Here’s the latest from Baltimore…
- Orioles slugger Trey Mancini underwent surgery to remove a malignant tumor from his colon earlier this month. Fortunately, Mancini is recovering nicely. General manager Mike Elias spoke on the matter Thursday (via Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun), saying Mancini’s “doing really well” and “his physical condition is great.” That’s certainly welcome news for the Orioles and all of those who follow baseball, though it’s unclear when Mancini will be ready to take the field again.
- The Orioles have optioned first baseman Ryan Mountcastle, right-hander David Hess, outfielder Cedric Mullins and utility player Ramon Urias to Triple-A Norfolk, Joe Trezza of MLB.com writes. The most notable player there is Mountcastle, a 2015 first-round pick and current top-100 prospect who ranks as one of the Orioles’ best farmhands. Still just 23 years old, Mountcastle climbed to the Triple-A level for the first time last season and batted .312/.344/.527 with 25 home runs in 553 plate appearances, though that solid production came with below-average strikeout and walk percentages of 23.5 and 4.3, respectively.
- Outfielder Austin Hays figures to enter the season as the Orioles’ leadoff hitter, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com writes in a piece focusing on their roster. The 24-year-old Hays has dealt with injuries over the past couple seasons, but he racked up 75 plate appearances in the majors in 2019 and posted tremendous numbers. Hays slashed .309/.373/.574 with four home runs, a .265 ISO and seven walks against 13 strikeouts.
Good luck Trey, that’s awfully young for that condition.
Anyone else feel like the Orioles will never play Mountcastle?
Orioles are probably just making sure to get the extra year of control over Mountcastle.
And they still have the dead weight of Davis’ massive contract blocking any young 1st basemen.
At this point, if the Orioles had anyone worthy of starting at first I doubt they’d let Davis and his contract stand in the way. They shouldn’t anyway.
The Orioles are paying Davis $23MM to lose this season. He can do that on the bench just as well as he can in the lineup.
It is $17 million this year with the rest of it deferred. This is not crippling the teams finances. Other than Cobb the rest of the 40 man roster is under $5 million per year with all but 5 others under $1 million per year.
He’s 23, at some point they need to trade him or play him at the big league level or they’ll stunt his growth and he’ll have no value. Are they just going to keep him in the minors for another two years waiting for Davis’ contract to expire and the team to rebuild?
I’m not sure why you’d think we would keep him in the minors for another 2 years.
There’s no obvious spot for him to start right now and he had a very poor spring. In addition to the fact that it makes complete sense to keep him down for the necessary time to gain another season of control.
He’ll have a spot on the big league club this year as long as he’s still hitting. He needs to work on his approach at the plate though—I don’t believe he has enough patience at the plate to be a real impact player yet. But he’ll get his shot. Renato Nunez and Dwight Smith aren’t keeping top prospects off the baseball field. They’re just keeping spots warm.
Mountcastle was having a crappy spring also.
@jbigz12 – dude you don’t even listen to yourself let alone anyone else.
jbigz12 “and he had a very poor spring.”
then jbigz12 “Mountcastle was having a crappy spring also.”
Briffle ” Are they just going to keep him in the minors for another two years waiting for Davis’ contract to expire…”
then jbigz12 “I’m not sure why you’d think we would keep him in the minors for another 2 years.” the why is right there! Good lawd man!
You are clearly a pompous know it all who likes to come as an authority, but you are no authority, you clearly don’t know it all, leaving just the pompous part. Pls go away…
There’s no time stamps on the comments. The comment that appears second was posted first, chief. However, I am pleased to find out I have gotten under the skin of a guy who comes in to troll. Pretty funny you can’t even hide it anymore.
Chris Davis and Ryan Mountcastle don’t play the same position either. He’s still a LF’er. I’m pretty sure the DH is still a position in the AL as well so I’m thinking that Chris Davis alone cannot block Ryan Mountcastle. The numbers just don’t add up there.
Didn’t realize Mountcastle could play any position.
Ryan Mountcastle has been tried as a 1B, LF, 3B, and SS so far in his professional career! It looks like his best shot to stick is 1B or LF…… Mountcastle is as unathletic as Trey Mancini! But they can hit a baseball!
He’ll be back up later this year.
A bit surprised they didn’t keep Mountcastle with Boom Boom obviously being out for a while. Although Davis decided to look like Lou Gehrig this spring, there was still room for Ryan.
Just keep him out of the OF. I saw a play when he fielded a ball in LF, threw toward home, and the ball wound up near the dugout. 1B/DH only for Mountcastle.
Rebuilding team—years from contention. Optioning Mountcastle was obvious. Really obvious. Not sure why anyone would think the Orioles would start his arb clock.
The great and pompous know it all has spoken, do not question him…
Assumes is an easily triggered target! please use your other MLBTR username when mentioning me.
Tis true. Mountcastle is going to stay in the minors for about 6 to 8 more weeks. Why bring him up now – that just loses a year of control. I too don’t see how other baseball fans can’t seem to see this obvious truth.
So he made one bad throw allegedly and you have determined he can only play 1B or DH?
Mountcastle is a guy who teams know is valuable, but no one really wants to have because he can’t play a position in the field.
Like a bigger version of Willie Calhoun. The Dodgers were desperate to get some sort of value for him because they never wanted him to play for their MLB team.
The Orioles have a DH spot on a regular basis unlike the Dodgers.
I think Hays has some upside, but I don’t view him as a leadoff hitter. He never drew many walks in the minors.. I kind of see his offensive ceiling (and defense to a degree) as similar to Adam Jones. Low .300’s OBP but will provide you 20-30 HR, playable defense in CF but probably better in a corner.. Maybe Starling Marte as well..
I agree… I was also kind of surprised to hear that the Orioles are viewing him as a leadoff hitter. To me it seems his best value is Power as he has never really walked enough or stolen all that many bases in the minors to warrant the leadoff spot. However he did hit 32 HRs a few years back in the minors (before struggling with some injuries) so I would definitely say he’s got some serious upside — I just think (as you said) it’s more as a Adam Jones type than a true leadoff hitter. But I guess the Orioles don’t have all that much talent in general to choose from for the leadoff role. So if Says can put up solid numbers why not bat him leadoff for now — until they have a more suitable leadoff type hitter on their roster — then in an ideal world Hays will have established himself as a potential 3-4-5 hitter.
I find the “outcry” over Mountcastle being optioned to be strange. It’s not like he tore up AAA so much last season that he won’t benefit from additional time in the minors. I mean he was decent hitting around 300 with 25 HRs but it was also the first time he hit over 20 HRs in a minor league season — and as a guy who’s limited to DH/1B – if he can’t hit HRs then he’s probably not going to have much value. So sending him down to hopefully improve his OBP (it was only .344 last year) and maybe pickup his power output a little bit — then I think you can make a case that he should be called up to the Majors.
Decent, reasonable post except for the use of only before .344 OBP, it was his career high for crying out loud…
The .344 would be a perfectly fine OBP.’but it was that high despite his low walk rate. I think anyone with a brain would tell you that Mountcastle won’t be able to produce a .375 BABIP in the major leagues. That OBP definitely would not hold in the majors with his 4.5% walk rate. Which is what matters at the end of the day.
So yes, it is something Mountcastle will need to work on.
Excuse this whiny Blowhard using my name. He has not accepted that he, like MySpace, has been rendered obsolete by the bigger better system. If you’re not innovating you’re dying! And assumes you’re dead!