RarityFlaherty

Hey we finally won one. Now maybe our fans can stop being an embarrassment.

I’m getting real fucking tired of all these garbage fans. Anyone blaming this collapse on anything but injuries can go #@$% themselves.

So if he wins a Cy Young next year, it’s still a bad trade? Two guys who are blocked in our system and weren’t likely to be difference makers is too much for a Cy Young winner? That’s ridiculous. I doubt he ever wins a Cy Young, but if he can be a solid backend starter the next two years, I’m fine with the trade. I would have rather gotten Tanner Scott from them, but Norby and Stowers don’t really have much of a future on our MLB team so they needed to be traded.

ESPN is always so annoying. I hate all of these national broadcasts.

The only thing I see to blame Elias for is the bullpen. Would have liked for them to do more in the offseason knowing that Bautista was going to be out. And even then it didn’t really hurt us in the first half of the year. At the trade deadline, I would have liked for us to get Tanner Scott from the Marlins, instead of Trevor Rogers, but I think they traded for Rogers more for next year. The other trade deadline moves were fine, we really just needed to also get a legitimate closer once we saw Kimbrel starting to fall off. But, we still aren’t out of it, and should get Coloumbe back before the playoffs. If we see either Kimbrel or Dominguez bounce back, we could at least be in position to play matchups and have a closer by committee situation to mask the bullpen’s weaknesses.

Sounds like what this team needs is Adam Frazier lol. If only we had kept our two most hated players last year in Frazier and Flaherty, we’d be fine.

At the time of the Davis deal, I definitely didn’t think it would be as bad as it was, and I had the “it’s not my money” mindset. My only concern was whether or not they’d still be able to lock up Manny. And that’s pretty much how I feel about Santander. If it doesn’t affect resigning Gunnar, I’m fine with it. I just wouldn’t want them to go longer than 3 years. But my real preference would be to give him a qualifying offer and either keep him around one more year, or get draft compensation for losing him. I really like Santander, but I’d rather them spend that money elsewhere. Not even looking at performance after the fact, the Davis signing was bad because of positional value. I don’t see any reason to spend a lot of money to lock up a first baseman, or a right fielder like Santander. You spend your money locking up guys that can play premium positions like SS and CF. Gunnar should be the #1 priority. Catcher, you worry about durability, but I wouldn’t mind seeing them lock up Adley. 2B and 3B are borderline, you spend on them if you can afford it. With our current stadium dimensions, LF becomes part of that group. And then 1B and RF are the very last place you want to have a bunch of money invested in. The only caveat is if those guys are a different level of hitter that hits for both power and average. And even then, it’s a gamble that they keep up that level of production. I’d rather lock up guys who are at least still providing a lot of value with their glove, even if the production with the bat drops in the future.

Yeah I really felt like we’re going to regret not taking Brecht there after he fell. Honeycutt and then Brecht would have been a really good top 2 picks for our team needs. Taking only position players high makes a lot of sense to rebuild a team, but once you have the nucleus of position players that the O’s have right now, it feels time to start taking some chances on pitchers. Even if we are planning to trade the prospects anyway, you’re going to need some pitching prospects to throw into trades for major league pitching. Most teams aren’t going to trade good pitchers with years of control without getting a pitching prospect back. I really liked that we took a lot of late round pitchers last year and was really hoping to see us shift to taking more pitching in higher rounds this year. Brecht feels like a big miss at that spot.

I wonder if it isn’t an injury, but an adjustment he’s trying to make to avoid more blisters. Maybe he’s trying to use a different grip on some of his pitches, or he’s using something on his hand that’s causing the ball to slip out a little bit. Just a thought.

Look at Flaherty this year though. Obviously Elias saw something he liked that is probably contributing to his success this season. I think this trade could work out better for us since we still have another two years of control with Rogers.

I voted meh because it feels like an overrpay, but this does feel a little like getting Flaherty at the deadline last year. The only difference is the two extra years of control so we can potentially get a good year out of Rogers like Flaherty is having this year. Rogers and Flaherty were both guys that flashed a lot of promise in their careers at first and both had injuries and fell off. Hopefully Elias sees something similar in Rogers that he did with Flaherty that’s lead to the great year he’s having this year. If Rogers can be a solid starter next year, or the year after, this trade could turn out to be pretty decent. Now I would really just like to see us add a lefty bullpen option, but maybe that’s the plan for Rogers in the playoffs like they did with Flaherty last year. Would have been real nice if they could have thrown in a lower level prospect or two and added Tanner Scott to this trade.

So you can headline with Basallo and add Norby, Baumeister, and Arias. That seems pretty reasonable and doesn’t really hurt us that much besides Basallo. And I doubt other teams would beat that. They aren’t going to take the 40th and 65th overall guys over Basallo and Norby. While I really like the idea of Basallo coming up and being a backup C/1B, splitting time between Adley and either Mountcastle or Mayo at first, I think we need to pull the trigger on a deal for the best pitcher we can get. And if this gets us Skubal, I’m in. At the deadline, I think you need to factor in the volatility of pitchers and just get whoever is performing the best now, so Skubal would be at the top of my list. And we traded for Blake Hunt and just drafted a bunch of catchers, so if one of those guys pans out to be a decent backup, it doesn’t really hurt us that much if we extend Adley. If they have no intention of extending Adley, then maybe Basallo is off limits, but I think this package is definitely worth it for one of the best pitchers in baseball this year.

I think I might do that actually, but I’d probably be trying to swap out one of either Basallo or Kjerstad for Norby.

What do you think the price for Miller would be? With all of the years of control and the possibility that he could go back to starting, I would guess it would probably cost one of the top 3. I’m not so sure it’s possible, but if we can get Miller without parting with our top prospects, that would definitely be a move we should make.

Because they don’t think they can resign him and they want to trade him at his highest value. Not saying the Tigers definitely would trade him, but I’ve seen some chatter from Detroit sportswriters about whether or not to trade him now at his highest value. It’s just an interesting option to think about.