FanSince88

This is the Platonic ideal of exactly the kind of signing a rebuilding club should make. Well played, Elias!

This is the kind of return we should have gotten for Villar. I think Bundy's trade value is roughly equivalent. So I'm happy with Bundy's return. The 6th and 8th round picks, if you do the math, were in the top 200 and 300 of draftees this year. And Bradish was a top 150 prospect in last year's draft. Check out this link that attempts to put a monetary value on draft picks https://blogs.fangraphs.com/an-update-on-how-to-value-draft-picks/. Peek is worth roughly $2.5 million, Brnovich $1.5 million, and Bradish $2.8 million. Bundy is projected to be a 2 WAR pitcher next year, which would put the value of his contribution around $16 million. He'll likely make $5.7 million in arbitration, so he's likely to contribute $10 million in surplus value. The sum of our prospects' value is pretty close to that surplus. So I think we got roughly equivalent value using these heuristics and the situation we're in. Villar, on the other hand, only got us back a single 14th round draft pick in Lucas, which is only worth $1 million. Villar is projected to be about a 1.8 WAR player next year. Even though his arb figure is more expensive, it's still kind of a bargain compared to the roughly $14 million or so his play is projected to be worth. I would like to have seen one or two more prospects who were recent 6-10th round picks in exchange for Villar. One 14th round pick seems like a very low return for him.

I absolutely despise it anytime Davis plays first base, because it means Trey Mancini isn't. I'd rather they played Davis in the outfield instead of Mancini. Davis stinks in the outfield too, but at least we would then be showcasing Mancini at his natural defensive position, not a position he can't play well and is more likely to injure himself playing. If the Orioles are truly going to consider dealing Mancini at the 2020 deadline or next offseason, then he can't keep playing corner outfield. Let him build up a defensive resume at first base, which is his best defensive position. Heck, I'd rather see Davis playing third base or frickin second base if it keeps Mancini out of the outfield. If ownership is too stubborn to release Davis, then at the very least Hyde and Elias need to stick him in the outfield or DH to prevent Mancini from playing there. If Davis doesn't like it, he can ride the pine or retire.

Yes, he's been trying to trade Villar, I have no doubt. But the other GMs have been playing rope-a-dope, and just got a TKO. What we did with Villar is not a "sell-off." It's more like deciding not to pay increased property tax and letting the county take the title away from you, instead of putting your house on the market. Now is the right time to deal Bundy. He's probably at peak value and he's due for an injury. Even if he somehow pitches well (under 4.00 ERA) this season, his value won't rise because his service time will be decreased. Only way his value rises if he posts a blistering hot first half of 2020 (like top-15 starter level hot), and then maybe he becomes more valuable. But I don't see that happening. Mancini probably won't be dealt before July 31, 2020, and maybe not even then. We may just hang on to him to put a few butts in seats because the trade interest isn't there from other teams. Only if contender gets real desperate because of a rash of injuries to their sluggers would we get a nice return for him. But it's just as likely that a team with that severe of a roster problem just throws in the towel and tanks for the rest of the year.

In my unprofessional opinion, it does seem that Elias got played a bit by some of the other GMs with this Villar thing. Releasing him is exactly what the contending teams want. Now, it's shamefully true that half the teams in baseball aren't trying to win and probably don't want Villar at any price. And it's also true that guys like Villar are criminally undervalued in today's analytics-driven MLB climate. But he's not a bum by any stretch and is still at least league-average. And there should be at least 10-12 teams who are trying to contend (SOMEONE has to fill those 10 playoff spots after all), and they have to be loving the fact that Villar is hitting the open market and won't have to give up any prospects to get him. I wish Elias had called the other GMs' bluffs. Maybe it would have blown up in his face, with Villar getting injured in Spring Training before we can flip him. But at least we would have gone down with a fight. We just folded our cards here, we blinked first, we let other GMs stare us down and folded our hand when we had a straight. I wish we'd shown a little faith in Villar and gone down swinging. Odds are, someone's starting middle infielder gets hurt, and they have to come crawling to our door offering a Top 200 guy. I'm willing to chalk this up to a young GM getting scared into folding prematurely at the poker table by the other cigar-chomping sharks. Hopefully Elias will take it as a learning experience when the Cardinals sign Villar for a 3 year, $25 million deal, and doesn't let himself get bullied again.

That's a big if, and I'm not holding my breath. At the bare minimum, they need to find someone who is a defensive upgrade from Villar, bat be darned. At least then it will give our pitchers a break, and bring the games to a merciful end more quickly.

Yup, you nailed it. The other factor driving down Villar's price -- besides the devaluing of basepath ability in the modern game -- is that 2/3 of the American League is basically tanking. So it's a double whammy -- Villar has undervalued tools, and the market stinks for sellers. Oh, and teams are hoarding prospects more than they ever have. Having fun yet? I hope Manfred realizes what a bore his game is becoming.

Two thoughts about this. 1) This speaks volumes about the sorry state of contemporary MLB baseball. 20 years ago, and definitely 30 years ago, teams would be falling over themselves to give us a top 100-200 prospect for a 20/40 guy Villar who can play multiple infield positions. Now the analytics nerds are obsessed with three-true-outcomes oafs who can barely jog and are about as fun to watch as waiting for paint to dry. His one year, 10 million salary is an enormous bargain for a guy with his skill set who posted 4 WAR last year. 2) Despite the extant factors about the MLB that may have prevented the Orioles from getting a good deal, I would have appreciated the front office throwing us fans a bone by bringing Villar back. He's an interesting guy to watch play the game. I am not looking forward to watching Wilkerson or whatever comparative scrub they stick at second base. His salary is a huge bargain and we would at least be able to do a salary dump on July 31 if nothing else. I get that there's a long term plan in play here, and that's totally fine, but in the meantime is it really too much to ask to keep ONE guy on the diamond at a bargain price who isn't a snoozefest to watch? I'd be happy to get a few more wins and a lot more fun with Villar, even if it means (gasp) "settling" for the #2 pick in the 2021 draft. I trust Elias's long term plan, but in the short run, just how empty do these guys want Camden Yards to get?

Because Bundy's problems are directly related to homers, which Petco suppresses. If his main problem was walks, Petco wouldn't help that. But his main problem is homers, which Petco does help. Petco plays to Bundy's strengths and masks his weaknesses. Bundy's average exit velocity isn't particularly bad and he's actually very good at suppressing hard hit balls. It's just that his average launch angle is high. A spacious outfield is likely to give Bundy much greater marginal benefit than it would other pitchers.

Let the prospect blocking begin. Might as well trade three of Mountcastle, Nunez, DJ Stewart, and Mancini because Davis is apparently not going anywhere since the Angelos family can never admit they were wrong. Awesome.

TL;DR: The 2020 class is deep with no clear-cut front-runner, and the Orioles have more to gain by their existing players getting better and finding success than getting the #1 pick instead of #2 in 2020 (or #2 instead of #3). https://www.camdenchat.com/2019/8/7/20757690/mlb-baltimore-orioles-detroit-tigers-mlb-draft-2020-mike-elias

How do you know we are the ones who asked for Villar? Seems more likely the Brewers offered him because they wanted to make space for Schoop. Bad call on their part.

Yeah, this. In hindsight, I give this trade a B for Baltimore and a B+ for Atlanta. Gausman helped them win the division last year.

The Braves have all but clinched a playoff spot this year but they were in a tight playoff race at last year's deadline. Gausman's marginal value was worth much more to them last year in the context of a tight playoff race than his ineptitude has "hurt" them year where they've run away with the division anyway.

Gausman was worth 1 WAR last year for the Braves, and -1 WAR this year for them. So from strictly the ATL and BAL point of view, it basically boils down to a double salary dump and some meh prospects for us, in exchange for a 2 month rental for the Braves of an above-average starting pitcher performance. This year was a bust and Atlanta cut bait on him, so you kind of just write it off. Hence, in hindsight, what looked to me at the time like a C- kind of trade for Baltimore sort of looks like a solid B. Still wish we had pressed for better prospects, though, even if it meant we had to keep O'Day. Not sure what all that salary dump really does for us, given that we already have one of the lowest payrolls in the league. It's not like we're looking to make any splashy FA signings this offseason (or, let's be honest, not likely the following offseason either).

Pretty sure Villar is a solid MLB asset, regardless of what you think of him. He's maybe not quite good enough to start for a playoff contender, but good enough to be a bench guy just about anywhere. Too bad the defensive metrics weren't kind to him this year, that could have really depressed his value. His bat and speed are fine, though, for a middle infielder. There's still time to deal him. And he's way, way better than anyone else we could be playing at second or short right now in our system.

This isn't the end of the world. No rush to trade any of these guys right now. Still can get a deal done in the offseason without losing a whole lot of trade value for any of them. Villar now becomes a one-year rental, but it looks like not many people were interested in him this deadline anyway. Maybe an important middle infielder gets injured sometime in the next year and a desperate contender gives us a useful nugget or two for him.

I'll say this -- he seems to have way more to offer than Keon Broxton.

I don't know what exactly people like this author want the Orioles to do. Sure, we could have signed Manny, Harper, Kimbrel, and Keuchel last offseason and still not had the top payroll in the MLB. But what would it have accomplished? It wouldn't have solved the massive, systemic problems with our minor league system and overall talent pool. The Padres have a much better organization that ours right now, and they're still way out of the playoff race even with Machado...they aren't even good enough to be mediocre yet. That's not to say we shouldn't ever sign free agents, but there's a time and a place for that, and now is not that time. Hopefully, Elias will start making strong free agent signings once we start seeing prospects become ready for prime time...with any luck that should be around the winter of 2021. Until then, it's heads-down focus on developing the entire pipeline, not just signing free agents who are close to being past their prime to guaranteed deals. If this author doesn't like that he should maybe put his energy into reforming the service time system. If a team has nobody around big-time free agents to support them, by the time they do get prospects ready to play, the free agents signees will have already started to decline or their contracts will have already expired. It's all about timing.

All of a sudden, the San Francisco Giants are in the thick of the NL wild card race. Everyone assumed they would be sellers (and they still should be! Their team really isn't very good!), but now that they're mathematically in it (ahem, 6% playoff odds), their front office might make the same franchise-killing mistake we made in 2015 and pass on trading their chips at the deadline for a fruitless pursuit of a wild card berth. They've already taken Bumgarner off the table, apparently. The relevance for the Orioles is that the Giants have not one, not two, not three, but FOUR relievers who would be desperately coveted by real contenders who need bullpen help (Smith, Moronta, Watson, and Dyson, and heck even someone might kick the tires on Melancon). If the Giants keep their relievers off the market, that alone will jack the price of relievers up for other sellers. Hence, we should be able to get a good bit more for Givens. Go Giants! And hopefully your front office is a shortsighted as ours was in 2015!

The Vidalin situation is definitely weird and worrisome. But nobody's talking, and until we have some sort of testimony about what really went down there, it's all speculation. Could be as banal as Vidalin got homesick, or could be something much more serious. Without an explanation, though, it's natural for people to jump to the worst conclusion. And unless there is some sort of explanation, speculation is going to run wild.

The fact that he has such a minus glove is way more disappointing than his sub-.500 OPS. I tip my cap to the A's for foreseeing this and leaving him unprotected in the Rule 5. It might not be too early to say that we could have had better results giving someone else a chance -- perhaps even Drew Jackson. Super-frustrating when a putative glove-first guy can't even field well.

What's interesting and a bit ironic is that shortstop is probably the deepest it's ever been across the MLB today. Total OPS for all MLB shortstops is now .770, higher than 2B, CF, and C, only 15 points behind 3B, and only 10 points behind DH (!). The silver lining is that there should be a supply of young SS on other teams who are blocked and/or post-hype prospects that would be an upgrade over Martin both short and long term. I'm thinking about guys like Jorge Mateo on the A's, Myles Straw on the Astros (who's also a CF), or Garrett Hampson on the Rox. Can we pry away any of these guys with a trade package? Probably doubtful, but maybe if their teams get desperate enough. And there should be others hitting the waiver wire who may have more upside and/or a higher floor than Martin. Whether or not we keep Martin, makes sense to explore pre-arb, MLB-ready SS from other sources for next season and beyond, while at the same time trying to stock our low minors with high upside talent. At this point, only 6 weeks from roster expansion, we probably keep Martin and it's probably the right move. Atomic's suggestion of kicking the tires on what it would take to persuade the a's to give him up so we can send him to AAA makes sense, but the terms would probably be too demanding for Elias' liking.

Oh, I didn't know that, thanks for the correction. Then this move from Elias make a lot more sense. Still would have waited a couple weeks to see who gets hurt, but that's a bit of a nitpick I suppose.

I would have waited this out until the end of July or maybe even end of August. Never know who might get hurt between now and then. The guys we got are hardly "can't miss" and hard to believe we wanted them so bad that we couldn't risk losing them to another team or whatever. The biggest thing that bugs me is Cashner made it very clear he didn't want to be traded and we did anyway for next to nothing in return. That's not a great look, and future free agents could use that against us. However, this is hardly a major blunder by Elias, in my opinion. It was a no-brainer to try to move a rental like Cashner, and if this is the best he thinks he could get, so be it. Not a great fan of the return, but castigating Elias for this trade is not going to be my hill to die on.