This Off Season Feels So Hopeless

[Moose Milligan]

The offseason is always hopeless.  But it's only hopeless to those who think the Orioles won't wait until a week before ST to do anything.  If you think the Orioles will go like gangbusters into FA, making offers and trades and showing a keen interest in building a winner, yes, it is hopeless.

 

[BohKnowsBmore]

7 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Meanwhile, on the other side of the coin, Schoop and Mancini are likely to regress.

Why? They're on the right side of the aging/improvement curve. 

[BohKnowsBmore]

Look, if we just get an average pitcher to replace Ubaldo, were a far better team. Tillman on a low cost deal is a good move imo. 

Where would we even spend on bats beyond extensions.  

[Can_of_corn]

4 hours ago, BohKnowsBmore said:

Why? They're on the right side of the aging/improvement curve. 

Mancini be ause of how much he exceed expectations, Schoop because players tend to trend back to established levels of play.

But mostly it was just a reminder that bad things also happen.

[Bahama O's Fan]

I am just ready for it to start. Get this over with tonight. The key simply boils down to what we do with our pitching staff. I think we may actually see DD go out aggressive as this is looking like his last season with us. He will spend as freely as he is able, I believe.

[Ripken]

Sell!  Sell!  Sell!

[Aristotelian]

You mean "grinding the Rule 5" and a #4 SP doesn't excite you?

[Redskins Rick]

My two cents worth.

This off-season doesn't feel hopeless.

Go back to the 14 year of hell, and that was way more dismal than this. IMO.

We had Syd Thrift in charge for a time. Once was a brilliant baseball mind, but in this era, was a shell of his former shelf.

Out of the pennant race by the end of May, makes for a very long hot boring summer.

Buck & DD are far from perfect, they are human after all.

But, I will take this combination over any of those others before Andy came to start righting the ship.

(Note, I respect and love Flanny the pitcher, but Flanny the GM, wasn't his finest hour.)

[pastorfan]

16 hours ago, wildcard said:

We don't know that yet.   Some O's players performed below their career avg last season.   If we get good results this year from the O's existing players, Bundy and Gausman step forward and the O's pick some good middle and back of the rotation talent then the O's will be contenders.

Yes, but even if the Yanks and Sox did nothing to improve for 2018, we would need Jake and Yu to even have a chance against them. And......we are not getting pitchers of that caliber. You can bet the Yanks will get a solid starter or two.

[Roll Tide]

20 hours ago, Camden_yardbird said:

The Orioles aren't going to add any big names.  They arent going to act quickly.   They have clear definable needs but won't be able to appreciably fix them. Any move that actually moves the needle for next year's team won't do so in any appreciable way and increases the chance that Orioles won't be sellers at next year's deadline when they need to be selling on impending free agents yo avoid a dark age.

Normally right before the end of the World Series I am starting to get excited about what the future will bring.  I just can't this year.

And by all accounts it should be a very exciting off season.  The Marlins will be selling big names.  There should be a lot of trades.  There are some intriguing free agents.  Maybe the Orioles will surprise me, but I doubt it.  Does anyone else feel this way?

You're right ! Plus nothing will be done to benefit the long term health of the team. 

No top pitchers obtained, Manny will be left in limbo and even being bad will not be good enough to be out of it in time to deal Manny and perhaps Britton before free agency.

[Camden_yardbird]

22 hours ago, phillyOs119 said:

It feels a little hopeless to me too, but for completely different reasons.  The Orioles unwillingness to sell is risking sending the team into years of irrelevance.  The farm system is in the best shape in years, and the team is in a great position to reload quickly (not as good of a position as they were before 2017 but still).  

That's the same reason.  As I said but maybe worded slightly differently, they should be selling and improving the long term health of the organization, but they will instead make inconsequential additions that fail to move the needle more than enough to doom them to mediocrity.

The team has taken on the quality of its GM,  mildly effective but extremely boring.

[Yardball85]

23 hours ago, phillyOs119 said:

It feels a little hopeless to me too, but for completely different reasons.  The Orioles unwillingness to sell is risking sending the team into years of irrelevance.  The farm system is in the best shape in years, and the team is in a great position to reload quickly (not as good of a position as they were before 2017 but still).  

This.

This is the perfect offseason to deal Machado and a reliever or two (Givens, Brach).  Last offseason was the perfect time to trade Britton, but of course, the Orioles' lack of foresight was on display (for the record, I and a lot of others on here advocated for trading ZB last winter).  

This team simply does not have the pitching to compete right now, and should acquire guys who are 1-2 years away who can supplement a core of Hays, Sisco, Bundy, Harvey, etc.

[tntoriole]

It feels hopeless to me after reading about the type of organization that the World Champion Astros have and their complete focus on analytics, rebuilding and decision making that makes us look like amateur hour. 

The Astros have engineering leadership from their GM Jeff Luhnow, a Penn engineering grad to Sig Mejdal, NASA, Lockheed engineer who has the “Director of Decision Sciences” title in their organization. 

Meanwhile, we get to watch and see if Dan can sign Jason  Vargas or not. 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/astros-world-series-win-may-be-remembered-as-the-moment-analytics-conquered-mlb-for-good/2017/11/02/ac62abaa-bfec-11e7-97d9-bdab5a0ab381_story.html?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_with_top_mostshared_1_na&utm_term=.36ad0eea714b

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

On 11/1/2017 at 3:18 PM, Yardball85 said:

This.

This is the perfect offseason to deal Machado and a reliever or two (Givens, Brach).  Last offseason was the perfect time to trade Britton, but of course, the Orioles' lack of foresight was on display (for the record, I and a lot of others on here advocated for trading ZB last winter).  

This team simply does not have the pitching to compete right now, and should acquire guys who are 1-2 years away who can supplement a core of Hays, Sisco, Bundy, Harvey, etc.

No way I trade Givens unless you get a really good young prospect for him.  Givens isn't a free agent until 2022, I would deal Brach for the right price.  

Agree about trading Britton last off season, you could have landed a haul for him.  Most relievers have a limited shelf life of being elite, Mariano Rivera is the exception to the rule.  

[MDtransplant757]

It's not totally hopeless. Remember 2015? That felt hopeless. This is way better in comparison to that and to the 1998-2011 offseasons too