Aglets

Just going by what he has said in the past is enough for me. And seeing how he has handled every prospect so far without exception. If there is other evidence I'm not aware of that goes against his stated development plans I am open to seeing it.

Well he is currently on pace to give up 0 ER this month so that's not too bad.

If there's one thing we can assume with pretty high confidence, it's that the Orioles will not be fast tracking any prospects. Elias has been pretty straight forward on this, he has a set process and will be consistent. He will be at Aberdeen next year in the Spring. Now I do think you are correct that he could be up with the O's by 2023. I think what happened with Stowers this year (start at Aberdeen....promoted to Bowie and now promoted to Norfolk) is a realistic best case for Cowser in 2022.

Seems a little strange that you are choosing to evaluate half of the 2002 season for Gibbons compared to the 2021 season in its entirety for Ryan. I guess I see why....since it makes the numbers look closer. I have a radical proposal. Let's see where Mountcastle ends up after September and compare two full seasons.

Good deep dig. Looks like that was for 5 years and $10M guaranteed. Still doesn't seem like much risk to me. Also you are talking about a guy like Adley who is ranked the top prospect in all of baseball drafted at 1:1. Singleton was taken in the 8th round although it's true he was a highly thought-of prospect. I'm clearly not advising we do this for all or even most of our top prospects. Just the absolute cream of the crop can't-miss guys. I suppose all of this is kind of moot anyway until we get details of the new CBA. That could change economic incentives considerably for both sides.

Kinda crazy. The Longoria deal was in 2008. The Lowe deal in 2019. Both look like genius moves at the moment.

Brandon Lowe had his full rookie year in 2019. From wiki: On March 20, 2019, Lowe signed a six-year contract extension, with two options, with the Rays for a reported $24 million guaranteed. This is what they do. Maybe we should try and mimic this with our special talent.

He will be debuting with us in all likelihood at the age of 24. I imagine the expected career of catchers is less than ten years after their age 24 season. We can all think of exceptions though, especially of the HOF variety. Joe Mauer stopped catching after age 30.....although he still hit well enough to stick around. Seems to me Adley is the kind of guy you want to lock up early to try and save on arbitration and some early FA years. Hopefully Elias agrees. Tampa did give Evan Longoria a six year deal in his ROOKIE year! Probably one of the most owner friendly deals in MLB history in retrospect. Let's hope we try something similar here.

Man this is a nice write-up and all but did he really need to come in here and take such a shot at Nick Markakis and Adam Jones?

Woot, a former first round pick that we swiped from the White Sox. This could be just the missing piece we need to cross 50 wins!

Pretty detailed write-up from Melewski this morning on Westburg's early struggles at Bowie. https://www.masnsports.com/steve-melewski/2021/08/westburgs-slow-start-at-bowie-and-mountcastles-home-run-chase.html

Just realized that Ryan Ripken is outhitting Diaz at Norfolk. Average wise as well as OPS. I have nothing further to add.

Looks like Diaz is already on the 40 man? Maybe we should just give him a shot soon and see what happens. If Tony is right that it's more about him not being motivated. Maybe a sudden shock to his system would wake him up.

I don't know about you but I want to see the 2nd coming of Griffey before I'm comfortable giving up DJ Stewart's roster spot.

Heh, actually. Arizona and the O's are both on 2 game winning streaks! Our current lead is 2.5 games for the 1st overall pick. tankathon.com/mlb

A high K rate can still play if he maintains a good OBP. His is currently .388 for 2021. Obviously we probably shouldn't project that to follow exactly to MLB. But there are guys that have higher than average K rates (looks like the average K% is 24% this year) that are still very productive major leaguers. Stowers is at 32 right now which I agree is a concern. That is a bit higher than Mark Reynolds. But less than Joey Gallo!!!

.916 OPS at Bowie now with 57 games played. Pretty awesome. He has to start at Norfolk in 2022 right? Another fun fact. Despite being a left handed hitter here are his splits in 2021 so far: vs RHP .859 (303 PA) vs LHP .987 (95 PA) Santander better watch out next year........... I guess Kyle could move to LF as well if everyone is hitting.

Basically with SG here. This guy has to be considered on the chopping block soon as we have other OF coming up behind him that we need to play.........Stowers I guess being the primary example. Ideally you give him at least 2022 to try and resurrect something.......but I think that is probably make or break for him. He had a fantastic year in AA at the age of 21.........but that was three years ago now. Shame that he was never really able to replicate that in our system.

I think it was heavily implied that you were calling into question the motivations of the powers that be. Obviously we are going to agree largely about the relationship between the Orioles and MASN. That is fair. We should be critical of guys that only view the O's with rose-colored glasses and I think plenty of people on here do that, myself included. Not every MASN employee is a blind homer, but many are, that is all fair to point out.

The evidence I just cited was provided by a poster named Sports Guy and i even underlined where to look for the relevant parts. Hopefully you find him to be a credible source. That whole post I quoted provides some good info.

Unless you say otherwise I am going to assume your answer here is "he was sincere." Ok, cool. We agree. Then I think your previous post is pretty intellectually dishonest about trying to trick the media etc.

I read your big post on the other thread. I am not persuaded by your argument. I think it makes the very case you were trying to disprove to a degree. I get what you are trying to say.......and I disagree with it. Your 3rd sentence and your first sentence are in conflict with each other as I see it. I also believe that tanking will help the Orioles bring in some players that will be uniquely available because of tanking.

This whole thing you and SG keep arguing about how this "isn't the only way to rebuild" seems like a total red herring and a strawman to me. I have never said and will never say that there is NO OTHER way to build a winning team. What I have said is that this is a way. And we have seen it work. Our current GM has seen it work up close. When my team becomes a perpetual winner I am not going to lose a lot of sleep over "oh I'm glad that we are going on all these deep playoff runs but did they really HAVE to do the rebuild this way?" Will you?

Not sure why I keep engaging with you guys on this. But I would like to ask you something straight up here. What do you think Elias's motives were in 2018-19 when he came in and laid out his plan for a detailed rebuild? Seems to me you have to say he was either being sincere (this is what I and many others believe) or you have to say he was being totally fully of crap and just going along with a sinister scheme by ownership to get payroll down in perpetuity. What do you believe.

Well the key thing is that you are so willing to engage in open-minded debate with others who have a different opinion than you and have a respectful exchange of ideas. And aren't one that thinks that only your opinion is valid. You also obviously know why. You just are dismissing the historical record of what other teams did (I think unfairly).