DrungoHazewood

BUT THE PLAYOFFS!!!!!11!!11 I heard they're not even going to have playoffs next year so if we don't get some now we may never get chance again.

You wanted the Orioles to acquire the kind of talent from other teams that they could get without hurting the plan, which would almost certainly be flawed role players. Since flawless players are never available for spare change. Because you really, really don't want them to call up flawed players from AAA who cost nothing and are playing well? Almost every player has a flaw you can exploit sometimes. If Elias waited to call up Stowers until, say, his strikeout rate improved by 30% he'd still be at Norfolk when he becomes a six year minor league free agent.

I'm interested in how any player is going to learn to hit against really top caliber MLB pitchers who adjust to your tendencies on a daily basis if you're in AAA?

It's not park, it's defensive systems. bb-ref uses DRS, which has Rodriguez as a +3 fielder with a +3 positional adjustment. Fangraphs uses the more accurate OAA and has him as slightly below average in defense+position. Adley ahead on Fangraphs 3.3 to 3.0, Rodriguez ahead on bb-ref 4.1 to 3.4. Since Fangraphs transitioned to OAA for defense I have shifted to something like a 90-10 weighting of their version of WAR for non-pitchers.

His Steamer rest-of-season projection is .232/.303/.428. I don't know how often they update that, but I think that's a pretty plausible line. Of course if he gets 75-100 PAs his range of outcomes could be anything from at least a .575 OPS to a .900. But the mid-range would be in the mid 700s.

Feel free to frame it however it makes the Orioles look worst.

Did they? I guess this site could be wrong, but they say the Astros' payroll was 30th in 2013 (51 wins), 30th in 2014 (70 wins), 29th in 2015 (86 wins), 30th in 2016 (84 wins), and 18th in 2017 (101 wins). Total payroll went up from '13-15, was flat in '16 then up significantly in '17. Where are the Orioles in this chronology? I'd say they're somewhere in the '14-15 timeframe where the Astros were last or 2nd-to-last in the majors in payroll. Anyway, if you want to use this as a record of deceit, sure, why not.

The future can provide guidance and lessons, but you have to use some common sense and realize when circumstances change behavior will likely change with them. The Astros threw everything into development and accumulation of future assets, right up until they didn't.

Fans love to pick and choose interviews with front office folks and take every off-the-cuff conversation as a notarized plan of action that must not be deviated from. I have no reason to think that Elias was lying, but circumstances change. Managers of large, complex organizations don't issue Microsoft Project files to the public that document every changing inch-stone in each player's development.

The connection between this and the gambling discussion is tenuous at best. And how is it hypocritical to believe Elias when he says that when the team is poised to contend he will expand payroll and do other things to shift emphasis from future wins to current wins? Because you think that they should be all in right now, and should have called up everyone months ago? You and @Can_of_corn will have a point if it's opening day 2023 and Elias hasn't really signed anyone of significance in the offseason, and several of Stowers, Henderson, Hall, Rodriguez are still in AAA. I will gladly start a thread saying you two were right and I'm wrong.

You're pointing to past behavior in very different circumstances. Elias has said that when they are ready to contend they'll behave differently and prioritize winning over simply accumulating future assets. Assuming that means now into next year. Your assumption is, apparently, that he's not telling the truth.

Perhaps idiots was the wrong term, but you're clearly saying that Elias and Co. are and will continue to prioritize money and control over wins, this year and next. When you don't have any idea what they're going to do next year and you can't know when they would have called up Rutschman without the injury.

You know that's nonsense. Anthony Volpe is the #5 prospect in baseball, Isiah Kiner-Falefa is OPSing .635 and the Yanks are freefalling, so I guess they're idiots for not calling him up? The April 2022 Rodriguez and April 2023 Henderson situations are very different. You just like being curmudgeonly and hammer this woe is us, the Orioles are intentionally losing not only right now but also next year narrative.

Rodriguez had 80 innings in AA and zero in AAA, and the Orioles were expecting a 60-something win season. Henderson is the #1 or #2 prospect in baseball and is tearing up AAA for a team that expects to contend in 2023. But, sure, Henderson will be in Norfolk in June of next year even if healthy and and playing very well while the Orioles have a clear and present need for him.

I think they're going to pull a Don Baylor on him and have him spend 1200 plate appearances in AAA OPSing nearly 1.000. Just because it's fun to assume the Orioles are going to do nonsensical things.

Duquette had the title and the responsibility. If Buck told him to trade Hader, Rodriguez and Davies and the rest and he didn't like it he could have taken it to ol' Pete, or he could have quit. And yes, I like winning, too. But I want this team to win for years and not have another collapse. Part of that is long-term planning and not treating the farm as just a tool you leverage to win right now.

I mean sure, we don't know. He could have been rollerblading to the game on Brady's old route and saved a kid from being hit by a bus. Or he could have fallen asleep in Marty Cordova's tanning bed.

After years of Duquette, who I actually think did a good job given his circumstances, it's nice to have a GM whose every move isn't mortgaging the future for today. But Stowers and Henderson should be up in September.

Lopez has allowed 10 hits and three runs (4.50 ERA) in six innings with the Twins. Two saves, two blown.

Nevin has a career AA/AAA OPS of about .740. Stowers about .900. Henderson .955. That tilts the scale pretty heavily towards Stowers and Henderson.

Sorta. He played well defensively. But in mid-September he was hitting .259/.287/.406, good for a .692 OPS in his first 179 PAs. Then he had three straight two-hit games, but even at that finished at .739. It's not like they called up 1966 Frank Robinson or something.

That's called sports. There aren't too many teams in the world who have the stands packed with rabid fans when the team is in a bad run. The 1992 Yankees had half the attendance of the Orioles, and were 11th in the AL despite being in the biggest city in the country. That was after four years of being just below .500. Die hards are a small percentage of the fanbase. If you walked around Fenway half the people in the stands would have no idea who Dwight Evans is.

If a player has 2000 career PAs or 500 innings, and they're doing much better in 300 PAs or 75 innings this year how much weight would you give to this year compared to their prior performances?

Finding a first baseman/DH who can OPS 100-110 is one of the easier challenges for a GM. If they wanted to. Mountcastle isn't even arb eligible for another year, so carrying his 113 career OPS+ and letting him try to fix things isn't hurting much. Hays needs to turn things around, obviously, but he's still on pace for a 2.5 win season or more.

You know far more about the sketchy parts of greater Baltimore than me. I'm just a rube from Southern Maryland.