Slappy

I trust those guys. They have a track record of success in the draft. Rutschman certainly seems to be the favorite of all the draft analyses, but if Elias and Sig think differently, they certainly know a whole hell of a lot more about it than I do.

I don't understand why. Means is the type of guy the organization should be looking for right now. 6 years of team control, cheap. He should still be around when the competitive window opens, hopefully within 3 years.

Apparently the Orioles were never very good at updating it. Wayback Machine snapshot from 4/22 still shows a bunch of old names, like Gary Rajisich as Scouting Director and Brian Graham as Director of Player Development. That is a long time after they were replaced or released (both in November): https://web.archive.org/web/20190422094039/https://www.mlb.com/orioles/team/front-office Still, I agree that Brady disappearing from the front office page is a strong statement about his clout in the organization (if he is in fact still a part of it at all).

No specifics here, I would just say my only quibble with Hyde so far has been all the defensive hokey-pokey. Maybe this is part of the development process, and that's fine. But a lot of our defensive miscues seem to be a function of playing guys at positions they are not comfortable at (yet). Also, I'd be curious if anyone has any numbers to show if our OF consistently lining up very deep has been beneficial (preventing XBH) or detrimental (a lot of pop-out singles) so far.

Wright vs. Armstrong tale of the tape: Armstrong 28yo RHP: career MiLB stats 350.2 IP, 2.26 ERA, 254 H, 172 BB (4.4 per 9), 478 K (12.3), 13 HR (0.3), 1.215 WHIP career MLB stats 61.2 IP, 3.65 ERA, 54 H, 23 BB (3.4 per 9), 56 K (8.2), 9 HR (1.3), 4.60 FIP, 1.249 WHIP Wright 29yo RHP career MiLB stats 692.0 IP, 3.73 ERA, 705 H, 177 BB (2.3 per 9), 552 K (7.2), 53 HR (0.7), 1.275 WHIP career MLB stats 244.0 IP, 5.94 ERA, 283 H, 96 BB (3.5 per 9), 195 K (7.2), 43 HR (1.6), 5.34 FIP, 1.553 WHIP Just going by those stats, Armstrong seems worth a flyer to me. He's pretty much better statistically than Wright across the board, although I know we are comparing relievers with starters here. The high K rate and reasonably low HR rate, even in the PCL, are pretty encouraging. Control looks like a potential issue. Hopefully he's healthy.

I think it's probably more of an even comparison to look at the 2012 roster than who he inherited from the prior year. If you do that, there were 5 guys who were still there on the '15 playoff team: Altuve Jason Castro Marwin Gonzalez Jed Lowrie Dallas Keuchel I think that's probably a better target for the O's. It seems possible, maybe even likely, that there are 5 members of our next playoff team on the field this year.

I'm wondering who we would be more willing to trade between Mancini and Nunez. They are pretty similar players, pretty good offensively but limited defensively and neither one runs that well. Doesn't really make sense to keep them both, does it? Especially if we can get meaningful value from one or the other.

To me the attendance numbers are pretty easy to explain. One, the area has the Nationals now so our ceiling is much lower, probably 2.75m or so instead of 3.75m like in the 90's. The team lost about 400k fans in 2006, the year after the Nats arrived, and another 200k in 2008 when Nats Park opened. Two is results. Since the two Nats items above, attendance has pretty much scaled to results. We got to about 2.5m in 2014. Add a championship and we might be able to do 3m, max. What's the floor? Don't know. 1.5m last year was Camden's lowest. We might do even less this year. But I'm confident that if the team starts playing better, the ceiling hasn't changed much.

It's bad, and it will continue to be bad, but somewhat in our defense, we have played all 9 games against the #1 (NYY) and #3 (TOR) home run teams in the AL last year.

I shudder to think what the Yankee's record would be if they used Camden Yards as their home park...

We won 3 in a row on the road - something we didn’t do at all last year.

I think maybe missing is the impact that management team had on players that were already in the system, or that they were able to get from other teams. Player development, not necessarily player acquisition is where these guys excelled in Houston. Look at Altuve. He was nothing special in 2012/2013. About a .700 guy. But from '14-18 he has averaged an .873 OPS. Or take George Springer. Dramatically improved his K rate after striking out over 30% of the time in 14/15. Dallas Keuchel was not a good pitcher in '12/13 (5.20 ERA). But from '14-18 he has been one of the AL's best starters, with a Cy Young and a cumulative 3.28 ERA. Verlander had regressed pretty substantially (although he was still good) from '12 to '17 in Detroit, but his year and a half with Houston (at age 35) have been statistically the best of his career. Gerrit Cole went from rapid regression in Pittsburgh to an All-Star in Houston, raising his K/9 by almost 3 in one year! It's ok to point out that players worked hard to get better - that's definitely true. But that opportunity exists everywhere. Maybe in Houston the players had better information and support to use for that self-improvement? That seems like the difference. BTW, some of these things give me hope that the turnaround here won't take as long as everyone thinks. Maybe Chris Davis can be turned around with some information and support? Same with Mancini and Bundy. Maybe the minor league guys we got last year that tanked moving into the Orioles system can get back on track.

Yeah just think his K/BB is a big red flag. Other guys may never be stars but could be useful MLers

B, but this trade has more upside than the Schoop trade depending on what we do with the essentially $12 million in cash we get. I like the makeup of 3 of the prospects too (not Encarnacion)

Toronto's market is far larger. It is the biggest city in Canada, with about as many people as Chicago! Plus being the only Canadian team, anyone up there who is a fan of baseball is a Jays fan. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Welcome to life as a contender. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This is MacPhail thinking.

1982, home town team, 7 years old

Snyder might be Exhibit A in Joe Jordan's prosecution case against the Orioles' player development department.

The Blue Jays have higher ceiling guys. Bautista is already all-world, Encarnacion looks like he could be the next freak, and Lawrie everyone thinks will be a monster. Thames has monster minors numbers. They also have a bunch of highly touted and talented guys that, for whatever reason, can't seem to put it together. Rasmus is a good example of this, Escobar and Snider too. On the pitching side, Drabek, Morrow, and Henderson Alverez all have fantastic stuff but mediocre numbers to date. I think Toronto is one of those teams where, if all of their talent plays up to potential, could easily be a 95+ win team. I don't think that is necessarily the case for the O's, at this point anyway.