DrungoHazewood

That explains a lot.

So your plan is to trade all of these prospects that you know are overhyped and overrated for established stars?

If you are running with the assumption that all Oriole prospects will eventually suck and should be traded for established players, how do you deal with the fact that the O's payroll will exceed their budget in, oh, about 45 seconds? Hold bake sales? Regular fire sales? Blackmail the Angelos family until they agree to pretend the team can support a much higher payroll?

What? They grow #3 starters on trees? Then why does a 2-WAR average starter command $10M a year for 2, 3, 4 years in free agency? If the Orioles thought it was a near-lock that Rodriguez was going to be a mid-rotation starter they certainly wouldn't have done this deal. To replace six years of a 2-win starter on the free agent market you'd have to spend about $70M, while Rodriguez will cost maybe $12-15M before he hits free agency. Two months of Miller might be worth $5M if he's great. That this trade happened tells me Duquette thinks Rodriguez is most likely to become a reliever worth 0.5 a win a year. He'll still technically lose the trade unless Miller is a really key piece to a Championship run, but it won't be an ugly loss. It'll be 3 or 4 wins to 1, instead of 8 or 12 to 1 if he turns into Bud Norris or something.

Right, I mean most good players went straight from high school to the majors.

There are eight EL starters who are 21. ERod is 5th in K rate, 6th in K/BB ratio, 6th in ERA, and 4th in HR/9. His value comes from his stuff and his scouting reports and relative youth, not his AA performance.

Of course. But I don't think it's too inconsistent to be okay with Rodriguez for eight weeks of Miller, but not so okay with Bundy for eight weeks of Lester. A little less of a bump this year, a lot less risk going forward.

I don't think it's quite so ridiculous when you believe that there is a significant gap between Bundy/Gausman/Harvey and Rodriguez.

Everyone who had 10+ rWAR through age 21: Rk Player Year WAR/pos From To Age G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Pos Tm1 Mike Trout 2013 20.3 2011 2013 19-21 336 1490 1271 258 399 72 17 62 196 186 14 305 17 0 16 17 86 12 .314 .404 .544 .948 *87/9DH LAA2 Andruw Jones 1998 10.9 1996 1998 19-21 343 1211 1087 160 273 58 10 54 173 103 10 265 8 6 7 22 50 15 .251 .319 .472 .791 *89/H7 ATL3 Alex Rodriguez 1997 14.4 1994 1997 18-21 352 1523 1384 260 435 100 6 64 228 109 2 265 9 12 9 29 51 12 .314 .366 .534 .900 *6/HD SEA4 Ken Griffey 1991 15.5 1989 1991 19-21 436 1805 1600 228 478 93 8 60 241 178 41 246 5 5 17 26 50 24 .299 .367 .479 .847 *8/HD SEA5 Cesar Cedeno 1972 11.8 1970 1972 19-21 390 1651 1525 234 450 100 18 39 205 96 12 221 10 7 13 28 92 34 .295 .338 .461 .799 *8/97H3 HOU6 Johnny Bench 1969 10.6 1967 1969 19-21 328 1292 1182 157 325 66 4 42 178 85 15 201 6 3 16 25 7 12 .275 .323 .444 .767 *2/H CIN7 Vada Pinson 1960 12.4 1958 1960 19-21 335 1523 1396 258 418 91 21 41 153 113 6 212 7 5 1 21 55 19 .299 .355 .483 .837 *8/97H CIN8 Frank Robinson 1957 13.4 1956 1957 20-21 302 1344 1183 219 363 56 11 67 158 108 12 187 32 13 9 27 18 6 .307 .378 .543 .920 *7/83H CIN9 Al Kaline 1956 15.4 1953 1956 18-21 473 1939 1737 268 540 74 21 59 275 175 16 162 7 8 12 45 23 14 .311 .374 .480 .853 *9/8H7 DET10 Mickey Mantle 1953 13.2 1951 1953 19-21 365 1552 1351 260 398 72 15 57 244 197 275 0 4 10 20 12 .295 .384 .497 .881 *89/H675 NYY11 Eddie Mathews 1953 10.6 1952 1953 20-21 302 1274 1107 190 303 54 13 72 193 158 198 3 6 15 7 7 .274 .366 .541 .907 *5/H BSN-MLN12 Ted Williams 1940 13.0 1939 1940 20-21 293 1336 1126 265 378 87 25 54 258 203 118 5 4 23 6 5 .336 .439 .601 1.041 *97/H1 BOS13 Arky Vaughan 1933 10.8 1932 1933 20-21 281 1210 1070 156 338 44 29 13 158 103 49 11 26 9 13 .316 .382 .448 .829 *6/H PIT14 Mel Ott 1930 17.9 1926 1930 17-21 539 2064 1724 359 570 106 14 86 370 282 127 10 44 21 .331 .428 .558 .986 *9/H7845 NYG15 Jimmie Foxx 1929 13.8 1925 1929 17-21 364 1302 1088 241 372 61 25 49 222 178 131 4 31 15 17 .342 .436 .579 1.015 *3/5H29 PHA16 Rogers Hornsby 1917 14.4 1915 1917 19-21 302 1199 1075 154 340 43 32 14 135 87 103 8 30 34 2 .316 .372 .455 .827 *6/53H4 STL17 Ty Cobb 1908 15.7 1905 1908 18-21 439 1835 1694 249 549 85 39 11 276 87 160 14 40 117 .324 .362 .440 .802 *9/87 DET18 Sherry Magee 1906 12.0 1904 1906 19-21 404 1686 1530 228 440 75 37 14 222 110 140 15 31 114 .288 .341 .412 .754 *7/983 PHI I think most reasonably serious baseball fans should be familiar with almost everyone on this list, as most of them are in Cooperstown. Of the ones who aren't: Cesar Cedeno certainly looked like a HOFer through 26 or 27, but tailed off, I think becasue of injuries. In any case, his 52.7 rWAR is better than many actual HOFers. Pinson's career was similar to Cedeno's, with 46 rWAR through 28, but only about 8 afterwards. Career value of 54 is better than a number of HOFers. And Sherry Magee may have been better, relative to his peers, than either Cedeno or Pinson. His raw numbers aren't that impressive because he played in the deadball era, but had some very, very good years and a career 137 OPS+ (98th all time). In 1910 he led the NL in BA/OBP/SLG/OPS/OPS+/total bases/RBI. Most of you are familiar with Andruw Jones, who was a better version of the three guys I just described - great 20s before fading, but an even higher total. So the floor for a position player with 10 rWAR through 21 is currently "has a plausible case for the HOF". Every single player who reached that threshold had a very long, very productive career.

You can be productive overall, despite OBPing .290, hitting .175, slugging .310, or walking six per nine. HOFers have done all of those things, at least on occasion.

Yes. 10 years after Moneyball it's still not fully appreciated that OBPing .290 is like hitting .175 or slugging .310, or walking six batters per nine.

Hardy is a pretty good hitter for a shortstop. The MLB average SS in 2014 OPSes .685.

You have repeated this multiple times recently, but I'm not so sure. He had a pretty good 2013, but his track record prior to last year was spotty, and he's seen a good bit of regression this year. If I were looking at trading for him I'd be very concerned that (at least this year) he has a well below average K rate, off 2 K/9 from last year, to go along with so-so HR and BB numbers. And he's just entering his arb years where he'll progressively get more expensive each winter. I don't know, maybe you could get a Daniel Murphy type out of Tillman, an average position player who is starting to get more expensive, but I'm not so sure. If I were another team I'd see Tillman as #3 or #4 starter.

I don't think most folks quite grasp the decline in offense the last 4-5 years. The mid-60s through early 70s, and the 1910s are really the only eras in MLB history with sustained offensive levels lower than the last two years. 1988-89 was the last time offenses were this low for even a couple years. I don't know about that. He might have lost 15 hits and 3-4 homers a year to that park, meaning maybe 60 hits and 20 homers? He has a .040 OPS advantage on the road for his career, but that's not extreme. It's no Goose Goslin, who played more than half his career in Griffith Stadium in DC and had 152 road homers, 96 at home.

Whose projections are those? I wouldn't put any numbers on it. Players with obvious talent at a very young age can develop in unexpected ways. He might be Ruben Sierra with a glove, he might be an inner-circle HOFer.

Perhaps it was "give a spectator an at bat" night?

<IFRAME style="DISPLAY: none" id=rufous-sandbox frameBorder=0 allowTransparency scrolling=no allowtransparency="true"></IFRAME>I think I'd assumed that Rich Hill was about 42 and had retired five years ago. Wasn't he an 88-mph junkballer with a shoulder made out of bailing twine and duct tape when he was with the O's in 2009? True fact: since his one big year in 2007 he has pitched 147 MLB innings and walked 105. 5.55 ERA.

Good for him. The O's certainly gave him more chances than Earl's first wife. It wasn't happening with this team/league/division.

Good for Lew. In the same league, for the SoMd Blue Crabs, Brian Burres is 3-2, 1.64 in 49 innings. Rommie Lewis has 15 saves and also a 1.64 for the York Revolution.<iframe id="rufous-sandbox" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" style="display: none;"></iframe>

In 2006 the O's were 70-92 and had a team ERA of 5.35. This was a team that gave 18 starts to pitchers with ERAs of 6.90 or higher. Loewen had a 2.77 ERA in AA, then blew away AAA hitters in three starts. What organization would have kept him in the minors all year given all that? Screech's callup was completely inexplicable, and I don't even remember the circumstances around Mato.

I think it's more likely he likes to play baseball, and isn't even aware of his career earnings.

Just in the last couple days BP has had fairly in-depth reports on each of these guys and they say Hader could be a back-end starter if things go right, while Harvey is one of the best pitching prospects in the game.

It's dicey. I do understand some of these leagues, at least at the beginning, are trying to keep one rich guy from dominating and keeping the others from establishing a base, torpedoing the viability of the whole thing.

Yes. The players play hard because it's their life. But the fact that nobody cares about winning kind of invalidates the whole concept of a league.

I absolutely agree with that. I hate that the minors sold out and the majors enabled this travesty. Most North American pro baseball leagues simply don't care about wins and losses. If you don't live near one of the 30 real teams your local team is kind of a sham.