Tony-OH

Yeah, I probably should have said 3rd-5th round. Most of the 2nd round picks have had some upside to them, they just have not worked out, though Horvath helping to get Eflin makes that pick worthwhile.

It's not for me. He's still hitting the ball hard and has been getting on base frequently. I like that he's been willing to go the other way once again too. His power is there and he'll go on another tear soon.

Absolutely. Morfe just blew onto the scene with that high 90s heat, but he's also 18-years old and we don't know how he will hold up past 60 pitches so we do have to cool the jest a little on him until he crosses those threshholds. Saying that, I would still have him ranked over Baumeister, who honestly did not overly impress me during my looks of him.

100% that's there thought process, but I'm showing very clearly that it's not going to work moving forward when they are drafting later in the drafts. They can't keep going to the college hitter well because they are not hitting enough to justify keeping that philosophy. Some of Elias best draft picks have been high school hitters and in fact, every single one he's drafted and signed prior to this year's draft, besides Creed Willems, have made it to the majors (Henderson, Hernaiz, Holliday, and Mayo). That's why I was happy to see Layton and the later HS picks in this draft. Give me the upside of a Layton over a Douglas Hodo in the 6th round. I just think he needs to spend more 2nd through 5th round picks on college arms with some upside. Sure, most are going to miss, just like most hitters are going to miss in those 2nd - 5th rounds, but if they need those upside arms because typically teams want some pitching back for starting pitching. The Rogers trade was the only starting pitching trade that did not require pitching going back.

They typically do, which is another reason to draft more guys with pedigree of being a 2nd or 3rd rounder. I don't think Tamp trade Eflin without getting back a 2nd round pitching prospect. Who's the Baumeister now? Maybe Forret? Morfe?

They either have to convert Mayo to RF or resign Santander if they want to move on from Kjerstad. I think they are going to hope Kjerstad can improve defensively like Santander did at the major league level.

Everyone that says his strategy has worked needs to include "In the 1st round." Elias has proven to be an excellent drafter in the first round and typically drafting with a top 5 picks. I don't have an issue with him going for bats with his first round pick. I have an issue with him drafting low-ceiling college bats in the 2nd-5th round over college arms. I'm not saying he has to go all arms, but mix it up. Last year, by drafting Baumeister in the 2nd round, it helped get him Eflin. It took pitching as well as hitting to get both Eflin and Burnes.

So wait, six drafts in and they accidently hit on a 10th rounder and trade him for a guy with a good arm, but reliever vibes and you are counting that as part of his strategy working? As for trading vets for prospects, they're not in that phase any more. And let's look at the guy they've acquired in these trades. Besides Bradish and Cano, who has significantly contributed to the Orioles the last two years?

I keep seeing people say this but they really haven't gone into high bonuses on pitching from Latin America. Have they maybe stumbled upon a Morfe or De Leon (though Aberdeen has proven difficult for his lack of command) but what makes people think he's relying on Latin America for pitching? We're 5 Latin American signing periods in and who are the top pitching prospects ready to pitch in the majors? Forget the majors, none have even made it to AA yet. Now there are some interesting arms and Morfe has certainly jumped on the scene. Koby Perez is doing a good job of signing a bunch of raw good velocity guys and hoping a few work out. It very well may, but let's no act like there's a huge pipeline of top tier Latin American pitching prospects picking up the slack for his lack of ability to draft and develop pitching.

Elias has a great track record of drafting in the 1st round. He does not have much success drafting college hitters AFTER the 1st round. I really don't understand why this is hard to understand. The entire point is not to say Elias is bad at drafting or his drafting in the first round (mostly while picking in the top 5 of the draft) has not put the organization where it is right now.

Let's pull this string a little here. Outside of the 1st round, what college bats have worked out? Ortiz? Yep, absolutely, that 2019 draft was outstanding and he was one of those guys that remade himself over COVID and added the strength that he needed. Stowers was a 2019 2nd rounder and he along with 2021 2nd rounder Connor Norby got Elias Trevor Rogers, so we'll call them wins even though combined they've put up -0.7 rWAR in their major league careers. Horvath (2nd round 2023) and Etzel (10th round 2023) helped get Eflin but I'm guessing Baumeister was the main prospect Tampa wanted in that trade. Drafting is not an exact science, but people seem to have the misconception that Elias/Sig are fantastic drafters and I'd say outside of the 1st round, I don't see them as any better and actually behind many other teams overall. I haven't done the research, but I can't imagine there are many teams that have not drafted and developed one single pitcher since 2019. But let's say the strategy has worked so far since both Burnes (1 yr) and Eflin (1 and half yrs) were acquired for mostly minor leaguers, but let's remember pitchers were part of those trades so they did have to give up pitching to get pitching. So they were not pure bats for pitching trade. So the college bat philosophy (after the 1st round) has bought the team one TOR for one season, Eflin for this year and next, and a 5th starter with Rogers for two and half years. Now maybe drafting arms would not have worked out. Maybe Elias knows they are not good at selecting college pitchers so he doesn't see much difference in a 2nd-5th round selection and an after 5th round selection so he figures he can wait. The problem is the college bats guys with value have dried up after the trades this year (not counting the 2024 guys). Maybe Bradfield will gain some value by hitting in AA the rest of the year or maybe Beavers will turn around his poor season. Maybe Fabian will learn to hit right-handed pitching or hit breaking balls? I just think he's got to switch up philosophy a bit. Now saying that, he did a bit by drafting 4 HS hitters (6th, 12th, 16th, 29th rounds) which I think were the first signable HS hitters he's taken outside of the first round since 2021 (Creed Willems, 8th round, $1 million over slot). But as for it working, the Orioles have won exactly zero playoff games to date so let's not build the celebration parade quite yet. I think what we can say is that going with college bats in the 1st round has worked, but really, Elias is yet to miss on a 1st round picks (Not counting Bradfield as it's too early and Beavers was a supplemental 33rd overall pick which is really a 2nd round pick) whether they were highschool or college.

Or, maybe they can just absolutely nuts on pitching like the Angels did in 2021, drafting 19 college pitchers and 1 high school overslot pitcher? That draft has already developed 3 major leaguers https://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/index.fcgi?team_ID=ANA&year_ID=2021&draft_type=junreg&query_type=franch_year&from_type_unk=0&from_type_4y=0&from_type_jc=0&from_type_hs=0 I mean, that's pretty nuts, and obviously they have a lot of misses in there, and clearly I would not go all in on a draft like this, but if they feel like they have a good feel for college pitchers, give them a little more shots. I'll be honest, after seeing Forret and Nestor German this year, they may want to scour those small schools more.

I wouldn't go by that to offset the 5-8 height in Baseball reference. I'm sure I know who told me that, but they may have had the height wrong or rounded up, or maybe I wrote it down wrong. Watching Morfe pitch for Delmarva, he certainly looks short so 5-8 or 5-9 could certainly be his height. Either way, when you sit 98-99, and have touched 101 this year at 18-years old, I don't care what your height is, that's impressive. The slider was tight too and I even saw a workable change in there that he seems to have at some feel for. If he stays healthy, he could be special.

Why would you tell a guy to stop practicing (which is basically what the minors is) a key skill to his game? If a guy can't steal bases without getting hurt, how is going to do it at the major league level? I don't think minor league "records" mean anything to anyone, including the players. Their goals are to become better players so they can become major league players. Sure, they're going to tell people what they want to hear, but I don't think any player is bragging about some minor league franchise record they set unless that ends up the highlight of their professional career. Once a player makes the big leagues, I don't see them talking about the 80 bases they stole in A-ball.

Williams was just ONE date point. Of course one miss doesn't mean anything. I know you've read my thoughts on this in the past so you know I'm not basing this off Williams. You're just trying to play contrarian for whatever reason. I changed the OP to say that this is just one data point and my second post goes into more details.

I like Weston a bit (Need to see him against AAA hitters and his statcast info before getting too excited), and Forret, who they pretty much "lucked upon" in the 14th round. Bright has reliever vibes, but right now, until I can put the 2024 draft picks in (they need to play in a game to qualify for power rankings) the system is not nearly as strong as some people still to think so these guys are higher than they should be.

You really have missed the point. It's ok, I realize it's not popular to question Elias to some around here. Williams was a data point to continue comments I've made all over this board about Elias' inability to identify, draft and or develop major league pitching. Perhaps I should have been more clear that this was just one point, but I doubt it would have changed your response. Some folks will always have a canned excuse ready.

I've been consistent on this messaging and HAS NOTHING to do with just one player. I used this as an example because it was a good opportunity to speak facts about this situation once again. Elias went with a low-ceiling college bat who's upside was a 4th outfielder instead of going for arms. I realize that some people like yourself will always give Elias/SIGBOT the benefit of the doubt. That is your right. But as Elias consistently misses with his college bats after the 2nd round and his system is bereft of pitching talent, at the end of the day is he's going to run out of tradable bats for arms. And besides, most teams are not going to trade good young pitching because of the attrition of pitchers. The fact is that he's never drafted and developed one single major league pitcher and has been drafted since 2019. That's literally almost impossible unless they literally have no idea what to look for in pitchers they draft. Elias absolutely hit it out of the park with his 1st round picks and a lot of his 2nd round picks while drafting at the top of those round, now he no longer has that luxury and he must start hitting on guys lower in those rounds. He can't keep putting all his eggs in one basket because giving up 6-years of control of a player (Ortiz) and 5 years of a pitcher (Hall, who was a Rajsich selection out of high school) for one year of an impact starting pitcher is not sustainable. Even the Eflin trade, which looks to be a good one, cost the Orioles a decent amount of prospect draft capital including the highest pitcher ever selected by Elias (Baumeister). We have yet to see him trade an impact hitting prospects for an impact pitching prospect because very few teams are going to give up those pitchers because of the attrition and cost of free agent pitchers. All of the impact players currently on the Orioles were high 1st round, or very beginning of the 2nd round selections. The Orioles are in a different phase and Elias needs to adjust his drafting philosophy. But I'll be honest here, I personally don't think Elias/Sig's system is able to evaluate pitchers very well, especially those out of the amateur ranks. Basically of all his drafts and trades for minor leaguers, they've identified and developed ONE major league starter in Kyle Bradish. If you add in Cano that's two impact pitchers. Maybe we can conclude that their system does not do a good job of identifying talent because it looks for velocity, pitch shapes, and spin, and doesn't weigh command and consistency high enough. Even Povich and McDermott are the same type of guys. If you're not questioning his draft strategy and scouting of pitching by now, you never will.

I'd suggest the Orioles didn't leave $1.9 million open either unless they had a plan. Not saying that plan is for Sasaki, but I'm better they have their eye on someone.

Please keep updates on Forret in his thread in the minors forum vs updating his draft thread. Thanks.

They signed right away and are low ceiling guys that the team can get started up pretty quick and sent out there on a team that was in need of pitching reinforcements. Afterall, they had to let Cole Urman (catcher) pitch 5 innings a couple of weeks ago because they had ran out of real pitchers.

The Orioles released Donta Williams most likely to make playing time for Bradfield and Josenberger. While the 25-year old Williams was certainly a miss as a 4th round pick back in 2021, his release came after him putting up one of his best weeks of his career offensively slashing .450/.577/.550/1.127 in his last 7 days. I'm a little surprised they didn't just send him to AAA as outfielder depth since he's a pretty good defensive outfielder. (Edit: Before I get started, I have a more detailed response below to this issue. This is not based solely on the miss of Donta Williams and the oversite of a few pitching misses in this round). A low ceiling college outfielder, Williams was selected and paid an under slot $400K. Seven picks later the Mariners took Texas A&M right-hander Bryce Miller and paid him an under slot 400K. Three more picks later the Brewers selected Logan Henderson ($495K) who just made his AAA debut and has put up good minor league numbers. With the last pick of the draft, the Astros selected a guy named Chayce McDermott and signed him for $375k. At the end of the day, every college pitcher that signed for under $500K that were selected in the 4th round after Williams were much better pros with several already pitching in the majors. The money saved from Cowser as well as Williams was put into over slot guys like John Rhodes (another bust) and Creed Williams (to early to call). Let's not even mentioned that Mason Miller was selected 21 picks AFTER Rhodes and only signed for $599k. Yes, I know you can do this with a lot of drafts, but at the end of the day, that 2021 draft looks like a whole lot of nothing after Cowser and Norby. The upper level of the minors do not have a single drafted and developed pitcher ready to make a contribution to this 2024 team. If Elias is going to continue to take college bats over pitchers, like he did once again in 2024, he's going to need to start hitting on more of them after the 2nd round.

Ryan McKenna was released by the Giants and signed to a minor league deal with the Phillies on August 5th. He's gone 1-for-14 but with Hays going on the IL, you have to wonder if they will give him a chance if he even remotely starts to hit.

Yeah, I remember liking Myers when i saw him pitching in Aberdeen and was not thrilled when they sent him to Tampa for Tim Beckham. It took him awhile for things to finally click but he's had a heck of a year with the Brewers. Basically they replaced Burnes with him. The Brewers know pitching talent.

With the Delmarva outfield (outside of Cunningham) and infield being so young, I tend to agree with you that they will push the college high picks directly to Aberdeen vs giving them a week or so taste like they've done in the past. With FCL ending early this year to stop teams from putting their college draftees in for a taste, everything is pushed up a little. Delmarva doesn't appear to have any outfielders who deserve to be promoted though they could promote Acevedo or Cunningham in a "sink or swim" situation. But most likely, I think we do see Honeycutt, O'Ferrell and Overn start at Aberdeen with the possibility of one of the two catchers (Anderson or Stafford).