3 Up, 3 Down – May 17, 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 Mets and the Yankees.

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3 Up

John Means – 0-0, 0.00 ERA, 6 IP, 6 H, 0 BB, 3 K, 1.00 WHIP

Another week, another John Means great start. He didn’t have his no-hit stuff on Tuesday against the Mets in New York, in fact the first hitter he faced lined a single into center field, but he got a lot of quick outs despite allowing six hits and only striking out three batters. The only reason he didn’t pitch deeper into the game is because the National League is stupid and Rob Manfred decided to go back to an obviously worse rule set despite the universal DH working so well in 2020. Means was cruising in a pitchers duel with Mets starter Marcus Stroman but was lifted for a pinch hitter to give the Orioles a chance to score instead of sending an almost automatic out up to the plate in crunch time. Means was poised to go seven or eight innings but at least he didn’t run his pitch count up? The Orioles gave us a scare over the weekend when Sunday’s pitching probables switched from Means scheduled to start Sunday’s game against the New York Yankees to the infamous TBA. Luckily it turned out they are just pushing him out to Wednesday to try and manage his innings a bit following a screwy 2020 and a career high innings pitched during his no-hitter. An injury to the best thing going on the 2021 Orioles would be devastating to fans when it comes to their enjoyment of watching this team play. It’ll be interesting to see how he pitches on extra rest but I’m still not deleting ‘John Means’ from the word document I’m writing this on in preparation for next week.

Trey Mancini – .333/.417/.619 (1.036), 3 R, 3 doubles, 1 HR, 5 RBI, 21 AB

Mancini is already the comeback player of the year but he really should be a bigger story than he already is. Its still so unfortunate that he had so much bad luck in the beginning of the season because he is quietly having a great season. His .257 average and .775 OPS doesn’t tell the story. He is above average (and mostly well above average) in pretty much every offensive metric on Baseball Savant. His chase rate, whiff rate, and sprint speed are below average but all of his expected stats are in the top 11% of the league. He consistently hits the ball hard which is a big reason he is tied for fourth in major league baseball in RBI with 32, only two behind Rafael Devers for the lead. The only thing missing from Trey’s 2019 breakout profile were some walks. He’s never been the most patient batter at the plate but as evidenced by the chase rate he has been especially aggressive as he gets his feet back under him from the missed year. He walked three times on Sunday which pushed his walk percentage up close to league average and its now only 1% behind 2019’s rate (8.3 to 9.3 respectively). He is still above average defensively at first base according to outs above average but he has been sharing that position with Ryan Mountcastle more of late, getting time at DH when hes not on the field.

Bruce Zimmermann – 1-0, 1.59 ERA, 5.2 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 6 K, 0.53 WHIP

Zimmermann was the MVP of Sunday’s 10-6 win over the Yankees. After John Means was pushed out of his scheduled start the Orioles decided to start the game with Adam Plutko, the right handed pitcher with below average stuff who was acquired from the Cleveland baseball team and been very successful pitching out of the bullpen for the Orioles. He should be returned to that role as soon as possible because he gave four runs in the first inning on two homeruns to dig the O’s into a deep hole early in the game. Zimmermann, freshly called up from AAA Norfolk after one start down there, was brought into the game to start the second inning and was in complete control over the next five plus innings. Other than a solo homerun to Aaron Judge on a hanging change-up he only gave up one other hit and a walk while striking out six batters. He was sent down to work on his command and it certainly appeared that adjustments were made. Not only was he hitting his spots more often but he was mixing in his change-up more which was working as well as I’ve ever seen it (other than the one to Judge of course). You have to think this outing redeems his last few before the demotion and he has earned another shot to enter a struggling rotation. This year is about development more than anything and watching these young pitchers make adjustments and improve as the season goes on is one of the things I’m most looking forward to (hopefully) seeing.

3 Down

Matt Harvey – 0-1, 14.54 ERA, 4.1 IP, 8 H, 1 BB, 4 K, 2.08 WHIP

It was such a cool story to see Harvey return to New York and pitch against his former team for the first time. He came out to some nice applause and shut down the Mets one-two-three in the first inning. That’s where the story should’ve ended because he proceeded to essentially throw batting practice over the next few innings en route to seven earned runs. The good news is that he only walked one batter and he hasn’t given up many homeruns which leaves his FIP (fielding independent pitching) in the mid to high threes. His actual ERA is 4.81 and that doesn’t include four (unearned) runs that he gave up over four poor innings last week. He has done a solid job of giving the Orioles a handful of innings every five days but I wonder if we’ve seen the peak of his performance this season already and the countdown is on to when he is removed from the roster. The underlying metrics are bad, the stats are bad, the eye test is bad. Jorge Lopez has struggled mightily after the first time through the order but at least you can dream on his stuff and being able to put it all together a bit especially with an inevitable move to the bullpen. Harvey is just an aging veteran who tried to make some changes, which is admirable, but they don’t appear to be doing enough to be an asset on a competitive team. If Mike Elias doesn’t think he can trade him for anything useful at all I wonder how long he sticks with him. Not sure a move to the bullpen will help in his case.

Freddy Galvis – .150/.217/.150 (.367), 2 R, 3 RBI, 20 AB

This one caught me by surprise. Maybe its because he drove in a run in three different games during the week and he made some spectacular plays on defense but I wasn’t aware how poorly Galvis was hitting this week in the moment. Pretty much everyone on the offense outside of Mullins and Mancini have been hitting poorly so I forgive myself but I’m still perfectly happy with what Freddy has provided the Orioles so far this season. He is also still dealing with that hip adductor issue, being taken out of games that are out of hand late in games for extra rest. Still not sure Elias will be able to spin him into anything before the trade deadline even if he keeps up this level of production because hes not hitting the ball hard, below average in walk rate, shockingly slow on the base paths, and even in the bottom 20% of outs above average on defense. There is nobody banging on the door in the minor leagues at the shortstop position unless they want to give Richie Martin or Mason McCoy some run late in the season to evaluate what they have heading into the offseason. Galvis is essentially giving the Orioles what I’m assuming they expected out of him. He is the least of the teams concerns at the moment.

Cesar Valdez – 0-1, 11.57 ERA, 1 SV, 2.1 IP, 6 H, 0 BB, 5 K, 2.57 WHIP

Cesar Valdez had a bad week. Cesar Valdez should still be the Orioles closer. Somehow that is a controversial opinion on Orioles Twitter. Valdez blew a save on Tuesday on three unlucky hits and some aggressive baserunning from old friend Jonathan Villar and then gave up a run on three hits on Sunday with a five run lead in the ninth. He still struck out five hitters and didn’t walk anyone over two and third innings. He is amazing to watch when hes on, which has been much more often than not, and this is an Orioles team that would be ecstatic to win 70 games – who cares if we don’t have a Zach Britton shutting down games 47 out of 47 times (h/t @LockedOnOrioles). He is a great story of a guy who never gave up on himself, embraced the grind of a pitcher who doesn’t throw in the mid 90’s, and earned another chance at The Show and has made the most of it. By the way he has an elite barrel percentage and chase rate (top 2% and 5% respectively) and is well above average in walk percentage, strikeout percentage, and whiff percentage. Here is my advice to #Birdland: embrace Cesar Valdez, you’ll miss him when hes gone.