geschinger

It's possible they are trying to offset subscriber losses with higer rates but not sure how well that works. I know the YES network tried to raise rates in 2021 and they were quickly dropped by all the streaming providers who previously offered it other than DTV. The great thing about the Dodgers and Padres any everyone else who is locked in for the longer term - is they get their money based on the peak of RSN era no matter what happens with the model going forward. Unfortunately the Orioles have the opposite scenario and own all of the risk of a declining offering.

I suspect you would easily win that bet. I think i remembered reading here they lost a couple million subscribers several years ago and. Subscriber hemorrhages have not slowed down since (and assuming MASN is not an exception) I'm really envious of a team like the Dodgers - not for the amount of their deal as I know that would never have been possible for Baltimore - but for the foresight to lock up their best case scenario deal into the late 2030s and offloading almost all of the risk.

What the Padres have that the Orioles don't is that they are in the middle of a > $1bn TV rights deal where their money is locked in despite RSNs hemorrhaging subscribers at an alarming rate. They were able to get a favorable TV deal as their market also includes and brings in revenue from the Las Vegas as well. The Orioles can certainly spend a lot more than they are now - even as much as 3x should be doable. But their media $ situation is nowhere near as good as what SD has.

Lowering expectations. If the expectation is set that winning the division is the expectation and a month into the season they young guys / rookies are going through a bit of a sophmore slump or struggling to acclimate to MLB there is more pressure on them and then to sit them if they are hurting the team's W/L record. IMO Under promise / over deliver is better - even when it comes to GM/Coach speak.

I don't think they'll crack the top 5, but they were 10th as recently as 2017. If they are consistenly winning it wouldnt be out of charcter for a top 10-15 payroll that occasionally jumps a bit higher.

No doubt, it's a tough thread to needle. I do think there are some decent options left who would be upgrades from what the Orioles have now who if they won't take a one year deal might be able to be had on a 2 year deal which is also fine.

I think this liftoff thing is being wildly misintrepted and has spun out of control. I think is likely nothing more than he slipped back into language / hype / motto from his previous team when they too came off a season as suprising as the Orioles 2022 season. Take a look at how many big FA contracts "Liftoff" equated to for that front office in the offseason before the 2016 season. As you know, the current Orioles braintrust were key contributors to that Liftoff front office.

Who wins if the Orioles hand out the $55-60m long term contracts you talked about in previous posts and the Orioles cannot sign all the guys to extensions? And would they even want to sign an extension if the roster they are playing with has 40% of payroll (or whatever $55-60 would be) dedicated to unproductive players? I'll tell you who doesn't win and that is the Orioles. I can tell you that this philosophy has been successfully used for a team that has been to the playoffs 6 consecutive years. I don't see their fans being disappointed that team has taken that philosophy and run with it, do you?

I think that is way too high when even if we're maxing out paryoll we're going to be significantly outspent by those teams with significantly more revenue than Baltimore has. I fully expect the Orioles like every team are going to end up with some bad contracts. I would prefer those to come from bets that have a better chance of paying off. I.e. I'd rather the bad contract being trading for and extending a guy like Lopez and having that not work out than a FA deal we know from day one is going to be a bad contract in the last x number of years. I'd rather take advantage of the super low payroll this year by overpaying one or two guys to come in on a one year deal. I think that makes a lot more sense than adding years or whatever to try to outbid other teams for someone like Rodon.

I doubt it it will be significantly higher. If it has a massive increase in revenue like the NFL is getting with it's TV/streaming deals I could something like 30 being what 20 is now. But doubt it's the case as I'm not sure where that additional revenue is going to come for that signficant of a jump. Unlike with the NFL, some MLB media contracts like ESPN are actually decreasing - the rights fees for 2022-2028 are for 20% less revenue than they've been getting and RSNs are hemorrhaging subscribers as more people cut cable. If you were tasked with optimizing contention for the long term (i.e. not a build up for a 2-3 window and then tear it down and rebuild which would change the calculus) what percentage of overall payroll do you think you comfortably write off to bad contracts and be successful?

I disagree. Assuming there isn't some major increase in revenues (which seems unlikely with the slow demise of RSNs) having ~20-25% of payroll lost to a bad contract is not something the Orioles or anyone else can easily contend with.

Again, if it's 55m for a year or two without that coming with a commitment of 55m in 2026 and beyond that should be doable. But tell me how you would spend that to improve in 2023 without sticking the team with those contracts in 2026 and beyond? The Orioles are never going to spend like the the Los Angeles Dodgers. The most likely optimistic scenario is that there spending will be somewhere in the neighbrohood of 15th highest payroll occasinly spiking to ~10th or so. $55m in bad contracts in 2026 and beyond makes it incredibly difficult to extend homegrown talen and still build out a competetive roster with a payroll in the 10-15 range. I don't think the Astros model is easy - several teams have tried and failed. But again, Elias was part of an implementation that brought him a ring and he's done phase 1 successfully a second time. Why shouldn't they let him continue with phase 2 instead of abandoning that approach.

Of the FA deals signed so far Quintana is the only one I would have been okay with. If they do nothing I'll be disappointed as well but I'm confident that they will improve the team before Spring Training. And as i've said on a previous thread - I think the absolute best place to use payroll flexibility will to be buyers at the deadline this year. In a perfect world we given a bunch of our prospects a lot of ABs to where we have an idea who we can count on and who is expendable and we use assets and payroll flexibility to improve. I think the opprtunity for value then dwarfs the opportunity now in an overheated FA market.

All for that if that is possible - i.e. it not taking contracts into 2026 and beyond to sign them as bad contracts absolutely hurt the long term plan.

You are saying you want them to go big in FA which is blowing up the plan for long term success. Saddling the team with long term contracts where the back end is almost certainly going to be wasted money is inconsistent with and would be abandoning that approach. What you are saying is you don't believe that phase two of the approach that worked so well for the reigning world champions cannot work in Baltimore. What evidence is there that it will not work and that we should abandon that approach?

If the team regresses because Grayson, Hall, Adley, Gunnar, Cowser, Ortiz, Stowers, Westburg et al either regress or are not ready I'll be disappointed but I'd prefer that over signing a bunch of players to take ABs and innings away from them to maximize W/L in 2023 but make it more difficult to field the best possible team in 2026 and beyond I'm not disappointed we didn't sign some of the guys that interested posters last year Eduardo Rodriguez or Kris Bryant come to mind. What I'd prefer to see them do this year is give a bigger 1 or 2 year deal to a pitcher who isn't getting the type of deal he expected. I'd like to see us trade for a Pablo Lopez. Those kind of moves where you improve for 2023 without taking away flexibility in 2026 and beyond. I just don't see how to spin overpaying in FA as being a better option than that.

Some other teams seemed to be on their way to trying it but didn't stick with it or failed in it's implementation. Ownership could still step in and sabotage it but to this point one cannot argue that the Orioles haven't been extrodinarily successful with the tank and farm system rebuild. Elias has arguably learned from some of the mistakes and been even more successful in stocking the farm system in his second chance of implementing the approach. I just don't understand why if he's been so successful in phase one that anyone would want to blow that up and change course instead of wanting to give him a shot to implement phase two. Usually when a plan seems to be working it's wise to stick with that plan instead of abandoning it.

So because we can't control what will happen in 2026 we should go ahead and saddle the teams with bad contracts? Doesn't seem logical. The most talented team in baseball and reigning world champions consistently improve their teams without long term deals in FA. But yeah, such an awful strategy that another team takling that approach has only been the best team in baseball for an extended period of time with no signs of regression in the immediate future. They don't have bad contracts on their books and therefore are focusing on a tiny window followed by a need to blow it up and start over.

If they could spend 70-80m this year without committing to 10s of millions in bad contracts in 2026 and beyond I'm guessing they would. So how would you suggest spending 70-80m this year w/o screwing up 2026 and beyond?

Yes, this is the Houston model. It baffles me how we can see how the reigning world champions have been run, how they've been in consistent contention for 6-7 years and then we have comments on this board implying that if the Orioles take that approach - it is toxic, hurts the fanbase, it's self sabotage. It makes no sense.

This is being greatly overblown. It's smart not to set expectations too high in a year where (hopefully) the team gives a ton of ABs and innings to rookies and young players. They are likely to struggle initially and it would be irresponsible not to get them as much experience as possible because they are trying to maximize the W/L record in 2023 and letting those guys take their lumps will lead to a worse W/L record.

Why is that a caveat - do you think the Astros roster from the past several years wouldn't have played in the AL East? They might not have won quite as many games but I don't look at their past several years and say they are only good becuase of their division. I never equated liftoff with going crazy in FA saddling the team with unproductive dollars when they are hopefully consistently contending. Doing so would be detrimental to consistent success and a deviation from an approach we know can work. What I hope it means is making some trades for players like Lopez and the absolute best use of payroll flexibility IMO is taking on salary to acquire talent at the trade deadline when teams out of it are looking to slash payroll. And if any of these FAs aren't getting the long term deals they want - kind of a like a Correa last year - swoop in and try to get them on a prove-it contract.

If they are unwilling to spend money to extend some of their homegrown talent then they are deviating from that approach - and that would more like taking the TB approach which can also be successful but I'd argue is inferior. Elias has said payroll will rise and so far everything the Orioles have done during his tenure is consistent with the Astros approach. Until I see the Orioles deviate from that approach I'm going to remain optimistic that they will. Astros payroll was 30th on opening day 2016, the year after their big jump to 86 wins. Opening day 2017 - league average. It's not like the Orioles have the TB track record when it comes to spending. Until I see some evidence otherwise I look at the past few years as the Orioles successfully implementing the tank portion of the Astros model almost to perfection considering where the farm system and young talent in the org is today.

We probably have the wrong front office if we were to shift to an approach to optimize putting the pieces together for a short run and then when the window closes blow it up and start over again. That can work too, text book example that comes to mind is the Phillies run in the late 2000s that they seemingly are trying to replicate now. I don't think you can take both approaches at the same time. Personally I prefer the O's taking the approach that works for Hou over the one that worked for Philadelphia.

Why accept that status quo? What would be wrong with the Orioles taking an approach not to saddle themselves with those unproductive dollars on the back end by just not playing the long term FA game? It is an approach that has been proven to be incredibly successful for Houston, why do you think it wouldn't work in Batlimore?