DrungoHazewood

You kids and your oh-so-cool hipster ways!

Eddie. Liner to CF, diving catch by Robin Yount.

No, it wouldn't have been automatic.

On the other hand, there's the fact that the players and their agents are very much against QOs, the compensatory pick is enticing, and nobody is ever hamstrung by a one-year deal. Right now I wouldn't hesitate for a minute putting the QO on Wieters.

It's hard to tell. If they thought his defense was solid and his hitting spike sticky then maybe. But it's probably more murky than that. I really don't know what to think with the guy - I've barely seen him play, don't trust my subjective judgment at all, and his metrics are almost random.

No, no they don't. What I'm saying is they'd lose a pick if they didn't trade for Parra, the Brewers kept him and QO'd him, and then the O's signed Parra in the offseason. When a player is traded in midseason there's no option for a QO/compensatory pick.

Resigning him has little to do with the trade. There's no expectation of resigning him, and even if they did it would be at a value quite similar to what he'd get on the market in a few months. The only benefit I see is that they avoid a situation where the Brewers could have given him a QO and costing the O's a pick. So you could argue that they traded Davies for a) two months of Parra, b) the value of a compensatory draft pick ($7M?) and c) a few months of exclusive negotiation. But that's only if he's resigned - if he's not its just two months of Parra.

Be careful what you wish for. And remember, your new GM almost certainly won't come with a much bigger budget so he'll have to be more successful at exactly the things Duquette has been doing, and did quite well from '12-14.

Angelos should have traded him for a bunch of prospects to stock up the farm, and then signed a cheap GM more willing to do (insert their overarching plan that's totally different from Duquette's here).

I'm not going to argue too much, it's not like we just replaced Deivi Cruz with Cal Ripken. But Snider's somewhat similar numbers are in platoon/part time roles, Lough isn't nearly the hitter and has about as many career PAs as Parra did in 2013, and Reimold was last healthy in the 1940s. Parra has been more-or-less an everyday player since 2009.

Nothing? You think Parra is no better than the Orioles' current corner outfielders?

I said the same thing about a much older Nelson Cruz and people looked at me like I had snakes protruding from various holes in my skull.

Not likely. But the difference between the wildcard and no wildcard is likely a game or two in the standings. Parra may well be worth a couple wins over Snider, Reimold, etc. Of course there's an untold number of interdependent variables here, so it's impossible to assign direct credit and blame for the players on teams around that wildcard threshold.

If a guy has an established level of hitting .275 but he's hot and has hit .325 for the last two months his best projection going forward is a lot closer to .275 than .325.

I think all you're being asked to believe is that this is an upgrade over Travis Snider and Nolan Reimold for a middling pitching prospect.

Who cares when you sign him? All this does is get you out of the competitive bidding process, if he's willing to forgo getting out of that process. There's no guarantee the negotiating window gets you anything at all. If he wants to test the waters he'll test the waters, unless you blow him out of the water. Very little value in the trade beyond the production over the next two months.

Also, disappointed in the lack of a "waffling middle ground" option in the poll.

Completely disagree. You've traded for two months of him, plus a negotiating window. I wouldn't pay $50 and a goat for the window.

Monthly splits generally have no predictive value. It is true that he's not likely to be a .880 guy from now on.

This is a Duquette kind of trade. A moderately talented, moderately-projected prospect for a pretty good short-term guy. Not a fan of rentals. There is risk here. Parra is not going to guarantee a playoff spot in any way. But in the end it's probably a trade of a couple wins for a guy who's not going to be an impact talent in the majors. Probably. Interested if they want to try to resign Parra, but that really has no impact on the trade.

Of course that helps, but it's not a requirement. The Orioles model requires that most of the value in the team come from pre-free agency players. But not all, or they would never have signed Ubaldo. I seriously doubt that Duquette thought that Ubaldo was going to be a huge $/win value.

Random aside... people often lament the effect free agency has had on baseball, with the departure of favorites like Nick over money and long-term commitments. What do you think it would take for the owners to buy free agency out of the next CBA? Guaranteeing the players 60% of league revenues? Setting a salary floor of $75M with no ceiling? Minimum salary of $5M? There has to be some carrot large enough to reinstate the reserve clause.

In his 20s Nick had an ISO of 0.149, with a peak of 0.185. So far in his 30s it's 0.093 and falling. Power typically peaks in your late 20s/early 30s. I made a bb-ref query of players with an ISO between .125-175 in their 20s (min 1500 PAs, 1920-present). Then using that query as a starting point I looked up the lowest ISOs in their 30s. Only two players came back as having played enough to get 1500 PAs in their 30s with an ISO under .100: Orlando Cabrera and Darin Erstad. Both just under .100. That's odd, but there are some similarities if you ignore defense. Nick is the new Darin Erstad.

Don't trivialize The Plan. Don't mock The Plan. It said David Lough. It had to be David Lough.