dzorange

Sounds to me like Verlander is going to pick his destination. Which is great for whoever that is, they might be able to get a slight discount. I don’t see Verlander picking the O’s over those teams though.

Just want to say, and I know it doesn’t add anything to this thread at this point, but as someone from Rochester, NY, my wife and I love visiting Baltimore. My wife has no ties to Baltimore. It was actually our first out of town trip together, in 2015. I asked her to come to watch an Orioles game with me. Ever since, we try to make it down every year. Covid made it weird and we haven’t been in a couple of years because we got married and other things happen in life. But my wife loves Baltimore and it has become a home away from home for us. One year we came down and didn’t even go to an Orioles game. I understand that there are bad parts to the city, but the good parts are great. My love of the Orioles is completely fueled by our love of the city of Baltimore at this point.

I agree. I also don't think they would have sent down Wells so quickly. If not more substantial, perhaps more complex. Lorenzen makes sense. I would not be surprised if they try to land some sort of an OF.

I love how Fujinami fits in the Orioles bullpen. If there's one thing the bullpen has the ability to do, it's getting strikeouts in high leverage situations. I think it's an incredibly valuable tool especially now with the extra inning rules. Bautista, Cano, Fujinami, and Baker can all get thrown in there with the hopes of getting out of a major jam by throwing heat. Coulombe doesn't throw hard but gets strikeouts, as well.

What a shocker that the guy who hits third or fourth every game, and who has for multiple seasons, might be the O’s best hitter. Crazy.

To answer your question - yes, an overstatement. Is an explanation really necessary?

Feels like this is a precursor to something else. I can’t see the O’s rolling with Irvin in the rotation. With Wells’ productivity from the first half of the season no longer on the table, all of the sudden this Orioles rotation that has got by okay seems to be in a real tough spot barring an upgrade from the outside. Kremer and a young Rodriguez as the 3/4 is uninspiring. As the 4 or 5 starters, it was okay. Not to mention Gibson as a 1/2.

Wells over performed and was bound to come back down to earth. I really hope we don’t have a bunch of people blaming this on injuries or tiredness.

I'm going to go with Mountcastle as well. His power is still there, and he's probably the Orioles best HR bat even with his struggles. He'll get the opportunity to hit, especially with Mullins and Hicks down now. And we'll see if O'Hearn (whose walk rates aren't better than Mountcastle's historically) can continue to hit but I'm skeptical. Mountcastle is historically a consistent 7%+ walk rate guy. He's at 4.8% this year. I know it's tough to watch when he's in a funk, but he's historically not worse than guys like Hays, Urias or O'Hearn in this department. I'm putting Mountcastle in the lineup every day right now with the injuries the O's have and see if he can get hot. There is too much upside and I'm a bit worried that we're going to see second half slumps out of O'Hearn and Hays, and whatever injuries the O's have going on. I'm really not surprised with Perez's struggles this year as he is nowhere near as good as he was last year. I'm not getting my hopes up with him. They're going to have to recreate him. Fujinami has a better chance to impress, in my opinion.

There’s positional need for Perez and Mountcastle. There’s no real in-house replacements for them, as we’ve seen with the acquisition of Fujinami and the willingness to have Urias and Santander play some first base. The Orioles have replacements for Mateo.

Easier to not give up on guys when you're not 20+ games above .500 and competing for a division title. Despite more limited playing time lately, he's been well below a 0.0 WAR since his hot start. The O's have guys that can play there. I personally think Mateo will be gone by the deadline. Mateo's defense is not worth giving less playing time to some combination of Westburg, Frazier and Urias (and possibly Ortiz although I think he's trade bait and is unproven anyways) along with Gunnar. Westburg at third, Gunnar at SS and Urias/Frazier at second is probably the best defensive configuration they can have anyways. Even with Mateo available.

The funny this is if that one person is the extreme on the high end, then on the low the one person (@sportsguy) is the extreme as well. And also correct (sub .700 OPS which Mateo isn't even remotely close to right now).

It was sarcasm

Yes but they lost their most recent game against a decent team on the road by one run.

Has Cano really been that ineffective lately? Is Wells tired or is he just not actually as good as he's been this year? It's just a couple of bad starts. He's not an ace.

Frazier has a good approach at the plate and is historically an above average defensive player. For whatever reason his defensive stats have been poor this year, but I think that's an anomaly and he'd be productive situationally in the playoffs. If his defensive numbers looked better this season, I don't think people would complain about Frazier. You could do a lot worse with a bench guy or a spot starter. With that said, they have Urias in a similar role and I prefer Ramon overall. Mateo is far worse than these two guys, especially now that he's not bringing any value defensively. I don't really blame Hyde or the Orioles for playing him. They have to see what they got with him. He hasn't developed this year or been able to match his defense from last year. Time to move on from him now.

I think ticket and merch sales will really spike in the upcoming weeks regardless, assuming the Orioles are still flirting with the best record in the AL. The attendance is going to spike in August, September and into the playoffs. There's a limit (the capacity of the stadium and well as the # of games remaining) to what Ohtani can draw. Baltimore will already sell out the stadium in the playoffs. I don't think the Orioles would have THAT much attendance to gain from getting Ohtani.

The questions for me are how much are the Orioles willing to give up for a starting pitcher not named Ohtani at the deadline? And how much more is Ohtani worth? I get the idea of not mortgaging the future for Ohtani. I'm really not on board with trading a guy like Kjerstad. Others like Ortiz I'm okay with. But if the Orioles are already willing to part with some of "the future" for guys like Montgomery or Giolito, is it worth kicking the tires on taking the next step up to Ohtani? I mean Elias got Cano, Seth Johnson, Chayce McDermott, Cade Povich for just Jorge Lopez and a Trey Mancini rental. If Baltimore ends up overpaying for a rental, but don't "mortgage the future", will we feel that great about it? I feel like the trade values and availability of all these players are just completely unknown. I personally don't think the Angels will trade Ohtani, and if they do, I don't think it's going to be as much of a blockbuster deal as everyone thinks it will be. Teams would rather overpay for a lesser rental, as we saw with the O's trades last trade deadline. I don't know if at the end of the day the difference to upgrading to Ohtani will be that massive. And that's why LA won't trade him.

What is Elias could base a package around what he got in return at last year's deadline (Seth Johnson, Chayce McDermott, Cade Povich)? Couple of those plus a back end top-100 position prospect. Regardless, this is just fantasy booking and it won't happen anyways.

Lucky and being good can go hand in hand, they don't have to be exclusive of one another. Good teams will capitalize on luck. Or minimize their risk.

Elias hasn't had reason to be aggressive. If the O's are sitting within 2 games of the Rays in two weeks, then he does. Competing for the division is vastly different than trying to compete for the Wild Card. Two or three weeks ago, the majority of this board wasn't expecting both Cowser and Westburg to be called up based on Elias' history.

The Orioles are coming, and there's so much luck with the playoffs, but I'm not getting my hopes up for a deep run. We'll see where they are come the trade deadline. If a division crown is still a realistic possibility at that point, I'd be surprised if Elias isn't aggressive with a trade or two. If he pulls something off, then they're clearly trying to make a deep run in the playoffs. Trade for a starter, call up Rodriguez and put him in the bullpen. If the O's are looking like a Wild Card team at best at that point, I don't see them pulling off a trade for a major rental and they've tempered expectations. Elias isn't going to make a notable move if he isn't expecting this team to be able to go on a run in the playoffs. They'll call up Rodriguez and insert him into the rotation and hope for the best. Maybe the O's can get hot with what they have in-house and get lucky with a guy like John Means. Next two weeks will be telling.

Tim Kirkjian and Buster Olney were talking on the Baseball Tonight podcast today that they think Holliday should have a shot at getting called up the MLB this year if he continues to tear it up in Bowie. I'll believe it when I see it but it would be interesting firepower down the stretch. I think what Holliday's progression through the system does is make Ortiz the most expendable trade bait. It could give Elias some real ammunition to make a move before the trade deadline. I know people on here love Ortiz, but to me Baltimore's truly in the "lift off" phase now. And guys like Hays, Mullins and Santander are not going to be moved this year. I think Ortiz is Elias' main trade bait.

I don't think Elias can get away with selling high on those guys without getting a return that is clearly meant to improve the team's playoff chances this year. They sold high at the deadline, as they should have and the return they got for Mancini and Lopez was pretty awesome. But they took flack from both fans and the national media for selling away two productive favorites in the middle of a playoff push. Then this past offseason people took Elias' comments on "lifting off" however they took them, and he didn't deliver a notable starting pitcher to Baltimore. I'm on board with that, and it's worked out so far to a degree, but after striking out (in the fans minds) two out of two times, I don't think it would be appropriate to try this again. Urias isn't playing great this year, but is a solid player coming off a Gold Glove season. Santander has locked up the middle of the order for years now. Hays has proven to be an MLB level starter and has been hot all year. I don't think the fans would take kindly to getting trading these guys, especially the latter two, without getting an obviously good return immediately. Selling high and then not making the playoffs wouldn't sit well with long time fans who have stuck it out over the past five years. Normally I don't think you should pivot just because of public perception - keep sticking to your plan that has had good results in recent times. But I think it's different when they're heading into July seventeen games over .500 and have been flirting with the second best record in baseball all year long. I also think the O's have a lot of flexibility with what they can do. I don't see Frazier getting much of a return, I do think he has value as well. I think the only reason they would get rid of him is to open the door for Westburg, Ortiz, and Urias. It would be addition by subtraction, but Frazier does have value.

I would like Hicks to stick around for a while. Obviously he's going to come back down to earth. But with that said, he was due to get hot after his horrible start to the year. He's proven to be a serviceable baseball player. Injuries are his biggest issue, but when healthy, he's at least worthy of a bench spot. He's serviceable at the plate and serviceable in the field. I don't know if he's much better than that, but he's certainly not worse than that either. When he puts together a full season of health, he's around a 1.5 WAR player annually. Even last year he still put up a 1.4 fWAR and a okay-enough OBP of .330. If he didn't have that 7 year deal hanging over him, he'd be looked at as a less-offensive Adam Frazier. His approach at the plate and power fits with the rest of the lineup as well.