Is Grayson Rodriguez the new “ace” of the Baltimore Orioles rotation? Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the loss of Corbin Burnes and the acquisition of a 41-year old Charlie Morton and a 35-year old Japanese pitcher who’s never thrown a pitch in the big leagues. And the $28 million price tag to rent their services for the summer.
Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the Baltimore Orioles’ starting rotation and bullpen, expressing concerns about the team’s spending and strategy. They highlight the $15 million contract for Charlie Morton and $13 million for Tamayoki Sagano, questioning the value and reliability of these signings. Jones mentions the depth in the rotation, including Grayson Rodriguez and Trevor Rogers, but notes the lack of a proven top starter. They debate the potential for trades involving players like Dylan Cease or Luis Castillo and the importance of a strong bullpen, given the modern game’s reliance on relief pitching.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
starting rotation, bullpen depth, Charlie Morton, Trevor Rogers, Grayson Rodriguez, Felix Batista, relief pitching, Corbin Burns, Dylan Cease, Luis Castillo, Walker Bueller, Kyle Bradish, minor league capital, trade possibilities, fan expectations
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
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Nestor Aparicio 00:00
For me this totality. If you and I stop this segment right now and start over and say, Alright, spring trainings here, let’s start tomorrow. What do we got? How are we pitching? What are we going with? Boy, oh, boy. I mean, I’m I’m perplexed a little bit about it, about the money they’ve sunk into this year, what the expectation is, and what they’re putting value on these starts in the here and now, but really doing it in a rented pickup in in some sort of way that the optics of it aren’t good, but if they’re mad man statistics and it all works out great, but it feels like they’ve spent a lot of money on the short track of something that they feel like can be reliable, but they paid a premium for it. In my mind, well, I mean, I don’t
Luke Jones 00:47
know if they paid a premium for it. I mean, Nestor $15 million isn’t that much money anymore relative to the way you thought about it five years ago, let alone 10 or 15. I mean, that’s part of it, right? I mean, but what you expect out of that money is all I’m asking. But, but what do you expect out of that? You know what? I mean, like, what did we expect out of Craig kimbre For 17 million, or whatever was, oh, I mean, but that’s a little, that’s a little bit of apples to oranges, because you’re talking starter to compared to closer. But again, for me, I look at their rotation right now and I will say, I’ll say this before I get to my big point in terms of number three, number four, number five options, it could look a lot worse in terms of, you know, when you’re talking about Charlie Morton, who I would probably pencil in as my number three right Now, you know Elaine and Rodriguez, whichever, you know, 1221, however you want to order those two. But you know, Dean Kramer is a number four. I mean, Dean Kramer was their number two or number three starter at the end of last year, right, because of the injuries they had. But you’re talking about Dean Kramer, you have tamayoki Sagano, who, right now at pencil in, is my number five. You know when, when you’re talking about a $13 million contract for him, the way that they gave him, and then that’s kapovidge finished the end of last year. Well, you know, you have Chase McDermott, you have Trevor Rogers, who, even though his four starts were disastrous, the Orioles didn’t just give away Connor Norby and Kyle Stowers, and then say, Oh, we don’t like Trevor Rogers. They clearly like Trevor Rogers. Now they think they can fix them, right? And this goes back to, yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 02:28
if you and I are hosting the hot stove show on b, a, l, e, they think they can fix them, but, but they think they can fix them. And you and I can sit here and say, they’ve got enough bill, this is what they’re good at, right, right? They’re really good at and this is what they’re going to go into, Mr. Rubenstein, it doesn’t know much about baseball, and say, we’re geniuses about this. We’re such geniuses that guys like Luke Jones and Aparicio and Mark machine and a whole bunch of people that sit around have done this for 30 or 40 years on the radio, they have a kind of a hard time following along in this new way, even though you’re an analytics nerd and I’m trying to figure it all out, I’m just trying to have it all make sense, from a fan’s perspective, that I can package it up. And that’s where these signings, to me, they don’t feel like Roland HeMan or I was out at breakfast. I want to give a free plug here to Zeke’s coffee and Thomas Rhodes, because rasig had me out for coffee on Friday and and as it turns out, I’m there when they’re not talking Lamar football. We wound up talking baseball. And now where six kids named me nasty Nestor. He went through this whole pitching thing with Todd fro worth, and it was a big baseball conversation. And you know, everybody at the table’s got it to your point, a very different level of knowledge to be able to talk about all this. And these guys were nerds, like, these were older guys. I don’t want to be mean, because I know they listen, because they tell me they listen all the time. But they were guys that were like jogging me as I became the guy I am at Moss on holidays, which is the trivial pursuit. I have all the answers. I’m the sports Answer Guy So, and which is, you’re that guy in my world, right when it comes to this? And I said, you know, they, he, they were talking about Morton had been signed. This was on Friday morning. Okay, so they had talked about, they were talking about, well, what are they going to do with all the money? They’re going to use it on relief pitching, like they did that one year. Hey, ness remember that year they signed all the relievers because they couldn’t sign a starter, and we were trying to come up with the names. And I’m like, well, it was the Timlin Tomlin, Timlin, Mike De John DeWitt, DeWitt, Dejon, I was thinking of, like, all of these names of all of the relief pitchers, buddy groom, that era, little after that. And it was after a Roscoe, yeah, yeah. So right, and it was sort of early with the big left hander, BJ Ryan, right came after that. At there was a period, there was an off season where they couldn’t, you know, I got Confederate money here. I don’t know what to do with it. And they signed a bunch of relief pictures. And at the time, at the time, they sent me on the radio. This is I had pictures with those guys, dude. It was Dijon Mike de Jean, whatever. Oh 30405, you know, there were like, three pitchers that they signed, and part of their thing was, well, you know, that starting pitches costed a lot of money, so when we were going to get around that is, we’re going to usurp the innings with, you know, like it was all of the 20 year ago, science trying to out Billy Dean in the day. I’m just trying to figure out in a vacuum with 35 year old pitchers at 13 million and because they’re they’re not just throwing darts. Man, this isn’t the old man putting his feet up, being talked into stuff. This is like Elias has a plan here. I don’t know what it is i and I’m trying to be respectful of it, because they won 91 games last year, and I’m trying to understand how they’re viewing the totality of all of this, because I would think it’s new age, and part of it is they couldn’t sign Corbin burns. They didn’t have enough money. He wanted to be on whatever it is they they have a philosophy on this. And you, it’s for you and me as journalists, trying to figure it out a little bit,
Luke Jones 06:21
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right? Yeah, well, and so there’s, I made the point that they’ve bolstered their back of the rotation depth, right? I you know, even a couple names that I didn’t even mention are guys that are in the mix. You know that that you would go all right? Here are your eight, nine, meet 10 guys that might make starts for you this year. And of course, you get down to eight, 910, those aren’t guys that no team’s going to look at their eight, nine and 10 options and say, I want them to make a lot of starts. But we also know that it’s reality baseball. That’s where this came from. Sure, sure, sure, exactly so. And you know, I wasn’t even including Suarez in that, in that discussion, but couple things here. One, it’s still, where is the upside coming from? Where you look at this and, you know, you think about it in the same way that we talked about the playoff rotation for the entire season. Last year, we talked about it burns would be the number one. Who’s gonna be the number two is Brad is going to be there? Is he healthy? Is Grayson Rodriguez going to be was another guy we ever talked about? And then they added Eflin back into the mix, right? So, so you have, you have Grayson Rodriguez, who the upside is still there. We’ve seen him look dominant. We can go back to that start he made against Tampa Bay in mid September of 23 when things were dicey at that point for the division, and the Orioles were kind of, you know, Tampa Bay had pulled into a tie with them, if you recall, and Grayson Rodriguez went out there and shoved for eight innings and looked every bit the part of anything Corbin Burns did last year. So you still have that upside, but you’ve had a Grayson Rodriguez who’s missed a sizable portion of two of the last three seasons with lad issues, right? You have a guy who has yet to make 30 starts in a major league season. You know, forget about, you know, even 200 I mean, Corbin burns through 194 last year, right? I mean, you know, even, and I talked about this with you a lot last year, even in the context of what we viewed Corbin burns as being, he wasn’t what Mike Messina was right? I mean, he wasn’t a guy that threw 250 innings, or go way back and think about guys who threw 300 plus innings. I mean, you’re a dinosaur, if you think about it in those terms at this point. So part of my point here is I still have concerns, very substantial concerns, about the upside of their rotation, I will say this much if they’re still in the hunt to make a trade for a Dylan cease or a Luis Castillo, which those are two players who two pitchers who reportedly are available, and they’ve been, you know, not linked to the Orioles in reporting, but in terms of a speculative nature we’ve talked about that, you know, if you go out and sign Charlie Morton in the way that the Orioles did, I’m spitballing here. This is not anything that’s out there. I’m not hearing this. But does a Charlie Morton signing allow you to then potentially dangle someone like a dean Kramer, because Dylan cease with the padres, right? If they’re going to trade him, that doesn’t mean the Padres are rebuilding, right? That doesn’t mean they’re tearing everything down. It means he’s got an expiring contract, and they’re clearly pivoting from their late owner who was spending a lot of money, and they’re not going to be not going to be spending as much the way it’s looking with the way they
09:45
proceeded, more than birds. I man that well, my only choice would be, you could deal for him, and then, you know, he’s a two, $50 million pitcher too, right? Or you’re gonna give up a rental. But we saw burns as a rental the whole we never talked sure exactly. I mean the marriage. I mean you, you heard me say for months that I wasn’t sure I’d want to give Corbin burns a long term contract, and not because I don’t like Corbin burns. Well, that’s just the other way to do it. This part of 5 million for you know, but the
Luke Jones 10:15
spitballing idea that I was giving you here with this, and I’m thinking about this just in the context of 2025 not whether you’d resign cease or whether you’d acquire Castillo, who’s under contract for a couple more years, but if you are loading up on back end of the rotations types when you’ve signed Sagano and you’ve signed Charlie Morton, perhaps could that be a signal that you’d be willing to part with someone like a dean Kramer? Because, hey, look, Dean Kramer is what he is, right? He’s not really a guy you want to start in a in a playoff game, but he’s part of a major league rotation, and he’s going to give you starts for six months. And you know, for the most parties stayed healthy. My point would be that type of pitcher, that kind of profile, might be appealing to the Padres in a Dylan cease trade, or might be appealing to another team that’s looking to move their pitcher who’s approaching free agency, but Dean Kramer’s got a couple more years of club control now, Dean Kramer still has value to the Orioles, I want to be clear, but maybe that’s why you signed Charlie Morton, because then you say, Hey, Charlie Morton, for 2025 will be at least as good, if not better, than Dean Kramer, so maybe we can move and that could be that might be one of the biggest pieces you give up for Dylan cease, again, I’m spitballing here. Or it might just be that the Orioles are just saying, You know what, we’re a one year contract kind of team. And hey, how much, how much club control did cordon burns have when they acquired them one year? So, you know, you look at the profile and you look at their type, that’s kind of how it goes on now, that upside part of the discussion aside that I just acknowledged that I have concerns about the other part of this, and you you touched on this, whether you meant to or not, the bullpen, and you’re looking at the state of the bullpen, and if you’re going to have a rotation that is not going to have a Corbin burns at the top, it has a Grayson Rodriguez and a Zach Eflin. And, you know, even Zach Eflin, you know, age 31 season, is Zach Eflin really a number one or a number two, or would he be better as a number three? I think that’s a very valid question to bring up, but it’s where they are right now. So if you’re not going to go about it in terms of acquiring another ace or a number another number two pitcher, let’s say number two starter, then maybe you pivot and say, what can you do to add to your bullpen? Now, Felix Batista is coming back, and there’s no reason at this point to think that Felix Batista now, he might be, he might not be 2023 Felix Batista right off the bat. But assuming he’s healthy and he’s had ample time, you know, he’s had well over a year by the time he gets to spring training you’re talking about, you know, 16 months, you know, I think he added his surgery in October of 23 so there’s no reason to think that Felix Batista won’t be some good version of Felix Batista. But you need more than that, right? You know, you’ve got yen, your Cano, you’ve brought back Sir Anthony Dominguez, Gregory Soto looked better in September than he did in August. But you look at that and say, Okay, if you’re not going to go get a stud pitcher, a stud starter to replace Corbin burns, fine, you better do some work to that bullpen then, right? And And again, this, this, it’s all about winning games, right? It’s not about
Nestor Aparicio 13:40
this isn’t about who has the best number one starter or who has the better number three starter. It’s who wins more games. And another way for the Orioles to do that would be to fortify their bullpen and strengthen their bullpen. You know, I like the state of their bullpen right now, with a hell with projected to be healthy Felix Bautista than I did a year ago, with Craig Kimbrell replacing him for a season, but you could still add there so well, saying $17 million is worth 150 innings, right? And $13 million on Sugano, who’s ever thrown a pitch in the big leagues, is worth, you know, whatever 128 innings they expect that am right? I guess, right. So then the bullpen, to your point, high leverage, very specialized, very, very different than we mentioned, all those old relief pitchers that one trick ponies and Kevin hickeys coming in and, you know, being one, getting one guy out, or Mariano Rivera getting four guys out, sometimes, right, like, whatever those numbers are, the value of that in the seventh, eighth or ninth inning when you’re in Yankee Stadium, because Corbin bears can’t help you, then, yeah, pay him all you want. He ain’t gonna be in a game in the eighth inning. Fourth time around in him. Let’s knuckle bite four. Three game runner on and you know, the best you got is Craig Kimbrel.
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Luke Jones 14:59
I. Yeah, and that’s, and, my goodness, I’m going to sound like a broken record here, because you heard me talk about this from spring training on last year, in terms of the state of the bullpen and feeling they needed more. And you just said it, this is, again, where we need to recognize the state of the game. We’re not going back, at least anytime soon. We’re not going back to the days of pitchers going eight or nine innings. I mean, we’re just not whether that would make the game better or not, is a different discussion. But in reality, in 2025 barring fundamental changes to how pitchers are developed and what we value as pitchers, even going down to the youth baseball level with velocity and spin and throwing breaking balls, and knowing what that means to for pitchers, arms, boy, you need to load up on bullpen. And I’ll continue to say it right. Go look at the postseason. Go look at even the best starters. It was rare to see someone going seven or eight innings, right? And I’m talking about the studs of studs, right? Yeah, legitimate number one starters. I mean, I know burns went deep into the game against Kansas City, but go back and look how many times did Corbin burns throw seven innings last year, not as many as people romanticize him to have done. So you need relief pitching. You need legitimate stud arms coming out of that bullpen. And I think the Orioles have are in a better spot now than they were a year ago in that regard. But if it’s not going to be a Dylan cease or a Luis Castillo, and it wasn’t Corbin burns, it wasn’t Blake snow, it wasn’t Max freed, it wasn’t even someone like Nathan avaldi, you know, then you can look at it, build from the back forward, and look at the bullpen, and see what you can do there to add and strengthen that, because you’re going to need that either way. So,
Nestor Aparicio 16:51
trembling Trombley, Trombley, Trombley, is that right? Mike. Mike. Trombley, right, yeah. I’m going to go, I’m going to Dave Trembley, but no Trombley, and I believe it was, I keep getting DeWitt into John’s mixed up as well. John, I think it was okay. So, so Trombly came here on the 2000 2001 Orioles, so dark
Luke Jones 17:15
already by then. What’s that? It was so dark already by then. Oh, it was terrible.
Nestor Aparicio 17:20
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There’s no question about that. The o1 left that it’s like now what I’m trying to buddy groom was a part of that Rick Bauer was going to set the world on fire. So is John Parrish. Oh, Sidney ponson is going to get it done? Nah. Maybe it was the 2000 team. Then, now that I’m thinking about it, because, like, I really, they all run together, you know what I mean, in some sort of fun way, don’t they? They
Luke Jones 17:45
definitely do. And I want to make one more point, and this is, you know, we were talking about the bullpen, but you know, to go back to the one year contract concept, there’s a name. And I may have mentioned this to you. I probably have, because we’ve had at least enough discussions over the last couple of weeks about baseball, and you know, just the frustration and underwhelming nature of this off season to this point, understanding there’s still five and a half weeks to go to spring training, six weeks to go to spring training, but instead of paying a 35 year old Japanese pitcher who’s never pitched in the majors, and the 41 year old pitcher who has been very durable, right? I want to be clear when I when I point out that Charlie Morton is 41 I don’t want to make it a punch line, because Charlie Morton still made 30 starts last year, and has made 30 starts every year other than a COVID season for the last six or seven years. I mean, that’s he’s been very durable in terms of just posting up and taking the ball every fifth day. But if the Orioles are going to live in this one, in this world of one year contracts, you know who I would have really liked to have seen them go out there and sign to a one year deal, who the Red Sox did, albeit for $20 million rather than 15. Walker Bueller. Now, Walker Bueller had a bad regular season. Coming back from Tommy John surgery did not look right, but go look at what. Remember, what he did in October last, last year. And I would have loved to have seen the Orioles take a chance on a one year deal, on someone like that, who, let’s be clear, Walker, Bueller, could end up being bad, and that could be, well, you $20 million down the drain, but it’s still a one year deal. It’s, you know, $20 million isn’t going to cripple any franchise long term. It it hurts in the here and now, but it’s not going to cripple you long term in the way that Chris Davis, you know, or some deal like that does, where it doesn’t work out. I would have loved to have seen the Orioles, if they’re hell bent on one year deals for veteran pitchers, go out and sign a guy like Walker Bueller, who I think has such interesting upside in terms of, you know, being another year removed from Tommy John surgery. And, you know, like I said, he might not be very good for the. Red Sox team, especially pitching half his games at Fenway. I mean that that could work out very poorly, but I think there’s an intriguing enough upside play there where you know if you’re the Orioles and right now you look at your rotation, what are you missing a number one or a number two starter, right? I mean, someone to put in that space, and then you can slot Grayson, Rodriguez and or fn down one spot. You know, I think everyone would feel a lot better, even if it’s not a former Cy Young Award winner like Corbin burns, you know, I think Walker Bucha would have been really interesting in that way. And again, it’s a risky profile that that’s why you only got a one year deal, right? He’s trying to, you know, this is a more a prove it year for him, now, he’s still getting $20 million so that helps him, but, but the point is, you look at him and what he was just a few years ago, 2021 2.47 era, 33 starts, 207 innings. You know, he was an all star. He finished fourth in Cy Young. You know, he was an all star back in 2019 understanding that was a long time ago. But you know, the difference is Walker Bueller’s 30 compared to Sagano being 35 or Charlie Morton being 41 so if it were me, and you were telling if Mike Elias, if I’ve suddenly joined the Orioles front office, and Mike Elias said, Hey, our philosophy right now is, you know, unless we’re trying to land a big fish, and, hey, we tried with Corbin burns. We didn’t get it done. It happens. But otherwise, we’re going to stick with one year deals. That’s the kind of guy I would have liked to have seen, you know, if you’re going to do two of these, you know, a $13 million deal and a $15 million deal, man, I would have liked to just pony up a little bit more and going out and gone out and signed someone like Walker Bueller, who I just think, I think it’s interesting again, he might be bad. He might be lousy for the Red Sox. I mean, he had a five, 5.3 era in 16 starts last year. He was a below replacement level starting pitcher in the regular season coming back from the injury. But, man, he looked pretty good in October, right? He was on the he was on the mound when the Dodgers won the World Series. So, you know, it looked, you know, it looked better. And look, it wasn’t even perfect. In October, he had a bad start in the Division Series, but looked good in the LCS. And you know, he did some nice work in the World Series for the Dodgers. So that’s where I just keep coming back to all these moves they’ve made in isolation. I can at least understand where it’s coming from. But, man, at some point in time, you’re going to need some more upside for this rotation, right? I mean, even efflin, you know, even putting F in that number one, number two space. Man, that’s ambitious. You know, I like Zach Eflin a lot, but 31 he’s not a big strikeout guy like he’s more of a number three in ideally for me. So, you know, and Grayson Rodriguez, the idea of Grayson Rodriguez is a number one, but the in practice, in practice to this point it, it’s been a guy who hasn’t been durable, and, you know, he’s had,
Nestor Aparicio 23:04
I just a little bit of talking the whole summer about the pitching and and listen you, I’ll drop the ball on this and, or, you know, we can continue on if you wish. But for me, I’m not a fatalist about this. In saying, if you’re good enough to start the season and then you want to give the kid that they got from the Marlins a chance. Trevor Rogers, you know, if you want to promote, if you think that you’ve seen something in somebody that is a Suarez, right? You feel like, you know, you know, I remember you and I down at Jet Blue Park and and Fort Myers last weekend, the Suarez guys pitching, and next thing you know, like he would been pitching big games for them in October. Had they been good enough when he didn’t pitch, he’d have been. He had been a part of what they needed to do, which clearly shows that they do not discriminate against Venezuelans. But I’ll say this trading deadline, the minor league capital that they have it that if Dylan cease is not today, if not today, then on July 31 he might be cheaper, because the Padres stink, and you could whatever that I’m not that they I’m not the screaming fan, right? Screw I’m not that they have to spend they have to do this. I’m 30 years into this. I’ve got a PTSD that nobody can comprehend in the audience because of what. So I’m at a different level with my belief or not belief. But I’m always fair, and the fair part is these guys have been pretty good at this. They’ve been pretty good at fixing people. They’ve been pretty good at doing it on the cheap. They’ve been pretty good at minding their dollars, even if they don’t do it on the cheap. Because I don’t know that $13 million for a Japanese picture. I don’t know that that’s cheap. You tell me, I don’t think signing Kimber was necessarily cheap last year. I think they’ve seen the whole. Goals, much in the same way you and I spent an hour and a half today discussing the Steelers and the Ravens and like Kyle Hamilton’s not a safety. They’re not going to play him. They’re going to they’re going to sign a real safety and have him go be legendary at the 12th position, or whatever they’re going to call that thing the hybrid part of what they’re trying to do with the totality of their pitching, and the money that it takes to get there, and the draft capital they have, and the minor league capital they have, and the ability to invest money in some guy from Japan that nobody else wanted at that level give a real opportunity to come in, because they play it that way a little better than maybe some other organizations did. I remember when Angelo’s here, I could still share that the Korean baseball they had signs banning the Orioles, literally signs all over the facility, banning the Orioles because they hated Dan Duke. Get that much in Korea. So finding players in Korean leagues, finding players in other places. You and I talked way in Chen last last week, which was a part of that administration back in the day, being creative. I’m all for that. Watching Nichols, when a billionaire comes in and says he’s Mr. Big Shot, puts himself in the ads, and then it’ll spend real money in the off season, and they cry about finishing second for their number one starter that they really, really wanted. Okay, if you really, really want them, that means you got two, $50 million spent on somebody else. I on somebody else. I’m not saying wasted, but step it up. Let’s start. Let’s start season with seas. But if that doesn’t happen, I’m still not they’re not trying. I’m just going to call it what it is. They have an out of press conference. They have these Friday afternoon news dumps. Greg Bader still running the television network. I have no idea what they’re trying to sell me to watch the games on my way to Ocean City this summer. Like the woman that’s running the outfit has never had a press conference. She sat in the dugout with a couple of you. Like, what are you doing? Let’s run the team. Football teams playing for a Super Bowl this month. Let’s go be proud of signing Charlie Morton, if you’re proud of you, but $17 million on it. Homer would love that 17 million, and he deserves it more. Luke Jones can be found at Baltimore, Luke, I’ll give you parting shot. I’ll be like Mike Wilbon and Tony corn will do it. Our parting shot today is brought to you by Go ahead,
Luke Jones 27:17
right. Couple things. One, what it was 15 million. You know, I just wanted to clarify that. 15 million on Morton, yes, okay, 15 on him, 13 on saga, yeah. And how much was Kimbro? So I get that number right? Kimberle was Kimber was 13. I think, right? I think, Okay, off the top of my head, sorry, I Okay, lots going on with playoffs and everything was going on with the Ravens. But I’ll leave you with it for I don’t want to mess you up. I’ll leave you with this. What was there? And I’m not saying this to put you on the spot. On the spot. This is an exercise, right? To prove my point, what was the Orioles start embarrassing me 20 years before you came along, I know what was the Orioles starting rotation entering the 2023 season, which they won 101 games, 23 season to start the season, yeah, I mean, I’m terrible at this. No, no, that, but that’s my point here. That’s my point. It was Kyle Gibson. It was, and I don’t remember the exact order to start the year, Kyle Gibson, Dean Kramer, Kyle Bradish, who actually got hit on the foot, and that was the reason they had to bring Grayson Rodriguez up, who, remember, had not made the Rotate, Tyler wells. Tyler wells, right? Cole, getting there. Cole Irvin, I mean, that’s, that’s what we’re talking about here now. And they were waiting on Rodriguez because his arm wasn’t right. And Palmer was talking, I remember all that right now, his arm
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Nestor Aparicio 28:44
was okay. He just didn’t have a very good spring. The big question that week was Stowers. I remember that was the week I had lunch with Mike Elias. Everybody was asking about Stowers, and everybody was pissed at Aaron Frazier was getting at bats at second base. Adam Frazier, yeah, yeah, I said. Aaron Frazier, no,
Luke Jones 28:59
no, but Right, right? Because there are people who thought, I thought Jordan Westberg was ready at that point in time. But my point in saying that is that team won 101 games. And now I will point out Kyle Bradish very much pitched like an ace over the course of that season. Kyle Bradish had, you know, not quite as much in terms of innings, he was every bit as good as, if not better than what Corbin Burns was this past year. Go, go, look at the numbers and tell me I’m wrong. I mean, again, not quite as much in terms of innings, but in terms of strikeouts. Era go down the list. He was a stud. But my point is, no one knew he was going to be that at the beginning of 23 that doesn’t mean, I think that there’s necessarily a Kyle Bradish ready to pop that, you know, I’m not saying Trevor Rogers is ready to be that. No, no, heavens no. But my point is, and it’s the point you were making, they probably have deserved a little bit more benefit of the doubt than a lot of people were giving them, in terms of that, what’s frustrating, what’s under. And I will not back off at this point, and it was the basis of what I wrote at Baltimore positive.com What’s frustrating is they’ve got this intellect, and they’re smart, and they’ve gotten themselves to this point, not just with the top five picks, but with everything else they’ve done, including the Albert Suarez type moves that they’ve made that, it feels like they have resources now to not have to rely solely on those types of things. Yet it feels like they’re continuing to do that. And that’s what’s frustrating about this there. You don’t get any extra wins for having a lower payroll or not having any pictures on long term contracts or anything like that. Go make things a little easier on yourself, assuming you have new ownership that’s willing to do that. But here we are, and it’s Sagano and it’s Charlie Morton and Tyler O’Neal and it’s Gary Sanchez, and you know, we’ll see the off season isn’t over. No one had any inkling that Corbin Burns was coming. No one had mentioned Charlie Morton. So they, they clearly do a good job in the warehouse of keeping things bottled up, right? I mean, they don’t like leak things out in terms of, you know, when they sign someone, it comes out of nowhere. Typically, that’s how this has generally worked the last couple and usually on a Friday afternoon, right. Right? Exactly so. But yeah, you just look at the upside and say, I want them to be better. And their young pitcher or their young position players, Jackson holiday is going to be better, some other guys that they have in that group are going to be better now, someone might be worse. Alec rushman was worse this past year, right? So you can’t plan on everything going perfectly, but they still have a whole lot going for them. I’ll continue to say that. But man, it, you need more upside with this rotation you just do. And to your point, maybe that’s going to come in the next six weeks, or maybe it’s going to come in June or July via trade, I don’t know, but yeah, it’s tough to look at this rotation right now and say, man, that looks like a group that can play deep in October. There’s no way two
Nestor Aparicio 32:08
years would you say their pitching was good enough or not just yes or no
Luke Jones 32:16
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in the end, um, in the in the end. I mean, certainly not last year, okay, because of what happened, but again, but, but they couldn’t. You can’t go into a season planning that. I mean,
Nestor Aparicio 32:30
your case here to wrap things up. And I’m backing you up on the 23 rotation idea, which is, and this is the reality of looking at this in the totality. First off, you mentioned burns, and he was such a big deal and and he got all the money, and, like all of that, he finished fifth in the Cy Young of voting in the American League last year, before Bradish finished fourth, right? Was that? So it was outstanding. Who’s going to be that kind of guy in this rotation, right? I mean, who, in the end, if it’s Grayson Rodriguez. Hope it’s
Luke Jones 33:01
Grayson Rodriguez, because I’m not sure who else it would be. I really don’t know who else it
Nestor Aparicio 33:05
would be, right? I mean, well, if you guys, he’s ascending and he’s emerging, and you’re putting eggs in that basket on the other side of the basket, you’re having the Charlie Morton’s and the saganos and maybe somebody else holding the water for that. To your point, my point, we’ve been waiting 41 years, in your case, for a World Series around here. Go get Dylan. Cease give up. Some young guys, put some money into this. Let’s go. Let’s your owner, 70. I’m
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Luke Jones 33:28
not anti that at all. It’s just, I’m trying to look at this, and I’m trying to see whether that’s coming or not. And, man, so many people would have been surprised to hear that they signed two pictures, let alone if they’re going to add a third, and that third being atop a top of the rotation guy. I mean, I’ll believe it when I see it, you know, but they certainly, they’ve got the capital, they’ve got the farm system. They should have the money, even if it’s another rental, like burns. So we shall see. But yeah, it’s just this for New York radio, and this were the fan in New York. Do something out there. Come on, do something out
Nestor Aparicio 34:03
something with more upside, more upside. Yeah. I mean, that’s what the internet sounded like on Friday night, and they’re running from the guys. They’re signing by having Friday news dumps on snow weekends when the ravens, it’s just goofy
Luke Jones 34:14
when we haven’t, when we have. I’m not going to get into this now when we have another opportunity to sit down and talk ball. You know, when the ravens, whenever the Ravens come to an end, I want to talk about Charlie Morton, because I think he’s one of the more interesting pitchers of the last 15
Nestor Aparicio 34:28
might be already into spring training by then, if Lamar is his way, we got playoff football this week, despite the fact that we do talk baseball around here, because we’re those guys. Get off my lawn. Yeah, I don’t know. I follow baseball enough to love baseball enough to know when they’re doing the right thing by the fans. And it’s been a long time here. It just has been, and I’m sick of it, and even the new president hiding from me and just we’re into a new year Friday afternoon. It’s business as usual and that, and that’s. This as a from a fan’s perspective, they need to do better. He’s Luke. I’m Nestor. Plenty of football. I promise we’ll get back to that. We’re Baltimore positive. Stay with us. You.
