If the Orioles pursue CJ Wilson....

[Sports Guy]

Very possible, but if it were me I'd say I had two options right now. Take that contract and try to get as many years as possible wherever I can get it (Yankees) OR take a shorter large contract with a pitching-friendly NL team and come back for one more large contract in 2-3 years. Age is working against him a bit, trying to get a long contract at 34 would be tough, but Carpenter just got a nice sized extension. I feel like he'd be crazy to walk away from the big money, which is where the thought keeps nagging at me. TEX could go toe to toe with the Yanks and give him the big contract, but they don't seem interested in doing that. He's going to get a CRAZY big contract driven up by the big teams needing pitching this offseason, and in a year or two will be an albatross of a contract. I just don't think it's the RIGHT scenario for the O's right now and there are better options in 2013.

I agree with all of this.

I don't mind throwing big money at him for 4 years but it won't get it done.

BTW, its funny you bring up the class of 2013...gives me a good thread idea.

[JTrea81]

I just don't think it's the RIGHT scenario for the O's right now and there are better options in 2013.

We thought there would be better options for 1B in 2012 after we missed out on Tex and all we have on the FA market is Prince Fielder really. You can always find excuses not to sign anybody but all the options you think will be there may not be.

Wilson has ties to Showalter and Adair. He's also left handed and gave up few HRs in a hitter's park. Not every pitcher we would be after would have those caveats.

[SrMeowMeow]

Not interested in Wilson. Odds are it'll be another in a long line of poor contracts for FA pitchers.

[Dipper9]

Perhaps Buck could change his mind? Remember Andy MacPhail hated giving those contracts too.

If Buck tells him we have to spend this kind of money to get good pitching, and he respects Buck then I think you could see him change.

First of all, it's the GM's job to convince players to come to Baltimore and MacPhail was a lousy salesman.

PGA likely was not asked to spend on a top arm because MacPhail had no intention of buying pitching either.

Changing his advisor, telling him that the only way we will win is to buy pitching, might make a difference. Again it will depend on how badly Angelos wants to win.

Um...Trea? Which is it? These posts were not far apart, and complete oppose each other. And you wonder why you drive us crazy?

[Stotle]

My guess is that it's worse as a return, but that both are bad. Which is at the root of my take on FA pitching as stated in another thread:

As for sample size, sure, there's some sample-size issues. But we should note that I've identified only uncertainty in translating performance across contexts. Sample-size may be a fine critique when one is arguing for certainty - but here, everything suffers from sample-size issues. I'm only pointing out that buying into assumed translations has proven really tricky so far, and resulted in enormous inefficiencies. If there's non-sample-problematized data that supports some certainty in translating elite performance across contexts, then we'd be better off.

I'm not sure what you are getting at w/r/t to sample size. There's uncertainty in everything. Or is your argument that small sample size isn't a fine critique when assessing any player's performance?

[Lucky Jim]

Not all Japanes pitchers are the same, especially the half Iranian ones. I just think Darvish is just so extraordinary he is worth the gamble. Comparisons to Duce-K are not apt IMO. His biggest problem besides the usual cultural things, will be lowering his pitch count, not switching to the 5 day cycle. Japanese pitchers are encouraged to throw more pitches and go for the K's. Even averaging 120+ P's per game Darvish averages 7+IP per game. If Nolan Ryan is serious about him I would be too.

The point is, we don't know what his problems will be. We can try to predict it, but it's very very hard to know. I mean, Drungo said this about Matsuzaka:

The short answer is that the Japanese Leagues are between AAA and major league quality, with plenty of MLB-quality hitters. Matsuzaka has been a dominant pitcher there for years. High K rates, great K/BB ratios, great ERAs, good endurance.

Look at it this way - if you had a pitcher in your minor league system who threw 95 with great secondary pitches, he was coming off a 16-5, 2.08 season with more than a K an inning and a K/BB ratio of 4:1 he'd be one of the top five prospects in baseball. Maybe #1. Matsuzaka has performed like that, only he's gone up against better than AAA-caliber hitters.

All the caveats about pitchers getting hurt suddenly and inexplicably apply to him, too. He's not superman. But if he stays healthy he's one of the top 10 or 15 pitchers alive today.

And that was consensus. Now he hasn't lived up to the hype and we think "oh, well, we can identify why he failed and avoid it in the future." There's no evidence that we can do this. I've said all along that my argument isn't that these pitchers can't, or won't, be good, but rather that the posting fee followed by money similar to that given players with MLB experience is too uncertain, and prior inefficiencies suggest we haven't found a way to deal w/ this uncertainty. Your confidence that "Darvish is different" doesn't really matter in the long run. Every one who invests in markets on the heels of a bubble bursting thinks "this time it's different."*

*It may be different in two ways: they think it may be different because "this time it's not a bubble," or they may think it's different because "this time I'll get out before it bursts."

[El Gordo]

While it is impossible for me to disagree with the statement that "grow the arms" has been an "epic failure," I am not ready to write off any of our young pitchers. The Orioles will never be a good team unless they can grow a significant amount of their own talent. No matter how badly PGA wants to win, free agents can only do so much to supplement a team that doesn't have unlimited resources.

I would be willing to term grow the atms and buy the bats an epic fail, if Matusz, Arriet,a and Britton, turn out to be Penn, Loewen, and Olson. I don't things have reached that point yet. The only SP that I have my serious doubts about is Tillman.

[allstar1579]

We thought there would be better options for 1B in 2012 after we missed out on Tex and all we have on the FA market is Prince Fielder really. You can always find excuses not to sign anybody but all the options you think will be there may not be.

Wilson has ties to Showalter and Adair. He's also left handed and gave up few HRs in a hitter's park. Not every pitcher we would be after would have those caveats.

True, I get that part, but you have a finite amount of resources to spend, so you have to decide what is better to have. I will guarantee you that they won't sign 2 $100m players in 2 years no matter what happens. So if you have to pick one player to spend $100m on is it CJ, or is it Grienke, Marcum, Hamels, J. Hamilton, M. Kemp?

I left out the players with options for 13, but CJ will get $100 or close to it because of lack of options. It's a sellers market. Next season with many more candidates out there it's a buyers market, and they will get less. You could go Fielder for $100m this season, and then spend $75-80 on one of those guys next season. It's all about having a plan with some foresight and not trying to plug all your holes at one given time like you tend to get hung up on.

[JTrea81]

Um...Trea? Which is it? These posts were not far apart, and complete oppose each other. And you wonder why you drive us crazy?

It is the GM's job to sell players on coming to Baltimore. And it's also the GM's job to convince the owner to spend money on FA pitching because we'll need it to win.

I take it though you are referring to that Buck isn't the GM.

Remember, Buck has been the one advising him all this season, hopefully telling him we need FA pitching and a TOR starter.

That's what I mean by Buck changing PGA's mind.

And make no mistake, Buck and the new GM will be on the same page when it comes to acquiring talent otherwise the guy won't be hired.

[Dipper9]

Perhaps Buck could change his mind? Remember Andy MacPhail hated giving those contracts too.

If Buck tells him we have to spend this kind of money to get good pitching, and he respects Buck then I think you could see him change.

It is the GM's job to sell players on coming to Baltimore. And it's also the GM's job to convince the owner to spend money on FA pitching because we'll need it to win.

I take it though you are referring to that Buck isn't the GM.

Remember, Buck has been the one advising him all this season, hopefully telling him we need FA pitching and a TOR starter.

That's what I mean by Buck changing PGA's mind.

And make no mistake, Buck and the new GM will be on the same page when it comes to acquiring talent otherwise the guy won't be hired.

Buck will resign from the Orioles before Angelos agrees to come close to any of the ideas you often throw out there...ie Wilson, Darvish, Fielder, and Pujols will not even receive attractive offers from us. You're setting yourself up for major disappointment if you believe otherwise.

[Lucky Jim]

I'm not sure what you are getting at w/r/t to sample size. There's uncertainty in everything. Or is your argument that small sample size isn't a fine critique when assessing any player's performance?

Where am I assessing a player's performance and making any point about sample size?

Arguing sample size issue is a fine critique when applied to drawing conclusions of a causal relationship. If I try to draw a causal relationship and you say: sorry, that conclusion is unstable because of sample size issues, that's fine. But I'm not doing that.

Where all you have are small samples, then all you have are small samples. For instance, if I was identifying some problem in translation among these handful of pitchers and there were a larger body of evidence out there that contradicted it, well...sure, that would be a great reason to call out the issue of sample size. But what's the backdrop here? What's the baseline for a stable translation of elite performance? Where's the track record of proper valuation?

My point has been only that the market so far has done a poor job of identifying how elite performance will translate and then valuing it accordingly. In MLB, this issue arises frequently with MiLB-to-MLB translation (see: Wieters, Gordon, etc.) but the system is built in a manner that helps to minimize this issue w/ pre-arb years and even arb-years prior to FA. But there's no buffer here. This market requires FA-type investment with a near-requirement of instant translation of performance.

So, sure, there aren't a lot of data points to go on. But how does that make an argument for investing in the market?

In the end, the fact that there's uncertainty in everything is a part of every equation, but not all uncertainty is created equally.

[JTrea81]

True, I get that part, but you have a finite amount of resources to spend, so you have to decide what is better to have. I will guarantee you that they won't sign 2 $100m players in 2 years no matter what happens. So if you have to pick one player to spend $100m on is it CJ, or is it Grienke, Marcum, Hamels, J. Hamilton, M. Kemp?

I left out the players with options for 13, but CJ will get $100 or close to it because of lack of options. It's a sellers market. Next season with many more candidates out there it's a buyers market, and they will get less. You could go Fielder for $100m this season, and then spend $75-80 on one of those guys next season. It's all about having a plan with some foresight and not trying to plug all your holes at one given time like you tend to get hung up on.

The Orioles can afford one 85-95 million dollar player and one 150+ IMO. Winning can raise revenue and of course ticket prices could also be justifiably be raised for a winning product with a higher payroll.

Not to mention next season you could forfeit your first round pick. Fielder and Wilson combined would cost 2nd and 3rd round picks this year. Not sure there would be many times when Wilson would only cost you a third rounder...

I see other names for 2013, but none that would have the same conditions in what you would get Wilson for this offseason.

[Sports Guy]

The Orioles can afford one 85-95 million dollar player and one 150+ IMO. Winning can raise revenue and of course ticket prices could also be justifiably be raised for a winning product with a higher payroll.

Not to mention next season you could forfeit your first round pick. Fielder and Wilson combined would cost 2nd and 3rd round picks this year. Not sure there would be many times when Wilson would only cost you a third rounder...

I see other names for 2013, but none that would have the same conditions in what you would get Wilson for this offseason.

Not yet...but this may be the case soon though. See my new poll thread for further discussion on this topic.

[El Gordo]

Very possible, but if it were me I'd say I had two options right now. Take that contract and try to get as many years as possible wherever I can get it (Yankees) OR take a shorter large contract with a pitching-friendly NL team and come back for one more large contract in 2-3 years. Age is working against him a bit, trying to get a long contract at 34 would be tough, but Carpenter just got a nice sized extension. I feel like he'd be crazy to walk away from the big money, which is where the thought keeps nagging at me. TEX could go toe to toe with the Yanks and give him the big contract, but they don't seem interested in doing that. He's going to get a CRAZY big contract driven up by the big teams needing pitching this offseason, and in a year or two will be an albatross of a contract. I just don't think it's the RIGHT scenario for the O's right now and there are better options in 2013.

In the interview CJ was asked about FA and he said he had plenty of money cars etc. He said he wanted the security of knowing he was going to be a SP for a few years down the raod in one place. He said he wanted to buy a house and maybe get a dog. He's a West Coast guy, a Taoist, a free spirit, and a sports car racer and collector. Doesn't sound too much like a guy who would go to NYC for a few dollars more.

[Dipper9]

The Orioles can afford one 85-95 million dollar player and one 150+ IMO. Winning can raise revenue and of course ticket prices could also be justifiably be raised for a winning product with a higher payroll.

Not to mention next season you could forfeit your first round pick. Fielder and Wilson combined would cost 2nd and 3rd round picks this year. Not sure there would be many times when Wilson would only cost you a third rounder...

I see other names for 2013, but none that would have the same conditions in what you would get Wilson for this offseason.

I don't disagree with this thinking, BUT here's the thing. Say the Orioles offer Wilson the 95 million dollar contract and offer Fielder the 150 million dollar contract. Then those two players get equal or better offers from winning organizations like NY, Boston, Anaheim, Texas, etc. Then what? Then do we up the offers to 110 and 180? We just are not an attractive team unless we grossly overspend, and THAT is what we cannot afford.