3 Up, 3 Down – June 13, 2022

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 will highlight the performances of the series’ against the Cubs and Royals.

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3 Up

Cedric Mullins – .364/.417/.591 (1.008), 4 R, 2 doubles, 1 HR, 5 RBI, 2 BB, 3 K, 1 SB, 22 AB

What to make of Mullins’ 2022 season. His wRC+ sits at 99 so he has essentially been a league average hitter at the plate. His defensive metrics started off slow but he now has his outs above average in the 86th percentile and outfielder jump in the 74th percentile. If he maintained this level he would be a very nice player to have playing center field today especially since he has also stolen 12 bases. He is on pace for a three WAR season which would be half of the six he put up in 2021 but on Sunday he had four hits and really looked like the Mullins that broke out last year over the weekend against the Royals. His strikeout rate is nearly identical to last season. His power numbers are down but that could be explained by the dead ball that baseball was using over the first month or so before it magically started carrying better more recently. His batting average is down but that could be because his BABIP is .035 points lower than last year and .063 points lower than in 2020. The most concerning thing to me is his walk rate which has fallen 2.3% from 2021 down to 6.4%, closer to his numbers in 2019 and 2020. For a leadoff hitter with speed it would be great if he could at least be league average in that department. He is simply chasing too many balls out of the strike zone, in particular breaking balls and off-speed pitches. Perhaps that will be the next aspect of his game to return as he gets more and more comfortable at the plate.

Anthony Santander – .353/.421/.706 (1.127), 3 R, 2 HR, 3 RBI, 2 BB, 3 K, 17 AB

There is a very good chance that by the time this article comes out Santander has already been placed on the restricted list for the series against the Blue Jays in Toronto for not being vaccinated. It’s a shame because he is performing really well at the moment and has been a key cog in an Orioles offense that hasn’t always been able to get out of first gear. He leads the team in homeruns with 11, walks with 28, walk rate at 11.3% and is second on the team with 28 runs (Cedric Mullins has 32) and 33 RBI (Austin Hays has 34). On the flip side because of Santander’s decision to not get vaccinated Orioles fans will get to see top 10 prospect in the system Kyle Stowers make his major league debut. For at least four games Stowers will be in the O’s lineup and has a chance to make his presence known. He brings a powerful bat, leading all Orioles minor leaguers with 12 homeruns and 16 doubles (tied with Jordan Westburg). He has cut his strikeout rate by almost 10% this year and is still walking 12% of the time which would lead the major league team. Defensively he is similar to Hays in that he can play all three outfield positions including center field in a pinch. He doesn’t have the arm that Austin does but may have a bit more range. It would be great to see Stowers stick around longer than these four games coming up but even if he is sent down it won’t be long before he is back up for good whether it because of injury or a trade.

Dean Kremer – 1-0, 1.80 ERA, 5 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 2 K, 1.20 WHIP

In his first start back with the Orioles Kremer’s numbers weren’t indicative of how he looked on the mound especially after he gave up a three run homerun. The opposite may be true in his second start but there were still some encouraging signs. He had trouble throwing strikes early on but settled down and had some quick innings. He may have finished six innings and qualified for a quality start if not for a botched grounder by Richie Martin (who otherwise played great in his first two games with the big league club) that should have been a double play. I may have written that exact sentence about what should have been a double play in regards to Martin and a Grayson Rodriguez start early in the season but I digress. It is just good to see Kremer come up and have some success at a time when the Orioles rotation needs all the help it can get. Jordan Lyles is struggling lately, Bruce Zimmermann is falling apart (more on that later), Kyle Bradish is inconsistent, and Tyler Wells is on a more strict pitch/innings cap than everyone else. His fastball is up by a mile per hour from last year, averaging 93.6 mph. He is throwing his curveball less, his changeup more, and may have added a slider but we’ll need more time to see how that develops. After two starts his ERA is sitting at 3.86, it will be interesting to see if he can add confidence and build on this start.

3 Down

Rougned Odor – .071/.278/.286 (.564), 3 R, 1 HR, 3 BB, 5 K, 14 AB

As exciting of a presence that Odor has been in the clubhouse and with some clutch hits, he still just isn’t performing better than a role player that should be coming off the bench if anything. He has a 93 wRC+ on the season and isn’t even close to league average in any offensive metric on Baseball Savant other than max exit velocity which came on one swing of the bat. Defensively he is in the bottom six percent of the league and producing a -1.8 defensive WAR. He has been hitting for power and walking more often over the past week or so but his walk rate is still just 5.8% for the season. With Terrin Vavra finally healthy and performing well in his first week back with AAA Norfolk (.333 batting average, .861 OPS, 141 wRC+ over 86 plate appearances for the year) it feels like it is only a matter of time before he gets called up to make his major league debut and get a real shot to stick on the roster. As a second baseman that can also play the outfield, including center field, its not like him and Odor couldn’t co-exist but I would imagine that would put a real dent in Rougned’s playing time. Especially with Adley Rutschman now up and Kyle Stowers looking very likely to make his major league debut this week in Toronto, the youth movement is speeding up as Mike Elias and company need to find out what they have in the upper minors before switching the flip to competitive mode over the offseason. Or at least giving these top prospects a long taste of the majors so they can make adjustments and be more prepared going into the 2023 season.

Bruce Zimmermann –0-1, 13.50 ERA, 4.2 IP, 10 H, 2 HR, 0 BB, 2 K, 2.14 WHIP

The last time I wrote about Zimmermann he had given up nine homeruns over his past two starts covering 10.1 innings. Well he has only given up two homeruns over his two starts since then which also covered 10.1 innings but it hasn’t been much prettier. In fact he gave up 12 runs over his last two starts combined compared to the 10 he gave up in that previous two start set. Over his last five starts he has a 9.47 ERA over 25.2 innings with 12 strikeouts and only two walks. Obviously it hasn’t been an issue of control as he sits in the top 10% of pitchers in walk rate but it may be a command issue. He hasn’t been able to put hitters away as he has seen his strikeout rate drop. He is getting two much of the plate and hitters are having no trouble doing damage to his pitches. I wrote in the past about how great his changeup has been which helped to balance his poor performance with his fastball. Well whether it is him tipping his pitches, losing the feel for his changeup or both batters are now teeing off on that pitch as well. For a lefty that throws a fastball that averages 90.6 mph he doesn’t have much to fall back on when his best pitch simply isn’t working at the moment. The only options are to let him pitch through it and hope he can get it back at the major league level, send him down to AAA Norfolk to let him work under less stressful circumstances, or move him to the bullpen and see how he responds in that role. Given the lack of depth and the fact that he at least is giving the team innings I am assuming he will continue to take the ball every fifth day for the Orioles.

Keegan Akin – 0-0, 11.57 ERA, 2.1 IP, 3 H,3 HR, 0 BB, 0 K, 1.29 WHIP

It’s a rough Monday for Akin not only because he finds himself on this list after giving up three homeruns on Sunday nearly allowing the Royals to come back in a game that looked all but over very early on. He is also expected to be placed on the restricted list as the Orioles fly into Toronto for a four game series against the Blue Jays, making himself ineligible to join the team and play due to Canada’s rules that you must be vaccinated in order to do so. As good as he has been, and I don’t think giving up three solo homeruns as the only hits he allowed over 2.1 innings really changes things all that much, the team could have saved him for a more competitive game early this week instead of trying to have him finish out a blowout since they knew they’d be without him until Friday. Rico Garcia and Mike Baumann are on the taxi squad for the Toronto series so expect at least one of them to be added to the active roster. Garcia is a 28 year old who last pitched for the Rockies in the majors during the 2019 and 2020 seasons before missing 2021 due to injury. Between high A, AA, and AAA he has a 1.93 ERA this season in the minor leagues to go along with a 1.13 WHIP, 29 strikeouts, and seven walks over 18.2 innings. Baumann has struggled since being sent down. He has a 7.71 ERA over 16.1 innings with Norfolk but has thrown back to back scoreless innings for what its worth.