After years of anticipation and weeks of speculation, Adley Rutschman has arrived.
The Orioles on Saturday promoted baseball’s top overall prospect, setting the stage for one of the most anticipated big league debuts in recent memory and marking a milestone in the franchise’s rebuilding efforts. The No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 Draft, he’s been ranked one of baseball’s top two prospects since the summer of 2020 and is currently No. 1.
Rutschman is in the Orioles starting lineup Saturday against the Rays, batting sixth and catching right-hander Kyle Bradish.
“I’d say about as excited as I can be right now,” Rutschman said at Oriole Park on Saturday afternoon. “I mean, this is probably about the coolest thing, the coolest moment that I’ve had so far. I’m really excited for it.”
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1. The Duke Posted: May 22, 2022 at 08:53 AM (#6077892)A normal team, that wasn't controlled by anti-marketers, might have had a press conference at the beginning of the week to announce that he'd be making his debut that weekend.
Spencer Torkelson, the No. 1 pick in the 2020 draft, also beat Rutschman to the majors. The Tigers sent Torkelson immediately to high A after he was drafted, and he was in AAA by the end of his first pro season. The Orioles, by contrast, sent Rutschman to rookie ball, then low A, then high A. Should you really take a 21-year-old player as the first overall pick if you don't think he's ready for A ball?
The Cubs did that with Kris Bryant.
He's going to get 4 PAs in a 3 hour game. Maybe there's a play he makes defensively, but I can't imagine making a special trip for that. It's different than watching a pitcher face 20-25 guys.
But let's be clear, it's not like he re-defined minor-league hitting. 254/351/423 in 2019; 285/397/502 in 2021. Nothing wrong with those but they don't scream "promote this guy now!" (Bryant 336/390/688 in 2013; 325/438/661 in 2014.) He might deserve to be the #1 prospect in that he's got all the skills for a good, long career but there's no evidence he's the next Bench.
With the new CBA, any idea where the super-2 deadline might be these days?
For real; he was branded as the new messiah around here, albeit ironically. But Weiters had a pretty good career: 12 years in the majors, four ASGs, two Gold Gloves and some MVP votes in 2012. (He sure did a lot better than the guy drafted right ahead of him...)
Spencer Torkelson is currently slashing .179/.290/.321.
I don't believe they changed anything with this, did they?
I do think Rutschman might have gotten called up last August or Sept, but they didn't want to have him lose spring training time as part of the work stoppage.
That was mostly about Prospectus' hilariously optimistic projection of his rookie season, as I recall. Silver had left and they were fighting a losing battle with college stats, and ended up projecting Wieters as a Piazza clone.
54,242 came out to see Harper :)
Teammate chain:
Juan Soto (still only 23 years old) - Strasburg
Strasburg - Pudge
Pudge - Ryan
Ryan - Ed Charles, who, at age 12, witnessed Jackie Robinson's historic first spring training in Daytona Beach in 1946. (Charles grew up in the city.)
If anything, this shows me that Elias is trying to build a winner, critics be damned. The Orioles are my team, and I was floored when they hired Elias back in November of 2018. A lot has gone wrong, the losses, Kjerstad's myocarditis, cancelling the minor league season in 2020 for a rebuilding team, Cowser's strikeouts in Aberdeen. But I could give a sh!t about the attendance for Rutschman's debut, or any buzz or whatever. The Orioles are not trying to win in 2022, but that doesn't mean they aren't trying to win. Grayson will be up soon, and while you can never have enough prospects, the organization is better positioned to win in the not so distant future than it has been in quite sometime...
It wasn't just Prospectus, but yeah, theirs was the most optimistic.
I don't think college stats were the issue. Wieters put up a line of .355/.454/.600 across A and AA ball in his first full minor league season. That's going to project well no matter what, but the projections were obviously too rosy.
From the research of @PaulHembo: Mike Mussina is the ONLY Hall of Famer (writers' ballot) who does not have his number retired by his first organization after spending at least his first 10 seasons with that team.
The Orioles are a clown show organization that lowballed Mussina after 2000 and the fanbase has held him up as a turncoat. Not surprising that they're treating their second-greatest pitcher ever this way
Strasmass was during my honeymoon. The game was on the TV behind my new wife while we were out for dinner. I'd like to say that I spent the entire meal staring lovingly into her adoring eyes, but I may have looked up at the TV every once in a while.
Mike Mussina is the ONLY Hall of Famer (writers' ballot) who does not have his number retired by his first organization after spending at least his first 10 seasons with that team.
To be fair, he was just elected to the HOF a couple of years ago.
Not sure if the ####### you are referring to is Angelos or Elias, but the next best day in the Orioles franchise history will be the day anything Angelos-related has nothing to do with the Orioles.
Here's hoping that Adley lives up to the hype.
Gary Huckabay started their projections and used neural networks. He said that every now and then the projections hit a feedback loop. Might be what happened.
The Hall has the final call, but they're willing to listen to the player's wishes if it's reasonable.
I hate logoless hats in the Hall, the plaque version of knockoff cards that couldn't secure licensing deals. If the player can't choose one, the Hall should do it for them.
Mussina might well be the only current player who fits the bill, but Boggs was in the Hall for 11 years before the Red Sox retired his number.
I have mentioned being at the last regular-season series of 1986 for the Sox, which was at Fenway. he sat out the 4 meaningless games (Sox had clinched), perceived to be to protect his batting title, while Mattingly racked up hit after hit in an ultimately futile chase.
I was struck at that time by how Boggs was only grudgingly popular at Fenway, if at all, even then.
Mussina is a Stanford grad. I also have mentioned how striking of a post-game interview he was. tried to be cooperative, but he was the one guy in the clubhouse who was far more intelligent than most if not all of the beat guys. so it was a little awkward.
I would be fascinated if he ever has or will said/say that he gives a #### about any of this. he was a fish out of water, basically, in his career.
I would be fascinated if he ever has or will said/say that he gives a #### about any of this. he was a fish out of water, basically, in his career.
Mussina retired after a 20-win season, 30 away from 300 career wins. I don't remember him complaining that it took him a few years to make the HOF. Maybe he cares about this kind of thing but if so, he hasn't let on.
Never went to Fenway until 2004, but, while I was vaguely familiar with his fan rep at the time, it is still a bit shocking. Classic case of someone who will be underrated (all those walks, didn't try to hit for power except for that one season). I'd say that his actual value to that team was muted by the 2 guys coming up behind him. If he had Papi and Manny behind him vs. two declining stars in Buckner & Rice he'd score 150 runs each year.
Funny thing, NFL teams rarely retire numbers-some never do. Guess because there's 99 of them available each year, and the team will need well over 50, during training camp at least.
135 players have had their number retired in the NFL. Something like 200 #'s are retired in MLB, but some of those are the same player by multiple teams. I don't see that much of a difference, especially considering the relative length of careers in the NFL vs MLB.
But they also have the nice informal tradition of giving 88 (Pearson, Irvin) to a player they expect to live up to it: Dez Bryant for many years, now CeeDee Lamb.
Nolan Ryan had one of those clauses in his last Rangers contract too that he would go into the hall "as a Ranger" as the club attempted to manufacture some history and relevance, but in his case I can see it. Neither the Angels nor Astros have a clear-cut case, and in his first three years in Arlington the perception of him changed from being an unlucky sideshow attraction replaceable by "two 8-7 pitchers" to TeH GrEaTeSt PiTcHeR EvAr in the eyes of many fans.
There's also the fact that NFL players have number ranges used to designate player position. So a team's tight end must wear a number in the 40s or 80s, but the 80s are also used by wide receivers (who can also use 10–19). Combine the number-assignment system with naturally large rosters (relative to their being only 99 numbers) and teams don't have too many numbers to spare.
Number Assignment Chart
And the source article for that image says the Raiders, Steelers, Cowboys, and Commanders have a no-number-retirement policy.
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