TT: DD becomes a buyer at the trading deadline (2017)

[Tony-OH]

Duquette ended up a buyer vs a seller as most fans and observers thought they should be.

With the trading deadline come and gone and although there were rumors that the Dodgers, Astros, and Indians were all in on closer Zach Britton, it seems that none were able to come up with the kind of prospects Dan Duquette wanted for his closer. Instead, he ends up going full buyer mode by trading a good young right-handed pitching prospect for a questionable major league shortstop with defensive issues.

With another year on Britton's contract, I can understand Duquette expecting a pretty big haul, but what is harder to understand is how Brad Brach, Seth Smith, Welington Castillo, and although the contract is hard to move, Darren O'day weren't linked to anyone. 

Instead, Duquette made three moves, all of which are buyer moves. He started out with a non-needle moving trade of acquiring Jeremy Hellickson for Hyun So Kim, Garrett Cleavinger and international signing slot money. Then on the deadlines last day he gets Double-A RHP Yefry Ramírez from the Yankees in exchange for International Signing Bonus Slots and then traded 18-year RHP Tobias Myers for INF Tim Beckam from the Rays.

Myers was just 18-years old and turning some heads in the NY-Penn league with his command, low 90 to mid 90s heater. Beckam is an upgrade over Hardy/Tejada and won't be a free agent until 2021 so they did improve themselves a little bit at a position of need, but Myers was a good looking prospect. On top of it, Beckam has a career .964 Fld pct at SS, has been suspended twice for drugs, sent to the minors for not hustling, and K's about once every three at bats. 

It says something though that the Rays would trade their SS to the Orioles for a young pitching prospect with upside when the Rays are actually a few games ahead of the Orioles for the wild card. Seems one team is looking long term and the other can't trade a good young pitching prospect fast enough for marginal big league players.

Ramirez was not listed as a top-30 prospect by MLB.com.

While other organizations either made their teams better for this season or added significant prospects to their organizations, the Orioles didn't move their needle this season and actually gave up a good young arm and international signing slots. The Orioles proved that they have no interest in the international market and that they believe they are a contender this year and the next.

It seems as though the worse fears are true. With only one more season under his belt as GM, Duquette had no reason to try and improve fo the future but instead did what he could to marginal improve his team this year and hop that they can jump six teams and make into the one game wild card playoff.

Either way, it's just another disappointing trading deadline for Orioles fans. Don't know why we expected anything different.

 

[Legend_Of_Joey]

4 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

Probably should have waited another 10 minutes for this to get the Beckham trade in.

 

1 minute ago, Aglets said:

Next time I guess we should wait until a half hour after the deadline for analysis like this. 

How exactly does the Beckham trade make an impact? Didn't get any impact starting pitching (Hellickson is a right handed Miley in my eyes), showed total disdain for International players (since, you know, the Orioles only All Star is one) by basically turning into an International Slot ATM for other teams and the Kim debacle, and made no move to improve their farm system for the future. 

Instead, they added a right handed Miley, a shortstop that is a marginal upgrade over Tejada, and a cast away from the Yankees for more cash to them.

[Tony-OH]

1 minute ago, Legend_Of_Joey said:

 

How exactly does the Beckham trade make an impact? Didn't get any impact starting pitching (Hellickson is a right handed Miley in my eyes), showed total disdain for International players (since, you know, the Orioles only All Star is one) by basically turning into an International Slot ATM for other teams and the Kim debacle, and made no move to improve their farm system for the future. 

Instead, they added a right handed Miley, a shortstop that is a marginal upgrade over Tejada, and a cast away from the Yankees for more cash to them.

And lost a good young pitching prospect that probably was going to be in the top 10 prospects at year's end.

[Legend_Of_Joey]

2 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

And lost a good young pitching prospect that probably was going to be in the top 10 prospects at year's end.

The only good part is that the one player they got from the Yankees is 10-3 in AA. He could be another Castro. But the Orioles gave the Yankees the cash they used for Gray.

[pastorfan]

23 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

So the trading deadline has come and gone and although there were rumors that the Dodgers, Astros, and Indians were all in on closer Zach Britton, it seems that none were able to come up with the kind of prospects Dan Duquette wanted for his closer.

With another year on Britton's contract, I can understand Duquette expecting a pretty big haul, but what is harder to understand is how Brad Brach, Seth Smith, Welington Castillo, and although the contract is hard to move, Darren O'day weren't linked to anyone.

With only the non-needle moving trade of acquiring Jeremy Hellickson for Hyun So Kim, Garrett Cleavinger and international signing slot money as well as the Yefry Ramírez from the Yankees in exchange for International Signing Bonus Slots under his belt, it's clear that Duqette neither made the team better or improved the organization significantly for the future.

Signed only through next season, you have to wonder if Duquette will be fired after the season as the Orioles may want a new GM to take on the role of rebuilding this organization. That could explain the lack of action. 

Either way, we have more of the same to look forward to. The Orioles have to play better than six others teams ahead of them the rest of the season for a one-game playoff  with the worse starting pitching in baseball. Yeah, good luck with that.

Meanwhile other organizations either made their teams better for this season or added significant prospects to their organizations. The Orioles meanwhile proved they have no interest in the international market, didn't make any significant moves one way or the other, and decided more mediocrity is what their fans must want.

The only good news is DD didn't give away any future major leagues starters for more expensive poor 5th starters so there's that.

Either way, it's just another disappointing trading deadline for Orioles fans. Don't know why we expected anything different.

Edit: As I was writing this, it was announced the Orioles traded RHP Tobias Myers to the Rays for INF Tim Beckham. Myers was just 18-years old and turning some heads in the NY-Penn league with his command, low 90 to mid 90s heater. Beckam is an upgrade of Hardy/Tejada and won't be a free agent until 2021 so they didn't improve themselves at a position of need, but Myers was a good looking prospect. 

It says something though that the Rays would trade their SS to the Orioles for a young pitching prospect with upside when the Rays are actually a few games ahead of the Orioles for the wild card. Seems one team is looking long term and the other can't trade a good young pitching prospect fast enough for marginal big league players.

I see no reason why anyone is surprised by this. This is the Orioles we are dealing with. Whether it is PA's fault or whoever, they are run terribly. DD and Buck are signed for one more year. DD is not about to lose 10 more games this year by trading off some guys. He wants his resume to look good. He loves when everyone points out how many games they have won over the last five years. Others, like Cashman, are not concerned about merely winning some games, but winning championships. 

[Can_of_corn]

I will admit I didn't think Dan would be able to pull off weakening the O's minor league pitching depth this trade deadline.

 

Kudos Dan!

You took one of the best chips off the market and decided to trade for the worst pitcher on the market that you didn't already have on the roster.

[Tony-OH]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I will admit I didn't think Dan would be able to pull off weakening the O's minor league pitching depth this trade deadline.

 

Kudos Dan!

You took one of the best chips off the market and decided to trade for the worst pitcher on the market that you didn't already have on the roster.

And traded away one of his best young pitching prospects at the same time. At least he's consistent.

[oriolediehard]

41 minutes ago, btownoriole said:

Unfortunately even that didn't pan out.   

They even got rid of a better GM than Dan in Andy Macphail who believed in prospects.

[pastorfan]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I will admit I didn't think Dan would be able to pull off weakening the O's minor league pitching depth this trade deadline.

 

Kudos Dan!

You took one of the best chips off the market and decided to trade for the worst pitcher on the market that you didn't already have on the roster.

LOL....yet it is all true!

[pastorfan]

But, I will say that I laugh at the Astros and Dodgers. Sure, they added some relief help, but the guys they added are not close to the same league as Britton. Come playoff time it will cost them.

[eddie83]

13 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I will admit I didn't think Dan would be able to pull off weakening the O's minor league pitching depth this trade deadline.

 

Kudos Dan!

You took one of the best chips off the market and decided to trade for the worst pitcher on the market that you didn't already have on the roster.

So do you take what Texas got?

[backwardsk]

1 minute ago, eddie83 said:

So do you take what Texas got?

Calhoun, anything else?

 

[spiritof66]

So yo

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I will admit I didn't think Dan would be able to pull off weakening the O's minor league pitching depth this trade deadline.

 

Kudos Dan!

You took one of the best chips off the market and decided to trade for the worst pitcher on the market that you didn't already have on the roster.

So you and Tony each know that Duquette both determined the Orioles' trade-deadline strategy and made the individual trade decisions. I think you're wrong based on my assessment of what he has done in the past and the strategies and decisions that appear to have been imposed on the owner in the past, but you may be right and I may be wrong. We'll probably never know.

If you think this is all Dan and want to call him an incompetent idiot who should be fired, that's fine. But I think you (and others) step over a line when you accuse Duquette of selfishly setting a strategy and making decisions, independent of directions from ownership, to further his selfish goal of helping the team this year and next, even though he knows those decisions will set back the franchise's future development. I don't think it's fair to besmirch the guy's integrity when you don't know he's doing that -- and when you do know the 88-year-old owner of the team, whose approval is needed for all trades, has had no qualms about doing that pretty much since he took over the team 24 years ago.  

[eddie83]

Just now, backwardsk said:

Calhoun, anything else?

 

One young arm. I don't claim to know the minors like others around here. That deal doesn't do much for me. Houston didn't move their big guys. 

[gtman55]

This front office is a joke. They had stuff to move but clearly as always are overestimating the value of what they have. I'm not saying they should have given away Britton or Brach but I guarantee they were offered something fairly decent in return. But they wanted the moon.

We're not going to the playoffs this year. And if by some miracle we do, do you honestly think we'd win anything? Our starting pitching is as bad as any team in baseball. We have little to no team speed. Fielding is ok overall, I guess. Relievers are pretty good. Clutch hitting? Small ball? Not so much. It's a beer league softball offense with mediocre pitching. Not playoff caliber.

This team as it stands won't be winning anything for a long time. We needed to rebuild and try to restock the minors with some talent. Did Angelos and DD think we're going somewhere this year based on winning 2 out of 3 in Texas?