DrungoHazewood

I'm sure this is an oversimplification, but he's more-or-less Grady Sizemore, right? In 2011-on the Red Sox, Phils, Rays all took fliers on him, probably with similar results Bellinger will have.

I like Baltimore, it has a lot of positives despite some really bad press. But if there's a free agent who wants to come to the Orioles because they think it's the greatest city in the universe they'd better be doing some serious pre-contract evaluations of the guy to make sure he's not non compos mentis.

Nobody really trades a #1 overall draft pick a few months after he's signed. In fact, I'm pretty sure there's a rule you can't trade him for at least a year.

I'm not really that upset, especially since there's a very small chance I'll need to root for the guy in the near future. If he wants to be all about the money he supposedly deserves and signs with the Dodgers or whatever, go for it.

I want them to be both honest and decent people. I suppose I'd rather have an honest jackass than a dishonest one, but I'd rather have a guy who's not a jackass at all.

I'd rather have the guy who isn't a sociopath at all. I don't think that every pro athlete who appears to be a decent, regular person is actually a sociopath in disguise. I'd hope most of them are decent people.

Oh, I understand. But he's also 27 or 28. He's not 17. He been doing this gig for a long time, and he still appears to be very narcissistic and unaware (or just doesn't care) how he sounds to people who haven't been put on a pedestal their whole lives. Instead of "I'm lucky to be where I am" it's instead "of course I'm worth more than Luxembourg."

They had yellow uniforms.

It's very tone deaf. It's basically, "I'm awesome, everyone wants me, if the Twins want in on the bidding they'll need to make an offer that I'm cool with." But I suppose that's what you'd expect out of someone who signs a $100M+ contract and almost immediately ops out to try to get more money. It's just one out-of-context statement, but that would make me less likely to want to give him hundreds of millions of dollars and shuffle/trade a bunch of current players to accommodate him. And I wasn't in favor of that in the first place.

The 1872 Baltimore Canaries used 12. Cherokee Fisher was both the change pitcher and a reserve OF/3B.

Is that more or less important than the millions of baseball fans having recognizable players they can form a more lasting fan relationship with? Would the 1983 Orioles have been more/less/same enjoyable if they'd had six times as many Don Welchels and those guys had taken innings from Boddicker and Tippy and Stoddard?

It is necessary in the context of 30 teams who all shuffle players back and forth to AAA on a regular basis so as to essentially have a much larger pitching staff, as it allows everyone to throw max effort all the time and most pitchers are available to pitch almost every day. But in a larger "can we play we play baseball without this, and will it have a large negative impact on the game?" Of course it's not necessary in that sense. The 1983 Orioles used 14 pitchers all year and the world was just fine. In the 50s and 60s the Orioles used about 15 pitchers all year. The 1874 Boston Red Stockings used two pitchers all season, they went 52-18-1, and base ball was the most popular team sport in the country. Baseball would continue just fine with essentially any number of pitchers per season. People and organizations adapt. So it's up to the rulesmakers to figure out what's best for the entertainment value of the sport.

No, no chance. I could name all the 1894 Orioles, but they only used 20 players.

Right, so average-ish MLB shortstop.

Right, the chart needs age and likelihood of getting anywhere close to 162 games.

If all the other metrics have him as a +5 and OAA has him as a -5, my instinct is to call him a lot closer to a -5 than a +5. The other systems are all making compromises and approximations to get us the information OAA directly measures.

Mateo is an outlier, he's a weird case. The Padres were playing him in the outfield. Last year the O's played him at second as much as anywhere else. The Yanks and A's never so much as gave him a cup of coffee in the majors. I don't think his scouting reports raved about his defense. It's not often someone with that resume is put at shortstop and is immediately a legitimate gold glove contender. Mostly defense peaks early. But it's not a hard-and-fast rule.

If Correa is a -4 OAA player at 27 or 28 odds are that's not going to get a lot better as he ages. I have some concern about his ability to stick at short into his 30s.

Depends on his defense. Mateo was a 2-3 win player despite his offense. Hopefully Ortiz hits and fields well enough to be better than that, but that's no guarantee. A lot of very high draft picks or excellent prospects topped out around that level. Or much worse...

He was born in New York, but I think he lived in the DC/Baltimore area. When Adam Jones was still on the Orioles he definitely advertised some Ravens tailgates with Biz.

The context of this discussion is do we sign Correa to a 6-8 year deal at $200M+. To answer that question you need to consider that there are reasonable chances that Holliday, Mateo and Henderson are all above-average MLB shortstops. So this very substantial investment in Correa would necessarily block or mean a change in position or trade for several of them. And for a good long while all of them will be much cheaper.

He just opted out of a deal that was going to pay him $35M for each of the next two years. I'd guess it's going to take at least 6/210, and that's before teams with deep pockets start a bidding war.

But Biz Markie is dead, so will it ever be the same?

If you want to see some people's heads explode, get a time machine and take the 1902 Pirates and their fans and have them watch the 2019-2021 Orioles. The '02 Pirates allowed four homers the whole year. I'm guessing the 2019 Orioles had innings where they allowed four homers.

Not crazy, no. But his context-adjusted performance would probably have been about the same.