Ohfan67

p.s. The distribution of cash between the owners and players is and will become a bigger problem. That's a related issue that I think is far more serious than the supposed tanking crisis. Just my opinion.

I agree. But of course the Orioles organization was a complete mess and really did need to be taken down to the bare framework. Organizations like St. Louis are among the very best top to bottom. Organizations like the Orioles were marginally or run to to bottom. The Tigers organization ran itself into the ground. I think the Orioles and a few other organizations were best served with a complete organizational rebuild.

There is no problem IMO. A higher percentage of teams are probably competitive for a postseason spot now that at almost anytime in baseball history. Some of the agents and writers were pointing fingers at Tampa for tanking last off-season. So much for their opinion.

This thread is like three or four old guys standing on their porches yelling, "Get off my lawn!", "No, YOU get off MY lawn!", "NO, I said, YOU get off MY lawn!", and on and on. 🤣

Good points. Jones has had a damn good career, but his career is definitely a two sided coin. When viewed from one side, Jones is probably better than some appreciate...and most players never have close to as good of a career. When we look at the other side of the coin, however, it's justifiable to argue that some of Jones' accolades over state his productivity (like the all star "year" you reference above and certainly some of the modern metrics don't correlate well with his gold glove awards, etc.). But I think Jones was certainly among the best center fielders during his multiyear run. It's a little more sobering, however, to look at other players with similar career WAR (Markakis et al.). That really drives home how rare it is to have a 32 WAR career and how many meaningful players have similar career WAR. I really enjoy the prospect lists that Tony and the crew puts together, the ones published online by various baseball outlets, etc. But I sometimes get grumpy about the discussions revolving around potential career comps of players like Jones because I feel that the probability of failure is vastly under appreciated in those discussions. I know it's just prospect list discussion and people are just chatting, but I always struck by how hard it it so have a productive career. Even us Orioles fans sometimes sort of forget how unlikely it is that prospects pan out during these discussions. But I'm glad others are not as pessimistic as I am. :)

Yes, it’s nearly impossible. I think you would be shocked if you calculated the probability that a player Hays age, games played in the minors the past two years, career games played in the majors, etc., producing 32 WAR. Nick Markakis has 33. Is Hays going to have a better career than Nick? Nick had 6.7 WAR at 23. I’m not trying to be combative, but I think you guys are way off on this one. p.s. Adam Jones is 499th in career WAR. He’s clearly among the damn good baseball players. That what I said to myself as I scrolled through the list and read the names with 32 career WAR. Damn good really starts in the 20s WAR wise. Tons of players that had damn good careers. That list is a fun reminder of just how hard/low probability it is to have a career that generates 25+ WAR. p.p.s. Turns out there are a lot more players that generated 32ish WAR that didn’t really produce any WAR until they were 25 or 26 than I thought. So maybe I’m just pessimistic and full of baloney. 😄

I think it’s very, very low probability. Jones produced five all star seasons. Hays is going to produce five all star quality seasons?

Is “maxed out” the same as ceiling? If there’s a 1% chance it happens then is that ceiling? 2%? I’m curious how people rate this. I think of ceiling as a more realistic or higher probability outcome. Like maybe 10%. What percentage of outfielders do you think retire with an OPS+ less than 100? Would you be surprised if it was more than 50%? Significantly more? Centerfielders with 14 years of experience? I think you guys are being wildly optimistic about Hays. As you pointed out, this year’s OH evaluation of Hays is in many ways its rosiest evaluation ever of Hays, yet he was hurt a lot this year and his performance In the minor leagues was disappointing. Seems overly optimistic to me. And I think the fun glimpse of Austin in September has most posters feeling warm and fuzzy. Understandable, but that doesn’t change the fundamentals of Hays projection. I just find the Jones comparison really off. Jones was in the big leagues at 20, was an all star at 23 and had 1000 ML at bats at the end of his age 23 season. Jones was a five time All Star. Is there a realistic chance that Hays will have five all star quality seasons? I think there’s almost zero chance that will happen. One all star level season? Like maybe 2%. Likewise with 32 career WAR. I think 12 career WAR would be a really good, maybe even great outcome for Hays. Jones has produced 5.5 when he was 23. I like Hays and don’t want to sound like I am hating on him, but he’s turning 25 next summer and hasn’t proven he can stick in the majors next season.

I really like Austin Hays, but the discussion of Hays' ceiling being Adam Jones or even Adam Jones with more defense is an overestimation in my opinion. This was Hays' age 23 season (he turned 24 in July) and he's managed to appear in 41 total ML games. Adam Jones was an All Star and Gold Glove winner at age 23...even with the blowing chewing gum bubbles handicap 😁. Jones won GGs during his age 23, 25, 27, and 28 seasons. Yes, yes, GG awards are not quantitative based, the voting has built in biases, etc., but Adam was an outstanding defender in his prime and widely recognized as such. Austin played well in 21 games this fall, but I don't think Hays hits close to that in a full season in Baltimore. And he will be 25 next summer. I don't know what percentage of likelihood outcome is considered "ceiling" in scouting reports, but I think the odds of Austin having a three or four year run as good Adam's best years are really, really low. Like basically zero. Certainly too low to label as his "ceiling" in my opinion. And of course he has to stay healthy which is a whole other thing.

More support for the extend young players strategy. The failure rate on these contracts is probably not significantly different than for mid range free agent contracts.

Very good. Kudos to the Davis family.

Camden Yards, Cal Ripken, and winning teams associated with one of and sometimes the biggest payroll in baseball were unique to the ‘90s Orioles. The stadium effect was huge. There are posts In This and similar threads about Nats “fans” at their stadium not paying attention to the game, etc, but people seem to have forgotten the big blocks of corporate season tickets at Camden yards and jokes in the newspaper about non baseball fans filling the stadium. Attending a game at Camden yards was a thing. Comparing today’s attendance to the Ripken era Camden Yards experience is definitely comparing apples and oranges.The late 90s were also peak attendance for many teams as the new stadium boom exploded. 3,000,000 a year was peak oil for the Orioles with or without the Nats.

Amazing amount of work Frobby!

But, but, but he was an Oriole... 😀

Would someone like Nick Vincent be a potential ML comp stuff wise? Vincent seems to have elite spin on an otherwise relatively weak fastball. Seems super hard to find a successful comp.