Pickles

It was a typo. I meant straight from A ball. WTF does that have to do with the fact that Grayson Rodriguez lost a year of development time due an unprecedented global pandemic? They're not connected in any way, shape, or form. You might as well just start spouting non-sequiturs.

BTW, how did leaping straight from A-ball to the Bigs work out for Jose Fernandez?

Has Elias burnt everything to the ground?

You're right. Jose Fernandez went straight to the big leagues. Which is of course proof that a pandemic did not indeed wipe out MiL baseball last year. That's a really good point.

Ignoring of course that the 21 year old lost a year of their development due to an unprecedented global pandemic. And again, ignoring of course, that the goal of a franchise shouldn't be seeing how quickly they can devlop one particular prospect to the majors.

I agree with the bolded for multiple reasons. One of which, Elias hasn't done a rebuild and Preller got to oversee one. Big difference. To your last point, when did a goal of the franchise become to get Grayson Rodriguez to the majors as fast as possible? We should have just hired his mother then in 2018, and we'd probably be "successful."

Right. He oversaw a lengthy rebuild himself. You suggesting the O's bring up Rodriguez now is akin to bringing up Tatis in 2017. Which he didn't do, but in fact waited two more years. There isn't a single good argument to be made for brining up Rodriguez now, or at any point this year.

You know, Preller oversaw a lengthy rebuild himself right?

Preller loves winning 61 games that deeply?

You've fairly pointed out that counting 2018 as a rebuilding year is just factually wrong. If he wants to persists in his delusions what can you do?

You're probably right, but he is so old and so fat, I'm sure taking day games off after night games isn't that unusual.

He's right. It was number 2. And that's what Elias is digging out of: A hole of historical proportions.

Not great. This is the hardest pitching environment in MLB. They better turn their computers to solving that riddle.

It was bad. There was talent. But it was all mostly very far from the ML level. Here we are three years later and there hasn't been much of a "wave." We've discussed the "weak" return for the July firesale. I will say, there's a lot to criticize DD for, but ironically I think they drafted pretty well under him.

Only if you ever foolishly believed he would end up in the outfield. I'm fine with his season. Let's see how he ends it, but the walk rate has grown into an acceptable rate, and he has + hit and power tools. He's going to hit. He's shown that this year.

Fair enough. I was mostly wondering if you thought there were more this year than in a normal year.

Sure, but is that unusual? There's obviously injuries every year. And frankly Hall getting hurt is about as surprising as Brandon Erbe. The Kjerstad situation is obviously strange/unusual. But it equally is obviously not about what happened on the field.

Do you feel as if we've been hard hit by injuries in the MiLs this year? I haven't felt that way. You certainly have followed our MiLs closely enough for many years that you could certainly at least compare it across the years.

Negative developmental stories are always going to be the worst parts of a rebuild, because they're what actually matters. There have been a lot of real positive stories this year too.

Well, that's my point. How many years? Because my point is the sample size still remains too small to make many determining assessments.

He's not blind. He's just fringe.

Oh, I totally forgot why I came here. Stewart hit a solid dong tonight. He also Kd badly. But I was crapping on him all day, so I gotta come and give him his due.

The first paragraph I very much agree with. The bolded I very much disagree with. Here's something to think about. (I'm waiting to read Frobby's draft analysis so I can rip it apart with my poo-house lawyering.) The Orioles in 1965 were basically about the best run franchise in MLB. They were historically famous for their amateur acquisition and development. The draft was initiated in that year from the old "Bonus Baby" system. They were about to go on a 20 year run as the winningest team in MLB. And yet, look at these drafts! 1965: Total WAR: (-) 2 Best Player: Charlie Sands (Career WAR 0.5) 1966: Total WAR: 1.7 Best Player: Terry Crowley (Career WAR 2.4) So yeah, two drafts! And negative WAR in total! tHe oRiOlE wAy!!! tHeSe gUyS dOnT kNoW wHaT tHeY'rE dOiNg!!! 1967: Total WAR: 98.5 Best Player: Bobby Grich (Career WAR 71)\ Notable: Don Baylor (Career WAR 28.5) Unsigned: Doug Rau (Career WAR 12.6) So what happened? Life is more random than we want to admit. You can make all the right decisions, boys. You still won't make it out alive.

I will say, you have written before about Price. Well, we'll see what he goes for in the off-season, but I think it is more than you have suggested. But forget that. Should the O's get Price if it cost them no talent? Money is not infinite. Even if the O's only spend 5 mil of the 16 mil they "save" by not employing Price in the amateur draft and international free agent pool, isn't that probably worth it for a rebuilding team? What exactly is the cutoff in that exchange? You've said recently, "There's no reason you can do it all." Well, yes there is. Resources are not infinite. Life is a series of choices- prioritizing one path or the other.

Ok, so GOING FORWARD, which really doesn't require using data points from NOW, let us focus the conversation. I personally would like us to not lose one hundred games, next year. Davis still on the book next year. I don't expect a big increase in payroll next year. I honestly expect a team next similar to this year's team. With the addition of 2 top 10 global prospects, injected at various points in the season. That's pretty exciting to me. I think despite as bad as the ML team has been- and its hard to get true straight line comps cause of the shortened seasons- getting better.