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Looking at the Big Picture


Frobby

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If the O's wanted to take a chance at becoming a team that competes deep into the playoffs they would trade Wieters and Hardy for the best group of young cost controlled starting pitchers possible. They would trade Jim Johnson and Brian Matusz, primarily as salary dumps... not going to get much.

But I'm sure they will follow the aforementioned Toronto scenario and keep together this 85 tops win team for as long as possible.

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1. One more year. Hardy is a FA after this year. So you are okay with the pick. Of course, if Hardy has a down year or gets hurt the O's won't make a qualifying offer. That's always a possibility.

2. Wieters will have a lot more value this offseason with two years of service time than next year with one year of service time. Why trade him after next year? Isn't that taking a step back then?

3. I agree about signing Davis. But what if we can't?

You get two years of Hardy of he accepts the offer. Which he probably would. Nice raise.

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1. One more year. Hardy is a FA after this year. So you are okay with the pick. Of course, if Hardy has a down year or gets hurt the O's won't make a qualifying offer. That's always a possibility.

2. Wieters will have a lot more value this offseason with two years of service time than next year with one year of service time. Why trade him after next year? Isn't that taking a step back then?

3. I agree about signing Davis. But what if we can't?

Wieters will have a lot more value next offseason if he hits a little bit this year. Which I think he might. Right now is a sell very low.
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1. One more year. Hardy is a FA after this year. So you are okay with the pick. Of course, if Hardy has a down year or gets hurt the O's won't make a qualifying offer. That's always a possibility.

2. Wieters will have a lot more value this offseason with two years of service time than next year with one year of service time. Why trade him after next year? Isn't that taking a step back then?

3. I agree about signing Davis. But what if we can't?

I think if we offer enough, Chris probably. So offer enough.

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We all have our opinion, so here is mine. To me you absolutely have to trade Hardy this offseason. And you need to shop Weiters around too, and if the return is enough you trade him too. And you pony up and sign Chris Davis like you ponied up and signed Adam Jones. That's the guy to commit to IMO.

I do not want a nice little team that plays .500 ball =/-. I want to win a Championship. I absolutely love Hardy, but it is smart money to cash him in now. Last offseason it was smart money to cash in on Jim Johnson, and we missed the boat. I also like Matt Weiters a lot, but if his perceived value is higher than his actual value then make the trade. If not, keep him. I think it will shock people to see what Weiters would bring back in a trade right now. Smart GM's do not work off of emotion. They make moves to improve the organization because that is the job description. That is what I expect to see this off season, but I did not see it last off season.

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We all have our opinion, so here is mine. To me you absolutely have to trade Hardy this offseason. And you need to shop Weiters around too, and if the return is enough you trade him too. And you pony up and sign Chris Davis like you ponied up and signed Adam Jones. That's the guy to commit to IMO.

I do not want a nice little team that plays .500 ball =/-. I want to win a Championship. I absolutely love Hardy, but it is smart money to cash him in now. Last offseason it was smart money to cash in on Jim Johnson, and we missed the boat. I also like Matt Weiters a lot, but if his perceived value is higher than his actual value then make the trade. If not, keep him. I think it will shock people to see what Weiters would bring back in a trade right now. Smart GM's do not work off of emotion. They make moves to improve the organization because that is the job description. That is what I expect to see this off season, but I did not see it last off season.

It always depends what you can get for the player. We don't have to trade Hardy -- but we should shop him and see what's out there. There's a difference.

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It always depends what you can get for the player. We don't have to trade Hardy -- but we should shop him and see what's out there. There's a difference.

I can't argue with that Frobby. Obviously you don't trade JJ Hardy for a bag of balls and a half dozen rosin bags. But he will bring back quite a bit, given his recent silver slugger, another GG and a very, very reasonable contract.

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Yeah, 14M would be a nice raise from 7M. However, there are two possible scenarios which make him a) unlikely to accept or b) the O's unlikely to offer.

1. If Hardy has a good year, there is likely a market for him at 3/30 or a 3/36 out there. In that case, he might go for the security over a 1 year contract.

2. If Hardy has a bad year or is injured the Orioles are unlikely to make a qualifying offer.

3. My conclusion is that it's probably less than 50% that Hardy is here for two years.

I like 50 percent on that proposition. Because it is fairly certain that the Orioles get to control that.

Remember, even if your guy declines your qualifying offer. You are in the driver seat in Free Agency because you are the only team not required to give up a draft pick to acquire him. I like 50 percent here.

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  • 1 month later...
I've been trying to step back this fall and look at the Big Picture when it comes to the Orioles. Overall, I'm a little nervous about what I see.

The good:

Overall, we have a very nice core of position players. Our group ranked 5th in MLB in fWAR at 26.6. The team finished 4th in the AL in runs, and made the fewest errors in major league history, finishing second in the AL in UZR. Six players were nominated for Gold Gloves, three of whom won, including the Platinum Glove winner. We had three players win the Silver Slugger. Three players started the All Star Game, and a fourth made it as a reserve. We had the HR and RBI champ. The everyday lineup is good enough to be a playoff team now, when you consider offense and defense combined.

We have built an excellent team culture. These guys have each others' backs, they work hard, and they're hard nosed. They play great defense every night and make few mental errors. It's a very easy team to root for.

We have an above average group of pitching prospects. Bundy/Gausman/Harvey/EdRod is a very nice top four, and Davies/Wright/Berry are a pretty nice second tier.

The bad:

Our present major league pitching staff is not playoff caliber, in fact, it's below average. We don't have a true ace, and everyone is pitching "up" one slot at least.

The talent we have in the minors is not ready to help. As I look back on 2013, the biggest tragedy was that Bundy needed to have TJ surgery instead of completing his minor league apprenticeship. Yes, there's a good chance he bounces back to be as good as we hoped, but he's not going to impact the major league team until 2015 at the earliest. Gausman was rushed a bit last year and needs another half-year in the minors at least IMO, and the others are further away than that.

Meanwhile, our offensive core is not that young (except Machado), and not under contract for that long. Hardy and Markakis could be gone in a year, and Davis and Wieters could be gone in two. If we are able to keep them, they'll be expensive and in their 30's. We may be precluded from keeping them and acquiring significant supplemental talent. (In Markakis' case, it's not clear he will be worth keeping at any price; it depends whether he bounces back to form in 2014, and even then, he'd need to take a significant pay cut.)

We have very little offensive talent in the minors. Schoop is the only player likely to make an impact in the next two years, and he is not ready and seems to have some holes in his offensive game.

So how good is this team for 2014-15, and where does that leave us?

We won 85 games last year, and to me, that's exactly what we were and figure to be if changes aren't made. I think our pitching could be a little better in 2014 if we resigned Feldman (after all, our ERA dropped from 4.39 to 3.93 in the second half). Our bullpen could get better results and we could have a better record in one-run games. So, there's a 90ish win upside if we leave the team "as is," but there's also an 80ish win downside if the team experiences injuries to one or two of its six core offensive players, none of whom had a single DL stint in 2013.

For me, "stay the course" makes little sense, unless we are trying to mimic the 2006-10 Toronto Blue Jays, who won 87, 83, 86, 75 and 85 games. Yet, the alternative courses are also dangerous. The free agent market is pretty mediocre, and the guys who clearly would help us will be very expensive and cost a draft pick. Even the guys who won't cost picks figure to be expensive with the new TV money that teams have available to spend. Shopping Hardy, as has been suggested, is not a bad idea, but it carries its own risks, as the infield defense is the strength of this team and it's unlikely that the combo of Machado at SS and whoever at 3B is going to be as good as Hardy/Machado have been. So, Hardy would have to bring back someone who very clearly would improve the pitching for a trade to make any sense.

Overall, I don't envy Dan Duquette. He's got his work cut out for him over the next two years, with a "pretty good" team that has a relatively short window in which to win, and very little help coming from the minor leagues in the foreseeable future. He's going to have to be both smart and lucky to put this team back in the playoffs while at the same time positioning the team to remain contenders in the longer run.

It sure is nice when Frobby writes for us.

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You guys do understand that this O's roster is not an 85 win caliber roster, right?

You do understand that the OP was written in early October, right?

As of today, with JJ traded and Feldman departing for Houston, and neither really replaced, I think we're a .500ish team, plus or minus 2 or 3 games.

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You do understand that the OP was written in early October, right?

As of today, with JJ traded and Feldman departing for Houston, and neither really replaced, I think we're a .500ish team, plus or minus 2 or 3 games.

Honestly, I did not notice that. And I'm not sure why the thread was re-opened.

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Now Bob...

...glad you do what you do, Big Brother! #1984ishere :clap3:

"The protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith, is a member of the Outer Party who works for the Ministry of Truth (or Minitrue), which is responsible for propaganda and historical revisionism. His job is to re-write past newspaper articles so that the historical record always supports the current party line.[3] Smith is a diligent and skilful worker, but he secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion against Big Brother."

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