LookinUp

Are you assuming that FA is happening sooner under the next CBA? If so, I think that does suggest that teams should try to lock top guys up even more than they do now. Either way, I think the O's have a little time to make that decision. Part of the OP reflected that the Phillies could play the guy without service time issues. I'm not THAT motivated by service time with Hays at this point in his development or at this point in our rebuild.

I agree with the thinking, but am not to the point where I have high confidence in the FV of Hays. I think his floor is much lower than what you're allowing for, and while I hate to say it, I think the chances of him being closer to that floor are too good for a long term commitment right now.

Reasonable people can probably disagree on this one. The money isn't huge. His upside is pretty substantial. Elias et al are in a much better position to make that determination though. Another way of thinking about this is to put Hays in a Red Sox uniform and say he turns into what you think is his most likely FV. Does he crack their World Series starting lineup? I'm not saying he doesn't. I'm just not sure he does. Is that the guy we want to lock up early?

I"m not against it in concept, but don't believe Hays is the guy you do it for, at least not right now. I get that he stood out in spring training, but he's coming off a bad year and hot streaks happen all the time in baseball, especially in spring training, and I'm not sure his OBP profile is what we're going to want long term if he isn't a really dynamic hitter. I think of it more as the Evan Longoria treatment than the Scott Kingery treatment. If you have a unique talent, you absolutely try to lock him up as early as possible. I really like Hays, but I still have to think he has a fair chance of busting too, so I'm not going there. Same with Diaz. I like him, but he may not have the power stroke to be the threat we all hope. So I guess what I'm saying is I'm all for it, but for better prospects. One last thing, the best dealers in the world buy low and sell high. If the O's see a top 20 type of prospect, they should do it. I just get the sense that Hays' probabilities are too low to make that plunge.

In a perfect world, we would have perfect safety information to know what is harmful and what might be perfectly healthy. In the FDA world, even some of the safest drugs have safety labels. Heck, Aspirin probably wouldn't be approved if it came out today. It is far more harmful than most approved drugs. With large enough samples, pretty much anything we ingest can be hurtful. The problem is that there is no objective criteria for evaluating what is and isn't harmful, so the league has basically said that if it's a pill/shot/cream and it's meant to improve performance beyond your biological baseline, it's banned. So I think Aglets' post is basically correct.

Appropos of nothing, I heard Hyde talking about Young on 105.7 this AM. Either he or the radio guy mentioned that Young wants to get into coaching.

Actually, I think there are doubts about his ability to hit AAA pitching too. If he's the guy we had last year, he won't be good enough. If something else was happening, maybe there's hope. It's nice at least that today's HR came off of a bona fide ML pitcher.

Don't base Fantasy Baseball decisions on spring training. Well, you can, but I wouldn't.

How many pitches do they usually get when they enter a game? Five is not substantial. Was that meant to say five more than normal?

I know you know this, but to the sporting industry, the breaks and lengths of game are features, not bad at all. They allow more commercial revenue. Baseball has too many games and too many stoppages, but that's part of the reason why it makes so much money. Any changes that break that up, or contract teams, are missing the point. The game isn't frequently exciting enough. That's what drives people away. Some of your ideas (and others) about limiting the roster for pitchers are what I like the most in this thread. Bring the strategy back and try to limit the max-effort 1 batter 100 mph guy who has become increasingly hard to hit. The other stuff makes great academic sense, but poor financial sense, all things being equal.

Nitpick, I think this has more to do with MLBs revenue sharing model than it does the salary cap. With NFL-style revenue sharing, everything would be different.

Random thought: I was just looking at the number ratings in the OP of this thread. Man, an evaluator would really have to have some cajones to grade someone as a 75 or 80. I suppose certain tools, like speed, could be graded there, but I can't even imagine a prospect being graded that highly. Not Harper. Not Machado. Trout maybe?

Any sense of where either of them would slot into our system?

I read somewhere on this site that Dean Kremer’s results improved dramatically when he was informed by the Dodger’s analytics. One thing Dan and Rajics (sp?) have done is add a lot of arms over the last 12-18 months. It sure would be great if our new leaders are able to help them get better.

To your point, it would be really nice to see the O's let someone really get their feet under them at a level before promoting. If Sedlock, for example, is allowed to stay in Frederick and really gets on a run through June or even July, that would bode well for both Bowie and more generally for the future. With a solid run like that, I'd be more willing to let him move quickly from Bowie. If instead we promote him sooner than later, then I'd really want to see a solid, long, run in Bowie/Norfolk before coming to the O's, but that's just me. In reality, I expect the O's to promote him quickly and I expect him to be on our roster before 9/1 for a playoff run. We will definitely need the arms by then, and the O's aren't shy about pushing, for better or worse.

My impression about drug testing isn't that it's binary, it's that you have to have met threshold of the amount of that stuff in your system just so the old excuse of trace amounts of x in your system is because I had a cold doesn't apply. Make no mistake, that is an old excuse. Poor multi-millionaire Mondesi whose dad is probably one of the richest people in the DR is simply adding his nation of origin to that excuse. Can I definitively say he's lying? Absolutely not. However, MLB goes out of it's way to tell you what is banned and about the products that contain the banned substance. They probably don't know ever product in the DR, so Mondesi is hanging his hat on that. Doesn't make it more credible in my eyes.

Koji had an injury scare with the Sox (shoulder tightness). He's back, having pitched yesterday for the first time in 8 days. It'll be interesting to see if he holds up. He was always fragile, is old, and it's still pretty cold out these days. Still, I don't want to see that guy with the game on the line.

Guys. Words in that cool funky song say "don't tell me these guys ain't got no heart." He's not saying people are questioning our heart. He's saying this song is a funkadelic fit for the O's. I feel groovy after listening to that.

He belongs in a museum. Not at Oriole Park.

Since you brought it up, if I were owner, one of the first things I'd do is remove the babe ruth statue and replace it with Cal Ripken. Let the Yankees honor the babe.

I've done the math. This is worth, roughly, 22.235 trillion dollars.

I am not a web guy, but I sure could find a spot on this boat for Reynolds. Back right?

For Ozzie Guillen.

For this thread.