LookinUp

But why would the Orioles fully staff a facility then? I think the outcome, if the MLB took it over, would essentially be to lease these facilities like the O's just built and give multiple teams space in them. The O's would become a landlord in the DR.

It's a tough question for a 20 year old for sure, but my guess is different types of swings CAN be effective against Grayson Rodriguez versus against Alex Wells. I don't specifically know what that means though. It probably means you can just get away with more against Wells whereas you absolutely have to be short to the ball against Rodriguez. I don't know that it means you have different swings.

You really get the feeling listening to stuff in and around this organization that they have very thoughtful, individualized, plans for their young players. I have no idea what Baumler will turn out to be, but you heard it here too with respect to "cleaning up his deficiencies" in the weight room. They didn't waste his time off. This is a consistent theme I keep hearing. They're looking into everything. Open to ideas. Putting individualized plans into place instead of just an org-wide program. Great stuff.

I'll read the 2-10 bit, but I don't like that Hernandez is our #1 guy on this list because I think there's a huge assumption made that he can be made into a hitter. I don't doubt that his exit velos are good and that his size is plus, but the bat to ball part of the game is massive and he hasn't demonstrated an innate ability to hit yet. That's a huge yellow flag for me now. It would be a red flag but I concede he's very young. That said, I haven't looked, but 'd wager all of our top hitting prospects were better hitters at the same age.

I think you're right about his size being projected as a long term issue but wrong about his defense ratings. I think he was VERY highly rated as a defensive catcher, but there was questions about longevity.

I don't think that. I also don't think that giving the players more of that money will have any effect other than to raise prices for fans.

I question just how real the $104 million really is. This is a team that had 8 postseason home games. Presumably all sellouts or just about. That's after 78 home games during the season. They were second in the league in average attendance for their games, getting 2.3 million people to attend. They averaged almost 20,000 more people per game than Baltimore, for example. With TV and radio deals, merch, etc. To ONLY net $104m on all of that seems very low to me. I don't think it bodes well for the bottom half of the revenue teams, but like I said, I think corporate is able to move numbers around in ways I don't understand. I really doubt they only netted $104m last year, but admit I'm not educated on how those filings work.

I heard something that's in the public realm this weekend from a guy who would know who implied that Jordan Westburg is a GREAT clubhouse presence. He quickly deflected about the name because he doesn't want to use names publicly in general, but he didn't cover in time. It sounds like he's just a great leader. The type of guy a whole team follows. That raises his stock in my eyes for sure.

I think the owners know what they'll go to and just aren't yet because they have the leverage. the players know that too, so they're not caving now. At some point the leverage starts to get to the players. That might be May/June. I think you'll see more movement leading up to that. The owners won't want the players to get that leverage and the players probably don't want to keep losing money, so they'll maybe make a deal.

I don't recall that, but he was a closer in college, right? I was always under the impression that his arm was great.

Man. The one wow thing about Wieters' game was his arm. At his best, you couldn't steal on him unless the pitcher was really slow to the plate. Lightning quick release. Rocket arm. Great accuracy. He was awesome in that part of the game.

I wonder, what do people think it would look like if they cared about the fans? Here's my quick list: 1. They're playing games. Not locked out or striking. 2. The best players in an organization can be on the ML team rather than held back for any reason. 3. Teams have financial ability to keep their own players (e.g. what the NBA does in some form). 4. All teams have a level financial playing field, or at least something much closer to level than exists now. Most people, especially those who don't go to college, earn a pittance when they first enter the workforce. Baseball players are doing this with full knowledge of the cost/benefits. Most aren't exactly being forced to forego millions. They're just delaying the start of some other standard middle class career so they can get paid to play the game they played as kids. Oh, and they work about 8 months a year. They're not exactly victims in this. Minor league compensation probably should be raised, but the vast majority of these guys are choosing this path over the alternative even though they know their odds of making the majors is small.

Not sure what to make of all of these numbers. My takeaways are: 1. Tampa's pitchers are better than ours. 2. Tampa tries not to put their pitchers in disadvantageous situations (e.g., 3rd time through the order) as much as the rest of the league. 3. Not in the data, but guessing that when Tampa does let a guy stay in, it's a guy who is more likely to succeed if he stays in.

Not saying you're wrong, but I thought he was signing with the Tigers for 10/$275 before the lockout. Then he didn't. Maybe this is why?

I'm under no illusions that either side is interested in anything other than the bottom line, and the biggest market teams doing the best is best for the bottom line.

But smaller market teams aren't the only ones who want a substantial annual income. They just have a narrower band in which to operate to achieve that end. And so what if they do? We're not communists here. Profit isn't bad.

Or how much revenue sharing would you have to do? The financials in this sport are so skewed that the change to do it "right" would be massive.

You may be right. My guess is the owners see a world where people are outraged at something new every single day and that they'll move on quickly.

That's kind of my point. The tax has no teeth if only a few teams ever see it. What does Baltimore care about the luxury tax? It's basically a slap on the wrist to keep the Dodgers and Yankees from going absurdly wild in free agency.

I don't doubt for a second that the owners are playing hard ball and doing exactly what Heyward is saying. I don't doubt for a second that if the owners waited for the players to have the leverage then the players would be doing the same thing. They're not different. Just arguing for different sides.

If it were up to me, there would be: 1. No guaranteed contracts. Only bonuses, like the NFL. 2. Greater revenue sharing. 3. A substantial salary floor of some kind. 4. A salary cap with more teeth than what exists today. 5. Players making more earlier in their careers. 6. No disincentive to bring up your best guys. Easier said than done. This is all a pipe dream though.

Just wanted to point out that this above paragraph, to me, was excellent. Also, in response to many other posts, I wanted to say that I'm not convinced that a level playing field is better for either the owners or the players. MLB gets more revenue from the Yankees going to the World Series, by far, than just about anything. That's what they want. It hurts them to have Tampa play the Diamondbacks or something like that. So while a level playing field is a really romantic thing to root for, I think you're fooling yourself if you think that's the goal of either side even if you think that's the fundamental problem with the number of fans watching.

If Law has a vendetta against the O's, he also does against just about every other team. He's always angering fans. As an aside, I'd argue our depth at catcher (Basallo could be really good and a couple of older guys might be serviceable backups) and SS is way better than pitcher and probably better than CF, as SG pointed out. There are a couple of guys that were drafted this year that could pan out for sure at CF, but it's Mullins and then a huge question unless you think Cowser's a CF. I don't, for whatever that's worth.

Yeah. It was lazy. Basically not enough Latin names that he knows so it's not good enough. I think mathematically he might be right though if it's based on depth, but I tend to think the production from our depth will exceed that of many organizations with comparable players just based on our data and player development approaches.

Thus why depth in a farm system is absolutely critical. It's why Keith Law has us #10.