DrungoHazewood

Frobby alluded to this before, but the median #1 overall pick through history has about 12 WAR in value. So Rutschman, in 2.5 seasons, just 368 games, has been more valuable than the entire MLB careers of about half of all the #1s ever. If you want to see what a 1-1 bust looks like, check out Delmon Young. Or Mark Appel. Or Bryan Bullington. Or Danny Goodwin, who was the #1 overall twice (didn't sign the first time) and ended up with a career value of -1.7 WAR. Brien Taylor and Steve Chilcott were 1/1s who never played a single inning in the majors.

Rutschman has 12.5 WAR through 368 games and age 26. He will probably end the year somewhere around 14. There are 19 HOF catchers. The median WAR value of those 19 catchers after age 26 is 17. All of them debuted in the majors earlier than Rutschman, and had a head start, but he's only about three WAR off the pace of a typical HOF catcher. If he plays another 10 years and averages just 2.5 wins per season (so far he's averaged 5 wins per 150 games) he'll end up with about 40 WAR. That's probably not enough to get him there, although Buster Posey will go in at 44 and Ernie Lombardi, Ray Schalk, and Rick Ferrell are in with less. I think it's still plausible, if not quite yet likely, that he has a HOF-caliber career.

So how "otherworldly" is Adley's slump? In July he OPS'd .485*. That's bad, but it looks like that's about the 2900th-worst month anyone's ever had in the majors (min 75 PAs in the month). There have been about 50 players who OPS'd .485 in a month, including Sandy Alomar, Paul Blair, Don Buford, Ken Caminiti, Johnny Evers, Oscar Gamble, Rabbit Maranville, Juan Pierre, Brooks Robinson, and Owen "36 triples" Wilson. The worst month anyone ever had was arguably Frank O'Rourke, who in June of 1912 went 6-for-73 with one walk and no extra base hits, good for a .201 OPS. Legendary bad hitter Bill Bergen had a .219 OPS in July of 1909. Myles Straw of the Guardians had a .222 OPS (7-for-75, one double, two walks) in August of 2022. Jose Abreu had a .269 OPS in April of this year. HOFer Bill Mazeroski hit .125/.160/.125 in 100 PAs in September of '63. Old Oriole favorite Mark Reynolds once hit .078/.213/.078 with 31 strikeouts in 64 ABs in September of 2010. Jackie Bradley Jr hit .082/.148/.164 in May of '21. PED era slugger Greg Vaughn started off 2002 hitting .099 with a .302 OPS in April. Among Orioles, Jorge Mateo's May of '23 with a .316 OPS appears to be the worst in modern history. Followed by a couple of Mark Belanger months, then an unfortunate JJ Hardy August of 2015 when he hit .157 with a .375 OPS. Rutschman's July is in 56th place. Others ahead of (or behind, depending on persepctive) Rutschman include Cal, Brady, Luis Aparicio (twice), Brooks (twice), Don Baylor, Mike Bordick, Melvin Mora, Ramon Hernandez, and Joe Orsulak. * It was actually .482, but I'm not going back and fixing that paragraph. Close enough.

Can they? Or is it more likely that they decided the answer to the question five years ago and spend their time cherry-picking arguments that make that answer look correct? If you're always negative about the MLB leader in value among catchers over the last three years perhaps your position is unsupportable.

There's an overwhelming bias in life towards DOING SOMETHING!!!! But the truth is that just waiting for things to work themselves out is probably more likely to be the solution. You know that the Orioles, the dynastic Orioles of the late 60s through the early 80s, basically approached all their problems this way. I challenge anyone to find me a single case of Earl Weaver taking someone out of the lineup because they weren't performing, calling up a guy from Rochester in midseason and making him a starter. I mean besides when he switched Cal to short and called up Glenn Gulliver. From 1968-1982 that was the only time Earl second-guessed the big decisions he made in spring training. They basically never made deadline deals back then, either. It was Earl knew who he wanted on the field in March, and that's who played all year long. Slump? Whatever, Earl knows who's good and who's not, and the good one is going to keep playing until he works it out. If there'd have been an internet back then, they'd have lost their minds.

This has been his shtick for over a decade. Whatever choice the front office makes is stupid. He was the guy who was screaming tear it down, sell everything and rebuild in May-June of 2014. You remember, the year they won the division by 12 games? Some people are only happy when they're taking contrarian positions, when it's them against the world.

Catchers get beat up, and it leads to off weeks, months, sometimes years. Johnny Bench was the best catcher ever and he had two months with OPSes under .500, and another five in the .500s. Ted Simmons had an .880 OPS in 1980, then a .638 the next year. He's in the Hall. In '83 he had a .799, then in '84 a .569. Yogi never really had an off year until he was old. But had eight months of his career with OPSes under .600. He was MVP in '54, but in April he hit .231/.236/.385. Mike Piazza was the greatest hitting catcher of all time, but had three separate months of 19+ games with an OPS under .550. Joe Mauer once went 5-for-45 (.111) in a month. Another where he hit .225 with a .546 OPS. Gary Carter had a month where he hit .134/.192/.179. Another where he hit .117/.172/200. And another where he hit .171/.198/.316. Carlton Fisk had a whole year where he OPS'd .600, then played 5-6 more good years in the majors. In April of '83 he hit .154. Had two other months where he hit .149. Pudge Rodriguez had 18 full months, or the equivalent of three entire seasons, where he OPS'd under .600. All of those guys are Hall of Famers! You could start to look at the solid, long-career catchers and come with, I don't know... Rick Dempsey who once OPS'd .466 over an entire year. Adley will be just fine. I'm sure he's a little beat up and a little tired, but it'll get better. Only a crank or a malcontent would say the best catcher in baseball over the past three seasons is a huge miss because he's in a slump.

Everyone has some kind of plausible rationalization for why their favorite player is going to buck the odds and age better and totally be worth that big extension coming off a peak year even if they're entering or are already in typical decline years. There's always someone willing to pay for veteranosity and roll the dice that this guy will fade at 35 instead of 32 or 30. I witnessed very similar arguments being made here for Chris Davis, Mark Trumbo, Javy Lopez, Nick Markakis, BJ Surhoff, Sammy Sosa, Vlad Guerrero Sr, Kevin Millar. I'm sure the fans of Kent Hrbek, Juan Gonzalez, Mark Teixeira, Ryan Klesko, Ted Kluszewski, Justin Morneau, Prince Fielder, and Mo Vaughn all thought they'd just keep cranking out 30 homers a year well into their mid-30s. No, I am not a horse trainer. I know nothing about horses. But I know a lot about baseball players. And if you regularly bet large sums that a power-hitting corner OF/DH is going to just keep on producing well into his 30s you'll lose that bet most of the time. Whether or not he's a fan favorite and an awesome dude.

If you have to resort to facts and analysis you've already lost. You have to feel it, and only then you can decide on which free agents to pursue.

Says a fan of a team that just lost Jordan Westburg for the regular season, freeing up playing time for Jackson Holliday. I wouldn't guarantee that the logjam won't resolve itself.

I've said it at the time, and probably 100 times since: If I were interviewing GM candidates one of the first easy, softball questions I'd throw their way is "what would you do with a popular player, aged 33, coming off a career year in a walk year?" If the answer is anything but "tread exceptionally carefully, and only offer a contract that's either very team-friendly or with some kind of team opt out" they're not getting the job. It was the correct choice to not sign Nelson Cruz. Give me 20 players with Cruz' profile and 19 of them will be very bad investments. The fact that Cruz wasn't doesn't change that at all. Similar thing applies to Santander, except that he's a few years younger.

Speed and defense are the first things to decline as a player ages. Then it's often health and availability. For Santander that means he'll probably keep hitting home runs at about the rate he has throughout his career, but he'll hit .228 and only play 110 games a year, frequently as a DH.

Jones made a few $million in Japan at 34-35, but the point stands. Santander will almost certainly not get a big contract after this one unless he finds Nelson Cruz' magical fountain of youth.

This is likely his one chance at a big free agent payday. I think someone is likely to give him 4/75 or 5/100. Or at least the odds are high enough that he's not likely to test the waters and just sign at a pretty team-friendly level.

100% this. Many terrible contracts come from signing a guy having a career year in his walk year. Santander is a good player, but as he ages he'll almost certainly see his range decline to the point where he has to DH more and more, and his batting average will go down. I would consider offering the OP's 3/60 deal, but I think someone is going to offer him more like 5/100. Which they'll probably regret. Eight of Santander's top 10 bb-ref comps through age 28 would have been poor investments at 3/60. Two of his top three are Jay Gibbons and Mark Trumbo.

It's a little strange to say that the farm system that was ranked #1 preseason by MLB is now VERY devoid of talent. They gave up some pieces to win now, but that's kind of the point of having an overwhelmingly good system.

The Glenn Davis trade was lost something like 130-1. This one is 6-0. That's like describing both a 24-14 football game and a 96-0 game as blowouts.

It wasn't a good trade. But no GM wins every trade. Sometimes they make trades for various reasons outside of minimizing the odds of not winning the trade. In your initial post you said this might have been the 2nd-worst trade in Orioles history. Currently by WAR they're losing this trade something like 6-0. I'd guess an average team loses a trade (long-term) by six wins every couple years. Pick some random years... 2005. That was the year they traded Dave Crouthers, Mike Fontenot and Jerry Hairston to the Cubs for Sammy Sosa. Rest of their careers the O's lost that one 10-(-1). Or how about 2013 when they traded Pedro Strop and Jake Arrieta for Steve Clevenger and Scott Feldman? Or giving up Josh Hader for Bud Norris? Or in '15 when they gave up Zach Davis for Gerardo Parra? Or in '16 when they gave up the Rangers' starting catcher, Jonah Heim for 25 games of the third go-around for Steve Pearce? If you'd like we could go back farther in time. Doug DeCinces for Disco Dan Ford? Don Baylor and Mike Torrez for basically 3/4ths of a year of Reggie? Roy Lee Jackson for Alan Wiggins? Sammy Stewart for Jackie Gutierrez? Dennis Martinez for John Stefero? Mike Flanagan for Oswaldo Peraza? Eddie Murray for Juan Bell and Brian Holton? Clearly this wasn't a great deal, but it's probably not in the 25 worst trades in franchise history. It happens. Find me a GM who hasn't made a moderately poor trade.

Scott is 29 and his top 3 bb-ref comps are Mike Stanton, Will Smith and Antonio Bastardo. Any references to the Glenn Davis trade with him as the only real value being lost has to be hyperbole for effect or just being silly.

It's pretty funny that Rutschman is leading all MLB catchers in WAR since 2022, despite not coming up until almost two months into his rookie season, is pretty clearly the best catcher in baseball, and the tone here seems to be that he's somewhere between disappointing and a failure because his current OPS+ is eight points off his career mark.

Batting titles don't hurt, but Mauer is in the Hall mainly because he's tne 7th-best catcher of all time by JAWS, which, of course, is based on a mix of peak and career WAR. Yes, the BBWAA is still a combination of old-school writers and newer folks, but as time goes on traditional stats will mean less than contributions to wins. Mauer had 27 wins through age 26. Rutschman will probably have about 15. But that's because Rutschman got started relatively late, not playing a full season until 25. It's hard to predict the future, especially with catchers who get broken down and worn out sometimes. But Jason Varitek didn't come up until 25 and never had even a 4-win season. Rutschman already has over 50% of Varitek's career value in 366 games (about 2.4 full seasons). Even if Rutschman just has 2-3 win seasons for the next decade he'll end up with a career along the lines of Yadier Molina, Jorge Posada, Buster Posey, and Jim Sundberg. In other words, arguable HOFer.

That's an interesting way to frame things. How good is the 50th-best Oriole non-pitcher of all time? The 50th-highest rWAR total in modern Orioles history, again among non-pitchers, is coincidentally Austin Hays (what are the odds of that?!), at 9.4, a few hundredth behind Andy Etchebarren and half a win ahead of Mickey Tettleton. 1. Cal, 95.9 10. Frank, 32.4 20. Rick Dempsey, 21.2 25. BJ Surhoff, 17.7 30. Jonathan Schoop, 15.2 35. Gunnar, 13.7 40. Chris Davis, 12.1 45. Santander (for the moment), 10.4 50. Hays 75. Cal Abrams, 5.8 100. Pat Kelly, 3.7 150. Gene Stephens, 1.5 200. Al Smith, 0.8 If you count 502 PAs as a full season, there have only been 191 Orioles reach that level since 1954.

I guess. If you squint hard enough I suppose you could convince yourself Pache is playable against lefties (.698 career OPS), as a defense-first CFer. He's +17 OAA in 1334 career MLB defensive innings, so pretty elite defender. Something like a RH Brett Phillips.

Maybe if Baerga struck out 2.5 times as much, and as a consequence had a batting average 30-50 points lower.

The 1890 Brooklyn Gladiators of the Player's League also made exactly 403 errors. I believe they and the '99 Senators are the only MLB teams to have accomplished this feat. I don't know a whole lot about the Gladiators. They were thrown together during the labor disputes of 1890 and the league only lasted that one season. They went 26-73-1, and none of their players really stand out. I recognize their second baseman, Push-'em-Up (or Move Up depending on your sources) Joe Gerhardt (no relation to 1980s O's outfielder Ken Gerhart), but he OPS'd .539 that year. Third baseman Jumbo Davis (listed at 5'11", 195) was their best hitter, but only played 38 games and made 25 errors. 35-year-old Move Up made 47 errors in 95 games.