Pickles

I think it's worth pointing out, that those five inherited big-money contracts, are the biggest reason they're in first place. Those are all, with the exception of Gausman, who we gave away as a salary dump, there best players.

Did they have career .260 MiL batting averages? Do flukey things happen? Particularly in shortened seasons? Of course. But DJ Stewart does not have the ability to hit a sustained .300 in the Japan, and if he did, he'd be useful over here.

He couldn't hit .300 in Japan. If he could, he'd be useful here.

This was so obviously imminent, I can't get too excited about it.

I think it's a lot easier for other teams that have more money and are actually looking to win meaningful games with a move like this. We'll have to keep our eyes on Price this offseason.

Well, you seem to be able to get over that pretty easily. It doesn't bother me either tbh.

I personally think Price is a good target. So I concede that, but that's kind of the exact problem in terms of acquiring him. It's not necessarily about the Dodgers. It's about the other 28 teams. Someone- who wants to win and is motivated by that and not just taking a flier- will pay more than our "nothing" for Price I believe. But it's a call I'd be willing to make. But I think the better play is to move up in the FA market a bit from the Harveys of the world. Of course, historically that has been very unkind to us.

This is a good thread. It's easy- and I've chided you before- to just say the team "should" be better and "should" have acquired better players, but to lay out a specific player is something that can actually be discussed. My point of contention here would be I don't think Price can be had for next to nothing. He'll cost talent. All things being equal, I would prefer to up the class of FA pitcher we were looking at than to make this particular trade. But the idea is not without merit.

He has a weak arm. He's fast for a big guy, but he's not fast, and he ain't getting faster. He can't read the ball in the air. A problem which manifested itself at firstbase against the Yankees this week. He's just always- even granting he could improve- a bad LFer. I don't want bad defenders. Again, you can win a lot of ways; a good way though is to avoid playing bad defenders. He'll hit. He'll hit better than he has this year. For reasons stated above, I don't think he'll ever be a great hitter.

That seems...... overboard.

I'd agree he would improve; it would be difficult to be worse. I also agree that there's no good reason to do it, because that list goes a lot longer if you extend it to guys I would rather have in LF than Mountcastle in 2022 or 2023. He, even with improvement, would always be a bad LF- at best. You can win a lot of different ways, of course, but winning with the worst LFer in baseball, who is a good but not great offensive player, makes it more difficult.

I hope you're right. But playing first, his OPS is going to have to sniff 1000 for that to be true. I don't see that happening next year, or probably ever, due to the aforementioned discipline issues. Now, he's made some strides this year on that, and I referenced them in my op speaking on how I felt you had to feel good about his season so far, so I won't say it is impossible, but it's hard to see him developing into a .400 obp guy, which is where we would need to be to fulfill your prediction.

That's about 10 games too. It's hard to believe.

His WAR #s are going to be a bit misleading this year, as he was heavily dinged out in LF in a very short period of time.

I feel like we have learned a lot about Mountcastle this year, and you have to feel pretty good about his future. He's a first baseman. No more of that outfield crap. But with his size and athleticism, there's no reason he can't be a good defensive first baseman, and we've seen flashes of that this year. He's going to hit. Enough to justify playing first base. Now he may never be an MVP candidate, or even an all-star because of the offensive bar being so high, but he's not Casey Kotchman. The biggest concern most had for him entering the bigs was his plate discipline/walk rate. He's dispelled a lot of that from me. I do think it keeps him from being a 900+ OPS monster- and thus that all-star/mvp candidate I referenced. But it's not going to keep him from 1) hitting and 2) justify hitting him in the middle of an order. He's got a 6% BB rate this year. That's not good. It also isn't embarrassing- particularly for a rookie. You got to feel pretty good about his year to date in my opinion.

The idea of winning and losing these trades is a misnomer. By the time the O's got into that position with Manny, just as one example, they had already lost. Others have pointed out that is true of Britton as well. However, I don't really hold that against them. They had the core of a team that had made the playoffs 3 out of 5 years, leading the AL in wins over that period, and they decided they were going to go for it and ride till the wheels came off. That's a legitimate strategy. The problem with these deals, and I alluded to it yesterday, but we traded a bunch of white meat just to save money, which is the absolute last thing you should do in the beginning of a rebuild. Schoop and Gausman were the exact kind of young MLers you hold on to, build up their value, and flip at the appropriate time. You don't drop them at their lowest value as a salary dump. That is criminal.

Agreed. I don't know the exact number but 63 feels better to me than 58, which is what we're talking about. "A little more competitive."

And I'll add that I've been thinking about starting a thread about it, because nobody is wrong here: We should be better. We didn't need to be this bad. You want to know another reason this rebuild is taking this long? Because to instigate it we cut a lot of white meat.' Trading Gausman and Schoop as essentially salary dumps in the first wave of trades was borderline negligence. There's a ton of reasons we stink. Our division is not a primary one. But they better acknowledge it if they're going to deal with it. And I do believe, and I think it is pretty demonstrable based on evidence, that it is definitely an additional challenge to what is already a very challenging project.

That might be the one division that is better than the AL East. Of course, then instead of playing Toronto (good and getting better) you'd get to play Colorado (Shit and getting worse.) In no environment in MLB would the Orioles be good. In almost any other environment in baseball, they would be better. It isn't a difficult thing to grasp; and it isn't worth getting upset over acknowledging. And the only people who do seem to take it personal, are those who claim, ironically, we should be better now.

Winning % isn't the best way to calculate SOS. For the exact reasons you mention. I'll repeat from above and likewise point out that it in no way contradicts anything you wrote: The title of the thread suggests we should be more competitive. I think pointing out we would be in any other environment in baseball is pretty germane.

Except I don't see anybody doing that. Could you point them out to me? I'll disagree with them. But I'll say to you what I'm about to say to Corn: Look at the title of the thread. Yes, we COULD be a little more competitive, and we likely would be in any other division in baseball. That is not in contradiction with anything you posed.

Getting HBP is a repeatable "skill." That's been long established. I'm skeptical the O's are teaching it, though anything is possible.

Nobody's arguing the Orioles are good. However, they do have the most difficult schedule in baseball. A large part of that is their division. These are facts. Why you and SG get so upset when they're mentioned, and act as if acknowledging reality is some moral failing, I'll never understand.

I know that reality seems to upset you, but switch the O's and Rangers in their divisions. And I guarantee the O's would have more wins.

This team would look a hell of a lot better if it wasn't in the AL East.