Tony-OH

Well I can't read the whole thing since I'd rather take my money and burn it than give it to ESPN, but it seems like he's looking at it from the Twins end, at least from the beginning of the article. Either way, I think it is overly simplified to say that this trade was panned. Besides, I have no idea who Bradford Doolittle is and why I should care about his opinion on the trade. At the end of the day, the Orioles bullpen was even better after Lopez was traded and Bautista out performed Lopez. So even on last year's merit's alone, Lopez's replacement did better than him and Baker was just fine as Bautista's replacement. Either way, the Orioles weren't making the playoffs. They were a team still playing Odor everyday and signed Aguilar and gave him regular PAs against left-handers. So when you add in that the Orioles got a legitimate starting pitching prospect in Povich who has touched 95-96 this year, Cano and two DR lottery tickets, I don't see how it can be debating any longer. If you were against this trade you were wrong. Clear and simple.

There is literally less than 1% that Holliday will see the big leagues this year regardless of how good he does. One you have controllability issues that are reality, and two, there are literally four legitimate options as an everyday major league SS ahead of him. So I guess it depends on your definition of crazy.

Ah, that's why Sports Guy remembers the trade from a negative standpoint. I can't claim victory for liking the trade until Povich shows up and pitches well because I felt like Cano, while having a good arm, was a bit of a throw in who might be a middle reliever. Nobody saw what he has become since no one has really done what he's done after being so bad. Still, the trade always made sense because Lopez is exactly the kind of guy you sell high on, particularly when you have his replacement on hand and your replacement's replacement in Baker.

I think it's his legitimate opinion. He's pretty consistently negative.

By who? Who a these national panners?

Good call.

Apparently you missed the post where I admitted I had mistakenly not included that trade. Povich is probably our second or 3rd best pitching prospect still.

Duquette is an interesting character. After meeting him, talking with him, and seeing him in interviews, I always felt he was somewhere on the spectrum. I think he is very intelligent and when left to do his biddings before technology really took over, he was successful. However, the game clearly passed him by with the technological advancements and he never seemed to have a lot of interest in the analytics side of things. I'm not surprised at all that he has not found another major league baseball job as most organizations have put guys like Duquette out to the pasture. That should take away from the successes he had as a GM. Was it time to move on from him, not only absolutely, but they should have let him gone to Toronto or given him the promotion and money that Toronto was offering vs taking away his power and influence and allowing Buck and Brady to fill that vacuum in various ways. I really like a lot of things Elias has done to rebuild the organization and I'm convinced he's a great person for that particular job, rebuild an antiquated organization. The next question is can he now sustain a winning formula at the major league level within the financial limitations put forth on him by ownership? We still don't know that answer.

Great post. Nothing I disagree with here at all. Ultimately, it will be to ownership to sustain the foundation built by Elias. No one knows whether they will or not but if Elias has another offseason like he did last year, I think we will have a big clue.

Yeah, honestly, you can add that on since it's paying dividends already. I was think back more towards his initial trades Givens, Castro, Bleier and Bundy. I totally didn't even think about last year's Lopez trade which I liked at the time and still obviously like.

A lot to unpack here and while agree with a lot of what you wrote, especially about hiw the foundation of this organization is so much better, I do want to address two things. One, Duquette was never brought in here to build a foundation he was brought in to win. Duquette was in win now mode and by 2014, he had built a world Series contender that was short circuited by a white hot Royals team in the ALCS. We will never know if Duquette would have been able to make another run because his power and influence for making major moves was destroyed by the Toronto fiasco. Now I think Elias is way better at building a strong foundation through his drafting, development and using technology to give his organization an edge. I absolutely think this organization is setup for a sustained run of successful baseball and Elias gets the credit for that as the man in charge of this rebuild. The questions that still remain though with Elias: Can he acquire or develop top starting pitching, especially since he does not spend his high draft picks on pitchers? Does he have the negotiation skills to pull off trades at the trading deadline or in the offseason that fill immediate needs? Is he able to understand the free agent market each year and not overpay for redundant players and miss out on players he has a need for? Is able to trade effectively by replacing average major league players that are getting expensive with the right prospects in order to keep his payroll down and afford those impact players? Can he build a 26-man roster without redundant players and holes? We'll find out over the next year or two whether he can answer these questions, because these are the questions that will determine whether the Orioles become one of the elite teams in the major leagues with sustained success year in and year out or just that surprise up and coming team that never takes that next step.

Really good article, but I'm not sure why the author seems to think the Lopez trade was an "unpopular trade in his new hometown" and then doubled down by saying the trade was a "somewhat surprising and hardly well-received decision.' By whom? The trade was certainly well received around here by most people since it included a nice starting pitching prospect in Povich and the emergence of Bautista as a Lopez replacement. Maybe the twitter knuckleheads didn't like the trade, but not sure why he's so convinced the hometown disliked the trade that acquired Cano. Now I fully agree that Cano was a throw in.

Not sure when it started, but it is pretty rare to see a guy pitch three days in a row now. Most likely it started when MLB instituted the three batter rule. Now the only way a pitcher pitches to less is if they are brought in to finish up an inning. It was easier to pitch guys more often if you could use them in the Tony LaRussa way of managing a bullpen.

This is my biggest issue with how Hyde manages his bullpen. The bullpen always seems to be short because he ends up using 4 or 5 pitchers to get through 4 innings vs having a length guy like Baumann, Voth and now Irvin eat three innings once in awhile. Hyde has used 5 pitchers 19 or more games this year (Bautista, Cano, Perez, Baumann, and Coulombe) and has used Cano 17 times despite not being on the team until two weeks into the season. Tampa has used one reliever 19 or more times (Adam - 19), Boston has used one, Yankees have used 3, and Toronto 4. Hyde has/had three guys in his bullpen that can provide length, but Baumanm has only pitched two or more innings in 4 of 19 games, Voth 5 of his 16 appearances, and Akin only once in his 13 games before being sent to AAA. Now I get that it seems like the Orioles are always in close games, but at some point you need to let pitchers just take some innings so your bullpen can rest. I felt like even though Baumann was not pitching great, he pulled him way too early yesterday. If your length guys can't provide length, what are they on the team for?

No one should be angry over a player's first 19 major league PAs. Ortiz has a .433 OPS so to your point, he has not hit well so far, but he's played excellent defense at both SS and 2B and it's an extreme SSS to draw any kind of conclusions besides that he has not hit well so far. Heck if we want to start taking SSS into affect, I'd say he's 2-for his last-2 with a 1.000 OPS before he was amazingly pinched hit for by Frazier by Hyde.

I'm not sure you understand trolling. He has an opinion of Ortiz that he shared appropriately in a thread talking about Ortiz. just because you don't like what he says doesn't make it trolling. It's trolling when all he does is coming behind people with the same opinion over and over. I think his statement is way too premature, but it's not trolling.

Yes he does. Will he be a 25 homer plus guy, probably not, but he's going to probably settle in as a 15-20 homer guy. I've seen him hit several 400+ homers and some to RC, so the raw power is there. Those power numbers could be sapped a bit by Camden Yards cavernous left field though. Either way, there is some pop in the bat.

But that won't obviously stop you from making a 2023 thread about him? Lyons makes David Wells look like he was an Adonis. Not enough fastball to get me excited. He has a Travis Lakins-type upside. I do know a scout who liked him a couple of years ago, but i just never saw anything that makes me think he's a future big league pitcher in anything other than last man on the 40-man, need an arm to burn through and then DFA kind of guy. I watched him and Pham last night and they had good results, but nothing stood out as a major league out pitch.

I definitely think his demise at the major league level was injury and more specifically shoulder related. Elias did a great job of getting value (Bradish) out of that deal. As it stands, it's the only trade that Elias has made that has worked out so far when it comes to trading away his established players for prospects.

It's almost like that was mentioned like at least two times in this thread. Perhaps read through the thread a bit before commenting as you very well my find your answer before commenting. I honestly try to do the same thing.

That's why I said draw your own conclusion. You have concluded that injuries are the reason. That's potentially valid as well. I have my thoughts. I know others who have similar thoughts including former player development people that I used to talk to who were closer than either of us to the situation. I don't have any proof just circumstantial evidence that would never hold up in court, so once again, feel free to have your own thoughts.

Yeah, they are really short at legitimate shortstops in the upper level once Cadyn Grenier retired out of nowhere. They have been using Gilbert Lara back in forth at AA and AAA but he's not very good and then got hurt. They could have used Mason McCoy right now.

Perhaps. I know what the rumors were about him. He was a "work out warrior" with huge thighs for a 18-year old who threw 100 MPH in high school. Got drafted and paid and then each year his velocity kept dropping and then the injuries started. You can draw your own conclusions.

I didn't see the game so thanks for the eyes on. Yes, McKenna has always been that guy. Never has been know for his game awareness unfortunately.

That was a nice throw for sure, but good God Frazier is slow. He looks like he's running hard in quicksand.