Tony-OH

While I do think Kjerstad is a below average RFer overall, I don't think he's unplayable there. I wish there was a little more arm for RF and he doesn't have the jumps or top end speed to make up for it to play left field in Camden Yards. I wish he would have shown a little better at 1B because that would be a nice fit if he could hold his own there, but he looked pretty unplayable there in the minors.

No, my opinion has not changed. Wildcard has always believed sources like MLB.com over mine for as long as I can remember. To each is own. Norby is a well below average defender at 2B who will make some nice plays here and there, but will also make some head scratching errors. Has he improved some in his minor league time, sure, but I still feel he's a below average defender at 2B and would like to see what he can do in LF and even maybe some CF to see if he handle it as a 4th outfielder type.

Either way, he doesn't belong here. He's gone.

That's how I see it working once he's ready while Adley is here too. If he has another year like he had this year and ends up putting up Mayo like numbers in AAA this year, I would not be surprised if that's not by the start of 2025..

I agree that you really can't read too much into 4 games playing anywhere, but the fact that he struck out just once and had a .500 OBP showed that he was not intimidated or overwhelmed by the jump and that's impressive. In fact, Basallo has not been one of those guys that has needed a lot of time to adjust to different levels. That's one of the reason I bumped him over Mayo even though Mayo has done well in AAA and has an impact bat too. That ability to not stumble upon promotion and last year, even doing better, is what makes him that impressive.

Not unless there is a huge need. He doesn't need to be on the 40-man roster this offseason so unless he's tearing it up in AAA and the team has a need at 1B, C or DH, I don't see Basallo making his debut in 2024. Now 2025 is a different story.

One thing we have not really explored is why Elias has not been able to move his position prospects for pitching prospects. I think this is why he changed his drafting philosophy last year because he realized that teams don't trade starting pitching prospects for positional prospects very often. The grow the bats, acquire the arms drafting philosophy has been a pretty big question mark so far, and until he makes a trade for a major league veteran #1-#3 starting pitcher, or trades from his positional depth and acquires starting pitching prospects, I will agree with you that this part of his GM skills is still up for evaluation.

Good recap, well done. The only nit pick is that Mayo has only reportedly been working in RF, not that he has any professional experience there. At the end of the day, Elias has more major league ready players available to him than he has playing time. Sure, having depth is nice, but it's not like you can just plug and play rookies in the middle of the season and expect good results because most take some adjustment time. My personal opinion is the Orioles see their 2024 starting infield as: 1B: Mountcastle 2B: Westburg SS: Ortiz 3B: Henderson Urias, Mateo, and O'Hearn are all backup plans though I expect Mateo to be the utility guy because of his ability to play SS and the outfield, hit left-handers a bit, and of course his speed. No matter what they say, I think Holliday and Mayo will start the year in AAA. The outfield is where it gets really interesting: With an an outfield that seems set with: LF: Hays CF: Mullins RF: Santander Where does that leave Kjerstad and Cowser? Kjerstad should be on this team instead of O'Hearn, with Santander moving to 1B and Kjerstad to RF when when he's not DHing. There is probably 400 PAs for Kjerstad if O'Hearn is moved. I'm not sure the Orioles are willing to bring up Cowser as a 4th outfielder so I would imagine without moves, he's back to AAA. Norby is the guy that will either need to show that he can play outfield well enough to compete with McKenna and Hilliard for 4th/5th outfielder but if not he's going back to AAA. He's a traditional slow starter so that might be for the best anyways but I hope they play him a lot in the outfield if he goes back. I just hope that guys who go back to AAA don't sulk. At some point it's got to be mentally tiresome to be playing in AAA when you know you are good enough to play in the majors somewhere.

The thing is, the Orioles are certainly not going to offer the talent it would take to get a 2022 version of Cease. So I don't think anyone but maybe the White Sox GM values Cease like that. If Getz wants value for the 2022 version of Cease, then he's going to hold on to him because no team is going to do that, and certainly not Elias.

He was a #1 starter in 2022 and his FIP suggests even with his down year last year that he's a solid #2 or #3 at worse. A playoff rotation of Bradish, Rodriguez and Cease intrigues me for sure. If John Means is your 4th starter then your rotation is pretty good.

Yep. I don't think some people still realize how good a year Basallo had for his age. He hit for average, showed the ability to draw walks, did not have an extreme K rate, and was already tapping into his raw power during games. And he's got a plus plus throwing arm and improved his receiving and blocking behind the plate. Besides speed (he's not a base clogger by any means, but he's not that fast because of his size), he does everything really, really well. There's a reason I jumped him over Mayo and I really, really like Mayo.

You have to give up something to get something. If the Orioles intend to convert Mayo to RF, Kjerstad becomes redundant. Plus the Orioles have Cowser, and Beavers on the horizon and the fact that they need the DH spot for Adley at least 40 times a year and he becomes a guy that's available for me even though I do like the bat for the most part. Westburg is a guy who can play 2B and 3B effectively and he should get to his power more with experience, but he's never going to be 30 plus homer guy and his walk rate has fallen off a bit at AAA and then the majors. With Ortiz, Urias and Norby (If you are willing to have below average defense) ready, and Holliday on the horizon, he's replaceable this year and the future. The only way you don't make that deal is if you think Cease is who he was last year and will not recover a bit, but his 3.72 FIP suggests he was better than his 4,58 ERA playing on a losing team suggests. I'm making that deal if I don't have to add a ton more.

That's a fair assessment. I'm in the camp that if the price is right, I'm happy to add Cease to the rotation, but Westburg is a pretty important guy if Elias doesn't believe in the defensive capabilities of Holliday at SS or Mayo at 3B. If Holliday needs to play 2B, and personally I don't think we know this yet, that moves Westburg to 3B keeping Gunnar at SS. That still leaves Ortiz needing a place to play and he's best defensive player of them all. If the Orioles move Westburg, they also have Urias who can play 2B well and two years ago was the GG at 3B despite falling off last year in all facets of the game. If I'm Elias, Urias is nothing more than an emergency back up plan for this year. Now, would I move both Kjerstad and Westburg for Cease? Probably, but not if I have to include Povich/McDermott and another piece. Would ask for that if I'm Getz, sure, but Kjerstad and Westburg alone is pretty good get for two years of Cease coming off a less than stellar season with less than stellar pitch values.

I don't. I like Westburg, but if he's the key guy they want, depending on who else they are asking for, I'd move him for Cease. He's replaceable from within by Holliday/Ortiz or Mayo at 3B. The only way the Orioles don't want to move Westburg is if they've determined Mayo is not a 3B and Holliday is not a SS.

2,4, 6, 8! Who do we appreciate? Eh, I guess Voth and Krehbiel! Seriously though, both played a role in the Orioles resurgence in 2022, so they should at least be given their props for that.

That would be a little too steep of a price for me to pull the trigger. They get one of Kjerstad/Cowser/Westburg and then I'd give up the others.

Ryu or Paxton seem like solid Plan B pitchers. With Wells/Irvin and to a lesser extent Zimmermann in the first half, and McDermott and Povich potentially at some point in time in 2024, the Orioles have enough depth to overcome their potential missed time due to injury.

Maybe it's smart for the Orioles and the White Sox to wait until the trading deadline if the White Sox want Mayo or Basallo to headline a deal. No way I'm trading one of them now for two years of Cease, but it the Orioles are one starter away come late July, perhaps Elias would consider giving up more. At some point the Orioles are going to need to go to plan B and then revisit plan A at the trade deadline if it makes sense. At the point we'll know who Cease is for sure and how valuable he is to the Orioles' World Series aspirations.

And to perform at the 2nd half levels the whole season.

With the depth of Wells, Irvin and potentially McDermott and Povich at some point in 2024, would signing Paxton or Ryu be the worse thing? Even if they end up giving you 18-22 starts, the Orioles should have the depth to cover down on those other starts.

This is a good point. I wonder is they would be more interested in a guy like Horvath or a Braylin Tavera/Tomas Sosa type vs a major league ready prospect.

Yeah, not sure what they start with to make a player replacement level. Is it using the same formula as the major leagues and just "pretending" the stats put up by these players were done at the major league level? i wonder how they did the defensive WAR? That's really the only way these numbers make any sense. If they did it that way, I'm surprised a bit that Beave was not over Norby unless Beavers dWAR was really bad for some reason.

Fans always over value their players being traded and under value the prospects getting back in return. Cease is not going to get them that type of quantity of quality prospects. They want six guys, they can have Stowers, Bright, Vavra, Haskin, Cook and Armbruster and like it!

I'd imagine each pitcher is different, but Bradish was able to make the adjustment pretty quickly and went from a guy who's fastball was a concern to one of the top starter's in the AL. The White Sox are not exactly known as a cutting edge organization so maybe he doesn't know how to tweak the fastball to get more arm side sink to his fastball vs the occasional cut. Maybe he tried it and it doesn't work? I don't know enough about his stuff besides what we can see in baseball savant and don't know enough about his makeup or willingness to learn. He may worry about an arm injury with a tweak and not be willing to try a change. It's hard to say. Bradish did it early enough in his career that he was willing to try and Bradish by all accounts is a hard worker who is always trying to better his craft.

Same thing that happened to Bradish which is why they had him go to the two-seam sinker. What I'd like to know is what was the EV and xWOBA was on those pitches? Baseball savant is very good, but it's missing tools like that. I imagine the organizations do have those breakdowns for each pitch. You wonder if the Orioles will do the same with Cease as they did with Bradish. Maybe that's why they are going after him "so hard" despite the mediocre numbers last year.