Tony-OH

But they're Canadiens, ay!

I'm surprised that the Canadian taxes would not scare off Ohtani.

Happy Chanukah to you and all of our other Jewish members. And I too would like to wish Mr. Rubenstein a very happy one that hopefully will be celebrated with a new acquisition!

Guess you'll have to change your handle if it happens!

This is a good point that was highlighted by the 1996 and 1997 Orioles teams. Both of those teams were good, but they were the definition of a mercenary team full of FAs. There is something a little more special about the 2023 Orioles team because they were a lot more home grown. It's easy to root for the Gunnar Henderson's and Adley Rutschman's of the world vs the Roberto Alomar's and Rafeal Palmeiro's who were known for being stars with other teams.

Yeah, I thought about that a little while ago and was like, "I think I used the wrong name." I went back and corrected myself.

I didn't say owners don't want to make more money, but the vast majority are in it for the fame and ego boost because they are already Billionaires.

Your point? I literally said ALL Billionaires take advantage of government opportunities.

WTF? How did I get thrown into this? I've always given credit to John Angelos for hiring Elias as well. Why would I label you an Angelos Apologist for that? Such an odd statement.

Just caught up with this thread and I have a few thoughts/comments. 1. As I stated earlier, I was told this months ago by two separate people who seemed to have good information, but were connected through several degrees of separation. I don't really pass on stuff like that anymore because there is no use starting rumors before I have real concrete info. Clearly something coming from Bloomburg holds more weight than something from Orioleshangout.com. I'm glad it hit though. 2. My thoughts are anything that removes the Angelos family from ownership has to be a netgain for Orioles fans. I will give John Angelos credit for hiring Mike Elias and turning this franchise around into something to be proud of, but his ridiculous comments and emergence in the media suddenly during a year of success showed me that an Angelos can't help but to take center stage when things are going well. It was just like when Peter Angelos came out of hibernation when the Orioles where heading to the ALCS in 2014. I was in that lockeroom and there were players and coaches going, "That's the first time I've ever seen him." 3. I've seen a lot of stuff thrown around about David Rubenstein , and I certainly understand the poster on here who lost his job to his Carlyle Group being jaded, but at the end of the day, there is no Billionaire out there who is not connected with greasing palms or not associated with the federal government in some way. Once you get to that level you have to play the game. Unless you are Elon Musk and so rich and so successful that you just tell everyone who doesn't like you, including other Billionaires, to "Go F themselves." Lol... Yes, I have a man crush on him! 4. As for David Rubenstein running the Orioles just to make money and thinking he will pinch pennies, I just don't see it. Billionaires have big egos and few want to own a losing team. Billionaires don't buy teams to make money. They buy professional sports team for the glory of being an owner on a team that wins the championship. 5. As for Elias, why would Rubenstein not want to keep Elias and his crew? If anything, he's more likely to pay what it will take to keep him and his crew together for many years. My biggest concern with Elias has been him suddenly realizing he will not be able to spend enough to keep his top players that he drafted, signed and developed. With Bloomberg, I can't imagine him allowing a Gunnar or Jackson Holliday to walk over money if they are still impact players. 6. Personally, this would make my Holiday season if this somehow came to fruition before the year was out. Give me a Billionaire over a guy who's done nothing but ride on his father's coattails any day.

The only thing I can say is that two separate people have given me these indications long before they were in this article. This is why I said in another thread that a change of ownership this offseason may be in the cards and may be part of the reason for the lease not being completed.

Haskin was not selected in the Rule 5 draft in his first year eligible which tells us a lot about how teams feel about him at this point. If he can stay healthy, I do think he has a chance of being 4th/5th outfielder type in the big leagues, but I think the time has past on him becoming an everyday guy. It's hard to knock the Orioles or any organization for their 2020 draft strategy due to COVID and the short seasons, but Haskin looks like one of Elias' weaker true 2nd round picks (Trimble is a complete bust, but he was a signability pick and really was a 2nd/3rd round sandwich pick).

I wonder if it was something bothering him this year since his power production was not what was expected, especially once he was promoted to the hitter friendly Eastern League. Hopefully it's something where no later than the second half of next year he's fully recovered and his game power returns.

Luckily that's an injury that should be healed by spring training.

Westburg is not the kind of player that I'm worried about arbitration or service issues. While it worked out in the sense that the team won 101 games, I look at the major league development time lost by Westburg and maybe Ortiz due to Frazier playing. But that's over and this is a thread about Kimbrel.

Frazier was worth .4 FWAR which was much closer to his actual value. He blocked two prospects who were ready. Frazier wasn't as bad as Givens since Givens literally did nothing, but Frazier was not a good signing.

Ah, nice to know that $5 million was including the buyout apparently. Still, hope they use trends better.

There is no doubt Bautista was rode real hard last year. He was on pace for 77.2 very high leverage innings. Of the top ten saves leaders, only Emmanuel Clase's (72.2 IP) was rode similarly and it's not surprising Clase's September ERA was 4.63 and he had 3 blown saves in his 13 games. Clase only pitched over one inning once all year. Bautista was used in more than one inning seven times.

He was better in saves situations vs non save situations, but he was pretty good over in all leverage situations, even being a little better in medium vs high leverage. One thing he does really well is pitch on back to back games. In 17 games where he had pitched the day before he held batters to a .179/.254/.304/.558 slash line.

Damn, Givens should give his agent a high five every time he sees him. What an absolute fleecing that deal was for him. He will end up getting paid $7 million by the Orioles to put up an 11.25 ERA in 4 innings of work. We give Elias a pass a lot due to the Orioles winning 101 games last year, but the Givens signing shows he and his team need some work when it comes to evaluating relievers coming off of injuries. His velocity had trended down every year since 2019, he was coming off knee injuries which clearly was contributed by the 250 plus pounds he was dropping on that front leg. Why they decided that he was worth $5 million and then had to offer him $2 million buy out the next year was a very poor decision. Hopefully Elias will learn from this mistake. It funny, as analytically focus the Elias regime is, they really don't seem to take trends into consideration as much as others. Both Givens and Frazier were trending in the wrong direction when signed and sure enough, those trends continued as they are on the wrong side of 30.

So I did some quick analysis and actually Kimbrel was not great when he came into the 10th inning with a runner on 2nd. He allowed that runner to score in 4 of 6 games, and in two of the games he allowed multiple runs to score. In extra innings he won two, lost two, blew a save but got a no decision, and allowed a walk off hit but did not start the inning so run and loss went to the other pitcher. So despite his ability to strike guys out, he was no Bautista who pitched in the 10th 5 times and only allowed he runner to score once. The other 4 times he pitched in his second inning or work and collected four wins. Then again, that's why he was reliever of the year.

I now know more about him then I did before I read this, but it does make me wonder who the 38 guys who were eligible to be drafted who more highly thought of then him. I'm wondering if the Rockies just thought no one would know he was eligible since he didn't pitch until the 2021 season. But alas, he was a July 2019 signee which means he was eligible to pitch in five different seasons, this meaning he must've been protected on the 38-man Triple-A roster. According to the Isotopes roster page, only 25 guys were on the roster. These would have been the guys from our 2019 signees that needed to be protected on the Norfolk roster and none are on there. Perhaps they don't officially update the 38 protected on the roster on the public roster sites. I could have seen Chace or Portes taken so imagine they were protected. Kade Strowd is the only r5 guy that I think could have been taken if not protected on the AAA roster that's not already protected. So perhaps he's on the "hidden" protected list as well.

Most likely, but if they do help bring back impact major league ready talent, that will show the results of the international program.

I think a lot of this has to do with the depth that we have at the position and the upside of the players we're thinking about. Luis De Leon jumps out at me because we don't have a ton of high ceiling pitching prospects and he very well may be one of them. Honestly, anyone not named Holliday, Basallo and Mayo should be available in the right deal. As a 20-year old with a mid-90s bowling ball fastball and his flashes of a plus slider and usable change already, De Leon is definitely a guy I would be reluctant to part with in a trade.

Exactly. There are very few "sure things" at the end of of bullpens and even those guys have bad outings.