Have we sacrificed too much the last 2 seasons trying to be in "win now" mode?

[hoosiers]

We simply disagree. You minimize Cruz's role as if we would have gotten that production from....where exactly? The Os would have been MUCH slower to remove Johnson because 10 million dollars is a lot to pay a guy to only pitch the sixth inning (and we couldn't have hidden him there either.) Come talk to me after Jiminez turns it around, Norris continues to improve, Gausman has plenty of innings to go to October (unlike your hypothetical, unless you wanted to push his arm) and we go to the Series. Your hypothetical would have us worse, not better.

It is fine to disagree.

Johnson is getting $10M from the As and they removed him pretty quickly from the closers role. What is your logic that the Os would be slower to remove JJ from the closer's role than the As have been?

Why are Gausman's 2H IP more valuable than if he had been in the rotation since OD? Extrapolating from Baseball Reference, giving the ball to Gausman on Opening Day and giving him Jimenez's 99 IP, the Os would be about 1.5 Wins and $11.5M better. That alone makes up half of the difference in Nelson Cruz's first half contribution. Is that an improper conclusion?

We can talk after the season. I hope it is after we win the final game of the WS in Bmore.

[Frobby]

Markakis isn't turning down $15 MM. Neither is Hardy. Cruz probably will unless it's an awful second half for him.

Am I the only person who thinks Hardy has a good shot at a multi-year deal at $15 mm/yr or more? He's a 3 WAR player and there are very few decent shortstops on the market. I think he turns down a QO.

[Stotle]

Am I the only person who thinks Hardy has a good shot at a multi-year deal at $15 mm/yr or more? He's a 3 WAR player and there are very few decent shortstops on the market. I think he turns down a QO.

I could be wrong. Who do you think goes after him? Here are the other shortstops that could be on the market:

Asdrubal Cabrera

Alex Gonzalez

J.J. Hardy

Jed Lowrie

John McDonald

Hanley Ramirez

Jimmy Rollins (if Philly goes younger)

Baltimore, New York (A), Cleveland, LA Dodgers, and maybe Oakland and Philly seem like the teams that could be looking FA for SS.

Cleveland is handing the job to Lindor. Hanley is going to the Yankees or the Dodgers, right? Philly is rebuilding and will look for a short term stopgap.

[sportsfan8703]

I could be wrong. Who do you think goes after him? Here are the other shortstops that could be on the market:

Asdrubal Cabrera

Alex Gonzalez

J.J. Hardy

Jed Lowrie

John McDonald

Hanley Ramirez

Easily the Yankees. But back to the OP. I get the love for Hader. Local guy. Draft steal. LHP. All that good stuff. But look how high we all were on Ed Rod last year. So Hader has to keep doing what he's doing at AA, AAA just to get to the majors. Then he has to have a better career than Norris. I'd say chances are less than 10 % that happens. People underrate Norris but then act like it's a foregone conclusion that Gausman, Bundy and Harvey are locks for our future rotation.

[Stotle]

Easily the Yankees. But back to the OP. I get the love for Hader. Local guy. Draft steal. LHP. All that good stuff. But look how high we all were on Ed Rod last year. So Hader has to keep doing what he's doing at AA, AAA just to get to the majors. Then he has to have a better career than Norris. I'd say chances are less than 10 % that happens. People underrate Norris but then act like it's a foregone conclusion that Gausman, Bundy and Harvey are locks for our future rotation.

If Philly jettisons Rollins's contract, the Yankees could go shorter term. They could also play for Hanley Ramirez. The Cubs are also considering moving Starlin Castro.

Hardy could very well end up with one of the few big money opportunities. Considering what Drew went through, I'm not sure he turns down the $15 MM to stick in a city with which he has familiarity and comfort.

[hoosiers]

Easily the Yankees. But back to the OP. I get the love for Hader. Local guy. Draft steal. LHP. All that good stuff. But look how high we all were on Ed Rod last year. So Hader has to keep doing what he's doing at AA, AAA just to get to the majors. Then he has to have a better career than Norris. I'd say chances are less than 10 % that happens. People underrate Norris but then act like it's a foregone conclusion that Gausman, Bundy and Harvey are locks for our future rotation.

Not singling out this poster because it is pervasive in this thread, but why is the appreciation for prospects like Gausman, Bundy and Harvey on this board totally out of sync with the constant be-littling of the value of our top draft picks?

Folks do realize that Norris was acquired at a cost? The Astros made the trade because they believe they received EQUAL compensation in the value of the low minor leaguer and the draft pick. Our compensation as part of that trade is a major league player who will produce today! The Astros have bet on the future value of what they received. There may or may not come a day when the Astros MLB contribution from this trade exceeds what Norris provided to the Orioles, but the results of this trade are far from final.

I would argue one other point here. The Astros portion of the trade is worth more TODAY than what the Os received. That the Astros (or Orioles if we had kept them), could get more in value today than Norris if looking to deal a supplemental first round pick and Hader.

[Frobby]

I could be wrong. Who do you think goes after him? Here are the other shortstops that could be on the market:

Asdrubal Cabrera

Alex Gonzalez

J.J. Hardy

Jed Lowrie

John McDonald

Hanley Ramirez

Jimmy Rollins (if Philly goes younger)

Baltimore, New York (A), Cleveland, LA Dodgers, and maybe Philly seem like the teams that could be looking FA for SS.

Cleveland is handing the job to Lindor. Hanley is going to the Yankees or the Dodgers, right? Philly is rebuilding and will look for a short term stopgap.

Mariners? Reds? Mets? Brewers? Tigers? Those teams all have younger shortstops who are struggling to some degree. But if you were the Yankees or Dodgers and didn't get Hanley, which options do you like better than Hardy?

[clapdiddy]

I appreciate the honor of the original post (though I've expressed preference to same poster to not put my thoughts up for discussion in this manner previously). Anyway, there are a lot of points made in this post that I disagree with, but this is not going to be a dissertation. I will just list out some thoughts and counter-thoughts:

1) I think we have a good GM. His scouting director has drafted very well. His international operations are signing quality prospects, but to a lesser extent financially than expected. (IMO the international scouting is moving at an incremental pace to what AM had the last few years instead of the leap forward many of us had hoped for). I think our prospect development is better than at any time since at least the 1990s.

2) I continued to be frustrated by the consistently solid examples of teams dealing veterans for prospects WHILE continuing to remain competitive at the major league level that are ignored by this board. Players should be judged on a value sprectrum (relative to their salary, remaining contract or years under control,etc) whereas this board appears to mostly use a production spectrum - as in declaring that a player (Davis, Wieters, Hardy) is too productive to trade. That is why I constantly post about trades having to be EQUAL. Surely, if we give up a productive player, we'll get equal value in return. It seems inconceivable to people that trading Chris Davis or Matt Wieters last offseason would have made the major league team worse (even allowing that we would have received appropriate prospects in an equal trade), but it appears through this point in the season that would not be the case. I post about creating net positive organizational value - trading productive veterans for prospects in an equal trade and then using the freed up $ to get additional productive veteran players. People have remarked that this is the policy of small market teams, I believe it is the policy of winning teams.

3) If none of the trades of our GM of the past year had been made, we'd have a better starting rotation (minus Norris, minus Jimenez plus Gausman plus Arrietta), similar bp with an overpaid JJohnson about to be released, a lesser lineup (minus Cruz) plus approx. $10M-15M to spend on FAs and three top 60 picks from the 2014 draft and Hader in our farm system (hinting at a top 10 farm system). I think that team would still be in first place and would be considered to have more payroll flexibility short and long term plus and a much stronger minor league system. Maybe that's a discussion for another thread.

1) Thoroughly agree about DD. I think he's a great GM and agree that our development is on the right path.

2) Again, I agree with this. We should be adding young talent by dealing off veterans. The Rays are great at this and I would have loved to see us trade off Davis or Wieters or Hardy this past offseason. Heck, I'd look to deal ANYONE outside of Machado, Jones, and Gausman in the right deal.

3) Again, agree with you. Instead of Jimenez, we should have just inserted Gausman in the rotation at the beginning of the season and been done with it. Now, I really liked the Jimenez signing and am hopeful that he will turn things around down the stretch for us. In retrospect, that money could have been used to add a second baseman, giving Schoop a full year of development in either Bowie or Norfolk.

I remember Stotle wrote about a trade proposal with the Nats where we would trade them Davis + for Rendon, LaRoche, and others. That would have been the kind of deal this team could have used...especially if Rendon could have played an acceptable second base. Then, next year they could have slid Rendon back to third, Manny to short, and Schoop at second. Then, you'd be able to afford to go look for a slugger to replace LaRoche at first or a right fielder for Markakis in right.

I think there really needs to be a balance of dealing proven talent for that equal value in young talent you are talking about. We don't need to do a Bedard for Jones/Tillman + deal. We need to make smart moves to deal some vets for more "inventory" for the major and minor leagues. Not all are going to pan out, but we need to be able to identify talent in other organizations that will help us for the long term.

[atomic]

Not singling out this poster because it is pervasive in this thread, but why is the appreciation for prospects like Gausman, Bundy and Harvey on this board totally out of sync with the constant be-littling of the value of our top draft picks?

Folks do realize that Norris was acquired at a cost? The Astros made the trade because they believe they received EQUAL compensation in the value of the low minor leaguer and the draft pick. Our compensation as part of that trade is a major league player who will produce today! The Astros have bet on the future value of what they received. There may or may not come a day when the Astros MLB contribution from this trade exceeds what Norris provided to the Orioles, but the results of this trade are far from final.

I would argue one other point here. The Astros portion of the trade is worth more TODAY than what the Os received. That the Astros (or Orioles if we had kept them), could get more in value today than Norris if looking to deal a supplemental first round pick and Hader.

I think you are way undervaluing Norris and overvaluing Hader. The Os would make that deal again in a second.

[atomic]

What is the team's payroll going to be next year?

Markakis is making 15 million this year so his option isn't much more. I bet one of either Wieters or Davis won't be with the team next year.

[atomic]

I do not necessarily think we should have gutted the team and traded everyone. I was articulating one approach that represented a specific plan for restructuring payroll commitments and supplementing an upper-minors that is light on potential contributors.

In this thread I said I'd be fine with moving a bunch of our young talent if it meant really going for it.

I don't in any way shape or form overrate prospects; I deal with analyzing them on a daily basis and I am comfortable saying I'm as familiar, if not more familiar, with risk profiles than anyone posting on here (which is why I've been more bearish on guys like Sisco and Harvey than the average poster).

My issue, and you're right I'm apparently not articulating it well, is that this organization is not really pushing in any direction with any coherent (from the outside) strategy. There isn't much premium put on bringing in an influx of amateur talent. FA targets seem to be based on who is available at random times in the offseason, and often it appears the organization is not landing its first or second choice. Trades have centered on second and third tier players.

Slightly modifying the line I wrote earlier expresses it best, for me: Observing from the outside, the last two years of activity for this org look a lot more like skillful Jenga than methodical Legos. I get the desire to capitalize on a competitive season a year or two earlier than previously expected. But I wish the org elected to do that by adding payroll rather than stalling out on building the farm.

You can't force players to play here. And starting pitchers don't want to come here. So of course they aren't getting their first choice. They have a team 10 games over .500 at the all star break. Fifth best record in baseball. I do to know how you can criticize management like you have. It is like you are totally ignoring reality when you state your opinions.

DD has built a winner today while keeping the real prospects and adding new ones to the mix. What more could you ask for?

And the team has added payroll.

[Pickles]

Markakis isn't turning down $15 MM. Neither is Hardy. Cruz probably will unless it's an awful second half for him.

Cruz will, w the caveat you provided. You don't give him a big deal for his mid 30s, and you recoup a better pick than the one you lost. Now, if they do something stupid like sign him for 4-60, I'll criticize the hell out of them.

Markakis and Hardy are different.

I think in a window, yeah, neither of them will get annually 15 million a year on the market. But I think they could both get 4-40+, and Hardy maybe even more.

I'd put extensions in front of them both for 3-30. I think the O's get a bit of excess value there, and they get to stay somewhere they know and presumably like.

Regardless, even if they don't take it, I think that's because they'd expect offers on the market that exceeded that, and thus they'd reject arb.

[Norfolk orioles]

Really I couldn't disagree with this more. 4 years ago you could have replaced "Gausman" with "Matusz" and "Bundy" with "Tillman" and said they needed to trade away X, Y and Z to be competitive in the Matusz-Tillman window. Maybe some of those prospects you would have gotten for guys like Tejada, Roberts, or Markakis would have been helpful, and maybe some of them wouldn't have been. But Matusz would still be Matusz and Tillman would still be Tillman, and you'd have built your entire roster this year based on the assumption that they'd be your 1-2 starters, and you'd have been wrong. Even still, we were losing then, so you can justify giving away the present for the future when the present isn't very valuable to begin with. Now, the present is much more valuable.

Now, the O's could definitely be doing some things to build the farm system a bit more than they have, but of all the trades I see mentioned, the only one I think would have made any sense would be to trade Jim Johnson, the thesis being "Closers are overvalued by arbitrators." What would have been the thesis in trading Chris Davis? Aside from the fact that we have zero clue what we could have gotten for him last offseason, did anyone think (and actually say) that he was going to perform below his arbitration contract this year, given what the market is for 1B?

I am really, really having a difficult time trying to figure out why we're complaining about moves we could have made to sacrifice 2014 for 2016, as if 2014 is not very valuable, when we have a division lead for the first time since Cal was playing SS.

Co-sign on this post.

Trading for prospects is a great idea.....until it backfires and there is ZERO plan B.

At least by going for it now we are giving ourselves a chance this year and next. While we still have three great arms on the horizon for the future.

Playing the waiting game year after year after year is not only tiresome, it's also not even close to a proven gameplan of building towards success.

[Norfolk orioles]

It is fine to disagree.

Johnson is getting $10M from the As and they removed him pretty quickly from the closers role. What is your logic that the Os would be slower to remove JJ from the closer's role than the As have been?

Why are Gausman's 2H IP more valuable than if he had been in the rotation since OD? Extrapolating from Baseball Reference, giving the ball to Gausman on Opening Day and giving him Jimenez's 99 IP, the Os would be about 1.5 Wins and $11.5M better. That alone makes up half of the difference in Nelson Cruz's first half contribution. Is that an improper conclusion?

We can talk after the season. I hope it is after we win the final game of the WS in Bmore.

Is it really that hard to figure out?

We has on an innings limit. If he had started from day one in the rotation, he wouldn't be available for a deep playoff run.

By limiting his starts and his innings pitched in the minors, he is now free to pitch the entire second half and playoffs. Pretty much common sense.

[Stotle]

Mariners? Reds? Mets? Brewers? Tigers? Those teams all have younger shortstops who are struggling to some degree. But if you were the Yankees or Dodgers and didn't get Hanley, which options do you like better than Hardy?

Yankees/Dodgers - Trading pitching to the Cubs for Castro would be top on my list. Maybe check in on Andrus/Profar, as well, in Texas (who could be looking to restructure things. Rollins won't have his contract picked up and could probably be had on a relatively cheap one year deal if he wants to keep playing and compete for a title.

I could see Hardy to the Mets as a possibility if they decide that's where they want to start spending money. I don't see the Mariners punting on Miller or the Brewers punting on Segura. If Rollins leaves, Philly might give a two year deal to Hardy to keep the position warm of JP Crawford.

Just thinking out loud.