If Jones goes, Wieters has to go too.

[Frobby]

I like Jones, he has been a 2.6 rWAR/yr player for us in the time he has been here, and I could see him being a 3.0-3.5 rWAR player for the next 5 years or so if things go his way. Wieters, on the other hand, figures to be a 4-5.5 rWAR player going forward, and he'll probably be about $10 mm cheaper than Jones over the next two years, plus he's under team control two years longer. To trade Wieters, we'd really need a huge haul in return. I'm inclined to think he has not reached his peak trade value, because his hitting hasn't estalished a consistent level yet.

[atomic]

Well I would only trade Jones for players who can contribute now. Anything else would be a bad idea. First off we have about 3 real prospects. So if you trade the few players we have that could bring legitimate prospects and even if those prospects turned out to be major leaguers in three years (Which is a big if), you aren't going to have enough players in three years to have a good team.

Trade Jones for two players who can play now. That is what they should be doing. The team is short on quantity of MLB quality players so they should be trying to do 2 for 1 deals.

[sakata_catching]

This is all very simple. Jones is a product and painful reminder of the draconian MacPhail regime and its failures. He clearly must go. Wieters was drafted under the previous guys. He can stay.

[Sports Guy]

That really depends on (i) how the league views Wieters and (ii) what Wieters does next.

It's entirely possible (and maybe 40% likely) that Wieters' value right now is as high as it will ever be.

Possible yes...Likely? No.

He should be able to stay a little more consistent offensively and becomes a 4.5-5 WAR player and if he does that, he is more valuable even with one less year of service time.

I would say between the deadline and next ST is when this issue should be re-visited.

I think its highly unlikely that his value drops between now and then.

[Lucky Jim]

Possible yes...Likely? No.

He should be able to stay a little more consistent offensively and becomes a 4.5-5 WAR player and if he does that, he is more valuable even with one less year of service time.

I would say between the deadline and next ST is when this issue should be re-visited.

I think its highly unlikely that his value drops between now and then.

Oh, I agree. And it's a gamble worth taking. Just hedging a bit.

[weams]

Isn't that the truth.

[24fps]

It gains you Wieters.

Black and white universes can be rich in irony, but the inhabitants are often unequipped to notice.

[GoldGlove21]

Those two are the future of this club. You can't deal one and keep the other.

Trading Jones signals a rebuild. You can spin it anyway you want but if you don't get talent back for Jones that can contribute right away and you don't replace his bat with proven talent, that's a loss in the near future.

I know people want to give up on 2012 already and build for 2014, but that means you have one or two years of Matt Wieters in his prime behind the plate left. You won't want to extend him well into his 30s as look at the mess the Twins have with Mauer now.

Catchers do not age well defensively. His arm strength is going to drop off and he's going to have issues with his knees and back most likely given his tall frame.

Boras is going to want something pretty substantial for him even if he only improves sllightly offensively and if he takes off, look out.

It's pretty clear that Wieters will have to be traded at some point.

So if you are going to waste 2012 and 2013, it makes no sense to keep Wieters now as he's just being wasted on a losing team when he would have enormous trade value, much more than Jones.

If you really want to get something from Atlanta, offer them a Jones and Wieters package for instance.

You could get 3-4 top prospects for Wieters easily as catchers like him are that rare. And we can stick anybody behind the plate on a losing club. Why waste Wieters there when he has that trade value?

And the sooner you trade him, the sooner those prospects can get ML experience to help with the team in 2014. If you wait to deal him a year or so later, now you have to wait for those prospects to develop and now you are really looking at 2015-2016 to compete.

And that's far too long to wait.

If you want to start that rebuild now for 2014, you've got to deal Wieters now to maximize your talent acquisition and allow time for development.

Wieters should probably go too and I agree that dealing Jones should trigger a Wieters deal moving forward. With that said, now is the right time to deal Jones and the wrong time to deal Wieters. Jones performance can rise some, but his value will be mitigated by an increasing salary requirement. Wieters can kill the ball for another year and still be relatively cheap and controlled moving forward. Wieters value can still climb and he could warrant a monster package based on his skills compared to his peers. Wieters is risky for me because right now his bat isn't good enough to be elite anywhere other than as a backstop.

[GoldGlove21]

Well I would only trade Jones for players who can contribute now. Anything else would be a bad idea. First off we have about 3 real prospects. So if you trade the few players we have that could bring legitimate prospects and even if those prospects turned out to be major leaguers in three years (Which is a big if), you aren't going to have enough players in three years to have a good team.

Trade Jones for two players who can play now. That is what they should be doing. The team is short on quantity of MLB quality players so they should be trying to do 2 for 1 deals.

You LOSE value by making this type of a trade and I will explain why.

1.) The two guys we net will be at the ML level and were probably at the major league level for at least one or two seasons prior to this one. If the Orioles lose in 2011 and 2012 (Which is a near certainty) than we have used 3 or 4 of the controlled years and they are not starting to get expensive as we try to compete in 2014 and 2015. This doesn't make any sense.

2.) You limit your return if you take "now" guys.

3.) There is risk at both levels. If you get two ML ready players, let say that we get Jurrjens and Prado as an example and Jurrjens gets hurt than we would have just traded Jones for Prado. Not a very smart deal. If we take a package of 5 prospects and they all fail than our trade is a failure.

4.) Guys that can contribute at the ML level (depending on position) could make everyone better. A first baseman might mean that the Orioles can maximize Reynolds value by making him a DH. If Prado is added than we have a second baseman that allows us to have a solid utility man in Andino on the cheap. Jurrjens would allow one of the fringe starters like Eveland, Wada or even Arrieta to better our pen. Additional starters may allow us to keep our high upside pitchers in the minors for another year and that could lead to more development, confidence and trade value for these guys. It is the same with prospects except you can get more in return for taking them verses established players.

5.) Team salary is going to be huge moving forward and locking $70M+ into Jones over the next 6 years is probably not the way we want to go unless we plan on adding additional funds to the teams payroll IMO.

[DrungoHazewood]

This all goes back to Trea's obsession with a binary universe. Either you spend $200M or spend nothing. Either you strip the team down to nothing, or you go all-in immediately. Either trade everyone, or trade no one. It's, of course, ridiculous. The O's aren't going to contend in 2012. But they could plausibly contend in 2013, and they better be quite a bit better in 2014 and 2015 and beyond. It's far less likely that they're good in 2013 and beyond if Matt Wieters is shipped off for prospects.

If Wieters gets no better, if he's already reached his peak/plateau, he's going to be worth 16 wins (or $80M) over the next four years, at something like a total cost of maybe $10-15M. So if you trade him, you need to get back more value than that. You need to get back 20 wins at a comparable cost, or 15 wins at a much lower cost, or something like that. What are the odds of that? The Bedard deal was about as much as any team is going to give up for any one player, and that brought back about 13 wins (so far). You'd be doing very well to get much more than that back for Wieters.

Basically, this boils down to needing a massive package to think about trading Wieters. You'd need a couple of guys with legitimate chances to become stars in the short term to seriously consider it. Because you're trading what's probably a 4+ win player in his prime at discounted rates, for chances that a package of talent coming back has one or two guys who could possibly become similar players sometime down the road.

[RVAbird]

I like Jones, he has been a 2.6 rWAR/yr player for us in the time he has been here, and I could see him being a 3.0-3.5 rWAR player for the next 5 years or so if things go his way. Wieters, on the other hand, figures to be a 4-5.5 rWAR player going forward, and he'll probably be about $10 mm cheaper than Jones over the next two years, plus he's under team control two years longer. To trade Wieters, we'd really need a huge haul in return. I'm inclined to think he has not reached his peak trade value, because his hitting hasn't estalished a consistent level yet.

I agree with this.

This thinking that you have to replace Jones with an equal or better CF in order to make a trade is about illogical as you can get. It's no surprise who's the main culprit in this argument.

I agree with this as well. When you trade a good, established player, you're most likely going to take a hit in production at that one position. But the hope is that you get a package with a sufficient mix of quantity and quality such that the value coming back is in the black. That's the point of trading established players for group packages that fill multiple holes. You do your best to make up the production lost at the particular position with the options available to you, but fear of a downgrade at one spot should not keep teams (particularly bad teams!) from making deals.

[DrungoHazewood]

I agree with this as well. When you trade a good, established player, you're most likely going to take a hit in production at that one position. But the hope is that you get a package with a sufficient mix of quantity and quality such that the value coming back is in the black. That's the point of trading established players for group packages that fill multiple holes. You do your best to make up the production lost at the particular position with the options available to you, but fear of a downgrade at one spot should not keep teams (particularly bad teams!) from making deals.

I hated the Frank Robinson deal because the '66 O's only had two league-average starters. They clearly didn't consider how they were going to replace Milt Pappas in the rotation. Idiots.

[El Gordo]

This all goes back to Trea's obsession with a binary universe. Either you spend $200M or spend nothing. Either you strip the team down to nothing, or you go all-in immediately. Either trade everyone, or trade no one. It's, of course, ridiculous. The O's aren't going to contend in 2012. But they could plausibly contend in 2013, and they better be quite a bit better in 2014 and 2015 and beyond. It's far less likely that they're good in 2013 and beyond if Matt Wieters is shipped off for prospects.

If Wieters gets no better, if he's already reached his peak/plateau, he's going to be worth 16 wins (or $80M) over the next four years, at something like a total cost of maybe $10-15M. So if you trade him, you need to get back more value than that. You need to get back 20 wins at a comparable cost, or 15 wins at a much lower cost, or something like that. What are the odds of that? The Bedard deal was about as much as any team is going to give up for any one player, and that brought back about 13 wins (so far). You'd be doing very well to get much more than that back for Wieters.

Basically, this boils down to needing a massive package to think about trading Wieters. You'd need a couple of guys with legitimate chances to become stars in the short term to seriously consider it. Because you're trading what's probably a 4+ win player in his prime at discounted rates, for chances that a package of talent coming back has one or two guys who could possibly become similar players sometime down the road.

If I were trading Wieters to the MFY's, who would covet him IMO, I would want Nova, Montero, Betances, Banuellos, and Sanchez. But Wieters years of control are the key to the teams direction IMO. If you believe you can contend in 4 years, you hold on to him, if you don't think you can trade him. But I think he will have more value next season. I think his bat will be much improved.

[Singleton]

This all goes back to Trea's obsession with a binary universe. Either you spend $200M or spend nothing. Either you strip the team down to nothing, or you go all-in immediately. Either trade everyone, or trade no one. It's, of course, ridiculous. The O's aren't going to contend in 2012. But they could plausibly contend in 2013, and they better be quite a bit better in 2014 and 2015 and beyond. It's far less likely that they're good in 2013 and beyond if Matt Wieters is shipped off for prospects.

If Wieters gets no better, if he's already reached his peak/plateau, he's going to be worth 16 wins (or $80M) over the next four years, at something like a total cost of maybe $10-15M. So if you trade him, you need to get back more value than that. You need to get back 20 wins at a comparable cost, or 15 wins at a much lower cost, or something like that. What are the odds of that? The Bedard deal was about as much as any team is going to give up for any one player, and that brought back about 13 wins (so far). You'd be doing very well to get much more than that back for Wieters.

Basically, this boils down to needing a massive package to think about trading Wieters. You'd need a couple of guys with legitimate chances to become stars in the short term to seriously consider it. Because you're trading what's probably a 4+ win player in his prime at discounted rates, for chances that a package of talent coming back has one or two guys who could possibly become similar players sometime down the road.

All good points. On the other hand, given that we have nothing at AA or AAA, I think competing in 2013 is pretty much as far fetched as it is in 2012. I really worry how Wieters will hold up as a catcher given his size.

It's not just about whether Wieters improves from 2011. He might and he might not. But other teams will weigh the gain in his improvement against the fact that he's a year closer to free agency. He could also get hurt.

I wouldn't be in a rush to trade him and will enjoy watching him play since there is no indication that he's going anywhere but I don't think it is lunacy to see what is out there. The likelihood that there is a win-now team that has a bevy of prospects to give up and is willing to part with them is pretty low but I think DD should be open to anyone that wants to give it a go.

[GoldGlove21]

JTrea wants the Orioles to win now. Trading Jones or extending Jones says little about the Orioles wanting to win now because they have lost with Jones. Spending more money limits what this team can do UNLESS they add to the payroll which is what he wants them to do. I do not see a trade as Jones for prospects. I see a trade as Jones + $70M over the next 6-7 years in addition to prospects that COULD upgrade our starting pitching at a very small fraction of what free agent starters could cost. If Jones costs a total of $14M in 2012 and 2013 (guess on arb) and the Orioles need to add a starting pitcher like Jackson (4/$44M) and extend Guthrie (3/$27M) or sign another starting pitcher than we could easily spend $55M over the next 2 seasons on two guys we currently have on the team and Jackson. If the Orioles deal Jones for something like JJ, Delgado/Minor and Prado than the Orioles COULD improve the pitching staff without needing to extend Guthrie (Maybe they deal him). The Orioles have now upgraded the starting rotation, the pen by defualt (Wada, Eveland, Arrieta could assist) and second base while taking a hit on center. If Jones is as bad deffensively as people think and Reimold is as good offensively than the Orioles could see minimal impact IF they found a below average offensive/above average defensive center fielder.

The Rays, Cardinals and Braves have won with adequate offenses because the pitching was lights out. The Yankees, Red Sox and Rangers have won because the hitting was lights out. They all had something that looked like an ace, but they were built in a manner that maximized the value of what they had. The Orioles are not making a hole by dealing Jones, they are increasing their chances of filling more holes. Based on where the Orioles are at this point I would prefer two of Minor, Delgado, Salcedo and Graham to JJ, Delgado and Prado, but I also know that JJ, Delgado and Prado could easily become Delgado + 5 or 6 quality prospects depending on how JJ and Prado performed.