what you got.

So I think this is going to be a big year for the Orioles, the Orioles fans to see, like, has our front office led us in the right direction. You'll see that they have their system, I believe, is ranked seventh by baseball America. But yeah, it's always tough when you're when you look at the lineup and then you're more excited about the prospect ranking. How about this? They have nobody under contract for the 20-23 season. And the only guy they have on contract for next year is Chris Davis. And that's a nice ballpark down in Baltimore. I think even during their bad seasons, they bring in some people.

So, hey, you know, once that Chris Davis contract is off the books, $23 million per year for basically a negative player. Hopefully they can turn that into a positive player or two. I think the interesting thing in this Trey Mancini story is funny and Jimmy we've had a few laughs whenever we talked about it because Trey Mancini was looked at as like the veteran leader and it's like oh Been there for three years

He's two years of MLB baseball and now Where he's at now I wonder if he comes back and looks like Trey Mancini He would be kind of the final piece that it was like This team is going to be moving on I think it would be very nice of them to trade him Yeah I mean, he's in arbitration.

He's got a year left, too, so they could get a decent hall if he plays up to Trey Mancine level baseball. And I think that's, you know, not to get away too far from the season because we'll talk about it a little bit Orioles fans. But I feel like if I'm the Orioles front office and we talk about, you know, when the Padres kicked into gear and they had all this money to spend because they told their owner a plan, I'm guessing the people that are running the Orioles are saying, 2023, like watch out.

And that's not that exciting. No. I will say, Treb, do you have anything? I'm kind of jumping way ahead of ourselves. I really don't have anything on the Orioles. They're in a tough spot. They're playing in the ALE East. The inner league games are going to be against the NLEs teams. They're not going to get, you know, many games. Do they play the Pirates seven games? They're not going to get many games where, on schedule, on paper.

It's like, here's an easy win. Because not even like, they don't even have any starters that you're like, well, you know, at least we got this guy in the bump. He's always good to give us a win. Some teams have that guy, you know? Like, I don't know how many games

are winning on paper before the... I don't have much to add. I will say this. Taryn Varvara. Okay, he's one of their higher prospects, not that at least. Rushman hype or anything like that. But I've known his dad forever.

Former minor league roving coordinator, bench coach, hitting coach for the twins. Tara and I have seen since he was a little kid, man. And he had a brother that played pro ball as well. Just a gamer, been around the game forever, went to the University of Minnesota. So like if you want to root for one of these guys, root for this guy because he is just an incredible person.

And he's pretty good player. Like I said, he's learned from everybody. He's been around the clubhouse, in the batting cage, just a little baseball rat. We love baseball rats on this show. And that's what he is. So I'll just add that in, just a little bias from T. Plouffe here. You know, cheer on Taron, Varver when he comes up.

Huge. And I think the other watchability scale is something that we're kind of touching on this. The Orioles can hit. They've been able to hit for the past couple years. They were seventh in batting average last year. Like seventh across 30 major league teams. I know the world doesn't run on batting average anymore. but the Orioles aren't a bad watch, man.

They don't have the high-end talent, and they really don't have the pitching. Who was the guy hitting all the homers? Was it Santander? Santander. Santander. Santander. Yeah, we picked him quite a bit in the homer draft.

He was going off. He got hot when DJ Stewart finally figured it out. Nunez was sitting a lot of homeruns last year as well. They got Freddie Galvis. Yomar Sanchez, he won the gold glove, what, last year or two years ago? I think two years ago I mean Treve you would have hit 30 out of year

if you were playing at Camden Are you kidding me? I loved hitting at Camden My goodness Especially during the day, it's a joke I'll give the Orioles some love since we I went a little harsh Their lineup was great last year

Short and season You gotta take everything to account But their worst Offensive batter Their worst offensive hitter Of qualified Like had enough play to to qualify, had a 91 OPS plus.

That's only 9% below league average. They had six guys above league average hitting. I mean, Jose Inglacius, Mountcastle, Santander, Nunez, Pat Velika, Chan, Cisco, were all above average offensive players, according to OPS Plus. They got someone, but the pitching really, I mean, if means regresses again, the Keegan Aiken Aiken and what's Dean Kramer? He looked pretty good. I know, but you just got to see it.

And what does pretty good mean? Does that mean you're an MLB? And how are they handling them? Are they going to give these guys games? Are they going to get five and fly and then it's bullpen slop and no one cares? You know what I mean? Yeah. They give up a lot of home runs, the Orioles.

So what's Max's fun stat here before I did we forget King Felix? Did you guys mention him? Or did it? Was I spaced out there? No. King Felix joined on. and that is going to be a lot of fun. He looked pretty good at Braves Camp,

and we thought he was going to break camp with the Atlanta Braves, who were, you know, one of the better teams in baseball. So, yeah, I think that'll be fun to watch. King Felix still twirling it. Would love, would love if he has a nice little twilight part of his career where he just starts throwing gross funk at the plate. And I say it a lot. But any time there's a guy that's been at the pinnacle of this sport,

and they just keep playing to play, I'm all about that. So hopefully he throws gross stuff and then they trade him to a contender as well. Good hope. Good hope. Max's fun stat. Dean Kramer and outfielder

Yusnel Diaz. Come on. We're two major pieces of the return for Manny Machado. Kramer 10th overall debuted last season and Diaz eighth overall. They could debut at some point. The season, Kramer's debut last season, made him the first Israeli citizen

in MLB history. Yeah. That's awesome. Pretty cool. So the Pocoda projection, which we're using as our over under for now because the official Vegas hasn't put them out yet, has them finishing at 66 and 96. I like going on Reddit, finding the Orioles, um, forums and seeing what the zeitgeist of the fandom is saying.

Their reaction to this Pocoda projection of finishing 66 and 97, the most of, the most Upvoted common is if we win 66 games in the AOL East and still get a top three pick, I'd be very satisfied. Honestly, not terrible. Yeah. Maybe we can break 70 depending on Kramer means and Aiken. Less than 100 losses is fine with me. That's not 100 losses. 66 seems high.

So that's where Orioles fans are at. Yeah. And because of that, I'll take the under. If Orioles fans are reading that and saying, Oh shit. Hell yeah. I'll take the under. Did we go over this?

Who's their inner league team this year? Are those divisions? It's easy. The East plays the East. West plays the West Central. That makes it easier. That's what I was saying. They don't have,

they're playing a lot of good teams constantly. Yeah. Because there's only like five teams that are at their level. I'll take the under. But again, I don't, I don't think they're going to be that far under. It's a lot of losses. I mean, that's tough.

Just because you sold me right there, I was going to say over Jim, and then you said you went on Reddit and listened to all their fan base. So screw it. These are people that like the Orioles. These are people that like the Orioles so much. They spend their time interacting and talking about them.

And those, you would think that would be an optimistic, know the weeds. No, you have to think about what they're going through. I mean, and they are in a heavy rebuild. So the people that want to talk about it, are the people that are drinking that Kool-Aid. I think it's an under.

I just... They play a lot of good teams. What are your horses, man? I mean, you lost Alex Cobb. Iglesias was so good for them last year, like incredibly good for them. I don't know. I think it's going to be the same story.

I think they will hit a lot. I really like Mount Castle, man. He looks like he has a chance to be a special hitter. But there's just no pitching. And, you know, when we're talking about the Red Sox in their worst case, the Red Sox best case is Chris Sale comes back and they're fighting for a wild card. And the Blue Jays and Tampa and the Yanks and the whole NL. Like, it just doesn't add up.

Like even the Marlins who we kind of liked and now have gotten shoved to the bottom of the NL East again, like the Marlins, I think, dominate. Like if we compared those rosters, paper on paper, we would lean heavy, Marlins over the Orioles. They got some arms. Yeah. All right. So I'm taking the under.

Jake's take the under. Trev. I'm going slightly over. 67 wins. It's really hard to lose that many games. It's really hard. So I'm just, I'm just, I'm going to throw some positivity out in the world today. I'm going over.

I'll say they win 68 games. Huge. Huge. Love it. Thank you guys very much for listening. We appreciate you. We will be back tomorrow with either a full episode or another team. or another TPP.

Appreciate you every day. Go share this with all your Orioles friends that you know. Or anyone that likes baseball. Appreciate it. Loose bowling pin.