ChosenOne21

And he's 29 with no ML experience. Still, I'd rather sign guys like him with good minor league numbers than the Wade LeBlancs of the world, but that isn't saying much

Really surprised to see Adley in the Power category. I knew he had like 60 power, but one of the top in the minors?

Seriously? Any of our young starters can probably do better than an 8.06 ERA and for less money. It's not like we need the depth either

I wish we could have a commentator with Gary Thorne's voice who can tell the difference between a low-and-away slider and a high fastball

Maybe if he scraps the slider and focuses on the curveball it improves a little? Doesn't sound like he's that far away from being a decent starting pitcher

Backup catcher of the future...now I've heard everything

Yeah, it's really kind of telling how close these guys seem to be and all it took to get Shaw was a waiver claim. I was fairly high on Stewart, but this is eye-opening

I get that. I'm just not sure how the scouting report of 50s and 55s across the board leads to a 40 overall in the evaluation. Obviously he's a different pitcher now, my question was more about how those kind of scouting reports work

I read a Fangraphs article the other day that said really good things about Means's slider: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/can-john-means-build-on-a-strong-rookie-season/ The article was written before last season, though

I've always wondered how a guy can have 50s and 55s across the board and be a 40 overall Also, I'm pretty sure present-day Means has better grades than that. There's no way his changeup is currently a 50

If a "Top or the Rotation starter" is a #1 or #2 on most teams, and we define #1 as in the 80th percentile for starting pitchers and #2 as the 60th percentile, I don't think it's wrong to call Means a Top of the Rotation starter. I know people use those definitions differently, but I think my definitions are more stable I call those shutdown guys you want starting three games for you in a seven-game playoff series "Aces." Means certainly hasn't been that, and I wouldn't say it's likely he becomes that either

I think it's likely Pop has a better career than the two guys we drafted, but I don't even have 1% of the information on those guys Elias has, and he and his team aren't fools. They could still be wrong, as projecting players is an inexact science, but I certainly wouldn't want to put my track record up against his

I don't want a stop-gap outfielder when we have young guys who could be part of our next winning club who need the playing time out there. It's not like the guy has massive upside and could be traded for a haul either

Yeah, he's not going to win a Gold Glove out there, or even be much of a plus defender, but with his bat he's definitely valuable as a left fielder To those making Trumbo comparisons, come on. Mountcastle isn't nearly that bad, and I'd be shocked if he ever gets that bad while in his 20's. Mountcastle is probably like a -2 left fielder, Trumbo was probably a -18

If either of these guys turn into an ML starter, even a backend one (not likely), this will have been worth Pop and Fenter. I'm higher than most on Pop, but I doubt it's a foregone conclusion he spends the season with the Diamondbacks. IIRC, they're contenders right now, not rebuilders. As for Fenter, I doubt he's anything special. Solid middle reliever at best, almost certainly coming back to us

He's looked pretty good in the minors recently. Could be some actual upside here. Doesn't cost us anything to find out. I like this more than most waiver claims

It's nuts how good we were in 2014 without Machado, Davis and Wieters. We still lose if the McClouth home run is called fair I think it was fine to use Ubaldo there, but Buck should have had a quicker hook It's down to Machado and Keeping Cruz over Davis. I think you have to believe we're World Series champions with Machado in 2014 to make that choice, and I can't say for sure that we would have been. I think I have to go with keeping Cruz over Davis, because it might have prevented the 2016 Ubaldo fiasco since Davis was awful in that game and Cruz might have scored us an extra run. Also, it would have been better for the teams long-term flexibility and could have helped the rebuild since we'd likely have been able to ship Cruz out for some good prospects

Mike Piazza?

I'm guessing bottom half of the 20's or off the list

If he doesn't have enough arm for 2B, how does he have enough arm for CF?

Yeah, theoretical value is what I meant. Thanks for clearing that up

Just because a player is worth a certain amount of money according to WAR, doesn't mean teams are going to line up to pay a player that amount. A win is worth what, $8 or $9 million according to WAR? So according to that formula, Nunez is worth somewhere between $4 and $9 million. But most teams don't pay players worth two wins or less anything near their market rate. Sure, there might be an exception or two, or someone might be worth two wins or less who's finishing out an expensive contract that was priced based on them being worth more wins than that. Successful teams (without enormous budgets, and even then they still generally don't do this) pay free agent stars and superstars their market worth by WAR, and try to get the two win and under guys for dirt cheap to fill out the roster. This is what is meant by WAR not being linear. Guys like Renato Nunez aren't going to sign for anywhere from $4-$9 million, because it's not hard to stumble around in your farm system or on waivers and find guys for league minimum who have a good chance to be worth a similar amount. All of MLB just passed on the opportunity to pay Nunez a $2-$3 million salary and control his rights for two more seasons after next for the cost of a waiver claim. I imagine if he signs with a team, it will be for less than that amount. You can talk until you're blue in the face about how the formula dictates he's worth that, but if no one is willing to pay a price because they can get the same thing for less money somewhere else, then it's asinine to insist that they should have paid him $2-$3 million And come on. I don't think the Orioles are unique in their DH situation, and they've got a ton of corner outfielders and first basemen who need bats. We weren't the only team with "room" for him. Would they have kept him if they could have continued to pay him league minimum? Probably. What you're missing is that salary and production are two sides of the same coin. Yes, the Orioles cut Nunez because of money. Because his likely production was replaceable for less than $2-$3 million dollars

Even if they never spend the money they saved on Nunez on the team, how exactly is that hurting us in any way? We might win one less game next year and miss out on the 1% chance that Nunez plays way over his head and can be traded for something of value? I'm not going to worry about it I'd love to know how you know this. Can you link me an article or something? Frobby has a point--they've shot up payroll in the past when the team has been competitive. It's easier to do that when you have more money sitting around like, you know, from when you cut a guy with a multi-million dollar salary to replace him with an equivalent player making league minimum. And before you ask, I don't know for sure they'll reinvest savings into the team in the future. But it only makes logical sense they'll be more likely to if they have more money, however small

For sure But even if we accept that DJ Stewart is a wild card and Renato is as much of a sure thing as can be to be a one-win DH, it's not going to make a difference next year. Might as well save the money

I care about saving money because teams have budgets and saving money gives them flexibility to operate within those budgets. Yeah, they're probably not going to spend savings on major league players this year, but so what? Truth is, neither of us know exactly where any saved money is going. We can see some of the places it isn't going, but would you be really be happier if the Orioles spent some money they saved this year on free agents to get us from like 70 wins to 73? It's possible the money goes into the Angelos family's pockets. But it's also possible that it goes into signing more international free agents, improving infrastructure, or put into escrow until the team is ready to make a splash. Is the team more likely to make a big free agent signing if they owe Chris Davis $50 million or $60 million? And even if they pocket it, I don't really care. It makes no difference for next year's team. So long as they're willing to spend when it pushes us over the edge, I don't care if they pinch pennies in lost seasons. People like to save money. Imagine that Chris Davis didn't steal anything. The team offered him the money freely, knowing there was risk involved, and he took it. There's nothing inherently valuable about 30+ homers and slugging 475-500. Players are a total package, not just their power stats. At the end of the day, you're still paying millions of dollars for a one-win DH and there's no reason to do that. I think we both know that if Renato is a one win DH with a .310 OBP, 35 homers and a .500 slugging, and DJ Stewart is a one-win DH with a .345 OBP, 25 homers and a .450 slugging, they're still both one-win DHs and DJ Stewart does it for less money. Plus, DJ arguably has some defensive value, which is more than I can say for Nunez