CheeryO

Not just the Astros. The Yanks most likely have to get through the Twins or Indians too -- two very good teams.

Villar's WAR numbers have been slightly higher than Schoop's for the past two years. That pesky WAR again. Schoop will probably always be dogged by inconsistency. Feel bad for the Brewers. They traded for the 2017 Schoop and got the 2018 version.

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Trout has never gotten a hit against Givens. That's probably why they pitched to him.

In retrospect I agree the O's had really no chance at competing during the Showalter/Duquette years unless they had signed someone like Scherzer or Lester. It didn't seem obvious at the time, but if you can't draft and develop or trade for a Verlander, Kershaw, deGrom or Sale or some other clear "ace", then you have to go get one on the free agent market to have a real shot at a title. The first free agent examples that comes to mind are Sabathia putting the Yankees over the hump in 2009 and also David Price finally putting it together last season for the Red Sox. Ever since the O's traded Erik Bedard the O's have been in desperate need of an ace starter -- and one could make an argument he wasn't an "ace". He was great for a few years but ultimately could not stay healthy and declined fast (after being traded). Chen and Tillman had some excellent seasons but certainly were not aces. I'm sure a lot of people would say the O's have not had a true ace since Mike Mussina.

Yeah, but I doubt many fans who cared thought Davis was worth that much for that many years. Most fans don't think about contract disaster when it comes to sport. But unless my memory is wrong I believe there were plenty of voices on this board that bemoaned the Davis deal when it was announced.

If I give a big contract to a player few other teams are willing to sign to a big contract, is it terrible luck or just a terrible contract? The worst that initially come to mind: obviously Chris Davis and I guess then Ubaldo Jimenez. That said, the O's have been on the positive end of some bigger contracts too -- the first two coming to mind are Miguel Tejada and arguably, funny enough, Andrew Cashner. Tejada was lucky for the O's in that neither the Yankees nor the Red Sox needed a shortstop when his free agency came up. His signing was pretty much a no-brainer -- at least it seemed like it at the time. Too bad the O's never went after any of the big name free agent pitchers -- not that there are that many worth the risk. Scherzer would have been that guy imo.

My first impression of Martin was that he's a poor man's Mark Belanger, but when I looked at his numbers I was surprised to see he's considered to be an average SS at best. I just assumed he was great with the glove because he's so bad with the bat. He must be an all ceiling kind of guy because the way he's playing now he doesn't even seem like he could stick at AA at his age.

Best case scenario is I guess Richie Martin could end up being a poor man's Mark Belanger (if you're old enough to remember Mark Belanger). But that is probably very unlikely. Is Richie Martin even that good with the glove? His DWar for the season is -0.5 according to BR. The O's have to be better with Villar at SS. Most appear to think Villar definitely gets traded, at least to get rid of his salary I'm assuming. I'd like to see Villar stay but with his salary he's probably too expensive to keep him. I can't see another team giving up a huge amount for Villar, but he does play an important position pretty well.

I'm thinking the Front Office's real job for the next couple of seasons will be occupied at the minor league levels. Barring a Mancini trade or maybe cutting Chris Davis -- neither of which I think happen anytime soon -- there are hardly any meaningful moves Elias can do at the Major League level this season. This may be true for next season too.

First of all, the years Tillman was good he was certainly better than average. His achilles heel was he threw too many pitches to get the job done, but he had three seasons where he had a WAR of better than 2.5 and two seasons where he had a WAR above 3.5. Second, as another poster already mentioned, Tillman discovered and developed the pitch that put him over the top while in Baltimore with the help of Baltimore coaches. So he did develop while in Baltimore. I'm no expert but my feeling is that it's not a failure to develop pitching being the big problem with the O's; but the failure to go get good young pitchers in general -- be it through the draft, through trades or in the international market. Tillman was one of the good ones they did get through a trade, Wei Yin Chen was one of the very rare good ones they got on the international market, while Arrieta is the best example of a Baltimore draftee who "developed" very well -- just after he left Baltimore.

I think David Hernandez was the other guy that some considered to be part of the "cavalry". He's not remembered as much because he worked mainly out of the bullpen and got traded. He's been a pretty decent if not great reliever since.

Agreed, my point was more that maybe they didn't want to empower or spend big on things outside of the draft last year until they replaced both Duquette and Showalter. If they don't empower Elias to spend on international players (among other things) this year, then it will be time to get suspicious. On the other hand, the other thing that is always lurking over the shoulder of the Angelos family is the situation with MASN. If atomic is right that they will continue to be cheap all over the place, legal tie ups with MASN could be their excuse, whether it's legitimate or not. You also have to wonder that if the Angelos' keep butting heads with MLB and the Nationals over the MASN issue they'll come under strong pressure to sell the team.

Well said, and I agree with you; but it looks like others on these boards are not convinced John and Lou have the will to spend money and turn things around. I think we'll know a lot more after the draft and after signings start to happen.

They may have decided not to spend real money until they had a new GM in place for awhile with a vision and a plan. If they pinch pennies from this year's draft going forward then it could be time to really question and blame. It couldn't have been easy not only to take over from their father but completely change direction too.

Having a dry sense of humor on a message board --- with people you don't know -- is difficult. Jonathan Swift didn't need emoticons not just because he was Jonathan Swift, but because he wasn't texting and posting his modest proposals across the internet of things.

Thanks for pointing that out. And Cobb's contract is nearly as big a bust as Davis'. Such a shame how a team that was more or less thrifty on the free agent market for so long only started to spend wildly out of a sense of desperation.

Yes, I agree. Even if Davis had an OPS close to .900 -- which would somewhat miraculous -- he would still be difficult to move because of that contract; and because other teams would consider it a fluke, or suspicious of the performance. Dumping Davis' a large chunk of his salary is almost impossible. Other teams will always think about all the strikeouts and 0 fors. Nobody wants an aging Adam Dunn / Dave Kingman type player. But as long as the O's are bad they can move him to 3rd base or DH if they want to open a spot for Mountcastle at 1B. Davis, along with Mancini, can play some outfield too. Now the O's are so bad that even if Davis starts hitting like Cody Bellinger they'll still be bad. At this point it's probably better to move Davis around the field than move him off the team.

Isn't total O's payroll around $50 mil this year? Not like his one terrible contract a really holding the team back from rebuilding with a payroll that low. Not like the Orioles need to dump Davis in a trade if it hurts the return in players coming back.

That was the mistake they made trading Gausman. Including an underperformer or overpaid player with Trey or any other good player would negate the return.

Trade him for more than they got for Gausman.

Good point, but 90 wasn't enough. They need to be convinced who they are trading for is can help them get to 93, 95 or 100 wins. It's unlikely a guy like Trey could do that on his own but he could be part of the difference. And TB is just one example, of course. If not there somewhere else.

Trey probably won't bring back a top 50 prospect, but there's point in acting like the O's should trade him for just anyone they can get for him.

Yes, you're right, no point in trading everyone or even anyone unless the trades are meaningful.