LookinUp

or Brady Aiken (2014), or Micky Moniak (2016), or Royce Lewis (2017). Or Bryce Harper/Carlos Correa. There are good and bad, but seems to be a fairly high bust rate depending on how far to go back. But sure, if you're lucky to see a generational talent like Griffey/Harper, by all means, go for it. In the absence of that, it seems like having the extra experience/data on a college player is advisable. And if that's true at #1, it would seem to translate to #2, #5, etc., where there needs to be a somewhat significant talent delta between the less experienced high school option and the more tested college option, with the tradeoff being upside versus probability of success.

Like Tim Beckham, for example.

The ball is a reasonable thing to speculate about. Either way, these guys just aren't getting it done. I hope they figure it out.

Well, the story of that article was 1) he was good, 2) got all out of whack and 3) figured out what made him good and started doing it again. Hopefully that happens with Lowther, et al too. I just have this bad feeling that the O's are using advanced data and trying to make guys into something that they're not. It will work for some, but might screw guys up in the transition. I don't know. Just a feeling. I have no real evidence to confirm it.

Well, that's not all they're saying. They're saying that it would be odd to spend above slot on the guys we picked and will likely pay above slot for. So they're concluding either that 1) we won't go far above slot, which means we operated on a tight budget, or 2) we picked the wrong guys to go above slot on. For the latter, I'll trust Elias over analyst types. For the former, if we're cheap in the end, I'll be upset.

No, this conversation is specifically about who they picked. You say they should do more at the ML level. I agree. You say they're tanking just to get a better draft slot. I disagree. You say ownership's stance means they don't take Lawler. I disagree. Ownership sucks for whatever reason. Maybe it's because they're sinking millions into the DR. Maybe it's terrible MASN ratings (separate and apart from the team itself) and maybe it's the MASN settlement. Maybe they're preparing for sale. It's a lot of things, but they still had enough to get Lawler if they wanted him. They chose a different path. That's not on ownership.

Meh. I don't think ownership picked Cowser. Ownership's budget was certainly more than enough to draft Lawler. I'm not a fan of this ownership necessarily, but Cowser was Elias' decision, not Angelos.

Yeah. There's certainly more than one way to skin the draft cat, so opinions on strategies are fair game. I do still think that Elias deserves the benefit of the doubt more than any GM I can remember the O's having, and it's not even close. Even Gillick wasn't a minor league guy, though he was a great ML GM while he was given actual resources to work with.

Maybe for the i's and the t's? But it's not at all surprising to me that they would have come to a verbal agreement that the player was comfortable enough to tweet about, even if a bit premature. I don't think he profiles as a massive over slot guy, but an over slot nonetheless.

This was a devastatingly awesome post. The smartest teams in baseball tend not to align perfectly with unhired and/or previously fired baseball draft experts. That doesn't mean Elias is correct, but damn, consider the source you're relying on. This dude might not be likable for some folks (I do), but if there's one thing he's done it is build the minors to a better level. If Kjerstad didn't have the worst luck in the world and was setting the world on fire, would be hemming and hawing about Elias' strategy? I say no. Instead, the kid gets myocarditis of all things. Absolutely not baseball related, so now it's a stupid draft pick and it calls into question all of the rest of Elias' strategy? That's just crazy talk in my opinion.

I'm with Frobby, Tony and others here. This isn't about 52 ABs. He's flashed awesome, but the general trend with the bat is great discipline but generally a good, not great, hitter. I do really like that we have Rutschman and I think he'll be better overall than Wieters, but I don't see an offensive force like a Goldschmidt (random pull from a couple of years ago). I do think the last point about still learning could be key. The Baysox are remaking swings, I think. It is quite possible that they're working with AR and he has a lot going through his head. He could come out the other side a better hitter for sure, so I do think his ceiling is still VERY high. I just think Grayson is closer to performing at that level.

I'm kind of with CoC here, which I hate to say, but for a team that isn't spending on free agents, you want them absolutely maximizing their talent influx through the draft and international period. Leaving a few hundred k on the table is excusable, but only if you realize that the ceiling isn't a hard ceiling in the first place. To me, it seems like the difference between the O's approach and the yankees/sox is essentially one moderately over slot player. We should be getting that type of talent every chance possible, but we're not. I really don't blame Elias for this and I'm generally happy with him, but a change of ownership will be so freaking welcomed when it finally happens.

I'm reserving judgment too, but there's a huge difference between the two bolded terms. I do agree though that there could be a 3-5 over slot guys in this group, whether people on this board think they should be or not. As I've pointed out elsewhere, even the college seniors could have put out numbers before the draft indicating that they plan to go back to school, but we agreed to pay. It's a hugely weird year, so I'm just waiting. But if we are significantly under our allotment in the end, I too will be angry.

The woman angle is perfectly fine with me. I think they do a great job analyzing baseball and basketball in particular. Not sure I agree on football, though I'm sure some out there are excellent. I do think there's a ton of real experience and knowledge in baseball and basketball though.

I completely agree. As leverage goes, it probably aligns somewhere like this. Most to Least High School Senior Draft Eligible Soph. Draft Eligible Jr. (has another year) Covid Draft Eligible Senior (has another year, but is older) Draft Eligible Sr. (out of amateur options) This year's "seniors" are second from the bottom, so they have more leverage than the pure seniors but are certainly discounted by age.

That's true, but they manipulate it based on their judgement, not based on a whim.

He's also made a great living in basketball and I'm guessing he did not expect that when he was originally negotiating with the O's. According to Spotrac, he's made almost $11 million and still has about $11 million in guarantees for the next couple of years. He's such a valuable role player that I expect him to be valuable for several years to come. He'd have had to be really good at baseball to exceed those numbers.

Ok. I do agree on that for sure.

Not sure if this above is inside information or just your logical conclusion. As for my speculation, along the lines of what I just now typed in another thread, I think these seniors still have eligibility left and thus still have leverage. It's possible that a guy like this actually has a big number and that's why he fell. Again, I'm not even certain I'm right, but it seems possible that one or more of our "senior sign" guys are actually akin to previous year's high value juniors.

The senior thing isn't just different because a lot of them would have been juniors with value last year. It's different because they can still choose to go back for another year if they want. None of this year's seniors are out of eligibility, are they? So they do have leverage just like history's juniors. That's my understanding.

I think it's less BS in baseball than football, for example. In football, you have a more acute need to fill a position or the roster in general. In baseball, you're planning for several years down the road. Now, I do believe that orgs fill areas of need (see us with middle infielders last year and the Angels with pitchers this year), but I don't think that's significantly what's going on here. I think what's going on here is they weight BPA by some preference of likely future production. If that's true, they'll take a higher probability/lower ceiling guy over a lower probability/higher ceiling guy. Thus the college bats. That's their BPA even if you objectively disagree.

They have a different definition of what BPA is than you.

People in this thread are unironically pointing to publications that also gave Houston and Tampa bad draft grades and using them to help conclude that Baltimore deserves a bad draft grade. No offense, but I'd rather be in the same category as Tampa and Houston than any publication.

Not to nitpick, but I think the point is that the O's view of BPA just has a different formula than someone like SG, for example. One prefers the algorithm. The other prefers the upside. Both likely *think* they're targeting BPA though.

Mullins to have a good 2nd half and *further* cement himself as for real. Hays and Santander healthy and playing every day. Means healthy and thriving without stick fingers. Tate and T Wells healthy and thriving. Jones, Bradish and Smith getting their feet wet for ~45-60 days. Some of Kremer, Lowther, Akin, Zimmermann and A. Wells finding some success at the ML level. Baumann healthy and returning to pre-injury form. The #1 overall pick. The year to end so we can turn the page to a next phase of the rebuild, hopefully.