POLL: Yay or nay on Hellickson trade?

[weams]

9 minutes ago, hoosiers said:

It's not semantics, bruh.  It's reading comprehension. 

if you want to call the attention to the board of what I wrote, by posting, "Wait! Did you really post blah blah blah", you should make some basic efforts to understand what I posted.  Because I didn't post that Cleavinger could have netted a real prospect.

Note that I also posted that Clev was "no great shakes", but that doesn't stop you from responding "If you believe that a lot was given up here ...." 

Comical.  It's why I stayed away from here for the better part of the last 8 months.  I guess I could stay away some more.

I thought what you said was pretty clear. I think Hellickson will get flipped again if he pitches well and the Orioles sink lower. 

[linedrive]

I very much dislike the trade. We didn't get a good player who can help us much this season, let alone help us win a World Series (if that's the teams ultimate goal). Instead we got another pitcher who, I suspect, will be another Miley, Norris, Feldman, Hill, Ubaldo, etc. And we'll probably be complaining about losing Cleavinger like we have Miranda, Rodriguez, Arrieta and Bridwell, many of whom we didn't think had much up-side, and we'll see him pitch better for other teams like Strop, Hunter, Albers, McFarland are doing.

Personally, I'd much rather see the Orioles go all-out on international players and increase their presence there. I think it's crazy that they're giving away all these international slots to other teams when they could use it to improve their own team.

This trade was not helpful at all. We're doing nothing to build a World Series caliber team. It's like ownership just wants to put up a team that will contend, and possibly make the playoffs, but won't make the sacrifices necessary to attain the ultimate prize- a World Championship...

[LookitsPuck]

This is one of those trades that don't move the needle one bit. My gut is why bother? We shouldn't be giving up cost controllable assets. 

Here's the thing about Cleavinger. We can talk about his 2017 stats, but he's a 23 year old that was drafted in the 3rd round back in 2015.

He's a 23 year old left hander that has a strikeout rate of 11.3. His main issue are the walks. 4.8 BB/9, FWIW. 

You know who else is a 23 year old left hander with similar strikeout rates and a poor walk rate? Tanner Scott.

Now, I'm not very high on Scott. I think his walk rate is ridiculously poor. And that just won't play in the majors. But there are a lot of people here that like Scott...so why not the same love fest for Cleavinger? Or even a modicum of it?

When it's all said and done, there are really only 3 reasons to do this trade (if you're Duquette):

1. You legitimately feel Hellickson is a difference maker for the club.
2. It gives the Orioles flexibility to rest Bundy or even go with a 6 man rotation.
3. It gives Buck some flexibility with Kim now off the roster without payroll repercussions of just cutting him

Now, all that said...I'd hope Duquette doesn't feel #1 is true. 

For #2, there are enough cannon fodder type arms in the minors that could do just that. Hellickson will probably put up a 5ish ERA for the Orioles. Why not Ynoa? Why not Aquino? Wright? Wilson? Etc. I guess Duquette feels that a 5ish ERA with Hellickson is better than a 6ish/7ish ERA with the brigade of meh from the minors.

And for #3, I suppose this has some merit. And I guess if you put #2 and #3 together, it makes a below average club slightly below average...and maybe Duquette feels that even a sliver of mediocrity is better than doing nothing.

So all in all...it's a big meh trade. Hopefully Smith, Castillo and one (both?) of Brach/Britton are traded by tomorrow. Otherwise it'll continue to be another head scratcher of a year.

[Cumberbundy]

I really need Edwin Jackson to start getting smoked.

[Cumberbundy]

On July 29, 2017 at 2:34 PM, phillyOs119 said:

It's similar to trading draft picks.

That makes my stomach hurt. ?

[Cumberbundy]

13 hours ago, hoosiers said:

All AM cares about is that he has more assets heading into 2018 than he did before the trade without taking on new payroll.  That's the kind of hyper-focus on priorities that a good GM makes.

DD likes to make these - well, it's not giving up much, and improves our chances to compete and, hey, we get an innings eater for the rest of a losing season - deals that end up with us passing off Zach Davies or some top 30 prospect to another team. 

Folks here post that we don't use our international slots so why not use them in some manner.  Well, how about taking our 29th best prospect and those slots and getting a better prospect?

I've also seen folks post that maybe Hellickson will have a strong month and be traded in late August, but I would suggest it is just as likely that Kim has a good month to create some trade value himself.  Hellickson could pitch well and get us some $ later, but it's all a gamble that I don't see the purpose of.

 

Need more Hoosier posts.

[Cumberbundy]

13 hours ago, Number5 said:

Wait.  Do you actually think that a team is going to give up a real prospect for Cleavenger and a little bit of international spending?  I seriously doubt that.  Heck, the hope with that spending slot is to get a guy that can be ranked like Cleavenger in a year or two.  It takes a lot of spending money to get a blue chipper, and I don't think that a massive amount was given up in this trade.  Do you?

Cleavinger + spots for a slightly better prospect I think. That would make Much more sense than this. Imo

[Cumberbundy]

13 hours ago, Number5 said:

I read that they got roughly a million in international spending slots between what we traded them and what Washington traded them,  I don't know for sure, though. 

I really think some folks are going a bit overboard on the criticism of a pretty ho-hum trade.  I read one comment that said it was horrible.  I don't know, maybe it's just me, but for a trade to be horrible, the team would actually have to be giving something up.  In any case, I find it hard to believe that we could have gotten a good prospect for Cleavenger and that international spending slot.  Would love to see an example of such a trade.

To me it's incomprehensibly stupid. If you can put a dollar on the roulette wheel or not use the dollar at all, you use it 100% of the time. We got a lesser Edwin Jackson for a prospect who gets a decent number of Ks. With this new era of baseball, K ability is where you have to start and he has that. You just can't do this if you're Baltimore. We stink. Hellickson is atrocious. We just let a better pitcher go. It's not good. A possibility is better than none. Having talent to coach and work with is much more valuable than Hellickson. I don't understand why anyone would think this is ok. We've seen our guys have success all over the league...Davies shutting down the Cubs & Nats in back to back nights.

 

There is a 1% chance Cleavinger can help the Orioles win a WS, there is a zero percent chance that Hellickson can. These small moves matter. We can't give away talented arms, fail to participate in the international market, give picks away for trash, and compete. To have a chance we need a few raw talents to emerge and we just gave one up for absolutely nothing. That's crazy. We need guys like him and for one to emerge, it's our only chance. Our system had fewer decent arms than any and we just gave one away for Edwin light. 

That said, again, hopefully Hellickson will teach Bundy how to throw a better change up, the only value he has is as a tutor and we can use that. He made a nice career out of underwhelming stuff, he may have something to share with Bundy & Gausman. 

I say all of this just talking baseball, no hate for Dan. I know the negative is annoying and I promised Eddie but it was me who said it was awful so I felt I would explain. 

We have the Phillies something to work with. One Os site had him rated our 16th best prospect midseason. 

[Ruzious]

I don't have ANY problem giving up Cleavinger.  A reliever needs an out pitch.  He doesn't have any dominant pitch.  His fastball is just ok as a reliever.  I just don't see the upside, and he hasn't performed well.  Nobody was really looking at him as part of the O's future.  I'm fine with giving Hellickson a shot here and seeing what he's got.  They have NOTHING to lose.  

[Ruzious]

Basically, the O's traded 3 small assets that they had no interest in using.  I can't see how people are seriously upset about losing those assets.  

[Beef Supreme]

Seems to me that one motivation for the trade was that Orioles wanted to trade Kim so they would have room to add Santender in 2-3 weeks.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Beef Supreme said:

Seems to me that one motivation for the trade was that Orioles wanted to trade Kim because Buck hated Kim.

FTFY. 

[Beef Supreme]

6 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

FTFY. 

I appreciate that C_o_c!

[Cumberbundy]

This Hellickson v Bridwell matchup is much more intriguing to me than it should be. The sample size of one start will fuel the base on one side. :popcorn gif

 

[Ruzious]

One thing Buck alluded to when talking about Hellickson is his demeanor on the mound.  He reminds me of Bundy in that regard.  He's totally focused and looks so in control on the mound.  Moreso than Bundy - he looks almost cocky out there - in a good competitive way - not in a jerk kind of way.