Keith Law hating on the Orioles big time.

[flashjordnk]

3. Any dollar spent on free agents is a dollar that cannot be spent on amateurs.

Most of you disagree with two or all three of these. Personally, I am agnostic on 1 and 2. I think it can go either way and it really depends on the team, the manager, and a lot of other things.

But number 3 is absolutely, unequivocally correct.

Conceptually this is true. Especially if we operate in a zero sum game, where we assume that there 100 dollars total.

But a baseball budget doesn't operate this way. Obviously the total numbers of potentially spent dollars is every dollar of credit PA has. If at some point he feels like by selling out and doing more of anything, be it free agents or amateurs it CAN be afforded.

The question is not whether or not a dollar spent on one thing means you CANNOT spend it on something else. Or you CHOOSE to not spend it.

Personally, let's all hope they do both. And then when they don't and they go cheap on amateur stuff we can all blame the FO when the time comes. But it's a pretty big assumption to say that PA's dollars in any way are limited.

Let's hope Jones/Wieters/Matusz start to pay off. I think PA has been stingy about expanding for talent because it seems like such a poor investment to him. Who knows...maybe if it really starts to pay off, he might see the light.

[Fan4Life]

I wouldn't have signed Vlad for many reasons but as I have said, I do recognize the potential upside in his signing. End of the day, I don't have a huge problem with it but its not something I would do.

I kind of liken signing Vlad to the situation last season where we had the option/opportunity

to either win as many games as possible and try to change the "losing mentality" both inside the organization as well as to outside interests..

or

Play good enough to keep ourselves in the best possible draft position.

Many thought winning as many games as possible was the best route to take as they thought it more important for players like Markakis and Jones, Wieters etal having something to believe in was more important to the future of the team than picking a Cole type over Rendon in the draft.

For me, bringing on Vlad (even at an inflated cost) adds to the thinking directly above and recent comments from players like Roberts appear to back that up. Whether ti works out is yet to be seen. But the pieces are in place for us so enjoy baseball for more than 3 months.

[LookinUp]

Just to review Nolan Reimold:

1. he will never provide defensive value.

2. he crapped the bed last year in Baltimore and AAA, but admittedly was coming off a bad injury and other issues.

3. he still has massive power

4. he still has good OBP/BA deltas.

5. he's 27 years old.

This is a guy who could very well be a long term DH, but he's also a guy who was so bad last year that he'll have to show the team that he can produce before earning a spot.

What a horrible and short sighted review of Reimold. Lets look at some things you left out.

1. In 2009 he was a better hitter than Vlad

2. We don't really know about his defense.

3. He has excellent speed, good SB stats throughout his MiL career and early with the Os in 2009 (8 steals and 2 CS before he stopped running because of the achilles)

4. He has excellent plate discipline

5. He has excellent power.

I think this post was just a wee bit over stated. :slytf:

1. I said he could very well be a long term answer as DH. On that, I think we agree. I don't agree that we should cherry pick Vlad's worse season ever versus Nolan's only strong ML stretch season ever, but that's besides the point. If healthy and hitting near his upside, I agree that he could be an answer, as I said. I simply need him to show me he's ready to do that, and if he does it goes to reason that he could get several hundred ABs this season on the Orioles.

2. We do know about his defense. If you've watched Nolan play you know that he does little things poorly. He takes forever to get to ground balls hit to him in the outfield. Players will take advantage of that going first to third, or second to home. Once fielding the ball he has a very slow crow hop/release. Both of those issues negate his arm strength. He also gets poor reads. We could naively attribute that to his shift to LF, but it's more likely that the scouting report on him from day one (poor reads) is accurate, and the positional change is just an excuse made by people who want him to be something he's not.

3/4/5. I didn't mention #3, but I agree with all of these and did mention 2 of them. He won't be a SB threat, but he has good speed as part of his game, at least he did before the achilles. We'll see how he comes back.

[hoosiers]

No, Bell was one of the high quality prospects acquired by trade -- your central point, right? How is it a separate discussion? I simply point out that there is risk in both avenues, and Ynoa is not necessarily representative of an "amateur spend". There are plenty of successes and failures on all fronts in player acquestion. I would say that the majority of older FA signings and FA RP signings do not end up in flipping for significant talent, though. It could happen, but I think it's unlikely BAL sees Vlad/Gregg/Gonzalez/etc. netting them a "high quality" prospect at the deadline.

Why don't you look at the "point" I've posted multiple times in this thread?

Money sunk into free agents CAN result in prospects via trade when that free agent is traded. I hope this is clear. It's been posted three times. I'm not sure what Josh Bell has to do with that, but you can keep insisting that it does. Not really sure why you would want to alter the discussion to the extent you are trying.

[Fan4Life]

Why don't you look at the "point" I've posted multiple times in this thread?

Money sunk into free agents CAN result in prospects via trade when that free agent is traded. I hope this is clear. It's been posted three times. I'm not sure what Josh Bell has to do with that, but you can keep insisting that it does. Not really sure why you would want to alter the discussion to the extent you are trying.

He seems to be implying that the risk level is the same between prospects drafted and prospects traded for. I don't buy that, unless your management is incompetent.

[hoosiers]

He seems to be implying that the risk level is the same between prospects drafted and prospects traded for. I don't buy that, unless your management is incompetent.

He can start his own thread if he wants to. His contribution does not seem relevant to this discussion.

[flashjordnk]

He seems to be implying that the risk level is the same between prospects drafted and prospects traded for. I don't buy that, unless your management is incompetent.

Well seemingly this misses the point though. We can invest in free agents and turn them into prospects.

At the end of the day that's the point. While Law might find the Vlad dollars meaningless now, but if we turn around and trade him during the stretch run to someone for a top 100 prospect Law probably wouldn't say the same thing.

I see Stotle's point, but it seems to miss the crutch of what Hoosier is trying to say. Which is that we haven't prevented ourselves from doing both yet. That remains to be seen.

[Fan4Life]

Well seemingly this misses the point though. We can invest in free agents and turn them into prospects.

At the end of the day that's the point. While Law might find the Vlad dollars meaningless now, but if we turn around and trade him during the stretch run to someone for a top 100 prospect Law probably wouldn't say the same thing.

I see Stotle's point, but it seems to miss the crutch of what Hoosier is trying to say. Which is that we haven't prevented ourselves from doing both yet. That remains to be seen.

I completely agree with you and Hoosiers and in fact Law expressed the same sentiments in his blog and said they were cutoff in the article.

[flashjordnk]

I completely agree with you and Hoosiers and in fact Law expressed the same sentiments in his blog and said they were cutoff in the article.

Really? Link? This would be interesting to see. I don't see it on his blog, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong spot.

[Crazysilver03]

Really? Link? This would be interesting to see. I don't see it on his blog, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong spot.

I didn't see the comments in his blog but did see them in the chat.

[Fan4Life]

Really? Link? This would be interesting to see. I don't see it on his blog, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong spot.

I went looking for it and now recall it was his chat not blog. And was reiterated by a poster here:

http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2366509&postcount=129

[RandyM]

Conceptually this is true. Especially if we operate in a zero sum game, where we assume that there 100 dollars total.

But a baseball budget doesn't operate this way. Obviously the total numbers of potentially spent dollars is every dollar of credit PA has. If at some point he feels like by selling out and doing more of anything, be it free agents or amateurs it CAN be afforded.

The question is not whether or not a dollar spent on one thing means you CANNOT spend it on something else. Or you CHOOSE to not spend it.

Personally, let's all hope they do both. And then when they don't and they go cheap on amateur stuff we can all blame the FO when the time comes. But it's a pretty big assumption to say that PA's dollars in any way are limited.

Let's hope Jones/Wieters/Matusz start to pay off. I think PA has been stingy about expanding for talent because it seems like such a poor investment to him. Who knows...maybe if it really starts to pay off, he might see the light.

Don't we have an past example of where the major league budget did have ramifications to the amateur budget? Didn't we end up dumping Bradford to the Rays so we could have money to sign Givens? It might have been some other than givens, but I thought that was the theory/idea.

BTW, to all the people that think Vlad will have a similar year or will continue to bounce back. Remember the Angels and Rangers dumped the guy. If they really thought he would be a really good player, wouldn't they be more inclined to keep him? Are we that much smarter.

[Dipper9]

The only difference between Keith Law and the posters on the OH is that he has a national forum to discuss his opinions, and ours are hidden on a message board.

In other words, this whole thing is his OPINION, and you know what they say about opinions and buttholes, everybody's got one!

I don't agree with him, and I am confident that the results of the season will show he was wrong, but at this point its hard to argue with him considering we have been a losing franchise for 13 straight years.

I will say that pieces like this aren't worth my time reading. He thinks we stink. Fine. Other writers think we're improved. Great. Its all meaningless opinions at this point that mean nothing. The only guys I take a lot of stock in are the MLB Network analysts, as it seems they really take the time to know about every team in the majors, and all the players, not just the big names playing in the major cities.

[Dipper9]

Don't we have an past example of where the major league budget did have ramifications to the amateur budget? Didn't we end up dumping Bradford to the Rays so we could have money to sign Givens? It might have been some other than givens, but I thought that was the theory/idea.

BTW, to all the people that think Vlad will have a similar year or will continue to bounce back. Remember the Angels and Rangers dumped the guy. If they really thought he would be a really good player, wouldn't they be more inclined to keep him? Are we that much smarter.

The Rangers offered Vlad 8.5 million early in the offseason, and he turned them down trying to get a two year deal. Texas DID want to keep him.

[Stotle]

I completely agree with you and Hoosiers and in fact Law expressed the same sentiments in his blog and said they were cutoff in the article.

I guess we will see which of the FA get traded for "high quality" prospects. I'd love to be wrong -- would be great to get younger at the mid-seasons mark.