Do you like the Feldman trade?

[Frobby]

Is everyone forgetting what usually happens when a pitcher from the NL comes to the O's?

They get lit up like a Christmas tree. I remember Kline, DeJean off the top of my head. I am sure there is more.

How'd Saunders do for us last year? Feldman will do fine. He spent most of his career pitching for Texas in an extremely hitter friendly ballpark. He's the kind of guy who is the 5th starter on a good team. That's his job for us.

[Roll Tide]

The Orioles traded Jake Arrieta, Pedro Strop and two international signing slots to the Cubs for starter Scott Feldman? How do you feel about the trade?

Tony , I am meh on the deal. Feldman is another 6 inning guy. We didn't give up much to get him and I don't understand Clevenger addition at all.

[Crazysilver03]

Tony , I am meh on the deal. Feldman is another 6 inning guy. We didn't give up much to get him and I don't understand Clevenger addition at all.

What is there not to get? He is a decent back-up catcher with two option years remaining. A little better than a throw-in as he might actually contribute some day.

[eddie83]

Arrieta was done here. He is out of options next year and there is no way he would have made the rotation on Opening Day, so at best he would have been a bullpen arm next year. I still think Pedro will get it sorted out at some point but you can't carry him because we have so much to play for, it is a shame for us he was out of options. I like the deal.

[Malike]

Improved it vs. whom? The season averages that include Garcia and a bad Arrieta? Sure. But what about compared to a Britton coming finally coming back around? Or the potential of Gausman, or the possibility of Johnson? I don't think Feldman is even good enough for me to give up the distant dream of Arrieta. I do think we are in "win now" mode but measuring the amount Feldman will contribute to "winning now" I find very little.

You have based your posts on what ifs. Mine was based on his career production and I was being generous with a 5 ERA. He's a GB pitcher with guys who can pick it all over the infield. I prefer not to base things on hypotheticals.

[Crazysilver03]

Arrieta was done here. He is out of options next year and there is no way he would have made the rotation on Opening Day, so at best he would have been a bullpen arm next year. I still think Pedro will get it sorted out at some point but you can't carry him because we have so much to play for, it is a shame for us he was out of options. I like the deal.

Not that it changes things too much, but Arrieta would still have had an option next year.

[Owen21]

I think the trigger was pulled too early. We should have held out for a better trade partner.

[Ommaculate]

We will find out tomorrow. Feldman needs to be the stopper. The O's are in a skid.

[OFFNY]

We will find out tomorrow. Feldman needs to be the stopper. The O's are in a skid.

One loss in a row?

[WalkingDead]

We will find out tomorrow. Feldman needs to be the stopper. The O's are in a skid.

<a href='http://gifsforum.com/listofgifs/gallery/lol'><img src='http://gifsforum.com/images/gif/lol/grand/Jack-Nicholson-lol-eccbc87e4b5ce2fe28308fd9f2a7baf3-1658.gif' alt='Jack Nicholson lol gif'></a>

Sarcasm was great.

[isestrex]

One loss in a row?

He probably had them in a skid as soon as they trailed 2-1 tonight

[Ommaculate]

One loss in a row?

The skid always starts at 1 loss.

[luismatos4prez]

The O's are in a skid.

:rofl: I needed that laugh

[isestrex]

The skid always starts at 1 loss.

<a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h367/isestrex/Gifs/wellok.gif" border="0" alt=" photo wellok.gif"/></a>

[BohKnowsBmore]

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.

VERY well said.