What was/is the O's plan

[Stotle]

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.

Had Bundy been healthy he and Manny would both have graduated at least two years ago. There has been a dearth of impact prospect acquisition/development, without question.

[Stotle]

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.

Per Baseball America:

2008 (5 Orioles)

91. Nolan Remold

78. Troy Patton

69. Radhames Liz

67. Chris Tillman

12. Matt Weiters

2009 (4 Orioles, including three in the top 25)

67. Jake Arrieta

25. Brian Matusz

22. Chris Tillman

1. Matt Wieters

2010 (4 Orioles)

99. Jake Arrieta

63. Zach Britton

37. Josh Bell

5. Brian Matusz

Source: https://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/rankings/top-100-prospects/all-time

[DrungoHazewood]

Had Bundy been healthy he and Manny would both have graduated at least two years ago. There has been a dearth of impact prospect acquisition/development, without question.

It's easy to forget that it's been over three years since Bundy made his two MLB appearances.

[Stotle]

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.

There are plenty of competitive teams that maintain a high quality farm system without drafting at the very top of the draft each year, and a handful that maintain *very good* farm systems. Weams occasionally alludes to rebuilding and maintaining a farm as being a simple question of losing enough to load up on top overall draftees -- I very much disagree with that line of thinking.

[Stotle]

It's easy to forget that it's been over three years since Bundy made his two MLB appearances.

Agreed -- pretty incredible, actually. One of the reasons, talent notwithstanding, I remain dubious that he is going to be a big impact arm for Baltimore in 2016/2017.

[Stotle]

It's easy to forget that it's been over three years since Bundy made his two MLB appearances.

Put another way, imagine Baltimore's system and how we would have viewed it the last few years had he been ineligible for lists after the 2013/2014/2015 seasons. Yikes.

[Crazysilver03]

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.

Eh Hoes Was a fringe major leaguer to begin with and that is what he is. I would say the verdict is in.

[Redskins Rick]

Eh Hoes Was a fringe major leaguer to begin with and that is what he is. I would say the verdict is in.

Granted you are right, I was trying to be nice.

Regardless, our strong farm system, wasn't that strong, and it will take some time before we can grade last year's draft.

[DrungoHazewood]

There are plenty of competitive teams that maintain a high quality farm system without drafting at the very top of the draft each year, and a handful that maintain *very good* farm systems. Weams occasionally alludes to rebuilding and maintaining a farm as being a simple question of losing enough to load up on top overall draftees -- I very much disagree with that line of thinking.

As outsiders we have very little to go on besides the draft, other signings, and results. We have almost no way of making actionable suggestions outside of "do whatever the Cardinals do". I was very excited by the Peterson hire, that seemed very smart. But his impact has been hard to pin down, hard to say he's changed many results. It's almost a black box, so you get fans naturally suggesting that the box is broken and we need a new box.

[DrungoHazewood]

Put another way, imagine Baltimore's system and how we would have viewed it the last few years had he been ineligible for lists after the 2013/2014/2015 seasons. Yikes.

Two options, focus on the lack of impact talent beyond Bundy, or focus on having graduated impact talents in Manny and Bundy in short order. Or maybe a balanced view of both.

[Frobby]

Had Bundy been healthy he and Manny would both have graduated at least two years ago. There has been a dearth of impact prospect acquisition/development, without question.

What, in your estimation, is a reasonable rate of graduating "impact" prospects, and how would you define an "impact" prospect?

I think the average team has 7-8 major league debuts per season. Last year 255 players debuted, so 8.5 per team, which is a bit higher than in some other years. Of those, 121 had a positive rWAR, including 40 at 1.0 or higher (22 hitters, 18 pitchers). 38 hitters had more than 100 PA, and 39 pitchers had more than 40 IP.

The Orioles had 7 debuts -- Givens, Drake, Garcia, Wright, Wilson, Navarro, Alvarez. Only one pitcher threw 40+ innings (Wright) and no hitter had 100 PA. Of the seven, I'd say Givens (1.0 rWAR) comes the closest to being an "impact" player, though he hasn't proven it yet.

[Stotle]

What, in your estimation, is a reasonable rate of graduating "impact" prospects, and how would you define an "impact" prospect?

I think the average team has 7-8 major league debuts per season. Last year 255 players debuted, so 8.5 per team, which is a bit higher than in some other years. Of those, 121 had a positive rWAR, including 40 at 1.0 or higher (22 hitters, 18 pitchers). 38 hitters had more than 100 PA, and 39 pitchers had more than 40 IP.

The Orioles had 7 debuts -- Givens, Drake, Garcia, Wright, Wilson, Navarro, Alvarez. Only one pitcher threw 40+ innings (Wright) and no hitter had 100 PA. Of the seven, I'd say Givens (1.0 rWAR) comes the closest to being an "impact" player, though he hasn't proven it yet.

I think you are looking at one thing and asking about another. An impact player (as proven by MLB production) is much harder to produce than an impact prospect (pre-MLB player displaying attributes that allow him to project as a potential impact player).

Because it is so difficult to produce homegrown impact players, it's important to produce as many impact prospects as possible so that the attrition rate doesn't result in big chunks of years where your system isn't spitting out any impact producers.

[Stotle]

Two options, focus on the lack of impact talent beyond Bundy, or focus on having graduated impact talents in Manny and Bundy in short order. Or maybe a balanced view of both.

That's more a question of whether or not you want to look for silver linings, no? Plus, we have no idea whether or not Bundy would have been an impact talent -- we only know he was/is viewed as a potential impact talent. It's possible he is Matusz.

[Stotle]

As outsiders we have very little to go on besides the draft, other signings, and results. We have almost no way of making actionable suggestions outside of "do whatever the Cardinals do". I was very excited by the Peterson hire, that seemed very smart. But his impact has been hard to pin down, hard to say he's changed many results. It's almost a black box, so you get fans naturally suggesting that the box is broken and we need a new box.

There is a lot of data to point to whether or not there are issues. Agreed, there probably isn't enough publicly available data for fans to point to specific changes that need to be made to address the issues.

[Il BuonO]

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.

You think this has been/is being implemented?

As for the post, yes, it's negative, but so what? Wasn't there a poll taken before they re-signed Davis asking if it was a good move. IIRC it was overwhelmingly against signing him, or least the majority.

The fact is Duquette himself downplayed signing Davis as a priority and then the owner did become involved. It wasn't a priority for the team in the off season until Angelos made it one.

Fowler and Leake are not my choices and I don't agree with everything in the OP. Giving up picks should only be for impact players. That isn't Fowler and Leake was an overpay. Hardy wasn't a big move and neither was O'Day but they were debatable. Hardy more so.

People need to be more concerned with the content (or idea) of the post and less concerned with the poster's name. I've seen the same conversation about a clear direction for the organization with others here, including Stotle and RZ. There isn't one.