FanSince88
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Posts posted by FanSince88
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10 hours ago, GuidoSarducci said:
Ok well after reading this article, I'm not so sure anymove
I mean when's the last time a solid pitcher was hard up to actually stay in Baltimore, if he could have gone elsewhere. We might buy some goodwill down the line for free agents considering signing here if we honor his request to stay put.
Edit: And I would add, it is odd to me that Cashner's "reward" for playing well, is to get traded, against his will. Compared to, say, Alex Cobb.
I'd really hope that Elias sat Cashner down shortly after this came out and told him, "look, Cash, I'm super-flattered that you like our city and organization so much. But right now the best thing you can do for us is let us cash in on your value to help our rebuild. If you're willing to take a team-friendly deal next offseason to come back to Baltimore, I'm open to it!"
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33 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:
And Raffy aged exceptionally well. He was basically the same player at 26, 30, and 37. I don't think you can expect that from anyone.
Yeah, good point there Drungo, especially since it's pretty clear there were PEDs involved. Nevertheless, I don't believe it's out of the realm of possibility for Trey to follow Raffy's trajectory into his mid 30s (33 or 34). After that, there will almost certainly be a decline in production.
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If we're on the topic of comps, and want to be on the very optimistic side, how about....Rafael Palmeiro?
Palmeiro had a strong hit and power tool. He tried to play outfield early in his career and wasn't good defensively, then moved to first and was just okay. Mancini's defensive metrics at first base only are fairly similar (in a small sample size!) to Raffy's a the same age.
Way too early to declare Mancini another Palmeiro, but perhaps Palmeiro represents the ceiling of Manicini's value? It will all depend of course on how Mancini's bat ages. If it ages gracefully, and he's willing and able to adjust as the league adjusts to him, he's certainly got a great shot at providing similar career-wide value. That's a big "if" right now, but the potential is probably there.
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Essentially, compared to others at his position on contending teams, he's actually not all that special, despite being easily the best hitter on the Orioles.
This is a pretty strong argument. O's might be better off trying to see if he'd take a super team-friendly extension deal instead of trading him. I'm talking about maybe something like 5/50, to lock him in a fixed value during arbitration and get a few extra years after that of team control at a reasonable price. Mancini would get predictability and guaranteed money and avoid the risk of non-tender if he falls off.
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13 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:
I don't disagree. Even though there is no better alternative, we still have every right to complain about how bad he is.
I'm inclined to cut the guy a bit of slack. He's never had a single AAA at bat. He'll never hit for power. It took him until last year to have an OPS over .725 in the minors. If he can push his OBP over .300, and play up to his potential on defense, he'll have value. That probably won't happen this season, but it could in late 2020 or 2021.
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I guess the question around Martin is can the Orioles find a SS on the WW with as good or better long-term upside as Martin? My understanding is there's not really anyone in our minor leagues who is equipped to play SS in the ML right now. If we can find a SS on the WW who has more upside than Martin to replace him, then sure, cut him. But if not, there's not really any point. He's here for his glove in the short term, and then long term the hope is he figures things out with his bat after a year at Norfolk in 2020. We'll need Martin's glove even more if we trade Villar this season.
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If you're going to be mad about teams that tank, look at some of the teams in the incredibly soft AL Central (minus the Twins). Nobody except the Twins seemed to show any interest in making the playoffs out of that division the past offseason, even though it was right there for the taking. The Orioles are one of the few teams in the MLB that has a legitimate excuse for being bad -- in general, their players across the entire high minors and the MLB roster are awful, with a handful of exceptions. There's not much you can do to fix that situation in the short term. Even if they broke the bank on FA signings last offseason you're still looking at a ceiling of 70-72 wins.
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1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:
Truly fixing revenue imbalances is exceptionally unlikely. But changing divisions (or maybe just schedules) so that half the league plays an easy schedule and half the league plays a hard schedule is something I could see MLB consider. For example, the O's would play the Reds, Royals, Pirates, White Sox 20 times each, and the Yanks and Sox six. Either promotion/relegation between divisions annually, or a new set of schedules every year.
I used to like the purity of a completely balanced schedule, and still do in the abstract. But now I understand the true impact of $650M+ in annual revenues vs. under $200M in annual revenues.
Yeah this makes sense. It should be similar to what the NFL does.
MLB has teams playing roughly 46-47% of their regular season games against division opponents. In the NFL it's only 37.5%. MLB needs to reduce number of divisional games and then give bad teams an easier schedule in the non-division games and good teams a harder schedule.
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If you think "Dillon Tate" is going to do much better in 2019 than Dan Straily -- who did have a track record of modest MLB accomplishment spanning years -- in the big leagues, and make that your hill to die on, vaya con dios, I guess. It's rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as far as I'm concerned. Certainly not an indication that the team is trying to lose, either way. It is just a reflection of how bereft of talent the MLB team and upper minors currently is. What's next, are folks going to start clamoring for Grayson Rodriguez to play in the MLB next month?
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How exactly would this team avoid "tanking" with the current personnel in our system? Sure, we could promote Mountcastle now and DFA Davis. That might be worth a couple wins the rest of the season, maybe. Who else are these incredible can't-miss prospects that we're holding back and would be sure to help us win 70 games instead of 50? Because I don't really see a lot of that right now. I wouldn't have minded if we'd signed Keuchel, honestly, but we'd have had to offer him a lot more than the Braves gave him, and he might help us win 2-3 games a year over the next guy in our system, I guess. That's not going to make the kind of impact we need to contend.
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57 minutes ago, foxfield said:
No, that is never going to happen. It is not for the commish to stand in, formally or informally. But the pressure of what has become a national story is growing and is going to keep growing. And for those who pray for a 1-4 or 2-5 outing tonight. Missing the record tonight is or later this week is not going to kill the media fascination. People love a train wreck or a tragedy. No, a hit today simply resets the counter. That is problem. IF Davis continues to play, this is the world that he and the Baltimore Orioles will live in.
We should not take pleasure in it. We should not cheer for it, just because our personal interest is that it ends. When you hear Hyde say he wants Davis to hit and that he believes he will. I think you hear genuine heartfelt emotion from a man who fully understands the ingredients at play here.
A player with a massive contract, a team with a massive talent deficiency on a team that is rebuilding with a skeptical and declining fan base. And an environment where some, perhaps many, MLB Baseball owners would love nothing more than a national issue highlighting why long term contracts to 30 year old players are bad for the game. There are simply too many things here for this to not fully ignite.
The good news of course is that the end is much closer than we imagined only a short time ago. The bad news, is that in a season that was already going to be difficult, the tragedy or train wreck that some want so badly, is happening and it's not going to be pretty. We are of course conditioned to watch. I will try not to. MLB will not ever step in here, nor should it, but Elias will soon see that solving this is much more important to the health of his team and the foundation his rebuild, than whether or not he allows Mike Wright to occupy a roster spot.
I take no pleasure in any of this. Playing davis in the short term does help elias inch toward his goal of orioles playoff contention in 2022 or 2023. Davis alone could make the difference between a first pick and fifth pick next year, if he is several wins below replacement again. However the integrity of the game is more important. There has to be some baseline degree of professionalism for regular mlb players, for the good of the sport. Davis hasnt hit that arguably since mid 2017. Baseball is a declining sport right now and davis will help it decline if he keeps playing
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At some point you would think even the mlb commish might want to have an informal chat with elias and the angelos brothers. At a time when strikouts across the mlb are at a record high and the game desperately needs more action and to attract more young people, having Davis play is hurting not just the orioles but the game as a whole. Better to have a low power slap hitter who could at least put the ball in play.
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11 hours ago, Frobby said:
Fangraphs has started a daily post on positional rankings at the different positions. I guess nobody is surprised that the Orioles were ranked 30th at 1B yesterday, with Davis occupying the position. But I was somewhat surprised to see the O’s also ranked 30th at 2B today. They’re projecting us at a collective 1.0 fWAR at 2B, led by Villar at 0.9.
I wonder if we can go 9 for 9? Hard to believe the other positions will be much better than 2B.
I’ll update the OP as they go along:
1B — 30th https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2019-positional-power-rankings-first-base/
2B — 30th https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2019-positional-power-rankings-second-base/
So in the blurb about 2B, they keep referring to Jonathan Villar as an "average" second baseman (both defensively and offensively). Yet the Orioles are ranked dead last at 2B.
All I can say is...
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Very quietly, Buck and Dan are still unemployed. Interesting. I know a lot of folks seemed very sure both would immediately get jobs elsewhere the minute they left the Orioles. But they haven't. Is Duquette seen as out of touch in this analytic-driven era? And has Buck's Britton decision in 2016 tarnished his reputation? Or was Buck's decision to bat Chris Davis over 400 times last year, usually in the middle of the order, part of it? Or is it something else? Maybe they're just deciding to hang it up after two frustrating years (I could hardly blame them).
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On 11/22/2018 at 10:29 AM, hoosiers said:
I would let Elias and Sig run the Orioles for at least three years almost without question. I think it will be year four or five before we start to see the impact of players they acquire at the major league level. I believe 100% in the process these two will bring to player acquisition and the constant search for a holy grail of how to draft and develop (or internationally sign and develop) major leaguers. As long as that process is followed, I would have these two run the Orioles.
I guess the main questions regarding these two are whether they can lead an organization. That is what they haven't done and what we don't know they can do. I don't mean whether they can build out an international scouting presence - more about whether they are respectful, attentive leaders or whether they are tyrannical and difficult to work with (which I don't expect). We also don't know how much of a counter-weight the Houston GM and other folks in that front office were to good or bad decisions advocated by Elias and Sig.
We also don't know whether these guys (like the Os with AM before DD arrived and said we would win) will know when (and how) to try to win at the major league level instead of simply not competing and gathering prospect talent.
Those are minor concerns about whether these guys might fail. In terms of their background, their expertise, these are home run hires. These guys are at the head of the line with only a handful of organizations in creating leading edge prospect valuations around historical probabilities, scouting input and other factors. Very exciting for the Os and our future.
Great post and i agree 100%
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3 hours ago, Aglets said:
First off, outstanding letter. If I was a season ticket holder on the verge of giving them up........that might have been enough to persuade me to stay. Maybe.
Like Frobby I am a little surprised he mentioned guys like Bundy, Givens, and Mancini by name. Especially the first two.
We have Bundy for 3 more years, but he will be arbitration eligible for all of them, including this coming season. Wonder if he will try to be proactive and lock him up sooner to try and save some money? Givens is in the exact same situation, contractually speaking.
Yeah i'm not putting a lot of stock in the name dropping as it relates to holding on or extending players. I think that was mostly just a hat tip, "vote of confidence" for those guys. Fully expect Elias to deal them if he thinks their trade value is high enough and it's worth the return.
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On 11/18/2018 at 3:14 PM, Frobby said:
This is an exaggeration, depending on who you listen to, I suppose. First of all, OH has Diaz as our no. 5 prospect, not no. 1. Here are the ceilings of our top guys per OH:
Hall 65
Rodriguez 65
Mountcastle 60
Kremer 60
Diaz 60
Hays 55
Hunter 60
Lowther 55
Knight 55
Hanifee 55
That’s 10 players who have a ceiling of above average major leaguer. Now, that may be aggressive, and certainly nobody expects all these guys to reach their ceiling. But it’s not like there is nobody with the potential to be a good player in the organization.
Your overall point that Elias has a huge hole to dig out of is correct, of course, I just don’t want to see the situation exaggerated.
Thanks for the correction, although I would like to see a weighted average of across the board projections of these prospects (assuming the OH rank is not that). As I'm sure you're aware, there's no way Rodriguez makes the ML roster as a SP until 2022 at the earliest. Likewise, I'd be very surprised if DL Hall makes the ML roster until late 2020 at the very, very earliest. That's our top two right there -- still speculative and a long way off. Mountcastle is a nice hitter and all but a negative in the field by all accounts, unless we most him to first where CD is blocking him. Will be interesting to see if Kremer or Hays get a cup of coffee at the majors next year -- 2019 will be a make or break year for both of those guys. There's no way I would consider Hunter Harvey above a 50 at this point, the guy is totally snakebit by injuries even worse than Bundy was which I can't believe I'm saying but it's true. I'm a bit embarrassed but I've not heard of Lowther/Knight/Hanifee before, will have to check those guys out.
Regardless, the word on the street seems to be that our minor league system is still in the bottom third even with all DD's midseason aquisitions. Don't see Elias realistically propelling it to the top ten -- unless a few guys come out of nowhere -- before 2021 at the earliest.
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2 hours ago, weams said:
Four years.
I would say four too if Elias was over 40 or I thought anyone in our current minor league system had the potential to be an above-league-average MLB player. Diaz is our top rated prospect right now and everyone is pretty sure that league average is his ceiling. It's all downhill and more speculative after him.
Elias' 2019 draft pick probably won't see AA until 2021 at the very earliest. Probably won't see the majors until 2022 at the very earliest. Same for most of the international guys he picks up over the next year or two.
And he's probably going to learn on the job to some extent and make some "rookie" mistakes.
Put all those factors together, and it's hard for me to imagine us even having a strong minor league system before 2021 or 2022, and that could easily be set back by injuries or underperformance that is always a risk no matter who is running things. That's to say nothing of the mothership, of course. If we end up with some elite prospects on ML roster as September 2022 callups, that will probably be reasonably on schedule.
TL;DR current organization is a dumpster fire and Elias is very young. Demanding he be fired anytime before 2023 is irrational.
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For me, it's five years. I'm going to refrain from wondering if he's the right man for the Orioles until the end of 2023. If by then we still aren't over .500 AND our minor league system isn't better than mediocre AND it's clear that Elias has actually been the one calling the shots, then I will start to be worried that he might not be suited for the GM role in Baltimore. But by 2023 if he is able to get the team winning again or we aren't winning yet but our minors are elite or the ownership is breaking their promise and keeps meddling in baseball decisions, then I will be fine with Elias continuing in his role indefinitely. Just hope he isn't poached by another organization before the Orioles start to see success at the majors.
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3 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:
He's hitting .175 for July, about 25 points higher than what his average was coming into the month. He's getting better. You guys just have no patience or tolerance. Lighten up.
I hope that was meant to be sarcasm.
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There's no way Chris Davis should have more than maybe 80-90 plate appearances from now until the end of the season. Buck needs to stop kissing his rear and give the young guys a chance.
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I'm going to sound like a broken record, but he needs to be benched again. He is forcing Mancini out of position, and because of that domino effect he is blocking a now-healthy DJ Stewart AND Mountcastle. He should be treated as a low value Rule 5 guy for the rest of the season, and then re-evaluated next spring.
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On 6/6/2018 at 12:56 PM, GuidoSarducci said:
At this point, I'm thinking that the Orioles are trying to somehow embarass Davis into negotiating some type of buyout / retirement. I think they would keep playing him until either they start being competitive again or Davis is blocking a quality prospect
He's already indirectly blocking Rickard from being an everyday outfielder, and if DJ Stewart were healthy, he would probably be blocking him from a promotion too. He's forcing Trey out of position which is the domino the is causing the aforementioned blocking. Next year he will probably block Mountcastle too.
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What I'm starting to get worried about is Mountcastle being blocked. Very few think he sticks at third and the general thought seems to be he's going to be a first baseman. By the middle of next season, his bat could be ready for the big leagues but we'll have at least 3 other 1B/DH blocking him if we hang on to Trumbo. Also, Davis could indirectly block Stewart and Mullins this season because he's forcing Mancini to left field.
It's one thing to trot Davis out there in a year you have no chance to contend. But it's quite another if he starts blocking quality prospects and delaying their development. We're not quite at that point yet -- although you could credibly argue that Mancini playing left is hurting his development a lot -- but we will be headlong into that phase by this time next year for sure.
Bundy On The Move?
in Orioles Talk
Posted
Unless a contending team is extremely desperate (as we were in 2013), I can't see Bundy having much trade value. He's probably more valuable to the Orioles than he is to other teams. At least he can provide innings so that our bullpens' arms don't fall off, and we don't have to call up prospects who aren't ready. He's basically cannon fodder, he's out there to throw soft, throw strikes, get barreled, but also get the games over with and put everyone out of their misery for the night. That's not attractive to contending teams but it is useful to rebuilding teams. There's 1,458 innings in a season, and someone's gotta pitch them for us. Might as well be Bundy for 10% of them. If we somehow have 5 other competent starters by the end of 2020, he can be non-tendered.