Pickles

I'm not sure how modest your expectations were tbh. If you expected the O's to be legit players on Rodon, Verlander, deGrom, then I think they were unrealistic.

NOT trading Santander and Tate is not the type of move that comes back to bite you. Signing a guy for 6 years and 180 million? That can come back and bite you. Trading away six years of a guy who goes on to put up 25 WAR in those years, that can come back to bite you. Now, I won't argue that Santander and Tate might well be at peak value/coming off career best performances. I think, particularly of Tate, that could be the case. But missing out on the pretty minimal return- even if those guys both completely crater, which seems very unlikely- isn't going to hinder the ability to compete going forward.

I think Sports Guy has pretty accurately summed up the O's position. I also think, quite frankly, that anybody who was paying attention could have made this same summary a few months ago. It never made a ton of sense to trade from the ML inventory; the only guy who would bring back real value- Mullins- has no internal replacement. We won't start trading MLers until we can replace them internally. The team was not going to shop at the top of the FA market- least of all for pitching. People project their fantasies upon reality, and then get upset and distressed when reality doesn't reflect them back.

Not allowing you to make up evidence to support your point is not splitting hairs. It's kinda central to the whole thing.

So you think it takes magic fairy dust to think that full seasons of Rutschman and Henderson will result in more wins?

Sure, and we gained a lot of ground in the last year. We could gain more this year.

We will get full seasons from our best players. And almost all of our best players are young and reasonably expected to be better. The plan is pretty clear.

You're the one making sTuFf up for "comedic effect."

There absolutely is a difference. A giant one.

If you paraphrased it, why did you use quotation marks?

Ok so to be clear you completely fabricated the original quote. Glad we cleared that up.

You know who else plays playoff games? Teams who win their division. Saying the primary goal is to make the playoffs in no way "concedes" the division.

By saying the "goal is to make the playoffs?" You realize that's insane, right?

I haven't seen that quote. Can you show me that qoute from Elias?

It's overreaction time of the year. Saying "The goal is to make the playoffs" is not a concession of anything.

Feather up!

The moderation around here has loosened considerably over the years. To the point half of this thread is people bragging about posting under different names to avoid previous bans. LOL.

Well it must have been 120 minutes ago then.

Weren't you whining about the idea of signing Walker 20 minutes ago?

Feather up!

I think that's true, but that's largely universal, no?

That, and to a lesser extent SS, and the advantage to LHH seems the most obvious.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I feel like this is a question we haven't discussed too much. We have talked about how it will affect batter and fielder value quite a bit, and personally, I think those questions are pretty straight forward and the answer comes down to gradation. However, how the shift will affect pitchers seems far more unclear to me. Generally, with the new clock, bags, and shift rules, I think it is going to increase offense, but that's true across the board for all pitchers. What I am interested in is who is going to gain relative value? If LH hitters gain an advantage, and that seems to me to be the primary beneficiaries of the change, doesn't that make LHP more valuable than before? Or not? If middle infield defense will be prioritized, doesn't that benefit ground ball pitchers more? Or not? Because weren't they gaining even more of an advantage before? Just some questions to ponder, which can of course also be applied to team composition and player acquisition.

LOL! That's right! Travis Moon! That's a blast from the past.

Feathers of fury!