geschinger

Future waves don't have to have as much quantity as the talent at the MLB should be much higher. Also not sure why we would automatically assume there isn't another bumper crop. Whose to say one of Bassalo, Mayo, Willems, etc...don't have a Gunnar level emergence joining Jackson at the top of prospects lists. Not to mention the org is stocked with prospects that are close like Cowser, Heston, Ortiz, Norby etc.. and can either improve the MLB team or are far enough long to have the kind of value to bring in missing pieces. One has to distinguish between going cheap and being smart. Assume for a moment Machado was still an Oriole and they won - it would still be irresponsible/dumb to have signed him to a contract that paid him through age 40 like SD did regardless of how popular he might be with fans. Not signing Manny in that scenario is smart not cheap. Now if the Orioles have a chance to extend Adley for ~6 years and are not doing so that would be cheap and dumb.

I think it's more discipline than who they want/don't wan't. They did want to keep Correa - they tried to extend him several times. Where they seem to draw the line (smartly IMO) was years that extended into mid 30s. I think Altuve's long term contract was through age 32. I think they would have jumped at opportunity to sign Correa to a 5-6 year deal (I believe he was 26 at the time) but a 10+ year deal was not seriously considered. Springer was on the wrong side of 30. I think they like Bregman, but when he's a FA he'll be on the wrong side of 30 so I think he'll be gone as well.

I agree that it shouldn't take tanking 4+ years. 3 100 loss seasons allow the accumulation of enough draft capital to rebuild a farm system with good drafting.

Has it? Maybe, but I seem to recall they've done extensions in the past and still sold those players off well before the extension expiration date. It will take some time to convince me it has changed.

We're going in circles as you are focused on what can be done to maintain a successful franchise, and I'm talking about what was needed to rebuild a franchise/farm system from the ground up. I fully expect the Orioles to now be one of the teams that win year in and year out and put out a very good farm system. Draft well, and augment the system by spinning off other assets for prospects and international. Tanking is not needed to accomplish this. And yes, several teams do this year in and year out. But that is not the context Elias had to start from.

Agree completely and if they are winning it can average at the higher end of that range assuming attendance increases.

Not true, there are not plenty of teams at the bottom of the draft adding anywhere near the quantity and quality of talent the Orioles have added via the amateur draft the last couple of years Depending on the list - somewhere 6 or 7 MLB top 100 prospects from those amateur drafts not to mention another 2 - Adley and Gunnar in Baltimore from recent amateur drafts.

From hearing Angelos talk, that might be the most realistic outcome. But I'm hoping the model is Houston but with a payroll slightly rightsized for the Baltimore market. I think this is entirely doable with a payroll no higher than it was in the mid 2010s. And we did hire staff from Houston and nothing the Orioles have/haven't done to this point has deviated from that Houston model. I don't want to see the Orioles sell every player but also be realistic about whom they can keep. For every Altuve like long term deal, let Correa and Springer type talent go with talent in the pipeline to take their place instead of bad contracts keeping players into their 30s.

No one that I'm aware of is saying you have to draft high to have a good farm system. I expect Elias to keep the Orioles farm system good while hopefully picking low in future years by having pieces he can spin off and an International presence that is finally contributing. But as we both know, those augmentations to the amateur draft barely existed when we tanked. You need significant draft capital to go from a bad farm system to a great one within a couple of years if you have nothing else to augment that farm system. But please, if I'm wrong, point to a franchise that has made even half as much progress improving their farm system through the amateur draft as the Orioles have made while picking low.

How do you build a farm system with no international presence (which barely existed and was only starting to be built out) no valuable MLB chips to trade for prospects without the draft resources that come with being at the top of the draft? You certainly aren't going from where they were at in 2018 to where they are at now without that. The Orioles are beating up on some bad teams right now which is great, but I don't see the MLB roster as a legitimate WS contender as is. It's the talent pipeline that has them in position to plug younger/better players in soon and/or be used to acquire others that gets them to that point and that is the reason I'm bullish on their chances to contend over the next few years. And that absolutely does not exist sans tanking.

Sure it is. If they didn't tank the farm system would be nowhere near what it is now and a great farm system is the catalyst to being in a position to contend. The Orioles would not / could not have made anywhere near the progress they've made with the significantly fewer draft resources they would have had to work with without tanking. Now that they are building out an international presence that is starting to show some promise in the future having fewer draft resources available may be less of an issue for a talent pipeline but that didn't exist at the time. Tanking is the reason the organization is in a position to contend.

This is why the deal makes a lot of sense AZ. They believe he's going to develop into a great player. They get him for 8 or 9 years including what is likely to be at least 80-100% of his peak years for $111m or $139m. Without this deal the cost of getting what are most likely going to be his 2-3 years is one of those 10/300 type contracts almost none of which end up being good deals for the team. If he is as expected, that is a home run to get those years and then let someone else give him a stupid contract. I would love to see the Orioles sign Adley to an 8 year extension now even if it was without a discount to have his entire peak locked up whereas to get his best years will require what would almost certainly be a huge mistake - signing him to a market rate mega extension 4 or 5 years from now that takes him into his mid to late 30s.

What I see as the benefit is that if he is as good as expected, they are getting his peak without any commitment to the typical decline. That lack of commitment is the upside of the deal. To get the age 26-30 years with no commitment after that typically requires a 10/300 type of contract for guys good enough to be up at 21. If his pattern of aging is not atypical they'll get his prime and then they can let him walk and let some other team give him the typical mega deal for his decline years.

Looks like other than Carlos Gomez were within a year of FA but at least that does give some hope if one of his clients falls in love with Baltimore. The Orioles should not even entertain the kind of contract Strassburg got. What good is an extension if you are on the hook if the player underperforms but if they over-perform they've got a rolling opt-out? I don't see how that makes sense for a team to offer - there is no upside.

Boras has been vocal about his distaste for extensions buying out arb and free agent years that 'snuff out' the market. I can't recall any that he's done but maybe I forgetting someone. Did you have any of the 7-8 year ones in mind that would give some hope that there is potential to do that with one of the Orioles pre-arb players or prospects?

That's always a fear until we see how things play out. I still think we'll see more of an Astros model. Occasional extension but a willingness to let players walk away rather than commit to deals into players mid 30s and beyond. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but this is the approach I hope the Orioles take. If a player is willing to buy out a year or two of FA (or more) they have done extensions (Altuve/Bregman) but have also been also perfectly willing to let guys like Correa and Springer play out their years of control and either let them walk or trade them at the tail end of that. They've shown a good level of discipline without being swayed by fans reactions.

Not sure I see the relevance. It is nice to see a flexible approach though. In 2019 they pick Adley + Gunner going ~$250k over slot on those first two picks. This didn't leave them resources to roll the dice with a few significant (+$1m over slot deals later in the draft). In 2020 Kjerstad + Westburg left them $2.5m under slot giving them a couple of chances to go $1m over slot and get a couple of tough sign HS kids to join the org - including Mayo. Too soon to tell, but seems like it has a decent chance of working out that they took the correct approach both years.

It would be interesting to see if Frobby or someone knows the answer for MASN but there is one team that offers a direct-to-consumer streaming option - the Red Sox with NESN 360. It is only available in the Red Sox market territory, it's $30 a month and reviews are horrible about the quality. The skill set for running a broadcast network that lets cable companies handle distribution doesn't seem to translate to competently running an OTT streaming service.

I would love it if there were such an offering but not sure the economics work. Say they charged $120 a year. They would have to get somewhere between 800,000 and 1,000,000 subscribers to cover rights fees, assuming it's $50-60m per year per team. Would anywhere near that many O's and Nat's households pay that much to watch MASN? I don't think that's likely. And that is before any/all expenses to operate (or outsource) a streaming platform is accounted for. Not sure advertising would be anywhere near enough to cover that.

It wouldn't surprise me at all. Carriage fees are the most significant revenue driver - no way additional advertising from having a second team's games cover the rights fees for that second team. That makes losing subscribers far worse for MASN than other single-team RSNs.

They did come off a year of record revenue with the large payout from Disney. However the news since all those big contracts were given out has to be concerning for the industry. RSNs are imploding - Bally and SportsNet on the brink of bankruptcy. Those two companies handle the local tv media rights for almost 2/3 of MLB. One piece I read about it estimated that teams should expect their local media rights fees to be cut by as much as 70%. ESPN's revenue is deteriorating quickly as a result of cord cutting / loss of ad revenue according to Disney in their latest financial results. TBS was acquired by Discovery which seems to be going in a completely different direction - will they be willing to pay big for TV rights when the existing deal expires? If the trends don't change a reduction seems much more likely than an increase in broadcast TV revenues when those deals come up for renewal in a few years. Long way of saying there is a very good chance 2022 was the peak for MLB revenue and teams that spent like 2022 is the new baseline may be doing some severe payroll cost cutting a few years from now.

Service clock should be an issue for the best players in the system who legitimately have a good chance of finishing at the top of ROY voting. Maximize the opportunity to keep the talent pipeline flowing by rolling the dice for more picks. I hope they play service time games to allow someone like Holliday to be on an opening-day roster with rookie status intact - i.e. the Gunnar approach. I hope he performs well enough for an end-of-2024 call-up and on the opening-day 2025 roster, which I think is realistic.

The market definitions for some zip codes is wild. Years ago I was in Las Vegas for an extended time and was blacked out of an entire Orioles road trip. At the time there were 7 teams claiming NV as part of their market.

If they get a ring, it may be worth it. If not ouch. They will be fun to watch, but so will the Orioles and as long as they are willing to ramp up payroll similarly to how Houston has done they won't have to spend any more than they spent in the mid 2010s and they'll have as good a chance for success as the Padres have but sustainably. It won't be a short window before the wheels come off.

The Padres will be extraordinarily lucky if there are only 2-3 mediocre to bad years. Odds of being more than mediocre in his mid 30s are low let alone his late 30s.