Lack of infield heir apparents

[OriolesMagic83]

Ryan Flaherty will be available in the offseason.  I thought he was a worse hitter than he is.  He has a lifetime OPS of .654.  Somehow I thought it was under .600.

[bobmc]

But do we have an "hair" apparent?

[pastorfan]

12 hours ago, panick said:

I brought this up in a 2018 draft thread, and I was told that you don't draft based on need. I don't agree with that, especially when you have a minor league system like the O's do.

Are there even any of the top 15 prospects infielders?

DD never looked beyond 2018, and why should he? Not to mention when you don't go the international route, you are not going to have a surplus of infielders. However, the utter lack is hard to achieve. But at least we have 1B and DH depth!

[FanSince88]

10 hours ago, ChuckS said:

This OP is ridiculous on so many levels. 

It's doubtful that we resign Manny.  But not impossible.  I'd say we have a better chance than about 25 other teams given our lack of financial commitments and ownership's propensity for ponying up for their own free agents.  

We could resign Schoop.    

It's possible we trade both of them and end up with their "heir apparents" in the return.  

A rebuilding team is going to have holes regardless, or else they would be a contending team.  So I don't get the point of this tirade. It doesn't make a huge difference whether those holes are at one position or another.  They will need to be filled over time, but it's not like we are going to be pushing for the playoffs in 2019 or 2020.  That's plenty of time to sign/trade/develop the next SS and 2B and no reason to overpay for stop gaps in free agency.  

I will concede that yes, we could potentially trade for the heirs.  But that opportunity might not come;  our willing trade partners may not end up having good IF prospects in their system either, or may not be willing to give them up for a year's rental of Machado.  Knowing our desperation, they may demand Gausman or Bundy.  And yes, maybe we do get one good blue chip infield prospect in a trade.  Say we get one MLB-ready stud 3B prospect (relatively speaking, of course, very few can measure up to Manny).  That's great, but who's going to play short and second?  Ok, Beckham you hope can play one of those maybe at replacement level.  Hooray.  Still have an opening at 2nd or short.  And what if there's an injury?  The point I'm trying to make is the cupboard is totally bare. 

Even if we did miraculously bring back Schoop and Manny, know this:

a) We'd still have very thin depth in the infield.  See: the month of April, 2018.

b) The huge sums of money we'd have to pay Manny and Schoop (coupled with the huge sums of dead money owed to Chris Davis) would prevent us from adding any IF depth in the free agent market.  

[spiritof66]

Take a look at the top-rated minor league systems.  (I don't know which systems are the deepest in talent, but I think it's fair in most instances to equate the two.) I think you'l find that their strength and depth comes in part from one or more of these practices: 

1.  Spending heavily on Latin American scouting and development, signing a lot of highly regarded prospects in Latin America, and more recently participating actively (and with some large initial contracts) in the international free agent draft.

2.  On occasion, trading established major leaguers (or outstanding, almost-ready prospects) for multiple prospects, even where the loss of the established major leaguers will be harmful in the near term. 

3.  Using their depth at most positions to supply players to the ML club from their own systems, avoiding the need to trade prospects for established major leaguers to fill in when the ML team has a gap from a trade, an injury or declining performance/retirement.. 

4.  Going through a period of bad teams with bad records, giving them multiple high draft picks.

5.  This one is just an impression based on reputation: spending more than most teams ion scouting and player development. 

None of the above applies to the Orioles over the past six or eight years. I believe the decisions not to invest in international scouting, drafting and developing (#1 above), not to trade established players for prospects (#2), and not to invest heavily in scouting as a general matter (#5) all have come from Peter Angelos. To put it generously, he has dictated that the team's moderate (by ML standards) resources be concentrated on building a winner now. To be more negative, he has badly hurt the future of the franchise by looking only at immediate success, even when it's obvious to the rest of the world that the core of the team is over the hill, or the window for competing with the NYYs and RS has closed, or however you want to put it.

I don't know whether Duquette's decisions to trade minor leaguers to fill gaps in the ML outfield and rotation (#3) involved Angelos, but they were consistent with the direction for the team  that Angelos set and didn't appear to bring any criticism from ownership for sacrificing the team's future success, even when some of the trades turned out to be really bad ones. (In any event, these trades did not remove middle infield talent from the system.) Again, I haven't studied the matter, but I'm pretty sure there are few if any ML franchises operated as directly contrary to these statements as the Orioles.

The good news, if you want to call it that, is that it looks like the Orioles will have some high draft choices in the next few years (#4).

As other have observed, when it comes to building minor league depth, the most significant of these factors almost certainly  is the Orioles' decision not to seek access to top Latin American talent, and to limit their access to players overlooked or cast off by other teams. It's been suggested that Latin players, and particularly Dominicans, provide talent disproportionately in the middle infield. I find that easy to believe, but I haven't seen any data to support it. 

I wonder how teams would stack up if you looked at each MiL system without the players obtained as international free agents (or players obtained through trades of those international free agents). My guess is that the Orioles' MiLers would look pretty good. (I'm not aware of any publicly available source on this.point, but I have to believe someone in the Warehouse has studied it.)

Nonetheless, the fact remains that the Orioles will soon have urgent needs in the infield that they can't address by promoting guys now in the system. My own approach would be to try to obtain near-ready prospects as 2B/3B/SS in trades for Machado, Britton and Schoop if he is traded, give Beckham a trial this year and next to see whether he can hold down one of those spots, and look for near-ready middle-infield prospects in the next two drafts.) And I retain the hope that some of the money that comes off the Orioles' payroll after this year will be redirected toward investing for the future by beginning to build an infrastructure for scouting, drafting and developing Latin American players, even if they won't contribute to the team's success for a few years, if they ever do.

 

[Ruzious]

15 hours ago, Legend_Of_Joey said:

........

I hope this is sarcasm.

The Orioles have guys developing at both (well, all 4) spots you mentioned that could all be in the majors at some point.

Middle infield is a weak spot.

Drew Dosch is the top guy at 3rd. Yeah, yeah, "but, but, BUT, RYAN MOUNTCASTLE!" How many people dread Valencia or Alvarez playing at 3rd because of their defense? Same thing. Mountcastle might have a better bat (look at how Hays and Sisco have done since coming to the majors after being regarded for the bat.)

Erick Salcedo can play shortstop. He doesn't hit that well though.

Adrian Marin can play second and short, yet doesn't hit that well.

Corban Joseph will probably just stay as depth, can play 3rd, and has been hitting.

Stevie Wilkerson screwed himself over, as he can play 3rd and was working at short, while being a switch hitter and a substance user.

Jomar Reyes has a cannon for an arm and a derringer for common sense and anger management. His swing isn't all that good the past few seasons either.

Chris Clare has started to pick things up, but probably won't "wow!" anyone.

Mason McCoy is coming around, but can get super streaky.

Trevor Craport can hit, but his fielding is in question.

Branden Becker got a LOT of praise from Brian Graham, but can't seem to establish himself.

Adam Hall is still in Extended Spring Training after playing only a few games last season in the GCL and not making a full season roster after camp.

No Sparks?   I appreciate the post, but we're not building a AAAA roster.  Hall is the only one you listed that I'm excited about, and he's apparently not advanced enough for the Delmarva team.  The 3 M's: Mountcastle, Mullens, and McKenna are the hitters that are somewhat close that I'm excited about.  And I'm not giving up on Hays.  

The real problem about Machado and Schoop is the O's apparent COMPLETE LACK OF A PLAN with the 2 players.  The 2 guys who developed to be exactly what they hoped they become... and NO FREAKIN PLAN!!!  It's really inexcusable.  Almost unbelievable that they'd let this happen.  

 

[bpilktree]

The Yankees didn't have a guy to take over for SS when Jeter retired but went out and got Castro and Didi in trades for marginal players.  I expect we will see about a 10-12 guy turnover next season at the start then what we have currently.  For the most part we are pretty set in the rotation for the next few years.  The outfield has lots of depth in the minor leagues we have depth at catcher and 1st base.  When they move guys at the deadline that is where they can look for infield prospects that are blocked.  The Phillies have a lot of infield depth as do the Braves.  Both teams could use Manny and some bullpen pieces. 

[Legend_Of_Joey]

2 hours ago, Ruzious said:

No Sparks?   I appreciate the post, but we're not building a AAAA roster.  Hall is the only one you listed that I'm excited about, and he's apparently not advanced enough for the Delmarva team.  The 3 M's: Mountcastle, Mullens, and McKenna are the hitters that are somewhat close that I'm excited about.  And I'm not giving up on Hays.  

The real problem about Machado and Schoop is the O's apparent COMPLETE LACK OF A PLAN with the 2 players.  The 2 guys who developed to be exactly what they hoped they become... and NO FREAKIN PLAN!!!  It's really inexcusable.  Almost unbelievable that they'd let this happen.  

 

Sparks is an outfielder. 

Out of the whole list, Dosch and Reyes would of been the 2 best 3rd base prospects and Mountcastle at shortstop, with McCoy and Hall.

The problem is...

Dosch lost a whole year with a broken leg and hasn't developed the power or fielding you want from a full timer (though he has improved a lot,) Reyes was an international signing that hasn't developed due to reasons (mainly mental), and I'm sure they thought Mountcastle could of gotten his arm into something better, but...

With things being 50/50 in hindsight, they probably would of rather had Sisco stay as a shortstop or even 3rd and have Wynns as the backup.

Would of kept Sisco in the line up regularly, wouldn't of needed an extra year of Hardy probably, and wouldn't of been as concerned about the infield.

[jabba72]

16 hours ago, Legend_Of_Joey said:

Sparks is an outfielder. 

Out of the whole list, Dosch and Reyes would of been the 2 best 3rd base prospects and Mountcastle at shortstop, with McCoy and Hall.

The problem is...

Dosch lost a whole year with a broken leg and hasn't developed the power or fielding you want from a full timer (though he has improved a lot,) Reyes was an international signing that hasn't developed due to reasons (mainly mental), and I'm sure they thought Mountcastle could of gotten his arm into something better, but...

With things being 50/50 in hindsight, they probably would of rather had Sisco stay as a shortstop or even 3rd and have Wynns as the backup.

Would of kept Sisco in the line up regularly, wouldn't of needed an extra year of Hardy probably, and wouldn't of been as concerned about the infield.

I could see Sisco possibly being a 3B, but doubt he ever had the range to be a pro SS. Moundcastle probably will be moved to 1B whenever the team decides Davis is a lost cause. Though its possible they want to revert Mancini back to 1B. Dosch may well get a chance in Baltimore next year if his bat keeps hitting in Norfolk. I think Beckham is still in the teams plans to play one of the infield positions in '19. Otherwise there is no heirs in the system for SS or 3B. I was encouraged about Adam Hall until a scouting report on here or mlbpipeline i forget, said they dont think Hall can stick at SS.  

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, jabba72 said:

I could see Sisco possibly being a 3B, but doubt he ever had the range to be a pro SS. Moundcastle probably will be moved to 1B whenever the team decides Davis is a lost cause. Though its possible they want to revert Mancini back to 1B. Dosch may well get a chance in Baltimore next year if his bat keeps hitting in Norfolk. I think Beckham is still in the teams plans to play one of the infield positions in '19. Otherwise there is no heirs in the system for SS or 3B. I was encouraged about Adam Hall until a scouting report on here or mlbpipeline i forget, said they dont think Hall can stick at SS.  

Why in the world would you move Sisco off of catcher?

[jabba72]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

Why in the world would you move Sisco off of catcher?

I was replying to another post saying that Sisco should have been kept at 3B or SS. I've never given it thought until i posted it. 

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, jabba72 said:

I was replying to another post saying that Sisco should have been kept at 3B or SS. I've never given it thought until i posted it. 

Missed that one.

Carry on. 

[DirtyBird]

Drew Dosch is now batting .329

[weams]

And again.

[jabba72]

16 hours ago, weams said:

And again.

If he shows he has a bat im sure the Orioles would like an in-house option.