emmett16

Issue is they missed the boat decades ago when MLB was on top, put out a sub-par boring product, and self canibalised while the other leagues marketed their biggest stars, changed the rules to make their games more exciting, and continued to be progressive.

If you’re good you don’t pay. Thats why organizations have so many teams, to pay for the players on their best team(especially players that don’t have the means). Travel ball is all about FOMO, taking advantage of parents eager to spend whatever it takes to give their mediocre kid a chance. Doesn’t take a dime to get your work in and play for the local high school team. If you’re good, they’ll find you. Dominicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Venezuelans spend $0 on travel ball and are very well represented in MLB.

How about Stowers? He hits lefties well and plays a decent LF and has a cannon.

I agree. Just wishful thinking.

Mateo & MacKenna DFA. Trade Urias for anything.

Pretty sure ME follows the “if you hit, you don’t sit” mentality of assembling a team….unless your last name is Stowers or Norby.

Urias, MacKenna, and Mateo gotta go. Cowser can back up CF and we have 3 guys that can cover SS. Mayo needs to be on the OD roster. Like Tony said, I don’t know how you can tell a guy you have to earn a spot and then go back and tell him what he did wasn’t enough.

He’s gonna go upper deck LF a couple times this year. Calling it now. He has prodigious power.

I think it’s very likely the reason why some teams overachieve, the team with seemingly an abundance of talent sometimes flounder, and why some teams end up winning a ton of 1 run games. In a season with 162 games it only takes the slightest lack of drive and focus to make a big impact. With years of data and teams (of all types) to study, it doesn’t seem to me that it could not be quantifiable. And, it seems short sited when building an org that you wouldn’t at least try and continue to adjust your model. I also don’t think clutch is a thing.

Did you read the links posted? it’s more about playing in the margins. You have to get ~4100 outs every season. If someone isn’t pulling their weight for whatever reason and the team is “off” or playing a little stressed say 3% of the time, that’s 123 outs at play. Think about everything that can happen in that time span.

Bowden doing ME a favor?

It might be more so than you think. The teams have psych evals on the players, do behavior testing, and have the players using wearables to track their sleep and eating habits. The teams have a very in depth read into what makes these players tick and how they react and behave/control themselves in various situations. I think with a wide set of empirical data they can predict future outcomes fairly accurately.

I think a lot of it is how players with different temperaments/make-up but within the same sub-group (religion, culture, social-economic level, similar background, similar regional home)can even each other out and self police. And also how people with similar temperaments/make-up from different sub-groups can bridge the gaps between those differences. I just find it fascinating that there is a quantitative and strategic process to build a team that will net wins outside of the lines and that adhering to that process could be similar to picking up a 4 WAR player. From the reading I’ve done, it looks like there isn’t just one recipe for success but many ways to do it.

You keep hearing the stories; good guys, that work hard, get along and are easy to root for. Going on quite a while now you’d be hard pressed to hear anything negative about the character and make up of the players, coaches, trainers, analysts, and FO. Everyone is seemingly on the same page pushing in the same direction and it feels infectious. I’ve heard it said on this board that “team chemistry is not quantifiable and therefore not really important.” I’ve always thought that was a short sited take, but had never come across any concrete research. That was until I started reading “The Only Rule Is It Has To Work” The book points to research done by Katerina Bezrukova who claims team chemistry is, in fact, quantifiable and can be worth as much as a 4 win swing per season. Maybe there is a little more that meets the eye when it comes to some transactions and acquisitions that have been made, and not made, the last few years? http://blog.philbirnbaum.com/2014/03/espn-on-clubhouse-chemistry.html?m=1 https://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/dbassesite/documents/webpage/dbasse_083763.pdf https://medium.com/@worville/team-chemistry-is-not-invisible-8b7863839fd3 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/team-spirit/201301/uptons-faultlines-and-team-chemistry

I guess that depends on if you believe evolution is a crock or not? Every generation is a little better. The ‘27 Yankees would get smoked by the 2023 Oakland A’s and it wouldn’t be close.

I think people are sleeping on the Yankees a bit, they are a sleeping giant. The Rays & Jays are both going to be really good.

Sadly I agree, but hey, you know, pigs do fly

If they think Mayo has the goods to be an avg. MLB 3B (and I think they do), then stick him there and work on him until he's ready to push Gunnar to SS long term & Westburg to super sub. I wouldn't mess with his development by throwing a bunch of positions at him. I'd have him focus on where he will be playing long term and where he best fits in with the optimal Baltimore line-up, and that is 3B.

I couldn't justify upvoting "would be pretty sweet if.....the O's miss the playoffs by a game" - but this is the main point to me. It very likely comes down to one game this year. Every game is going to count, and we need to have the best guys making a contribution. There is a time to be frugal and manipulate service time, right now is not that time. If you want the guy here more than 6 years, pay him for his services and don't be a cheapskate.

The AL East is going to be an absolute dog fight. It will likely come down to 1 or 2 games. I'd say there is a ton to lose by not fielding your best team out of the gate.

I'd rather they do what they can to forge a long-term relationship and sign him for 3 of his FA years. Putting him on the OD roster and presenting him with a legit long-term contract, that is hard to refuse, does that.

That's right and maybe a touch longer to ensure he doesn't get ROY top two and get the extra time anyway. If he is ripping the league apart the front office will be getting blasted for keeping him in AAA.

You don't get the draft pick if he isn't on OD roster. Look, I'm not basing my decision on this alone, but to me it's icing on the cake of a whole bunch of other reasons to have him on the OD roster.

He belongs. He's shown he belongs, and it would be silly to send him to AAA, so I voted #3. All that being said, I think this is a moot point. I believe the plan was always to have him start the season in Baltimore, and he is showing out just as they expected. I'd say there is a 1% chance he gets sent down. Start him in Bmore, give him a chance to win ROY and net a draft pick, keep him happy and sign the kid long term.

Love of the game. It’s addicting. We are all kids at heart & baseball is a kids game.