DrinkinWithFermi

Not really. Perez, Heaney, and deGrom were all good last year, unlike Gibson, Frazier, and McCann. Hoping they can stay healthy is an entirely different matter. Apparently the Orioles disagree since that appears to be their plan currently. I agree, which is why I wanted to add two decent mid-rotation starters this offseason. We have added zero so far and there aren't any left available in free agency.

I don't necessarily agree with their strategy, but at least they aren't banking on a bunch of reclamation projects all experiencing post-30 career renaissances. If he was less fragile, I would have been okay with the Orioles signing him, even with the draft pick compensation.

It's 107 during that same 2016-2022 period. And I didn't want Eovaldi anyway, but he is clearly the superior pitcher when healthy. Obviously that is a big caveat in his case.

With a whopping 95 ERA+

"Filling obvious holes with good players is fun and nice and all, but Elias understands that winning with a couple of bent paperclips and a broken rubber band is much more satisfying in the end."

My expectations were similar to that. I would have been very satisfied with, say, Quintana, Walker, and JDM or Bassitt, Lopez, and Justin Turner or Flexen, Syndergaard, and Conforto. In other words, nothing particularly extravagant or unreasonable, but it turns out that that was actually entirely unreasonable because we are apparently still in the "1 year deals for reclamation projects" phase despite our record last year.

We'll see, but there aren't really any potential moves that could turn this offseason around.

The Kool Aid guzzlers should start preparing their arguments for why Chris Archer is a great signing now

At least they aren't punting after an 83 win season

Texas doesn't just want to win, they are trying to win, unlike the Orioles. And last year was literally an accident, we were still trying to tank.

That seems a little bearish, and this is coming from someone who is already somewhat bearish on the 2023 Orioles. My guess is we end up somewhere between 75 and 85 wins if there are no other notable moves before spring training.

I'd honestly rather just give Wells or Voth that spot in the rotation. It's not like adding Wacha makes us a playoff contender so we might as well just see if Wells or Voth can be a viable starter for 2024.

This gif should help, just pretend that the ball is the Orioles' 2023 season.

Damn, Texas really wants to win and win NOW. Good for them. It's nice for fans when their team wants to win. Hopefully Orioles fans will get to experience that feeling again some day

Zero chance they'd agree to that deal unless Elias takes their GM out for drinks and gets him blackout drunk. Hays is a slightly above average COF, Urias is currently a bench piece/part time player on a 4th place team, Kremer is realistically a #4 starter, and Voth is a 30 year old scrap heap guy with a career 87 ERA+ who is already arb eligible. If they are trading their ace (they aren't), they are going to want young, cheap, high end talent in return.

Yelich is owed over $160 million through 2028 and has posted a combined .745 OPS and 4.3 bWAR over the last three seasons. The Orioles cannot afford to tie up a huge chunk of their limited payroll for the next 6 years on a slightly above average OF on the wrong side of 30. So one good prospect and a bunch of spare parts for a legitimate ace. Sounds great to me but I suspect that Mikwaukee would disagree.

And they'd replace Burnes with nothing.

In the long run, I agree that the deal will look so-so, but I think he will hit very well for a few years at least and they are generally willing to spend, so they can afford to be aggressive for a guy they really like. It will be interesting to see which of the O's and D'backs reach the playoffs first after tying for the worst record in baseball in 2021. There's still some decent middle relief guys out there, I could see them snagging a couple of them before ST.

I do too. If they add another SP like Pablo Lopez, they suddenly start to really look like a potential WC team.

It is, but I think it makes the Jays significantly better. The offensive difference between Varsho and Gurriel is probably pretty close to a wash but Varsho is light years better defensively and helps balance out their lineup. Are we though? They lost Bogaerts, but have added Justin Turner, Kenley Jansen, and Yoshida. As long as they add another starter (Eovaldi reunion?), that probably beats our offseason. And we may not make the playoffs, but at least we didn't give out much money!

I thought Cowser, Westburg/Ortiz, Hall, and a lower ranked fourth piece might be enough to get it done so this proposal falls pretty closely in line with that. It might even be a bit steeper than my guess honestly, depending on how you feel about Hall's future outlook and role. I would agree if the team had been improved more but I don't think even adding a Burnes-tier guy makes us a favorite to reach the playoffs in 2023 and that is a pretty steep price to pay for 2 years, especially when the first year is of dubious value due to a lack of other improvements to the rest of the roster. It's the same reason I have soured on trading for Pablo Lopez, even if the price for Lopez would obviously be much lower than for Burnes. It's really hard for me to justify giving up a ton of trade chips for short term assets when we still seem to be at least a year away. With an extension for Burnes though? Hell freaking YES, sign me up.

The Blue Jays have acquired Daulton Varsho from AZ for Gurriel and Moreno. The Orioles continue to fall further and further behind.

Kremer is the biggest question mark for me. Some folks here seem to have him pencilled in as a perennial mid-rotation starter for us but the metrics suggest he was lucky last year and could regress pretty substantially. I'm also not entirely sold on Bradish's second half being a full blown breakout and could easily see him regressing some as well, but he is probably a better bet than Kremer. Grayson is a good bet to perform well, but he's never faced a single MLB hitter so it's possible that there will be growing pains. Wells, Voth, Hall, etc. are all question marks. As for Gibson, his career averages are so similar to Lyles' 2022 that it's a bit uncanny. If that is what we get from him, that would represent a lateral move. He needs to outperform his 10 year averages to a fairly significant degree to represent a meaningful year-over-year upggrade over what we got from Lyles, and at 35 years old, I don't think I would bet on it. Does adding Eovaldi to that rotation mix make us a realistic contender? It's debatable, but I personally don't really think so, and at the cost of a top 75 overall pick, I don't want to find out.