Keith Law hating on the Orioles big time.

[Sports Guy]

I don't think I'm overthinking it. The context of this thread is "Vlad is a bad signing if he comes at the cost of amateur draft expenditures", and I see no evidence to think that will be the case.

Do you believe the Orioles have a baseball budget? IE, a sum of money they feel they can spend on players, both for the majors and minors.

[SrMeowMeow]

Do you believe the Orioles have a baseball budget? IE, a sum of money they feel they can spend on players, both for the majors and minors.

Yes, but as I have said approximately fifty million times in this thread, it is compartmentalized. Money is not fluid between the amateur draft and major league contracts.

[Arthur_Bryant]

Yes, but as I have said approximately fifty million times in this thread, it is compartmentalized. Money is not fluid between the amateur draft and major league contracts.

If that is a limited sum, then what is apportioned to one comes at the expense of the other. The signing of a particular FA doesn't directly affect the draft approach seven months later; rather, the draft approach is affected by budgeting decisions made before the start of the FY--decisions by which the MLB payroll is perhaps 10X greater than the amateur FA acquisition budget.

In a sense that's even more damning.

I also doubt that the compartments are completely watertight. I am pretty sure that at least some of the money unspent on payroll would leak out into the draft budget. But when the payroll allotment is spent to the max... no leakage is possible.

[SrMeowMeow]

If that is a limited sum, then what is apportioned to one comes at the expense of the other. The signing of a particular FA doesn't directly affect the draft approach seven months later; rather, the draft approach is affected by budgeting decisions made before the start of the FY--decisions by which the MLB payroll is perhaps 10X greater than the amateur FA acquisition budget.

In a sense that's even more damning.

I also doubt that the compartments are completely watertight. I am pretty sure that at least some of the money unspent on payroll would leak out into the draft budget. But when the payroll allotment is spent to the max... no leakage is possible.

Maybe. We can't know for sure. It just doesn't seem likely to me, or borne out by history.

[LookinUp]

If I were to run the orioles, the first thing I'd do for planning purposes is create basic budgets for different areas of the organization. One of the most obvious things i'd need to pay for would be signing amateur draft picks, since it's such a large amount of money.

[Stotle]

If that is a limited sum, then what is apportioned to one comes at the expense of the other. The signing of a particular FA doesn't directly affect the draft approach seven months later; rather, the draft approach is affected by budgeting decisions made before the start of the FY--decisions by which the MLB payroll is perhaps 10X greater than the amateur FA acquisition budget.

In a sense that's even more damning.

I also doubt that the compartments are completely watertight. I am pretty sure that at least some of the money unspent on payroll would leak out into the draft budget. But when the payroll allotment is spent to the max... no leakage is possible.

Right -- much better put.

[Stotle]

Because the critique has no basis...we've been consistently in the top third of the league in amateur draft spending the last three years, and, again, there is no evidence that putting money into free agency comes at the expense of the amateur draft budget. I mean, no offense, but if the money isn't literally going from the draft budget to Vlad, what are you even talking about?

Why do you believe that, despite a complete lack of evidence, the O's have displayed a decision-making process that favors putting money into FA at the expense of the draft? I just don't understand where you're getting your position from.

Reasons I believe Baltimore's priorities are out of whack in spending on superfluous FA rather than investing in the organization in other ways:

1) Baltimore has not spent on high end international talent

2) A large part of Baltimore's draft spend has been on expensive 1st Rounders (e.g. $5.25M on Machado for over half of draft spend, $6M on Weiters for over 80% of total draft spend). 2009 was buoyed by Ohman/Coffey bonuses, which were headscratchers for most in industry. 2008 was a solid spend, and not surprisingly one of the better draft classes in Jordan's era.

3) No real evidence of monetarily driven improvements in MiL facilities.

To shrug and say "different compartments in budgets" misses the point. Who is setting the limits on those compartments, then? Is that not a valid question to ask? Who is deciding that payroll should be where it is and that international spend should be sub-$2million? Am I to believe that BAL grabbed Vlad because it was in their off-season plan to specifically spend this much money? Or did they decide to "make room" when they saw Vlad would be available? If they went slightly over budget, where did that money come from?

[Arthur_Bryant]

Maybe. We can't know for sure. It just doesn't seem likely to me, or borne out by history.

Which part doesn't seem likely? The "leakage" idea? You might be right. If so, then unspent payroll money would just get returned to the partnership as dividends, so in that sense AM might as well spend it all.

But the bigger issue is how the total funds are apportioned in the first place. MacPhail himself admits that the O's must out-develop his richer rivals, yet the budget proportions don't seem reflect that reality: there's no reason to believe that the Orioles' commitment to amateur talent acquisition is even equal to that of their rivals. If the O's aren't better than the Yankees or the Red Sox somewhere, then their only chance for success is to get lucky as hell once in a while.

That's really the essence of the criticism of the Vlad signing--not that it's awful in the short term, but the priorities that it reflects: How dumb is it that an organization with limited funds is willing to spend that kind of money on a one-year acquisition, worth maybe two or three wins, when seemingly there is not enough money for more than a token effort in the Caribbean?

[Sports Guy]

Yes, but as I have said approximately fifty million times in this thread, it is compartmentalized. Money is not fluid between the amateur draft and major league contracts.

I disagree...My guess is they have a certain amount of money they can spend on these things.

I think its a bit naive to think that the money spent on the ML payroll this year has no effect on what they can/will spend on amateur talent this year.

[Frobby]

A large part of Baltimore's draft spend has been on expensive 1st Rounders (e.g. $5.25M on Machado for over half of draft spend, $6M on Weiters for over 80% of total draft spend).

Wow, the Orioles can't win. If they take the best player available regardless of signability and then do what it takes to sign him, they get criticized for that. If they take signability into account and go after a Hobgood, they get criticized for that.

Wieters was not over 80% of the Orioles draft spend in 2007. He was 75%, according to this site: http://www.mlbbonusbaby.com/2010/02/03/2010-draft-review-baltimore-orioles/ And recall that the O's had no 2nd or 3rd round pick. I have a hard time criticizing a draft that produced Wieters and Arrieta.

[Stotle]

Wow, the Orioles can't win. If they take the best player available regardless of signability and then do what it takes to sign him, they get criticized for that. If they take signability into account and go after a Hobgood, they get criticized for that.

Wieters was not over 80% of the Orioles draft spend in 2007. He was 75%, according to this site: http://www.mlbbonusbaby.com/2010/02/03/2010-draft-review-baltimore-orioles/ And recall that the O's had no 2nd or 3rd round pick. I have a hard time criticizing a draft that produced Wieters and Arrieta.

How about take the best talent you can in the first round and still go over slot in the later rounds? If BAL were to draft Harper, do you see them even considering a Narron, let alone an AJ Cole? Is this an honest opinion of yours, Frobby, or are you playing Devil's advocate? You can't imagine a critique on the approach to the 2007 draft because BAL got Wieters and Arrieta as a result?

Further, I don't see that I criticized the haul in 2007. Maybe you inferred that. I pointed out that the "spend" was primarily on one player, and almost exclusively on two. There is a difference between leveraging the draft to add as much talent as possible and not being afraid to sign a big ticket item if he comes up in the 1st Round. I think BAL has shown they are willing to pay if they believe in the talent (Wieters/Matusz/Machado). I don't think BAL has shown anywhere close to that willingness to spend significantly on the expensive overslotters latter on.

Do you think BAL could have had an even better haul in 2007 had they not limited their significant overslot spending to two players?

[SrMeowMeow]

Agree to disagree on all this I guess...we're just going round and round at this point.

[OFFNY]

Wow, the Orioles can't win. If they take the best player available regardless of signability and then do what it takes to sign him, they get criticized for that. If they take signability into account and go after a Hobgood, they get criticized for that.

Wieters was not over 80% of the Orioles draft spend in 2007. He was 75%, according to this site: http://www.mlbbonusbaby.com/2010/02/03/2010-draft-review-baltimore-orioles/ And recall that the O's had no 2nd or 3rd round pick. I have a hard time criticizing a draft that produced Wieters and Arrieta.

I feel the same frustration on behalf of the Orioles, Frank ...... particularly for MacPhail, who I think has done the most important thing (grow the arms, give everyone a chance over a 2 or 3 year period, and take the best four starters to go along with Guthrie). To me, that is much more important than "buying the bats," because history has shown that pitching and defense is anywhere between 60 % and 70 % of the game.

It will make it that much more satisfying though, if the Orioles have a winning season in 2011, and follow it up with another winning season in 2012, to prove that 2011 was not a fluke. Well, I guess we'll find out the answer to the first question in about 7 and-a-half months, and the answer to the second question in about 19 and-a-half months.

.

[Frobby]

How about take the best talent you can in the first round and still go over slot in the later rounds? If BAL were to draft Harper, do you see them even considering a Narron, let alone an AJ Cole? Is this an honest opinion of yours, Frobby, or are you playing Devil's advocate? You can't imagine a critique on the approach to the 2007 draft because BAL got Wieters and Arrieta as a result?

Further, I don't see that I criticized the haul in 2007. Maybe you inferred that. I pointed out that the "spend" was primarily on one player, and almost exclusively on two. There is a difference between leveraging the draft to add as much talent as possible and not being afraid to sign a big ticket item if he comes up in the 1st Round. I think BAL has shown they are willing to pay if they believe in the talent (Wieters/Matusz/Machado). I don't think BAL has shown anywhere close to that willingness to spend significantly on the expensive overslotters latter on.

Do you think BAL could have had an even better haul in 2007 had they not limited their significant overslot spending to two players?

It is fair to criticize the overall draft spend. It is fair to criticize players selected who you don't believe warranted the bonuses they got. But to me the post I responded to wasn't just limited to those points, it seemed to be critical if they spent too much of the overall budget on the top pick, whereas at other times there has been criticism of spending too little on the top pick. (In fairness, we're really just talking about Hobgood so far as I know.)

Getting to your last question, I have no idea whether overslots drafted after the 5th round tend to be successful and a cost-effective way to spend money. It would be interesting to do a study over, say, a 10-year period and see whether that strategy has been successful, on average. I'm sure you can cite me examples of players who were later-round overslots who did well, but is there evidence that, on average, it is cost-justified? My suspicion is that spending extra on a guy who fell to the 2nd or 3rd round due to signability issues is more cost-effective than paying overslot to guys in later rounds; but I really don't know. You are the professional, so if you know of evidence on that, I'd be very interested.

[Stotle]

It is fair to criticize the overall draft spend. It is fair to criticize players selected who you don't believe warranted the bonuses they got. But to me the post I responded to wasn't just limited to those points, it seemed to be critical if they spent too much of the overall budget on the top pick, whereas at other times there has been criticism of spending too little on the top pick. (In fairness, we're really just talking about Hobgood so far as I know.)

Getting to your last question, I have no idea whether overslots drafted after the 5th round tend to be successful and a cost-effective way to spend money. It would be interesting to do a study over, say, a 10-year period and see whether that strategy has been successful, on average. I'm sure you can cite me examples of players who were later-round overslots who did well, but is there evidence that, on average, it is cost-justified? My suspicion is that spending extra on a guy who fell to the 2nd or 3rd round due to signability issues is more cost-effective than paying overslot to guys in later rounds; but I really don't know. You are the professional, so if you know of evidence on that, I'd be very interested.

Well, to be clear I wasn't critiquing the portion they spent on the 1st pick. I was pointing it out as a huge factor in why their overall spend has been so large.

Regarding the bolded, you are generally correct. The basic reasoning is that the overslotters grabbed in the 2-5th (I'd extend around there, but it stretches into the later single-digits as well) are generally considered signable, but for overslot. When you drop later, you have highly talented prospects whose $ demands are a bit too excessive and less talented prospects whose $ demands are not bank breaking, but generally set bad precedent for future negotiations.

Typing that out, I think 2007 is a bad example of mine as to a draft that could have been improved upon -- the talents added after the fifth round were in all likelihood not game-changing. I think it remains an example of a large draft spend due to an early expenditure. In fact, it is sort of tells a story in and of itself. It is possible to spend big on the draft and still lag some in total talent brought in. 2007 was much more a result of losing picks than failure to spend, I agree.

There is some evidence for the 1st para but not that I know of as in the public realm.