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New Fangraphs article "The Orioles Stars and Scrubs Problem"


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The Os are the laughing stock of baseball.

Right, it isn't the Astros or the Marlins at all, it's the O's. :rolleyes:

Three 100 loss seasons in a row is no where near as embarrassing as having trouble building around a talented core on a mid market budget.

I can't tell you all the crap I get at work from Astros and Marlins fans.

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Right, it isn't the Astros or the Marlins at all, it's the O's. :rolleyes:

Three 100 loss seasons in a row is no where near as embarrassing as having trouble building around a talented core on a mid market budget.

I can't tell you all the crap I get at work from Astros and Marlins fans.

Both have won World Series that are fairly recent

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It's saying you can't build a winner through FA for $95 MM. BAL needs more surplus value outside of FA if it wants to be a low-mid-market payroll.

Which to me implies that you have to churn your stars, like Tampa Bay, to overstock the pipeline. The draft/develop and international channels are not enough to provide the kind of surplus value coming out of the pipeline that is required. Since you can't count on fleecing trades like the Davis or Hardy trades on a continual basis, you have to suck it up and trade stars like the Jones trade and the trades TB makes every year.

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And that's really the problem rooted in a lot of these arguments (i.e., getting wrapped up in both hindsight and future-casting). Some people want to conserve draft picks and not spend on FA, but only consider those issues in a vacuum. For the most part, with some exceptions, the Orioles have stayed out of the FA market and conserved draft picks, and the result has been a team that's not quite good enough to win the World Series (and even saying that much might be generous).

The problem I have with the draft pick fervor is that if you were to overhaul the O's internal structure (i.e., cut whatever dead weight there is to cut, and reinvest wisely and consistently in MiL player scouting and development), the time it would take to round out the major league club would likely outstrip the competitive window of the current "core." So what's the best case scenario? You reinvest in the MiL system, and trade whoever has significant value on the ML team in an effort to restock the high-minors? How does that effect the clock when it comes to competing in the postseason? Are you looking at 2018? Beyond?

Unfortunately, the absolute pinnacle of "realism" when it comes to the Orioles is that they're probably not going to do much of anything. Whether they make good use of their first round pick in the upcoming draft is a crap shoot, IMO (specious, deceptive arguments citing to the Orioles' recent glut of "successful" top-five picks), and they're unlikely to augment the team through FA in order to bridge the WAR gap referenced in the OP.

I feel like you play devil's advocate to the extreme and to your own detriment sometimes. Nobody said conserving cost-controlled talent = World Championship. Sometimes you do everything right and lose. That happens a lot. But it's the only viable path (other than relying on hope and blind luck) that leads to a team with a chance at consistently contending.

We could spend our remaining 20M, add another 4-5 wins, and go into 2014 as probably a true talent 82-84 win team with, say, a 40% shot to be in the playoff picture on September 1st and a 20% shot to be there with a week to play. Then next offseason we have no money to spend, arbitration raises to give out, and people who advocated for all-in this offseason complaining that we need to raise our payroll because it's unfair we can't afford to upgrade what was probably like an 85 win team.

There's no way around the law of surplus value. A team with 100M payroll to allocate must have about 100M in surplus value to be a true talent 90 win team. You can be a true talent 80 win team and win 90 games, but that's hitching your star to the roll of some really weighted dice. You can get mad about that if you want, but remember that the only reason we even get to have this conversation and two winning seasons in a row is because of what young, cost-controlled talent we have. And remember, if you please, every thread last season about "I'd move Bundy for star X" or "we should trade Machado for star Y in a heartbeat" when players like that are the only reason this club has both a present and a future.

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.

.

.

I wish the Orioles were smarter, AND I wish they spent more. However, if they're not and they won't, I'd at least like to see them make enough improvements this winter to stay relevant for a couple of seasons. After that...well...PA can't own the team forever, right?

We'll know when it comes time for his eleventy-first Birthday Party.

;)

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The real problem with the O's is a lack of commitment to an organizational philosophy. On the one hand they want to act like a small to mid market team when it comes to fee agency. On the other hand they do not seem interested in trading their stars for youth to replenish the pipeline. That's a long-term. Recipe for failure imo. In MOB if you have your cake and eat it to ..... unless your willing to spend significantly higher and make a run, its a bad recipe

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The real problem with the O's is a lack of commitment to an organizational philosophy. On the one hand they want to act like a small to mid market team when it comes to fee agency. On the other hand they do not seem interested in trading their stars for youth to replenish the pipeline. That's a long-term. Recipe for failure imo. In MOB if you have your cake and eat it to ..... unless your willing to spend significantly higher and make a run, its a bad recipe

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Or push hard to acquire talent in the draft or on the international market.

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Or push hard to acquire talent in the draft or on the international market.

That can work but the draft is a crapshoot. Even Tampa who scouts well misses when they point closer outside the top half.

In today's game letting star players walk for a draft pick is just not smart. Least with prospects while its a crapshoot there is some professional work to use as a gauge to project. May not always work but I like the odds of projecting a A or AA guy more than say a high school bat

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And a couple of them even deserved it... not sure why it matters though.

Because no team that won 93 and 85 games the last two seasons, and has a talented core with multiple legit all star players, is regarded as a "laughing stock." When Ty Wigginton is your all star representative, then you're a laughing stock. I'm as frustrated as anyone else about our offseason to date, but let's not overstate the case.

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That can work but the draft is a crapshoot. Even Tampa who scouts well misses when they point closer outside the top half.

In today's game letting star players walk for a draft pick is just not smart. Least with prospects while its a crapshoot there is some professional work to use as a gauge to project. May not always work but I like the odds of projecting a A or AA guy more than say a high school bat

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Of course you can allocate sources and come up empty, that isn't the point. If you are not willing to spend and are not willing to piece out the core then you have to attempt to create and sustain a pipeline of talent through the draft and international free agents.

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