Pickles

So far he's been a lot better than those guys were. If that were to continue, the return would be much better. Nobody is going to worry about arb prices for a guy with a 125 era+ for his career. (And, to my eye, rapidly climbing.)

I love the guy. But I wouldn't be looking to take him into FA. He's 32 before he earns a FA dollar. As painful as it would be, I'd trade him before I extended him. And I'm not in a big rush to trade him. He's getting better.

We have control for three seasons after this one. The clock isn't ticking that hard.

Fair enough. I'm just starting to develop an annoyance at what is actually the inverse of your post, but the constant suggestion to move guys to the pen because their stuff will "play up." Well, everybody's stuff plays up in the pen. It's a non-observation. I wouldn't be so dogmatic about not letting him ever start again, but you're undeniably right: His best chance of success comes in the pen.

Rather than get hung up on the terminology, the most important thing to acknowledge is that Means is/has proven that 19 wasn't a fluke and that he is indeed a legit, good ML starting pitcher. I asked on Opening Day, but where would you put his change-up on the scouting scale? I put it on OD at a 70. Watching all year it is consistently 65+. Am I wrong? Because a guy with a plus, often plus-plus, pitch has the ability to be an "ace."

Stuff playing up in the pen. Adrenaline for ML debut. Both possible explanation.

Isn't everybody?

Means. And he'll top this list by September.

None? You could probably get him up around 220 innings.

By the eye test, Sisco has looked much better than Severino this year, imo.

If making excuses equals accurately describing reality, then sure.

Drafting some college stud won't fix the development issues any more than drafting Gausmann did. We get to see the tip of the iceberg for the most part of that development. But 7/8ths of it is hidden from our view, so I don't think anyone has anything particularly enlightening to say on the struggles of prior regimes and the reported improvements of this one. We're going to have the judge the vine by its fruits. And the biggest thing I want to see is: Young pitchers getting better at the ML level through experience. That sounds almost inevitable to people. It isn't. Arrieta got worse here every single year. We saw what happened with Matusz. Tillman was up and down for years. Britton continually declined while in the rotation. And that's just the latest cavalry. If young pitchers come up and struggle, I can live with that. Hell, I expect that. But if whole groups of them keep getting worse, then it's safe to say we haven't solved the issue.

I think we all have to be in a wait and see mode regarding Elias, which was essentially my point. I want to see pitchers come up from the MiL level and be ready to compete at the ML level. I want to see smoother more successful transitions. We're seeing some of the young arms come up now. Big tests will be with Hall and Rodriguez. We'll going to start to get more feedback pretty soon.

I don't know why this seems to make you so upset. I'm not whining. I'm not complaining. I'm not making excuses. In case you hadn't noticed, the O's failures to develop pitching are not my failures. I have nothing to apologize or make excuses about. I am stating reality. And it is a reality that the O's better be prepared to deal with.

The question becomes: If he has a 760 OPS as a lefty vs. rhp, how much will the platoon split cost him vs lhp. I'm sure there are historical comps. I'm pretty sure there's not enough of them to tell us anything too conclusive.

Their inability to develop pitching, particularly starting pitching, has spanned several regimes. Your point regarding the Showalter/Duquette regime is speculative but fair. Different regimes had different failures. I don't find it all that interesting to rehash the last 30 years of their failures. Hopefully, Elias' regime can avoid them. But they will face the same environment. And I stand by my statement: Pitching for the O's is probably the hardest environment in the league. You conveniently reduced my argument to one point: OPACY. That's merely one part of it, and a fairly smaller one. Though OPACY is a uniquely difficult pitch to place. A much larger part of it, and you failed to mention it, is the weighted schedule and the competition. In addition to pitching in a hitter's park, you pitch a lot of games in two more notorious hitter's parks, Fenway and Yankee Stadium. Guess who occupies those parks? Two teams which are perennially among the best offensive teams in the league, with lineups full of high-priced All-Stars and future Hall-of-Famers. (I'll concede it's not as bad as it was in the Steroid Era.) So, yeah, pitching in Colorado sucks. But you know what else you get to do? Pitch a ton of games in SF, LA, and SD, three notorious pitcher's parks, with two teams which are generally poor offensively. You also get to face a pitcher every 9 batters. So, as an O, you pitch in one of the harder home parks, against the better league, the best (generally) division, the better offensive league, and the best offensive division, and you do it in generally offensive environments. So, yeah, probably hardest environment in the league. And I definitely believe it has a large impact on the pitchers we develop.

I think a fan with a certain bit of refinement should understand that prospect rankings are not definitive statements on the health of a player development system. What the O's need to be able to do to win consistently at the ML level is find and develop players better than their peers. Taking Rutchsman doesn't actually resolve that issue. Whiffing on 1-2 doesn't resolve that issue. Neither does losing 100 games a year. That issue is resolved in improving the O's processes in finding and developing amateur talent. So if you want to criticize Elias or the rebuild, criticize that. The fact that the O's stink in 2021, or 2020, or 2023, was predestined several years before it happened. You hit the O's biggest organizational failure on the head: The failure to develop quality pitching. I've said this before and I'll say it again: The reason so many highly ranked minor league arms fail here and go on to do better elsewhere in some cases is because pitching for the O's is the most difficult pitching environment in the big leagues, and I don't think it is close. Based on who and where you pitch, this is easily the worst place to pitch in the major leagues, other than maybe Colorado. So if Elias doesn't solve that particular riddle, he is mostly likely to fail. I don't think he's infallible. It's very possible he does fail. But I'm not going to get up in arms about the O's being shit 2 and a half years into what I takes twice that time to favorably construct.

Those high rankings were almost solely the result of picking in the top 5 AND some good trading by MacPhail- who actually had a ML asset or two when he arrived unlike Elias. It was not a testament to the Orioles ability to find and develop players though. Before we go down this road, I think I should clearly state we don't seem to disagree. I said 3-5 years. You presented the Mariners as an example of doing it in 3 years. Even if I accept the premise that they did what you say, that fits into the window I provided.

Again, you miss the point. We lost for fourteen years. We never built a good farm system in all that time. Despite some years having high rankings based on high draft picks.

Debatable. I'm surprised nobody is talking about how awful the Rangers are. It *doesn't* take five years of tanking to build a farm system. It *can* take five years. Again, you miss the crucial factor. The tanking isn't what is building the farm system. It can help. It can speed up the process. But it isn't actually the positive development.

Well, good for them. I'm not sure I'd be planting a flag if I was them, but they play in probably the worst division in baseball, so they have a chance.

I'm sorry to make multiple posts but I can't edit. It's also to use Andy MacPhail's phrase. "A snapshot in time." It is possible to have a solid farm system ranking, and be terrible at finding and developing players.

Addition to not be completely snarky: Rankings aren't definite. It's nice when rankings improve but that doesn't mean it's reality. It's the perception of reality.

Winning a lot of divisions, eh?

I think this question is framed completely wrong. And I think it leads to a lot of cross talk. The question isn't, "How long do the O's need to be bad?" You don't need to be bad to build a top notch farm system. It helps. It can speed the process up, but it isn't necessary. This isn't the issue. The issue is: 1) How long does it take to build a top-notch farm system starting from the position the O's were in when Elias took over? 2) How long does it take for a top-notch farm system to translate to having a winning MLB team. The answer to question one is debatable. The O's had a bad farm system when Elias arrived, but some of the talent which makes up its superior current ranking was already present. I, for one, think it takes a minimum of 3-5 years to develop a strong farm system, and not merely a collection of strong prospects. Elias, despite individual moves which I might disagree with, seems to be making more progress to that end than any of his predecessors since the 70s. The answer to number two is clearer: Depends, but it takes some time. I remember when the Royals assembled "The Greatest Farm System in History;" well, then they went and got their asses kicked three more years until they brought in a couple vet pitchers and then they started winning pennants. I have been cautioning some of the optimism I have read on this board for the last few years. There's been a lot of in 2021 talk, or in 2022 talk. To make an O's analogy, we're in the 2009 part of this rebuild. There are still several losing seasons in front of us- at least imo. In 2-3 years, we could have a strong farm system. And, imo, winning is probably about 2-3 years behind that.