Andrew Miller Trade to Orioles

[hoosiers]

First off, I completely and utterly disagree with this assessment. Norris has been a big part of what the Orioles have done this season and to suggest that Arrieta, pitching in a low-pressure last place situation would have automatically done better than Norris is presumptuous to say the least. I was one of Arrieta's biggest supporters around here and always liked his stuff, but he was at the point that Orioles were going to DFA him. DD rolled the dice and got a major league starter for him and Strop (another pitcher who was struggling badly) and it didn't work out. You can argue whether the Orioles had a legitimate chance at the playoffs all you want, but at the end of the day, DD gave it a shot and the team played winning baseball but came up short.

As for the E-Rod for Miller trade, this has been beaten to death but it takes talent to get legitimate major league talent. Miller gives the Orioles three legitimate shutdown relievers and is big part of shortening the game for the orioles and their starters. If E-rod took off when he got to Boston, good for him. He had talent but his fastball command has always been sub par and his slider was inconsistent and normally well below average. But, he did throw left-handed at 92-94 MPH and his change was becoming a nice pitch. At the end of the day, it took E-rod to get a shut down reliever. I applaud DD for going for it this year. Sometimes that means moving "prospects". If Miller helps the Orioles win the AL or World Series, no one should be complaining who we gave up for him. Prospects are nothing more than assets to be used to help the major league team either by developing them into productive major leaguers or trading them for major league pieces that help you win now.

I don't see how the Orioles "grossly mis-evaluated" anyone. The Astros would not pull the trigger on the Norris deal unless Hader was in the deal and the last time I checked, Hader is a nice prospect but hasn't done anything to suggest he will be better than Norris who is a quality major league starter we have under control through next season.

Sometimes prospect break out but most the time they fail. that's just the nature of the game. I liked E-rod as a prospect, but when I saw the three times this season, his inconsistencies led to me to evaluate he had talent, but there were question marks. I didn't see him pitch at the end of the year when he put up the great numbers with Boston, but I had no problem with parting with him for a shut down reliever like Miller on a team that has World Series aspirations.

I don't know, Tony, you must have a lot of "big part" awards (maybe this is destined for the OOC thread) to hand out if Bud Norris is to be a recipient. By baseball reference WAR, Norris is a 102+ ERA+ guy with the sixth best WAR on our pitching staff (third among starters). However, if Gausman had started the year in the rotation and Miller had been with the team all year, then Bud would rank eighth. By ERA+, Norris trails Tillman, Chen, MiGon, Gausman, O'Day, Britton, Brach, McFarland and Miller. This year, Norris 1.4 WAR shows some value given his $5.3M salary, but not a ton of value there. Norris' value to the Orioles is to be a well-above average 4/5 guy who produces league average. I also count 8 hitters with WARs above Norris' 1.4 (he fits just ahead of Markakis on bball-ref). I don't get the "big part" contribution by Norris. He is on the fringe of the top 15 most important contributors to this team this season - by WAR he is outside that top 15.

I don't know when the last time you looked up Josh Hader, but he was just voted the Best Pitching Prospect in the California league in a BA poll of the league's managers. We also gave up a top 40 draft pick and international slots in order to receive a 1.4 WAR guy at $5.3M. IMO, Josh Hader and that draft pick today would yield comfortably more than a $5.3M league average starter.

I am not hear to bash Bud Norris, but it would appear his actual contribution exceeds his 'big part" reputation and the cost to acquire him was clearly IMO too much.

Regarding the Jake trade, Jake is producing a 4.8 WAR year for $500k this year. Jake could potentially produce 15-20 WAR for Chicago at a cost (assuming salary of $5M, $10M and $15M in his arbitration years which is generous). Further, Strop has produced 1.3 WAR for $1.3M this year alone - better value than the beloved Norris. Feldman produced .7 WAR for $3M. Finally, I believe the Os sent cash to the Cubs as part of this deal. After one year, this deal is on pace to be among the worst Os trades in the last 25 years, if not team history. That would fit my definition of "gross mis-evaluation" of the talent on hand. That is rip-off city, brother, there is no other way to look at it.

I guess we will have to wait and see what happens with EdRod. It just appears that his prospect status is worth more than what we thought it was when we dealt him - perhaps significantly so.

If folks want to get into some "that guy wasn't going to produce in an Os uniform" or "he was meh when I saw him", that's fine. These players did not "grow" their prospect/player performance over time - through great coaching or development; their value shot up dramatically within a month of our dealing them away.

Such are the production facts - they represent the assets our FO had on hand and each of these trades IMO we gave up far, far better talent than what their perceived value was at the time of the trade and what we received in return. I guess it is just me, but I think it is difficult to look at these results any other way.

[weams]

Without Bud we do not steamroll the division this year. I'll take steamrolling the division over a prospect any day.

Yes. This.

[CA-ORIOLE]

Yes. This.

Not even a top 15 contributor by WAR. Coulda got alost anybody for less to do what Bud has done for us this year.

[weams]

Not even a top 15 contributor by WAR. Coulda got anybody for less to to what Bud has done for us this year.

Bud was a rock when we needed one.

[MurphDogg]

Not even a top 15 contributor by WAR. Coulda got anybody for less to to what Bud has done for us this year.

You seem to be getting your data from somewhere different than everyone else. Norris is 10th by fWAR and 14th by rWAR.

[CA-ORIOLE]

You seem to be getting your data from somewhere different than everyone else. Norris is 10th by fWAR and 14th by rWAR.

I was just quoting Hoosiers who actually said he is "outside the top 15". Maybe you can tell him. I'm on ignore.

[25 Nuggets]

If folks want to get into some "that guy wasn't going to produce in an Os uniform" or "he was meh when I saw him", that's fine. These players did not "grow" their prospect/player performance over time - through great coaching or development; their value shot up dramatically within a month of our dealing them away.

All that says to me is that we've still got work to do in the development department. Which is not surprising considering how deplorable it used to be. Four light years still doesn't take us to Alpha Centauri. And that means our pitching prospects may still be more valuable as trade chips.

[mdbdotcom]

Are you asking if I thought that was a steep price to pay? No. I actually hated the trade from Boston's perspective. I thought they would get a lot more. But I thought the same thing about the Price trade too' date=' so maybe my expectations are/were too high.[/quote']

So, am I correct in saying that your expectation in both cases was that the team acquiring the pitcher would pay considerably more than a statistical equivalent or projected statistical equivalent of the pitcher?

[DrungoHazewood]

Hoosiers, please repeat after me. "I didn't have a problem the day the Orioles traded Arrieta to the Cubs or the day the Orioles traded Eduardo Rodriguez for Andrew Miller. As soon as those players started having success with their new organizations I decided that I was wrong. I now blame Dan Duquette for making trades I agreed with but he should know more than me so I think he really screwed up".

I don't have a problem with you criticizing the trades in hindsight. I think I have a problem with you not taking ownership of your stance the day the trades were made. You seem to have taken a giant step away from it.

The Arrieta trade may very well go down as a terrible trade in hindsight. No one on here thought so the day of the deal. I think you can pin that one on the organization as a whole, including DD, Buck, the minor and major league pitching coaches. I doubt Duquette made the decision to trade Arrieta against organization wide dissent.

If we are going to re-evaluate trades within a matter of weeks, I guess Duquette is also to commended for trading low level prospects and cash for 1.000 OPS players, De Aza and Paredes. Andrew Miller has been nothing short of dominant so far and should be a weapon in the postseason. Steve Pearce? Luck or genius. I suppose if Pearce was doing this with another team we'd be hearing how Duquette didn't evaluate him properly as well. Thank God, that Nolan Reimold isn't mashing for Toronto.

GM's sometimes make trades and on the day of the trade, everyone says "What is that guy thinking?" Very few people, including yourself, said that on the day of the Arrieta and ERod trades. Stuff happens. Now, you are unhappy with both trades and need someone to vent your disenchantment with. I guess that guy is Dan Duquette. Does Buck get any blame? I think there is no doubt that Buck gets consulted on these deals. He had a as good a look and as much inside knowledge of Jake Arrieta that anyone could have. There is no doubt in my mind that Buck signed off on that deal.

Good trades often work out badly. You can only judge the wisdom of a trade based on the body of knowledge about the players in question at the time of the deal. You can judge how it worked out later, but that's after you've wound it up and let it go its own way.

People don't like that some things are out of everyone's control. They like blame and credit, they like causal systems. But much of baseball and life is just doing what you can with the information you have and hoping it works out.

[DrungoHazewood]

Tampa' date=' NY, and Boston are basically at the bottom of the league in terms of runs. We weren't going to need much pitching to shut down the offenses in the division this year.[/quote']

I love how the perspective on those teams is that they're terrible. Baseball is a zero-sum game, part of the reason their results look terrible is that their opposition played so well. Bud Norris is part of that.

[hoosiers]

Seems like we got the best pitcher we could while giving up as little as possible.

Always difficult to pass on a talent like Jake, but he has had so many chances and probably needs a change of scenery as much as anything. Hopefully, he can turn his career around.

I would have preferred to see what Britton can as the five, but I assume he has more value than Jake and could be the next to go with Wada waiting in the wings. It will be interesting if Gausman pitches out of the bullpen for the rest of the year. Or maybe we go back to a six man rotation at some point.

DD has options. Hopefully, he has found a pitcher that will do well in the ALEast and will benefit from a better defense behind him.

That's my post in the Arrieta trade thread - maybe RZ is referencing another thread, maybe not. I believe in this thread it says quite clearly that I "would have preferred to see what Britton can do as the five" and does not advocate for the Jake trade. Like a lot of his last post, not sure RZ's point here.

It seems a steep price, but there are only so many prospects we have that we can tell another team they can't have and still acquire a very, very productive reliever like Miller. If we were dealing a player with Miller's productivity, I think we would hope for someone better than EdRod. Maybe our FO will send Miller down for 15 days and we can get another year of service out of him .... ha ha.

This move is fairly necessary IMO and speaks volumes of the lack of production this year from Matusz and Hunter relative to expectations.

I'd also like to see us acquire a 2B, but our production is so little at 2B that IMO we can wait into August to see if either of our guys improves his production or we just acquire some salary dump with incrementally better 2B production.

This is my post earlier in this thread on the Miller-EdRod trade. I don't really understand the personal nature of the post (that I have to "vent my disenchantment" against DD????). I personally see the three trades as different than salary dumps (like De Aza which has been a good move) and don't understand how all of these has turned into a referendum on DD.

I am really not sure of the point of RZ's post or why it seems so personal and so off-topic from a discussion of these three trades.

[CA-ORIOLE]

Good trades often work out badly. You can only judge the wisdom of a trade based on the body of knowledge about the players in question at the time of the deal. You can judge how it worked out later, but that's after you've wound it up and let it go its own way.

People don't like that some things are out of everyone's control. They like blame and credit, they like causal systems. But much of baseball and life is just doing what you can with the information you have and hoping it works out.

Yeah, but in fairness to Hoosiers, the gist what he is saying is that the Orioles and Duquette are inept and "would be better off overall if Duquette had not made any trades" (I'm paraphrasing with the quote, but that is pretty close to what he has said in the past, and that's one of his milder comments) and the results after the fact show that the Orioles did not use good judgement or have good information AT the time of the trades.

[hoosiers]

Good trades often work out badly. You can only judge the wisdom of a trade based on the body of knowledge about the players in question at the time of the deal. You can judge how it worked out later, but that's after you've wound it up and let it go its own way.

The point I have been trying to make in this thread, to little success, is that our GM should have had (and might have had) better information on hand when he made those trades.

What is interesting in the EdRod case, and no one really seems to want to discuss, is that Gammons posted: "several teams rate the best (EdRod) top-level pitching prospect in the AL". THAT is the information on hand for major league teams at the time of the deal. This is not revisionist hindsight, it is insight into the thinking of major league clubs at the time of the trade.

If I had that information, Drungo, I would NOT have made that trade, would you? Isn't THAT the best information on hand at the time of the trade? And is that a legitimate POV or is it somehow fair for you to say that "some don't like things out of control and like to place blame and credit"?

So I have been asking, did the Os rate EdRod the same as these other teams? If not, why not?

And I ask the same questions regarding these other two trades because there seems to be fundamentally large difference of opinion in the value the Os placed on these guys and the value placed by other teams? And why is that so especially since the players we dealt all seem to be performing on a higher plane and having significantly greater value so soon post-trade?

I think these would make for an interesting discussion and have tried to steer the conversation in that direction to very little success. Maybe this particular thread is not the place for it and I apologize for that.

[Crazysilver03]

The point I have been trying to make in this thread, to little success, is that our GM should have had (and might have had) better information on hand when he made those trades.

What is interesting in the EdRod case, and no one really seems to want to discuss, is that Gammons posted: "several teams rate the best (EdRod) top-level pitching prospect in the AL". THAT is the information on hand for major league teams at the time of the deal. This is not revisionist hindsight, it is insight into the thinking of major league clubs at the time of the trade.

If I had that information, Drungo, I would NOT have made that trade, would you? Isn't THAT the best information on hand at the time of the trade? And is that a legitimate POV or is it somehow fair for you to say that "some don't like things out of control and like to place blame and credit"?

So I have been asking, did the Os rate EdRod the same as these other teams? If not, why not?

And I ask the same questions regarding these other two trades because there seems to be fundamentally large difference of opinion in the value the Os placed on these guys and the value placed by other teams? And why is that so especially since the players we dealt all seem to be performing on a higher plane and having significantly greater value so soon post-trade?

I think these would make for an interesting discussion and have tried to steer the conversation in that direction to very little success. Maybe this particular thread is not the place for it and I apologize for that.

So Gammons says something, that isn't backed up by anybody else, but that is the quote you hang on? Most quotes had him as the "best pitching prospect to move at the deadline" which is vastly different than what Gammons says.

[Redskins Rick]

So Gammons says something, that isn't backed up by anybody else, but that is the quote you hang on? Most quotes had him as the "best pitching prospect to move at the deadline" which is vastly different than what Gammons says.

Depending on the ranker, he was ranked 61st to 68st on the top 100 list of top prospects.