What was/is the O's plan

[webbrick2010]

I'm really struggling with taking the O's "big" moves and figuring out what the cohesive plan is.

Big move #1: Sign a 30+ SS coming off an injury riddled bad year to a 4 year extension keeping the guy that was drafted to be a stud franchise SS at 3B

Big move #2: Sign a 32+ setup guy to a 4 year 36 million dollar contract while your young stud closer a Boras client heads to Free Agency. Why not trade O'day for OF/SP help and sign Britton long term. Or if you sign O'day why not trade Britton for SP/OF help. The money allocated to the O's bullpen is not in proportion to the talent (lack of) in the starting rotation and OF

Big? move #3: Sign Trumbo for 9 million dollars to play 1B, and then sign Davis for 161 million to play 1B making Trumbo redundant and/or just way too expensive. Once again we have no SP or corner OF'ers. Wieters will also need to play some 1B/DH when he is not messing up the pitching staff with his poor pitch framing. Our big FA purchase should have been and OF'er or a SP, or perhaps both (Say Fowler and Leake)

Seem apparent the PA stepped in and screwed up whatever plan DD may have had. Now we have a pretty expensive roster that has IMO no chance to compete. Counting down those years to when we are out from under the Hardy, O'day and Davis contracts

[Redskins Rick]

Stop and ask yourself, any move DD and the organization did or didn't do this off-season, would have prompted you to start a thread complaining about it.

Big move #1 - I can see some questions about it, let's hope last year isn't repeated. I don't agree that they will not move Manny to short in Hardy year 3 or year 4 of that contract. If Hardy is healthy, they are the best left side of the diamond defense for sure.

Big move #2 - you can't get rid of all of your quality setup man, you would never get to the closer.

Big move #3 - Trumbo is a solid player and yes, insurance, having him, will help them, like having Cruz in 2014.

I think signing Kym as a COF, is a solid move.

I think on paper, this roster is improved over the roster that started 2015 season.

[TonySoprano]

Seem apparent the PA stepped in and screwed up whatever plan DD may have had. Now we have a pretty expensive roster that has IMO no chance to compete. Counting down those years to when we are out from under the Hardy, O'day and Davis contracts

Enjoy your countdown until 2032 with Davis.

[jtschrei]

This is a negative take of course. But.... we have spent a lot of money on guys in their 30s. I think teams do that when their farm system is weak. Also, Buck is the manager and he doesn't want to oversee a long rebuild.

The plan has always been to put a competitive team on the field every year. That's what DD has done. The problem is that there is a limited budget. I mean, if we had signed Chen and Cespedes, all the fans would be talking about how excited they are for the season.

We have a poor farm system and limited budget. That's problematic.

[Redskins Rick]

This is a negative take of course. But.... we have spent a lot of money on guys in their 30s. I think teams do that when their farm system is weak. Also, Buck is the manager and he doesn't want to oversee a long rebuild.

The plan has always been to put a competitive team on the field every year. That's what DD has done. The problem is that there is a limited budget. I mean, if we had signed Chen and Cespedes, all the fans would be talking about how excited they are for the season.

We have a poor farm system and limited budget. That's problematic.

Horse hockey.

They are spending like a mid market team, which they are.

Fixing the farm system doesn't happen overnight and some think they are improved over where it was a few years ago.

[DrungoHazewood]

Win baseball games. Hopefully enough to get them to the playoffs. Base that on a core of Jones, Machado, Hardy, Tillman, Britton, Schoop, etc. If they get to the playoffs, win as many games as possible.

Don't trade your top prospects for moderate gains, but assume you have a fairly large supply of Grade C-ish guys who can be replaced.

Favor your own players in (re)signing free agents, as you know more about them and their projections and weaknesses than others.

Treat the back end of the roster as a key to success rather than throwaway spots. Rely on scouting and analysis to capture significant value for minimal investment.

Keep most of your draft picks but don't fetishize stockpiling picks at the expense of near-term success.

[Ruzious]

I'm really struggling with taking the O's "big" moves and figuring out what the cohesive plan is.

Big move #1: Sign a 30+ SS coming off an injury riddled bad year to a 4 year extension keeping the guy that was drafted to be a stud franchise SS at 3B

Big move #2: Sign a 32+ setup guy to a 4 year 36 million dollar contract while your young stud closer a Boras client heads to Free Agency. Why not trade O'day for OF/SP help and sign Britton long term. Or if you sign O'day why not trade Britton for SP/OF help. The money allocated to the O's bullpen is not in proportion to the talent (lack of) in the starting rotation and OF

Big? move #3: Sign Trumbo for 9 million dollars to play 1B, and then sign Davis for 161 million to play 1B making Trumbo redundant and/or just way too expensive. Once again we have no SP or corner OF'ers. Wieters will also need to play some 1B/DH when he is not messing up the pitching staff with his poor pitch framing. Our big FA purchase should have been and OF'er or a SP, or perhaps both (Say Fowler and Leake)

Seem apparent the PA stepped in and screwed up whatever plan DD may have had. Now we have a pretty expensive roster that has IMO no chance to compete. Counting down those years to when we are out from under the Hardy, O'day and Davis contracts

I think #3 is worthy of discussion now. "The Plan" evidently included the strategy to acquire Trumbo - which I think did imply that they were going to use their bigger money on an outfielder - and that Davis was not in their plans. This implies that their Plan was changed - likely by a higher power called Angelos. Imo, you cannot succeed when your front office is overruled by the owner. Your Plan gets thrown into the trash.

[Frobby]

I'm really struggling with taking the O's "big" moves and figuring out what the cohesive plan is.

Big move #1: Sign a 30+ SS coming off an injury riddled bad year to a 4 year extension keeping the guy that was drafted to be a stud franchise SS at 3B

Big move #2: Sign a 32+ setup guy to a 4 year 36 million dollar contract while your young stud closer a Boras client heads to Free Agency. Why not trade O'day for OF/SP help and sign Britton long term. Or if you sign O'day why not trade Britton for SP/OF help. The money allocated to the O's bullpen is not in proportion to the talent (lack of) in the starting rotation and OF

Big? move #3: Sign Trumbo for 9 million dollars to play 1B, and then sign Davis for 161 million to play 1B making Trumbo redundant and/or just way too expensive. Once again we have no SP or corner OF'ers. Wieters will also need to play some 1B/DH when he is not messing up the pitching staff with his poor pitch framing. Our big FA purchase should have been and OF'er or a SP, or perhaps both (Say Fowler and Leake)

Seem apparent the PA stepped in and screwed up whatever plan DD may have had. Now we have a pretty expensive roster that has IMO no chance to compete. Counting down those years to when we are out from under the Hardy, O'day and Davis contracts

I understand this take, but need to correct a couple of facts.

1. Hardy had some injuries in 2014, and a bit of a down year with the bat, but he still played 141 games, was worth 3.3 rWAR, 3.3 fWAR and won his third straight gold glove. To say he had an "injury riddled bad year" is not accurate. Put it this way, if he had two identical years in 2016-17, it would justify his contract despite what is fairly described as an injury-riddled, bad year in 2015. Also, his contract is for three years with a vesting option, not four years. The vesting requirements are pretty strict -- 600 PA in 2017 or 1150 in 2016-17 combined. If he continues to be "injury-riddled," he won't make those benchmarks. He did not have 600 PA in 2014 or 2015.

2. O'Day was not signed for 4/$36 mm, he was signed for 4/$31 mm, with some of that money deferred.

That said, I don't disagree with your points, I just see them as concerns rather than a certain death sentence.

[Orioles0615]

Horse hockey.

They are spending like a mid market team, which they are.

Fixing the farm system doesn't happen overnight and some think they are improved over where it was a few years ago.

A few years ago they had like 4 or 5 guys in the top 100. I feel like the farm system has gotten worse and the developmental system is still iffy.

[Mayor McCheese]

Grow the arms

buy the bats.

Grow the arms

buy the bats.

Grow the arms

buy the bats.

[Aristotelian]

Trumbo was insurance in case Davis was not resigned. Plus he fills a hole at DH (albeit somewhat expensive) if he does resign. He also gave us some leverage in the negotiation with Boras, so if he drove Davis's price down by $5m and he puts up a decent season he pretty much pays for himself.

The team did great in 2014 with JJ at SS and Manny at 3B. Since we don't have a prospect at either position, it made sense to extend JJ. Hopefully we get some production there in years two and three.

I agree about O'Day. I wonder if that was also from the Angelos slush fund. We could have had Kazmir for the same years and a few extra dollars and that would have been a much bigger upgrade than O'Day gives us.

Basically I think the long term plan is to build around Davis and the young players (Schoop and Gausman, hopefully Bundy and Harvey) while doing what we can in the short term to fill holes with 1-2 year guys like Trumbo and Kim to stay competitive within budget. If we are .500 or better in July, he will probably trade for a pitcher. If Gausman takes a leap and we acquire a pitcher in July, we could go on a run in August and September. If not, then we trade off Tillman, Wieters, JJ and Ubaldo depending on what we can get back.

[DrungoHazewood]

A few years ago they had like 4 or 5 guys in the top 100. I feel like the farm system has gotten worse and the developmental system is still iffy.

Part of that is graduations. Manny was among the top prospects in baseball, when he came up to be one of the best players in baseball the farm rankings dropped a lot. Yes, there was no one comparable to replace Manny after Bundy got hurt.

[Redskins Rick]

A few years ago they had like 4 or 5 guys in the top 100. I feel like the farm system has gotten worse and the developmental system is still iffy.

2008, they drafted Caleb Joseph, Hoes, and Matusz.

Nobdoy thought Caleb was going to be a major leaguer player, until Wieters got hurt, and Clevenger stunk. Jury is still out on Hoes.

2009 was pretty much a bust, we all know about Hobgood. Givens, however, switching to pitcher might be the only good thing out of this class.

2010 was Manny, but everybody else was a bust.

As you can tell, it takes a few years to work these guys up through the system.

[pastorfan]

The problem is two-fold: We have drafted poorly and two stud pitchers got hurt. By now they figured Bundy would have a year under his belt and Harvey would be here. Gausman, Bundy, & Harvey were thought to be in the rotation by now.

[Frobby]

A few years ago they had like 4 or 5 guys in the top 100. I feel like the farm system has gotten worse and the developmental system is still iffy.

Part of that is graduations. Manny was among the top prospects in baseball, when he came up to be one of the best players in baseball the farm rankings dropped a lot. Yes, there was no one comparable to replace Manny after Bundy got hurt.

First of all, I don't believe I have ever seen a credible top 100 list that had five Orioles on it. There might have been a point where we had four.

Second, having picks at the very top of the draft makes life a lot easier. We had the dubious luxury of drafting in the top five for six years in a row, and five of the six guys we drafted (Wieters, Matusz, Machado, Bundy, Gausman) were all in the top 25 on many top 100 lists at one time or another. We haven't picked higher than 22nd since then, and in 2014, had no first or second round pick because we'd signed Jimenez and Cruz. And of course, we have traded away a bunch of fairly highly regarded minor leaguers, including Eduardo Rodriguez, who was a consensus top 100 player in 2014.

My point here is that I don't necessarily fault our drafting or our player development guys if the system is a little weaker today than it was a few year ago. It's a consequence of having a contending team and trying to stay in that position rather than being a poor team that is building towards the future. It would be nice to contend and build for the future at the same time, but it's not easy to do, though I personally think we could have leaned more in that direction.