Do you like the Feldman trade?

[allquixotic]

Remember what a couple more wins would have meant to the O's last year - a division title instead of a wildcard / one game play-in.

I totally agree with Frobby that "difference maker" is pretty subjective. In my book, if the O's win more games this year because of this trade, then Feldman will have been a difference maker and I think there is a pretty strong chance he'll deliver a few extra wins. It was a very low risk / reasonable reward type trade to me.

Agree. The realistic expectation is that he brings us more wins than otherwise.

Really, though, with the offense we have, and the handful of absolute studs in the bullpen, we don't need pitchers who can hold the opponent to 1 run over 8 innings every time they come out. A nominal 3 runs over 6 innings is more than sufficient to give our bats a very high chance of winning almost every game. It's the blowouts, where the opposing team scores 5 or more runs off of the SP, where our chances deteriorate significantly.

The shoestring assemblage of spot starters and guys who aren't ready yet (like Gausman) was the single most likely spot in the rotation to blow out and all but guarantee a loss. If we can plug that hole and bring down the runs per game from 5-8 to 2-4, our chances of winning improve dramatically. Over 10 or 15 starts this could amount to 5 or 6 wins that we would have lost if it were the shoestring rabble. That's the difference between a 3rd-place team and a wildcard or division winner. Although division winner seems vanishingly likely with the Red Sox doing what they're doing.

[Lester Freamon]

I like it. Feldman should be better and more consistent than Britton or Gausman. If he's not, you move him to the BP and call one of them up. Plus...we gave up two guys that probably weren't going to succeed here anyways. Seems like a smart deal.

This the way I feel as well. I don't want to discount the international slot money but player wise we didn't give up anything that was in our long range plans. AND, if Feldman doesn't pan out quite so well in the rotation, which is a possibility, we may be able to go back to Britton, Gausman, or even make an additional trade with Feldman moving to the pen.

[mark_beckens]

Precisely. It was unrealistic to assume Cliff Lee.

I'm not totally convinced that the Orioles are done making trades yet, either. But this helps very much right now. The rotation is about to become very solid with the addition of Feldman and the return of Chen.

I think that depends on Hammel continueing to improve. He has thrown very well his last 3-4 starts with very little to show for it. If he pitches like he did last year, Chen comes back and pitches like he's capable of and Gonzo and Tillman do also. Feldman is #5 and just needs to eat up innings and keep us in games to save the bullpen. I think the fact Feldman has a history with Buck should not be dismissed.

[SteveO]

Once is right. His worst year for WHIP was 2010, and was overall a poor year from Feldman. That said, he still had a 4.73 FIP during this year all the while giving up an unusually high amount of hits on balls in play while having the worst groundball percentage of his career, not to mention the lowest K-rate per nine innings.

It was his worst year, not counting 2008, which was his first full year in the majors. Every year has been better, including 2012 where he was ridiculously unlucky (really high BABIP).

I'm liking the Feldman deal. It was a very good return for a guy who was not very good (Strop), and a guy who needed a change of scenery (Arrieta). Neither of those guys would bring back Garza.

I call that a blip.

Well said. Both Strop and Arrieta were not going to help this years team. Neither of them figure prominently in the future. Neither is a spring chicken anymore. Feldman has 7-6 record for a team that sucks. He is a crafty guy who keeps the ball down and knows how to pitch in a bandbox (Wrigley). Guasman has potential but needs some seasoning. This buys time for him to work on that.

Sure I would love to see Cliff Lee, Jake Peavy, Matt Garza, blah blah blah on this team. I am not willing to part with Gausman though nor do I think we have the prospects to make a deal for one of them without including Gausman. Given that, this move makes sense and hopefully will work out.

[Singleton]

I don't see how anyone could think we are either WS bound or worse off with this trade. The middle two options are viable though.

I didn't vote because I didn't like my options.

Every trade involves opportunity cost. In this case, I worry that we have just used up the additional salary we could add. We need to add a starter and clearly we had some money to spend. I don't know the market but I'd have been willing to "risk" losing the mighty Feldman to another team in the hopes that I could add something better. And if I couldn't, I wouldn't lose sleep over the difference between Feldman and Britton or Gausman and would be happy to have my $ for something else.

[markakis4pres]

Im meh on this deal.

I don't mind dealing Arrieta at all but Feldman is going to get rocked in the AL East. We needed a top starter and Feldman isn't even better than Tillman, Gonzo, Hammel, or Chen. I'd honestly rather give Gausman starts!

Garza would have been nice and I would have given up Arrieta and Delmonico to get it done.

[allquixotic]

0 of 141 people think we're worse off after the trade than we were before. Yet from the negativity in this thread, you'd think that number would be much higher than 0.

To those few who stalwartly think we are "not improved": you are entitled to your opinion, but the negative nancy stuff is really not constructive. What could we have traded instead to get a trade that would have improved the club? Or is your outlook so bleak that you don't think we could have made any trade that would improve the club's pitching at all (without sabotaging the lineup)? I don't see a lot of people proposing counter-offers for what might have been possible instead of Feldman. Most seem to agree that Garza is out of our reach.

I see this as part of a strategy of "small wins". In competitive games of chess, where high impact moves are either inordinately risky or flat out impossible, players look for moves that put them in a slightly better position than before, and try to build on that each turn. Some of these moves are really marginal, and buy them a very slight advantage in material or position, but the important thing is that it's an improvement. When you're splitting hairs trying to get every (tiny) advantage you can, in a situation where most of your pieces are deadlocked and you can't get something big (like an opposing queen) without giving up something just as big (like your own queen, or two rooks), sometimes taking a pawn and losing a pawn but gaining a slight positional advantage can be the turning point in the game.

I think this move is a small win. To win the whole chess match, we need to combine this with other small wins and build up some momentum. We've been doing this for a while, though, so it's not like we're starting from square one. Raising Markakis, Wieters, Machado and Tillman from the farm into successful ML players were each small wins in and of themselves. Seeing Gausman progress day by day is a long string of small wins. Bundy's road to recovery is a small win. The potential for Wada to someday start and be effective is a small win. The only really huge win we've had in a long time is the Bedard trade with Seattle. Everything else has been incremental, and look where it's gotten us: a handful of games out of first place, and the third-best winning percentage in the AL and tied for sixth-best winning percentage in all of baseball.

Small steps. Small wins. The AL East is a very competitive and close division. When you can make an improvement in your club -- even a very small one -- it's a big deal. Nobody's playing like a novice and exposing their queen to an attack that would only cost the attacker a pawn.

[Enjoy Terror]

I like the trade because it seems like a safe #5 pitcher. Previously I never knew what to expect in that role: is it Garcia? Gausman? McFarland? Britton? Johnson? Arrieta? Burnett? Who's today's #5?

That question has been answered. Every fifth day I can expect to see Feldman pitch reasonably well. I have similar feelings about Hammel, Tillman, Gonzo and Chen. None of them are Cy Young candidates, but they give the Os a good chance to win each time they go out.

[allquixotic]

Im meh on this deal.

I don't mind dealing Arrieta at all but Feldman is going to get rocked in the AL East. We needed a top starter and Feldman isn't even better than Tillman, Gonzo, Hammel, or Chen. I'd honestly rather give Gausman starts!

Garza would have been nice and I would have given up Arrieta and Delmonico to get it done.

I'm sorry, and maybe you know more about baseball than me, but I don't think we could have gotten anyone who is clearly better than Feldman for Arrieta and Delmonico. Not even for Arrieta, Delmonico, Strop, cash, and two international credits. Delmonico adds value to the deal, but we already gave up quite a bit and got a nominal #5.5 starter.

The price to buy a starter in 2013 MLB from another team is extremely high -- higher than anyone could imagine. Wait and see how much the Dodgers are going to have to give up for Cliff Lee. Your jaw will hit the floor. The cost increases exponentially the better the pitcher is. And even a bottom of the rotation starter is expensive to begin with.

Starting pitching can be consistent, effective (good stuff), or healthy. To speak in simple terms of "units" of value: a guy who's pretty much cornered one of those three things is worth 1 "unit" of value. A guy who's pretty much cornered two of those three things is worth 10 "units" of value. A guy who's pretty much cornered all three of those things is worth 100 "units" of value. Then there are gradations and spectra and degrees that shift the units of value by 1s and 2s along those orders of magnitude.

I think we should consider ourselves lucky that we were able to get a guy who is a significant amount of healthy and consistent, if not particularly great stuff. So we're looking at a guy who's on the "order of magnitude" of 10. Everyone wants a guy who's on the OOM of 100, but that means you have to come up with 100 units of value (again, abstract units) to deal for him. That means you need to come up with 10 times more value than we dealt to get Feldman. How do you do that without giving up one or more of Machado, Davis, and Gausman?

[waroriole]

Precisely. It was unrealistic to assume Cliff Lee.

I'm not totally convinced that the Orioles are done making trades yet, either. But this helps very much right now. The rotation is about to become very solid with the addition of Feldman and the return of Chen.

If solid means average, I'd agree. We lack a #1, but we should at least avoid getting shelled (as could happen if we throw Gausman or Britton out there). With our offense, that may be plenty of pitching.

What is really going to make the difference is Hammel. If he can get it together, this rotation shapes up very nicely. If not, I wouldn't be opposed to him having a "knee strain" and letting Britton show what he can do.

[lovetoaster]

Im meh on this deal.

I don't mind dealing Arrieta at all but Feldman is going to get rocked in the AL East. We needed a top starter and Feldman isn't even better than Tillman, Gonzo, Hammel, or Chen. I'd honestly rather give Gausman starts!

Garza would have been nice and I would have given up Arrieta and Delmonico to get it done.

I agree Garza would have been nice, but that would not have gotten it done. That package is not good enough.

[DrungoHazewood]

Everything about Feldman screams "solid".

Good GB%, decent HR/9, decent k/9, decent bb/9

He's won 7 games on a bad Chicago Cubs ball club.

He's a sinkerballer whose primary pitch actually works (see GB%)

His fWar is currently equal to our best starter Chen (albiet in twice as many innings). Per innings pitched, he has the highest fWar out of our starting staff, excluding Chen.

His FIP and ERA are very, very close. 3.46 ERA to 3.93 FIP. He's not significantly outperforming his peripherals.

These are very, very good signs.

But he is having a career year in the NL Central, now coming to the AL East. His ERA with the Rangers was something like 4.75.

[mark_beckens]

But he is having a career year in the NL Central, now coming to the AL East. His ERA with the Rangers was something like 4.75.

What was Hammel or Gonzo's stats like before they joined us?

[SteveO]

I think some of the negativity about the move has to do with some people who have delusions about the value of Arrieta/Strop.

I grew up in Chicago and was a die hard Cubs fan till 17. I bleed Orange now but I still have love for the Cubs and many friends in Chicago. I can tell you the vast majority of them think they got fleeced.

" So we gave up a guy who can pitch for a guy (Arrieta) who is not a young prospect and Freddy Garcia was starting over and another dude who is strike zone challenged with no options....we should have gotten more"

Pretty much that quote sums up the sentiment of my friends in Chicago. Maybe their forums will have a different take

[markakis4pres]

I'm sorry, and maybe you know more about baseball than me, but I don't think we could have gotten anyone who is clearly better than Feldman for Arrieta and Delmonico. Not even for Arrieta, Delmonico, Strop, cash, and two international credits. Delmonico adds value to the deal, but we already gave up quite a bit and got a nominal #5.5 starter.

The price to buy a starter in 2013 MLB from another team is extremely high -- higher than anyone could imagine. Wait and see how much the Dodgers are going to have to give up for Cliff Lee. Your jaw will hit the floor. The cost increases exponentially the better the pitcher is. And even a bottom of the rotation starter is expensive to begin with.

Starting pitching can be consistent, effective (good stuff), or healthy. To speak in simple terms of "units" of value: a guy who's pretty much cornered one of those three things is worth 1 "unit" of value. A guy who's pretty much cornered two of those three things is worth 10 "units" of value. A guy who's pretty much cornered all three of those things is worth 100 "units" of value. Then there are gradations and spectra and degrees that shift the units of value by 1s and 2s along those orders of magnitude.

I think we should consider ourselves lucky that we were able to get a guy who is a significant amount of healthy and consistent, if not particularly great stuff. So we're looking at a guy who's on the "order of magnitude" of 10. Everyone wants a guy who's on the OOM of 100, but that means you have to come up with 100 units of value (again, abstract units) to deal for him. That means you need to come up with 10 times more value than we dealt to get Feldman. How do you do that without giving up one or more of Machado, Davis, and Gausman?

The reason I say that is because Garza is a FA next year and obviously has had injury issues.

Cubs were real high on Arrieta and Delmonico looks real solid now. Add in Strop and the two international signing picks than maybe. I would even add in Schoop instead if it got the deal done.

And you know, if they don't wanna bite on that deal for Garza, you look elsewhere like Norris. The Feldman deal just seemed forced to me, I don't see him pitching to that ERA in the AL East.