DrungoHazewood

They might think he's Gandhi and Abe Lincoln rolled up into one, but that doesn't change the fact that he's 9-17, 5.09 with the O's and is making $9M playing on a last-place rebuilding team.

Mancini's surplus value is something like a free agent you'd sign to a 3/40 deal. He's basically a 2-win first baseman with the ability to stand around the OF if you really get in a bind. The package I'd expect would be a single 50-100ish prospect and a one or two other lower-rated guys.

I said the same thing about Adam Jones and CF, but go D'backs.

Legacy means different things to different folks. It means different things for fans and players. Fans often say that a guy should retire before he messes up his legacy. The players often just want to keep playing as long as they can. It's the only job most of them have ever had, and to many of them being on the field is the best feeling in the world. Running out to the outfield another season is far more important than worrying about a below-average year or two supposedly ruining what people you'll never meet think of you.

I think they realize that it's a 1-in-30 shot in any year, and a lot of them would rather stay in a sitution they like and a home they've established rather than dragging themselves and their family all over the continent in pursuit of something that probably won't happen anyway.

Isn't he saying that if he was traded away from a situation he likes into a situation he doesn't he would at least consider retiring and forgoing the payment associated with the rest of his contract? It's not ideal for the team, obviously trades are a possibility when you sign a MLB contract. But it's not like he's planning on not performing and still getting paid. I think we should remember this thread the next time we talk about players needing to have a little loyalty. Remember how Manny should have taken a team-friendly deal? Or how Mussina is still a traitor for not taking $10M less to sign with the O's? Here we have a guy who's thinking about retiring and giving up as much as a quarter of his career earnings than leave the Orioles. Maybe a little nuts, but you have to have some kind of grudging admiration for anyone who wants to be here, now.

I knew he'd had some success in Japan, but wow. 2017 he had 54 saves in a 140-game schedule, 66 innings, 34 hits, 10 walks, 102 Ks, and a 1.09 ERA. You can't be much better. In '09 for the O's he walked more batters than that in 23 innings. From 2013-2017 his highest ERA was 1.88. This article says he's rehabbing from hip surgery which cost him most of last year. He was the '17 Pacific League MVP.

I'd almost forgotten about him. Looked him up, and he had a pretty good four years in Japan, was Hiroshima's closer for three years. He pitched 12 years in pro ball and never threw 60 innings in a season. 555 career innings, or 64 innings less than Tim Keefe threw in 1883.

You could have said "you know, if they sign one or two of the top 50 guys that would be a pretty nice get, it'll show some tangible progress." Well, not you. But someone could have said that.

You are physically incapable of having a positive outlook.

I know, being positive and hopeful concerning a new guy who comes in saying all the right things is terribly naive. It must be fun going through life certain that abject failure is just around every corner. You can't even admit that saying the right things and having a good plan is a positive.

We're Orioles fans. When a new guy shows up at our very nadir armed with a history of success and a plan we're not going to assume abject failure. Well... the vast majority of us aren't.

There you go, you get the internet. Reasonable and rational is always the disappointing territory of losers and appeasers. If you're not in the 90th percentile you might as well have never tried.

Elias is putting up a smokescreen by talking about signings that will never happen while negotiating with Austin for a new ballpark for 2023 after sticking Baltimore with four straight years of 130 losses. Prove to me that's not happening. See, atomic could be right.

Whatever you need to do. I'll just be happy we're beyond "all forms of player acquisition have too low an ROI to try."

The appropriate response is to complain about how they're not going to win 72 games this year because Elias spent all winter working on his tan.

You will be. On the other hand "the largest signing period the Orioles have ever had" could be a disappointing year for an average team.

I'm not entirely sure what the point is. Are you saying that the last six weeks is more representative of his ability than his career numbers? If so, why?

Yes, I'm using the largest sample of data, not cherry picking numbers to pretend to prove a point.

Do you understand the positional adjustment? Mancini gets a positional adjustment of about -8 as a full-time RFer. At first that would be more like -12 or -13. As an outfielder Mancini has been something like a -12 defender per 150 games. At first he's been a -2. Do the math... that means his theoretical value goes up by five or six runs per season if he's a full-time first baseman instead of an outfielder. The difference between replacement level and productive player is a lot more than five runs a year.

You know that two years ago he had an .826 OPS while he was playing the outfield for the first time in his life and was worth +2.3 wins. If you take off a third of a win for only OPSing .800, I'm still curious as to how he's going to be 20 runs worse in the field than he was in 2017? Currently he's on pace to have almost exactly the same value as in 2017. Last year, with a .715 OPS and -14 fielding he was right at replacement level. You're implying that he's going to be a -35 fielder this year, which would be one of the very worst fielding seasons of all time. Of course you are.

He now has 39 strikeouts and four walks in 129 MLB PAs. I know Ks have gone off the charts recently, but I don't think we're to the point where a nearly 10:1 K:BB ratio is something that you can overlook. Above A ball he has 34 walks in 580 PAs, or 5.8%. That's not much better than Adam Jones, except Jones was doing his all in the majors. Used to be 10:1 was a good rule of thumb. If you walked 50 times in 500 PAs that was acceptable. The last time Wilkerson did that he was an older player in the Sally League.

According to the Fan Cost Index (and yes, you can quibble with their methodology) the O's are the 4th-cheapest MLB experience. About half of what it costs to go to a Cubs or Red Sox game. I mentioned a few weeks ago that a foot-long Dodger Dog and a regular beer cost me $22 or $24 in early April.

I'll be happy if he ends up being a cheap and reasonably effective corner utility outfielder for a few years. He, Mancini and Manny Machado were all born in 1992, so there's not a ton of building and growing going on here.

With ever-skyrocketing K rates this probably should come with a caveat, but Koji did retire with the highest K:BB ratio in modern MLB history at over 7:1. He had a higher rate in the majors than in Japan, since he spent most of his Japanese career as a starter and most of his MLB career relieving. The official all-time record is a couple tenths higher than Koji, but James Burke played from 1882-84. Walks took something more than four balls, he was pitching from flat ground about 50' from the plate, and all but 12 of his innings were in the Union Association. The UA is officially designated a major league because of a misunderstanding of its quality - the Delmarva Shorebirds would be highly competitive if dropped into that league. Second fun James Burke fact of the day: his career BB:WP ratio is 0.85. Career 40 wild pitches, 34 walks. That is pretty hard to do. Anyway, the record is Koji's.