Camden_yardbird

Add 2 years to the rebuild....

The pirates paid Quintana $2 million? Quintana and Lyles had bad ERAs, 6.43 and 5.15 respectivley. But Quintana had a 3.75 xFIP. Lyles was 4.73. The only difference is that Lyles pitched 180 innings and Quintana pitched 63. I don’t get how that costs $5 million more.

Let's talk best case scenario for this signing. Roughed Odor was signed for 1 year. His best season was a .798 OPS, and his average is a .722. Let's say he rebounds to a .750ish hitter. Show reasonable power, and maybe some speed, with no OBP skills. He has 2 seasons with a positive dWAR and the 1.2 he put up in 2018 was an outlier. I think we can safely say he is not a defensive asset, so best case maybe he his net neutral. Either way he is not helping the Orioles young pitchers. So now we have two paths. He puts this up for the entire season, no trade, and then becomes a FA again, but costs more than the Orioles are willing to give. In 2023 the Orioles have netted nothing. Or come the trade deadline, he becomes a trade commodity. Comps: Josh Harrison, who had a .791 OPS last year was traded with Yan Gomes, the package netted 1 top 30 prospect and some other pieces. Jorge Soler, a DH basically, having a down year netted the Braves #21 prospect, a pitcher projected as a future reliever. Soler had a .867 OPS in July before the trade. Galvis was hitting .720 last year before the Orioles shipped him out. Galvis was a decent defensive SS and netted Burch, a prospect outside of the Phillies top 30. Cesar Hernandez was acquired by the CWS for a prospect outside the top 30. My point is this, even IF Odor rebounds, has a great half season and is traded, the most the Orioles are probably getting is an prospect somewhere around the 28-40 range. Thats if a team wants to trade for a bat first, hot headed 2B, with little to no defensive value. I hope he proves me wrong, but even the best case scenario it doesn't seem like Elias has added to a future playoff team.

I realize its far to early in the off season, but I feel like the OD tee shirts are already writing themselves. Orioles 2022 "I expected a real off season and all I got was an Odor."

If the Orioles can bring in 2 players from outside the organization that will be here for the next playoff team (next 2-3 years), that is off season improvement. As for internal improvement, its hard to go down hill from where they were.

The way MLBTR reports this signing tells you everything. "Texas Signs Seager." "White Sox sign Garcia." "Red Sox sign Paxton." "Orioles sign Odor to major league deal." Like, "get a load of these guys, signing him to a major league deal." There is an implication that its surprising he was given a major league deal because no team in their right mind would do this. And by the way for all those "why aren't we following the Rays model" fans out there, the rays deal listed in the above is the red sox signing Paxton for 1/10 and getting a cheap club option is he performs coming off injury. Makes sense, Bloom is from TB. Its just a rude signing for the fans of the Orioles. I'm wondering if others are starting to see the shine come off Elias as well. I have been saying it for 1.5 years, we know he can build a farm system, but a real GM needs to do so much more and to date I haven't seen it. This doesn't make me feel he has more skills.

You could build a better pitching staff with the non-tenders than the Orioles had last season. Wouldn't mind them taking chances on any of the following: Kuhl, Boyd, Gsellman, Suero, Vasquez I am sure there will be more as the deadline nears. And before anyone tells me these guys were terrible last year, the signing of Odor clearly indicates the Orioles are not this upcoming season seriously, and the Orioles big pitching signing last year was Harvey.

So we should expect another off season without any actual team building huh?

This is like saying Bezos and Musk are making money so what are Americans worried about. You see the big contracts, but the majority of players are seeing far less.

Teams usually keep those type of guys around because they can play everywhere. Why would Texas trade him? Why would the Orioles trade for him, and what would it cost?

I expected this thread to be addressed to Roch.

The Rays are one of the least healthy organizations in MLB. They frequently have the lowest fan turnout, they are usually rumored to be moving. They have very low cable revenues. Competitively they are run very well. And the Franco extension certainly looks great now.

This one is easy. 1. They are in a division with three small market teams, two of whom don't even try (pirates, reds) most of the time. (I.e. the same reason the Patriots were a 2000's dynasty). 2. They are the 6th most valuable franchise. They have some of the best TV revenues in the game. Thry have tons of resources to devote to the product. 3. On top of that they spend a lot of their earnings into the product, while a top 6 valued franchise they frequently operate in the middle of the pack in revenues. (This would be a good owner - something the Orioles can't depend on) 4. Despite the above they have convinced MLB to get extra draft picks because of their metro area. They are a large valuation team get the benefits of a small metro area team. So in conclusion: The Orioles could follow their model if they get a new owner, division, and expanded their revenue streams (which likely isn't possible).

Thats not remotely true under the current structure of major league baseball. Also its just not realistic.

While I agree that concrete performance evaluation is necessary to a certain extent the "Calvary" was an Orioles article about a group of prospects that Orioles fans could latch on to but in reality only contained 1-2 mid 100 ranked prospects and some good organizational prospects. Adley and Grayson are the #1 positional and #1 pitching prospects in the game and Hall is also top 100. Making sure they, and the team, can succeed from day 1 is important.

I agree with you completely, a lot of this type of contract gets signed and succeeds. This is what I will say about contract though. Anecdotally it feels to me like the 2/$32-34 contracts work out a lot more often. LeMahieu, Morton... Also I would say this, if a small market team realizes its window is four years long it should not be signing these deals in year 3 or 4. You have to be real about it when you are a small market team, sustained competitive windows dont exist. (Obligatory Tampa is an outlier statement here). Plan for four year windows or get wrecked.

They signed Quintana this week. He has some super interesting underlying stats that suggest taking a chance on him might have been a good idea (FIP under 4). Then there is a report they have agreed to a deal with Yoshi Tsutusgo, who did very well them late in the year. Not big signing but when your team (Orioles) has $0 in payroll obligations outside of base salaries you expect them to take some chances.

What should really throw Orioles fans into a fit this off season is the Pirates have signed two free agents, and they are arguably a year behind the Orioles in their rebuild.

Scott Manea.

At the end of the 2022 season I dont think we will be asking why did Elias keep Gillespie over Vespi or Neustrom. I think we will be asking why didn't he keep those guys over Martin, Jones or Lopez.

People who say this don't recognize that Pop was in his rookie year and clearly showed that he will most likely be a significant contributor to a good bullpen in a few years. He has the tools. Its not about what he was last year, its about what he will be in 2-3.

With a salary floor small market teams are going to be getting that 6th year on QO more often than not.

If the Orioles don't add cornerstone playoff players now they are just stealing our money as fans. Cornerstone free agent players are often added one or two years ahead of playoff contention. You don't build a playoff contender in an off season, that doesn't leave room for adjustment and that how you end up wasting the control period for top prospects. The Orioles also need to be cognizant of the direction of the CBA. If a salary floor is phased in, or control rules are changed to incent bringing up top prospects early in the year (e.g. changing arb rules) the Orioles need to be prepared to act in the free agent market accordingly. No one can know what that looks like now.

Yea, ours is called the Cy Young Award. Kind of odd sounding. Let's get some context here. Choi Dong-won was a Korean pitcher. He pitched in the KBO from 1983 to 1990. He went 103-74, 26 saves, a 2.46 ERA. With 1019 Ks. He once struck out 223 in a season and won a championship in 84. He was even signed by the blue jays. After playing he was a coach, politician and actor. He died of colon cancer at age 53.

Pretty sure Elias mucks this up too.