3 Up, 3 Down – April 26, 2021

Welcome to ‘3 Up, 3 Down’, the weekly column breaking down the three hottest and three coldest Orioles players based on their performance during the previous week. It has proven to be an interesting exercise and good opportunity to highlight the highs and lows of a long baseball season. This week comes after series against the Marlins and A’s.

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3 Up

John Means – 1-0, 1.42 ERA, 6.1 IP, 3 BB, 6 K, 0.79 WHIP

Means continues to get the job done every time out so far this season. After five starts he has the fourth best ERA in all of baseball at 1.50 overall. He doesn’t strike out as many guys as the league leader Jacob DeGrom but his strikeout percentage is up 1.5% from 2020 (25.4%) and his expected ERA is still very good (2.95). There is some debate on whether or not he can be or already is an “ace” but to me that distinction isn’t especially important. There are not many true aces in MLB but Means has clearly been pitching well enough outside of the first five or six starts in 2020 to be a guy who you start with confidence during a playoff series. His fastball is down 1.4 mph but the whiff rate is still similar (28.9% down to 24.4%), his change-up is back to being a true weapon (35.1 whiff percentage up from 23.4% last year), and he is throwing his slider less often (from 10.3% of the time to 6.9%) but hitters are only making contact 50% of the time they swing at it.

Trey Mancini – .300/.364/.500 (.864), 3 R, 1 doubles, 1 HR, 4 RBI, 20 AB

It was so refreshing to type Mancini’s name into the three up category for the first time since 2019, before he missed last season recovering from cancer. There had been great moments in his return to professional baseball – his first at bat in Boston, his introduction and first at bat in front of the (limited) home crowd in Baltimore, and his first homerun of the season which happened at home – but this was the first week when he began to settle down and hit into better luck. His walk, strikeout, and hard hit percentage are all back to his disappointing 2018 season levels but that makes sense this early in the season as he gets back into the groove of the daily grind of a major league baseball season. He is still hitting the ball hard and his barrel percentage is even up 3.3% from his great 2019 campaign. It looks like hes playing a great first base defensively (based on the eye test and also the outs above average metric on Baseball Savant) which is better than the slightly below average corner outfield he was playing prior to this season. Its just great to see Mancini back on the field in an Orioles uniform on an everyday basis again.

Austin Hays – .300/.333/.600 (.933), 6 R, 2 HR, 3 RBI, 20 AB

Hays came back from his strained hamstring on Tuesday of this past week and started on the bench thanks to the National League going back to their terrible non-DH rule set (hopefully for the last season ever) but quickly entered the game with Anthony Santander sprained his ankle getting back to first base on a pickoff attempt two batters into the game. Hays started the week cold (2-13 with four strikeouts) but ended it on a Freddy Galvis in Texas type tear. He went 4-7 with two homeruns (both on Sunday off of hard throwing prospect Jesus Luzardo) and his first walk of the season. He raised his OPS .400 points in those two games from .391 to .790. It will be nice to have Santander back and the best part of the Orioles roster fully intact for the first time this season but until then it is great to have Hays back healthy and hitting the ball hard. He has always been aggressive at the plate but has been overly so in the short sample size of this season so far. Hopefully his walk in his last plate appearance on Sunday is a sign that he’s feeling confident and will be a little more selective.

3 Down

Ryan Mountcastle – .091/.231/.091 (.322), 2 R, 2 SB, 11 AB

Mountcastle is struggggggggling. He finally broke an 0-21 stretch on Saturday with a single but that is the only hit he has recorded since April 15^th. He did walk on Sunday, something he doesn’t do often. Most of his underlying numbers like exit velocity and hard hit percentage are right in line with his breakout 2020 but he is in the bottom five percent of the league in chase rate. He can’t hit an offspeed pitch to save his life right now, swinging and missing at them 54.5% of the time which is way up from 32.4% last year. He is also whiffing 8.4% more against fastballs this season but something tells me that is also related to not picking up offspeed pitches. So if he is having trouble identifying pitches and also can’t resist swinging at pitches outside of the zone that’s not a great recipe for success. I still have faith in his natural ability to hit, he has done it consistently at every step in his career, but it will be interesting to see how he responds to adversity as a major leaguer. The league has adjusted to him and its his turn to do the same. If he continues at this rate I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets a quick trip to the alternate site to get adjusted a la DJ Stewart last season but I don’t think we’re quite there yet.

Ramon Urias – .000/.083/.000 (.083), 1 R, 11 AB

Second base is officially a black hole for the Orioles. Its not like it wasn’t predictable coming into the season following the surprise cut of Yolmer Sanchez who was assumed to be the everyday guy there when he was signed. Rio Ruiz was surprisingly solid with the glove but he has shown learning pains in playing the position as well. Plus he hasn’t been hitting all season (or last season, or the season before that…). Urias is most likely a better hitter and fielder than Ruiz but he has basically just been a right handed version of him. The only difference is he has a shining moment on the season with his walk off single to win the O’s first home game in front of fans. I still like the upside of Urias better than Ruiz but with the promotion of Rylan Bannon or (more likely) Jahmai Jones seemingly imminent it might be Ramon who gets the demotion to keep some sort of platoon option available. If Jones or Bannon do get called up it would most likely to get everyday at bats but with both of them and Maikel Franco being right handed hitters it gives Brandon Hyde a left handed option on the bench with Ruiz.

Wade LeBlanc – 0-1, 21.60 ERA, 1.2 IP, 6 H, 1 BB, 2 K, 4.20 WHIP

It was puzzling to me that the Orioles brought back LeBlanc for the 2021 season, it was puzzling to me that he was re-signed after being released for a day in spring training, it was puzzling to me that he made the opening day roster, and it was especially puzzling to me that he was tapped to get the start on Saturday when it was decided that John Means would get an extra day of rest. As more information came out it made more sense, Keegan Akin was going to be the guy until he cut his finger so bad making breakfast that it required stitches. By that point it I’m assuming it was too late to bring up Zac Lowther to make the start instead because he eventually took LeBlanc’s roster spot when he was DFA’d following a predictably poor start. LeBlanc had an inflated ERA from a bad first performance but had actually performed well in his four relief appearances in between. Outside of providing a handful of innings at the beginning of a long season in an unpredictable environment for pitchers (especially young ones) it just didn’t make sense for LeBlanc to be taking up a roster spot any longer. Lowther pitched a clean inning on Sunday in mop-up duty in his debut. He will be the first of many promises young arms and faces Orioles fans get to see for the first time this season, which is most certainly going to be the biggest highlight of 2021.