7Mo

They're very likely to trade Bundy and Givens within the next 2 weeks. And there won't be an immediate MLB contributor coming back either. I don't believe the Angelos family is in dire straits or "so greedy". I believe the plan was to strip it to the studs and build a quality organization. And that will take years.

Yes and that's a reasonable goal for us.

Fan enthusiasm in Houston was less than zero during the rebuild. I'm sure you know that. But I've seen a lot of posts suggesting Elias should be appeasing fans, which won't happen.

Would you want the PR nightmare that Russell and Heimlich bring if there are talents arguably equal or better?

Or maybe replace "retires" with some agreement to walk away, further defer payments and transition to some sort of public relations/charitable work type position. Which, I guess is still "retires" but maybe make it easier for him to accept.

I'm completely convinced this Elias approach is the very best hope for the O's to become a really good team/organization. I hope they stay the course and not try to shortcut it. If MLB makes changes later, great. But since the O's don't control how MLB operates, I'm not sure we should be worried about the sport as a whole.

In the 2 years combined?

Sanchez would be a 2 year deal since he's headed to surgery and won't pitch in 2020 so I don't think he's a target. Walker should draw a lot of interest from numerous teams. Maybe he likes the open door to starts he'd have here. I think Peraza is a bounce back candidate.

Apparently his role is to be sick of the Marlins, per this headline. https://nypost.com/2019/12/03/subtle-moves-show-derek-jeter-may-be-sick-of-marlins-embarrassment/

I feel terrible for them.

He's talking about if they trade him mid-year, they would only be responsible for a portion of the salary. $10.4M arb projection, but maybe signed at a smaller figure pre-arb.

I don't know if you've read the whole back story but essentially, he's always denied doing anything improper and only pled because he was advised to do so, was told he wouldn't be punished and that the record would be sealed. And all of that was true and accurate until it wasn't. A few years later, it all became public and the kids life is ruined. I have no idea if he's guilty or not and I'm not saying he did or didn't deserve punishment. But it sucks for him that his representatives told him one thing, he relied on it, and then the opposite happened.

No they're not but he was really good coming out of college and hasn't pitched much anywhere for a while. There's plenty of reason to believe that if he gets back into an organization, there's upside there. But I'm not advocating to sign the guy.

Luke Heimlich https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/sports/luke-heimlich-mexican-league.html

I remember when I thought 40 was old. It was a long time ago.

This thread probably will make the difference. Maybe the front office/owners never thought about releasing Davis. This probably does the trick.

I'd be happy with an end result of a very bright front office and organization, comparable to the Rays, yet with a top half of the league budget that allows a team to extend the right guys instead of having to trade for budget reasons. An organization known for player development and smart evaluations. To me, that would be a top 3 in the East team, sometimes winning the division, sometimes finishing third, which would give a chance for a long playoff run sometimes. The Rays with a decent budget. Not a team that signs big name free agents, or a team that winds up with burdensome contracts that don't perform.

Me too. "The power is real, but so are the on-base struggles. Moustakas’s .329 OBP from 2019 was a career high-water mark but barely topped the league average. Over the course of his career, Moustakas has reached base at a marginal .310 clip. Can he sustain and even extend his relatively productive 2019 in the OBP arena? Moustakas did carry a personal-best 9.1% walk rate in 2019, though his swinging-strike rate also crept up to a new high-water mark (11.0%). He has never hit much for average, so continued commitment to drawing free passes may be the ticket." MLBTR

Baseball Reference has pretty good 2020 projections for him, .267 with 19 doubles, 10 HR's, .707 OPS.

Projected arb figure of $5.8M and you get the yips at no charge.

I think that's a good sign for you. Likely means you're a logical thinker.

I think there's a good chance that's right.

Tomorrow afternoon should give us some answers but the whole thing is very confusing given Luke's posts and questions.

So have the O's requested waivers? Is he "on waivers" Has he been on "outright waivers"? And would that mean conditional waivers or irrevocable waivers? Is he on the 40 man now or no?

Exactly. A team can give up 2 DSL players to get him instead of competing in the free agent market where you might have to give him 2/$14 or 2/$15M to get him.