Pickles

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1) The answer to which player I would prefer would be heavily dependent on the rest of my roster. 2) Setting it so it is run neutral kind of takes the O's preference out of it. So long as it is run neutral the O's aren't likely to have a preference. Saying that, I do believe they value defense highly. 3) And obviously, the Orioles, like many others, value up the middle defense more than corner defense.

That's fine. That's a take with the appropriate amount of subtlety. The silly rhetorical questions, "How can he learn to hit ML pitching in AAA?" devised to produce a foregone conclusion have no such subtlety.

Because the claim is he can't learn anything in AAA. That's a stupid claim- about Holliday or anyone else for that matter.

This has nothing to do with Holliday. I took issue with the idea that guys can't learn and improve at AAA. I'm not surprised you can't see the difference.

There are no mechanical aspects to hitting?

Exactly. It's such a moronic talking point. If you can't learn and improve in AAA, why does it even exist then?

Well, I for one am very happy that we have Burnes. And I'm glad Elias runs this organization and not the consensus of this board.

Frobby's always talking about signing for things in blood. LOL.

It was still too much.

I meant to say Holliday in my prior post BTW. You can't just give a cursory node to bad isn't equal, but still bad' bad. Those gradations of bad mean quite a lot in a case like this imo. Cowser looked the worst out of all of them when he first came up, and he still was a significant level upon what Holliday has done so far. Go look at the batted ball stats posted above. They're awful. They make Hays, who has been terrible this season, look like Babe Ruth. Holliday is striking out over 50% of the time, and he's hit like one ball well in 30+ PAs. Cowser was at least walking last season. Now, I'm not sending him down yet- although he wouldn't be up yet either if I was in control. But I said a few days ago I'd give him another 25-50 PAs before I sent him down, if he shows no improvement. We're only like 8 Abs into that, but he hasn't shown any improvement either.

Remember when the majority of the board didn't want to do that, but just a few weeks later, like gambling addicts, most of the board wanted to do just that?

Go look at their walk rate and K rate while you're at it.

Well is playing poorly playing poorly or are there levels to it? Because Gunnar struggled in ways none of the others did, and you can include Cowser on that list.

That doesn't match the eye test of anybody who has watched him.

No, he hasn't.

Adley and Gunnar had some initial struggles. They didn't strike out 50% of their at bats and look bad in the field simultaneously. It's disingenuous to compare their struggles with Holliday's.

By that logic, we've developed Rodriguez and Bradish, and we have an exciting you group of positional talent. So do we need to? Your last paragraph is perfectly reasonable, and not very different from my position. This team is going to spend more money just by arbitration alone, so yeah, the payroll is going to have to increase. I totally want them to extend select young players. And I totally want them to sign FAs that help the team. I do not expect them to spend money at the top of the FA market like the Rangers have done, but the Astros have not. I think ultimately a team that makes a lot of sense to emulate is the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals rarely sign big free agents, but they do occasionally target a pending FA, trade for him using prospects, and then extend him. Matt Holliday and Nolan Arenado being examples of that. Those are the biggest splashes I expect the O's to make. And I'm fine with it. Making big, expensive moves is radically overrated by most fans in its relation to actually winning baseball games.

How many FA aces did the Braves sign?

Yeah, we'll never have to beat the Yankees. Not like they're in our division or anything. Not like they're the most successful franchise in the sport's history. Not like they're in first place as we speak or anything. Nope we don't need to worry about them. Or, hear me out, we need to beat the Yankees too, and you just want to ignore them because they are proof positive that big splashy acquisitions of "aces" doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of team building.

So did the Yankees and they missed the playoffs completely. We had two top 5 starters. We had top-end pitching. They didn't pitch well. It happens. Acquiring another starting pitcher would have guaranteed nothing.

We had two of the top 5 starters in the AL going into the playoffs. We lost because they pitched poorly. Not because they were poor pitchers. Teams don't win 100 games without high-end starting pitching.

Correct me if I'm wrong, and it's been said a couple times in this thread, but we have Grayson for 5 more years AFTER this one. He didn't get a full year of service time last year and won't be a FA until after 2029. IF he turns into Justin Verlander, it would be really beneficial to sign him an extension asap. However, almost any other outcome, an extension does little for the Orioles. That we have to resort to the supposed psychological advantages it would supposedly grant, I think is pretty good evidence of that.

I don't really buy that. The only reason a guy like MIller adds excess value in October is because you're going to use him differently. If you were willing to use him like that in May, he'd be every bit as valuable then. I think you could argue a top heavier team might have an advantage over a more balanced one in the playoffs all things being equal, but I don't think you can correlate that to big free agent signings or "flashy" off-season moves. I'm about to respond to another post here, but people will look at the O's last season and say they didn't have an "ace" and that's why they lost in the playoffs. If you actually examine the claim it's pretty silly. Nobody wins 100 games without some top-end starting pitching. The O's had two guys who were basically top 5 AL pitchers in the second half of last season. They lost in the playoffs because one of them pitched ok, and one of them got bombed. We've all appreciated Burns so far, but there's nothing stopping Burnes from getting bombed in the upcoming playoffs.

Are their ways to make your team better in October that don't manifest in April-September?