LookinUp

I think it shows that we either don't draft well, don't develop well or don't assign guys with ML upside to the GCL very often. I wonder if most of our college guys have started at Aberdeen?

I don't know who it will be, but I expect some pitchers to emerge in Aberdeen this year. That's what Elias' brief track record with the Orioles suggests.

I want to hear it. If we can trade a catcher for a legit return, I'm all for it. We are in a rebuild and we did just draft AR after all. With that said, I think he'd have to rake through July to net a serious return this year. Anything mediocre and the offers will be next to nothing. I think it's more likely that he'd get a better return if he can be good through the full season. We can always hope. (well, Drungo can't, but the rest of us can. )

6'5", 282 lbs. Do the Ravens need a pulling guard? This is a big boy.

Improved LD% too. I get (and agree with) all of the caveats, but this guy could turn into a solid starting Catcher. That's valuable. In a perfect world, he'd have a full good year. I think it would take that type of performance for other teams to value him enough to make a decent trade offer. You never know though.

Agree on all points.

I like his lower half. Generates a lot of power there and it looks like through the hips.

I hate to wonder this outwardly, but one could get the impression that Elias either loves that scout or (my concern) doesn't have enough other trusted scouts for kids across the country. Don't get me wrong. I'm not necessarily questioning any of those picks, I just don't really like the coincidence. [Edit: Now watch all three Stanford guys become top prospects for the O's in the next 2 years. Lol.]

But how many guys go to those showcase events already known to evaluators? They're literally watching most guys on the field. If there's another dude that's relatively unknown and doesn't particularly put on a show that week, I think he can be missed. It seems like this guy really didn't get out there that much until recently. However, he was known enough to have several team visits and ultimately get picked at 5/1, so he must have made a decent enough impression.

Sounds like he's from a place that doesn't get a lot of eyes too. Popped up late, young. I like it.

I've watched 20 seconds of video. Color me intrigued. A 17 y.o. SS taking a ball out to right center like that is very interesting.

For those interested in a comparison, in last year's OH prospect list, prospects 6-11 (Hays to Akin) all had 50 FV projections.

I love that he was an all-state basketball player.

I wonder if the O's think it's possible that he'll continue to improve his stuff and maybe get back to what he was out of college, with time. That's my uninformed hope.

I agree. I just see a 17 year old kid and remember how long the developmental paths really are. It is what it is, but it's a reminder that the O's have to play the long game in building the best organization possible.

Really happy with this pick, but he's the opposite of Rutschman in terms of age and experience against top competition. This kid will take a minute to get here unless he really pops big, which I assume is possible. Probably a Mountcastle-like progression through the minors (e.g., 4-5 years).

Right, and more people swing like Chris Davis in the minors.

My totally unproven theory is that Elias/Sig really focus on changing eye levels to inflate K rates (not just eye levels, but it's an important piece). The problem is that as hitters get better, letter-high fastballs and generally mistakes up in the zone get turned around more and more. That's one way that stuff starts to differentiate these guys, and guys with lesser stuff give up more home runs. This has always been true, of course. It's just my little theory as to why K rates are so impressive this year for so many guys whose prospect sheet looks more like Mark Buehrle's than Nolan Ryan's. It seems like Lowther's fastball still plays (I believe Luke/Tony mentioned he has a high spin rate). It seems like Wells has to rely on doing it the more traditional way (changing speeds/locating).

It is crazy how bad the bottom of baseball is this year. A .300 team might end up picking second.

The crazy thing about Harvey is his stuff is still electric, just erratic. His upside is limited by health, but so was Andrew Miller’s. Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. ?

It sure would be cool if we got a Thome or Hoffman to come out of nowhere in our system. Here's a great article about Thome: https://www.minorleagueball.com/2013/4/11/4214024/prospect-retrospective-jim-thome-hall-of-fame If you look at the profile, it makes sense. He was a cold weather kid who was a late developer (physically). He also had good strike zone judgement even when he didn't have power. They really moved him fast through the system though once he took off. Probably too fast, in retrospect. The moral to the story is that the O's need to go to Minnesota, find a kid who walks a lot and has a dad that is 6-8" taller than him and draft that kid in the 18th round.

Maybe so. It's funny how deals tend to make sense for both teams. They had a low payroll, wanted a bullpen arm with upside without giving up young prospects, and they were in a pennant race. We were carrying an expensive and under performing reliever and we were dropping salary like it was going out of style. Britton's was a similar type of deal. He was performing better, but had been injured and hadn't really regained his command at all. The team was tanking, he was a FA to be and also pretty expensive. Yet people think we should have gotten a major return. I think people's complaints about last year's trade deadline are right on the prospects we got back but wrong on the blame. The market was what it was because we decided to hold onto all of those guys for too long and ultimately sold low on just about everyone. That is why the return was mostly about salary relief. It wasn't because Duquette's a dunce who just decided to make stupid deals.

I tend to agree with this criticism of Hyde, but I understand both sides of that issue. On one hand, I want him to put Givens in manageable positions to succeed. Let him get an out or two, finish an inning or start a different one. At this point it would be nice if he was backed down to a middle relief match up guy just so he can have some success to build on. On the other hand, if you don't put Givens in those situations, who was going to get the outs? That answer is anyone's guess. The truth is there's probably no answer. In hindsight, I think I would have liked Hyde to back off of the relievers a bit. Use them more often, but for fewer outs. Don't let things snowball. He would probably concede that point right now, but a couple of months ago I'm sure he was hoping he had a high-leverage reliever that could be really important for this team on the field and at the July deadline. Instead, it imploded. Now it's time to build the young man back up.

Yeah, he was making $5+ million for the O's last year. They probably saved roughly $1.5-$2.0 million by trading him. It was a money dump because his production just hasn't been very good. The fact he did well for Atlanta is nice, but we weren't selling high and we were in full tank mode. It was a decent risk for Atlanta that mostly panned out.

Elias and Sig are two of the smartest executives in MLB. I hope they don't over think this.