bluedog

Agreed. Mateo for Pepiot then. Who wants to reach out to Elias and tell him we've approved this trade?

Okay I'll bite - how could we have had Lawler?

Good catch. Looks like 3 of the guys ahead of Holliday will be graduated by mid-season as well. He may have a legit shot at #1.

Agreed. In Ootp24, I had to package a quality prospect with Frazier to get any other team to consider taking his shitty contract off my hands. Unless he starts putting up a monster season, if we want to move Frazier (or McCann) we'll have to eat their salary and / or take back even crappier contracts to do it.

I think Sports Guy is onto something here. It feels like a Mateo for Pepiot, Grove or Jackson swap where the O's add prospects to sweeten the deal would help both teams. The Dodgers have 8 guys capable of starting on their ML roster / injured list right now. The O's MI backlog matches up with the Dodgers SP backlog. Even without factoring in Mateo's potential improvement at the plate this season, the Dodgers would get a cost controlled, 3+ WAR defensive standout to plug their area of biggest need. That should be a strong starting position for Elias to swing a deal for a Starter. I think the O's replacing Mateo with Ortiz (or Gunnar and starting Urias at 3rd) and upgrading the worst pitcher in the rotation with any guy capable of cracking the Dodgers rotation would be a net improvement for the O's. I don't think the Dodgers who are in Win Now mode trade a major league piece for a prospect like Ortiz. If we want to move Ortiz, that feels like a trade with a rebuilding team who wants to move a veteran SP, not a trade with LAD.

4 for 5 tonight with 3 runs and a HR.

I don't know about Kjerstad getting promoted any time soon. Feels like Elias is happy with rotating every infielder the O's have that's not starting into outfield spots, defense be damned. I'd love to see Heston make the AA > Majors jump, but I'm not holding my breath. I'd feel better about gloating over the Yankees prospect woes if Gunnar was performing.

If this hasn't already been posted here, MLB.com now has a cool page for tracking Top 100 prospects performance across all leagues: https://www.mlb.com/prospects/stats/top-prospects Quick scan says Jackson Holliday is putting himself in good position to climb up the rankings given his performance, age & position so far relative to other top prospects. I'm hoping for three straight years with a different prospect in the #1 slot.

I just won the 2024 World Series as the O's in my first Ootp 24 play through. Keegin Akin and Coby Mayo were studs for the team along with Gunnar & Adley.

See the post above for the Pitching Roster. Hitting Roster below. By the way, the O's got Swept by the Guardians in the divisional round so its on to 2024 and the debut of Heston Kerstad as the next Aaron Judge...

1) It's easy to build a bullpen in Ootpb using the waiver wire, minor league players, rule 5 draft and low key FA pickups, just like Elias did with Voth, Baker, Perez, Bautista etc. I traded Bautista to get max value for the Closer effect and replaced him with Ron Marinaccio who the Yankees lost to me via Waivers. Marinaccio put up 44 saves (like 42 in a row at one point). 2) See attached for pitching stats. Kremer got hurt and missed the entire season after TJ surgery. I never signed Gibson or traded for Irvin and signed Salazar instead. Stallings was IL Pitcher of the Year and when Salazar ended up getting hurt, Garrett got the nod for the last several weeks and got the ball in Game 3 over Mitch White and Kyle Bradish. 3) Gunnar 3b, Vavra 2b initially and later replaced by Vidal Brujan , and Jose Barrero at SS who I picked up as a spare part in a trade. Everyone except Gunnar is keeping spots warm for Westburg & Ortiz in 2024.

I wasn't playing to win now, it just happened that all the moves I made worked out great, like Kelenic. I was actually tanking one more season by trading away all my cost controlled major league talent that I didn't consider part of my "core" moving forward in exchange for prospects - particularly pitching prospects. I held on to Adley, Gunnar, GRod, Means, Vavra, Stowers, Bradish and Kremer. Everyone else on the major league roster got dealt except for C Perez, Baker and Santandar (who had no takers. The sim started with the team state set prior to this offseason, so no Cole Irvin trade and I ended up signing Danny Salazar instead of Gibson as my back of the rotation innings eater for $8M. I'm playing '24 with Kerstad, Westburg, Cowser and the rest of the kids coming up to join the core. Should be fun.

Hall's control stats were so suspect that I just knew he was going to struggle to stay in the rotation. I looked for the best high upside left handed prospect I could find and Kelenic was the guy. I probably wouldn't do that IRL, but in Ootp I took a shot.

I'll be buying 24 the moment it comes out. We should form a chat group on OH for Ootpb players and compare notes.

Nope. Highest difficulty AI and Trade settings.

Ootpb has a model for player development as they age and GRod evolved elite stamina during the season which is why he was able to work 115 pitches. A man can dream right?

My favorite thing in the minors though was Heston Kjerstad putting up 46 HRs and 125 RBIs in Bowie to take home Eastern League POY honors.

Stallings was IL Pitcher of the Year with an 18 - 4 record. Extreme ground ball pitcher with elite defense behind him played well in Baltimore once Dean Keller went down with an injury requiring TJ surgery.

Game 3 - Aint the Beer Cold! Cedric Mullins and Gunnar Henderson each greeted McCullers with 1st inning blasts to right field as the O's built a 3 - 0 lead. Stalling's gave the O's just enough to get the game to the back of the O's bullpen where Cionel Perez, Ryne Stanek, Tom Cosgrove and Ron Marinaccio blanked the Astros with 3 innings of solid relief. Marinaccio needed only 10 pitches to grab his 45th save of the season as he sealed the O's first playoff series win of the Elias era. Gunnar Henderson's second two run homer run of the night gave the O's the lead for good in the 8th and helped the rookie of the year candidate to bring home series MVP. Next up the O's take on the Cleveland Guardians.

Game 2 - John Means pitched 7 innings of 2 ER ball with 10 Ks, but was outdueled by Christian Javier and took the loss. With nobody out and down by 2 runs, Cedric Mullins singled in Terrin Vavra in the 8th inning, stole 2nd base and went to 3rd on an errant throw from the catcher. Then Rutschman, Henderson and Stowers each struck out swinging to strand the tying run at 3rd. Next up Garrett Stallings versus Lance McCullers Jr for the decisive Game 3.

Not sure if anyone will find this fun or not, but here goes. I picked up Out of the Park Baseball 2023 a few weeks back and started a league as the O's. I made a number of impact trades including DL Hall for Jarred Kellenic who slotted into Left Field for the team from day one and delivered 34 HRs / 3.3 WAR while playing elite defense. Hall ended up leading the league in Walks for the M's, so I felt pretty good about this trade. Traded away Hays, Mountcastle, Urias and Mateo and picked up Gavin Sheets while turning over everyday 2B duties to Vavra and RF to Stowers allowing the team to run out 8 lefty / switch hitters each day against RHPs. Along the way, upgraded the bullpen with Brian Cosgrove and 3 former Yankees relievers who all fell into a roster crunch when NY signed too many high profile free agents. Rutchsman ended up the top C in the majors (6.3 WAR, .398 OPB), Kelenic was the 2nd ranked LFer and Gunnar was #6 at the hot corner in the bigs (33 HRs / 102 RBIs and 4.8 WAR) Grayson Rodriguez ended up 18 - 9 with a 2.77 ERA and a league leading 236 Ks for 6.0 WAR. GRod is likely the Cy Young and ROY winner in the AL. Net result - the O's grabbed the last wildcard with an 87 - 75 record and took on the Houston Astros in round one. The one O's youngster who had a terrible year was Vavra, who hit .154 for the season and couldn't hold down the starting 2b job. But he stuck as a super utility guy and a clubhouse leader (Ootp Baseball tracks personality types and contributions to team chemistry...). But - in the first playoff game against the Astros, Vavra was called to pinch hit in the 10th inning tied 6 - 6 with the bases loaded and delivered a bases clearing triple against Abreu to give the O's the win. After a walk, Stowers crushed his 2nd jack of the night to give the O's a 6 run lead, capping off a 4 hit, 8 RBI game and grab Game 1 MVP honors. Game box score attached. It's not real, but it still made me happy to see the O's win a playoff game... Have had a blast managing the O's elite farm system in the game. Let me know if anyone cares how the rest of the playoffs turn out.

I guess I wonder why Ortiz would have more trade value than Mateo. Ortiz has what, 3 months of playing at a high level? He's not a top 100 prospect yet. Mateo is a more well known quantity who is playing at a high level at the major league level.

Yes. Is he a cornerstone or a sell high candidate? For me, this all comes down to how you feel about Ortiz. If Ortiz is as good a defensive player as Mateo and has bigger offensive upside, I am all for trading Mateo, assuming he is valued by other teams well enough that he'd bring back quality assets in return. I haven't watched Ortiz enough to know if he is *the* guy. Thoughts?

Interesting. Knowing he's going to probably not come to Camden no matter what we offer him because of his hate of the wall, maybe Elias gives him a huge offer just to provide his agent maximum leverage in other negotiations. Also does double duty of showing Elias is serious about spending money on high profile FAs without actually risking getting another Chris Davis contract. I'm not sure Elias has the balls to play that kind of game of chicken.

Well we are now in the territory where you can't honestly express an opinion about Odor because of how negatively OH will react to saying anything about Odor. Unless I'm mistaken that was my first criticism of Odor. It was honest - my heart literally sinks every time he comes to bat in a meaningful situation. Watching the O's right now is like getting a Porterhouse at a AAA steakhouse. Odor is like biting into a piece of bone and chipping your tooth. That's no over the top hate against the guy. When he gets a hit I cheer. When he turns a tough DP I cheer. But honestly, given his late inning / clutch situation heroics from earlier this season, I feel like he'd be more valuable as a late inning PH and defensive replacement. Is that so crazy?