Buck, Dan and ownership need to deal with the Davis issue first

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, theobird said:

Sad deal. Davis needs to be DFA'd. It is a sunk cost. But the cost is even greater to continue running him out there. Cut your losses, turn the corner and move on. Thats the only reasonable thing that you can do.

The Orioles don’t seem to understand that there’s no use chasing after a sunk cost.   It’s really hard to admit you’ve thrown $100 mm+ down the drain.   But playing a guy who is worse than replacement level, and likely to continue getting worse, only hurts the team.    Better to admit you made a franchise-screwing mistake and move on, lest the screwing be extended to the max.

[spiritof66]

Here's what I would do. I'm not saying it's a good idea, but I think it's better than anything else. And I would look at this differently if I thought that keeping Chris Davis on the ML roster was depriving the Orioles of a chance for a successful season. 

Keep Davis on the roster but take him out of the starting lineup. Don't let him bat against lefthanders. Give him an occasional start and use him as a late-inning defensive replacement. That should keep Trumbo, and for the most part Mancini, out of the OF, and give us a better chance to see how Mancini performs at 1B. Davis would get maybe 75 to 100 ABs over the course of the  rest of the year if his performance level remains about what it is now. 

I assume that most of Davis's efforts to improve have involved, and most of the coaching he's received has come from, Coolbaugh. Maybe Brady. Whoever has been involved in that coaching and those efforts should be deemed to have failed -- though maybe it's not his or their fault. Find someone who thinks he can help Davis and hire him or her for a month or two, with the sole objective of trying to make Davis a better hitter in a stated period of time. If that means Davis spends some days or weeks away from the team in Florida or California or Tibet, requiring the Orioles to play with a 24-man roster, that's OK. If that doesn't work, repeat the process with someone else through September, or beyond if that makes sense.

During the off-season, involve the team''s (presumably new) GM and manager in the decision about what to do with Davis. But the presumption would be that he should not be back next year if there's been no improvement or good reason to expect improvement.

By the way, while I haven't gone back to look at the posts at the time of Davis's free agency, I don't think there were many, if any, posters who said they didn't think Davis could contribute to the Orioles for a few years. The debated issues that I recall were the length of the contract and how to weigh the very strong possibility that Davis would be in decline, possibly steep decline, by its last few years, and the apparent overpayment -- given the apparent lack of serious competitors to sign Chris -- by a team that had limited resources and would soon have other key players reaching free agency.

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

I assume that most of Davis's efforts to improve have involved, and most of the coaching he's received has come from, Coolbaugh. Maybe Brady. Whoever has been involved in that coaching and those efforts should be deemed to have failed -- though maybe it's not his or their fault. Find someone who thinks he can help Davis and hire him or her for a month or two, with the sole objective of trying to make Davis a better hitter in a stated period of time. If that means Davis spends some days or weeks away from the team in Florida or California or Tibet, requiring the Orioles to play with a 24-man roster, that's OK. If that doesn't work, repeat the process with someone else through September, or beyond if that makes sense.

 

You left off Howie Clark.

[Morgan423]

59 minutes ago, mdbdotcom said:

We'll probably replace Coolbaugh before doing anything with Davis.

If I were a person somewhere in baseball and my next potential career stop was MLB hitting coach, Chris Davis would become my obsession.  If you could figure out what the problems are at the deepest levels, draw up a solid plan for how to fix him, and presented a convincing case to the Orioles, they might just hire you on the spot.

[TINSTAAPP]

42 minutes ago, Frobby said:

The Orioles don’t seem to understand that there’s no use chasing after a sunk cost.   It’s really hard to admit you’ve thrown $100 mm+ down the drain.   But playing a guy who is worse than replacement level, and likely to continue getting worse, only hurts the team.    Better to admit you made a franchise-screwing mistake and move on, lest the screwing be extended to the max.

The only time I can remember the Orioles releasing a player with a multi-year contract before the final year of his contract was Sidney Ponson and that was due to off the field issues. Think about all of the terrible pitchers with multi-year contracts the Orioles have had over the years. None of them got released. And that was with players making a lot less money than Davis is making now. As long as Angelos is alive, Davis will not be DFA. Maybe his sons will be different but I doubt it.

[mdbdotcom]

3 minutes ago, TINSTAAPP said:

The only time I can remember the Orioles releasing a player with a multi-year contract before the final year of his contract was Sidney Ponson and that was due to off the field issues. Think about all of the terrible pitchers with multi-year contracts the Orioles have had over the years. None of them got released. And that was with players making a lot less money than Davis is making now. As long as Angelos is alive, Davis will not be DFA. Maybe his sons will be different but I doubt it.

Brady Anderson was released prior to the final year on his contract. He was owed $4mm.

[mdbdotcom]

28 minutes ago, Morgan423 said:

If I were a person somewhere in baseball and my next potential career stop was MLB hitting coach, Chris Davis would become my obsession.  If you could figure out what the problems are at the deepest levels, draw up a solid plan for how to fix him, and presented a convincing case to the Orioles, they might just hire you on the spot.

Ryan Howard should give it a try.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, TINSTAAPP said:

The only time I can remember the Orioles releasing a player with a multi-year contract before the final year of his contract was Sidney Ponson and that was due to off the field issues. Think about all of the terrible pitchers with multi-year contracts the Orioles have had over the years. None of them got released. And that was with players making a lot less money than Davis is making now. As long as Angelos is alive, Davis will not be DFA. Maybe his sons will be different but I doubt it.

I thinking that if Sir Sidney had been pitching better he wouldn't have been released.

They released Jay Gibbons in 2008.

[TINSTAAPP]

24 minutes ago, Morgan423 said:

If I were a person somewhere in baseball and my next potential career stop was MLB hitting coach, Chris Davis would become my obsession.  If you could figure out what the problems are at the deepest levels, draw up a solid plan for how to fix him, and presented a convincing case to the Orioles, they might just hire you on the spot.

I don't think Davis' problems are that complicated. He has the worst pitch recognition skills in baseball and he can't beat the shift which has gotten into his head. I guess you can do something about the latter but what can be done about his inability to tell the difference between a ball and strike? I don't think he's fixable at this point. 

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, TINSTAAPP said:

I don't think Davis' problems are that complicated. He has the worst pitch recognition skills in baseball and he can't beat the shift which has gotten into his head. I guess you can do something about the latter but what can be done about his inability to tell the difference between a ball and strike? I don't think he's fixable at this point. 

He doesn't have the worst pitch recognition skill on the team. 

[Barnaby Graves]

2 hours ago, MagicBird said:

If the Orioles FO did what posters here wanted we wouldnt have any MLB quality players on the roster

We barely have any MLB quality players as it is, and most of them have one foot out the door.

[Barnaby Graves]

BTW, Dan Duquette isn't going to be dealing with anything.  With Brady and Buck going over his head to Angelos to make decisions, he's just waiting until the end of his contract to GTFO.  He didn't make this mess.

 

[atomic]

1 hour ago, Luke-OH said:

I was following you until the last part, what do you mean by that?

That a Strike out isn't the same as any other out.  You can reach base on error, you can advance the runner etc. 

[Richmond Bird 9]

6 minutes ago, TINSTAAPP said:

The only time I can remember the Orioles releasing a player with a multi-year contract before the final year of his contract was Sidney Ponson and that was due to off the field issues. Think about all of the terrible pitchers with multi-year contracts the Orioles have had over the years. None of them got released. And that was with players making a lot less money than Davis is making now. As long as Angelos is alive, Davis will not be DFA. Maybe his sons will be different but I doubt it.

Part two / 2 Chris Davis   options (1 trade and 1 restructure)

1. Trade Chris Davis  (85 mil/5 yrs) to the Dodgers for Matt Kemp (43.5/2 yrs and Rich Hill (35.3/2 yrs). For the Dodgers, this is the reverse of the trade they did with the Braves.  Once again the O's pay the deferred money. 

The O's move Davis and save 6 mil over the 5 yrs.

The Dodgers save 21 mil in 2018 and 19 mil in 2019 (helps on luxury tax)

Davis to 1b and Cody B to cf (mentioned in MLBTR)

2. Restructure: Davis is due 127 mil over the next """19 years""". 5yrs/17 mil and 10 yrs/3.5 mil and 5 yrs/1.4 mil. Restructure  his contract that you pay him 6.7 mil over 19 years and release him. This helps the O's in that we save 10.3 mil over the next 5 yrs. This gives the new F/O time to work with the roster. The next 15 yrs we have to pay more per year, but hopefully the new F/O won't box itself in, as in this year Dan/Buck/Manny/Jones/Britton/Brach and the monster contract of Davis. For Chris he actually makes 300,000 more on the life (19 yrs--I rounded up). He also becomes a F/A now and can take some time off to clear his head, find a hitting instructor to help him. He can also pick and choose his team/time to come back...Take a 1 yr deal and re-establish himself.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, atomic said:

That a Strike out isn't the same as any other out.  You can reach base on error, you can advance the runner etc. 

You can reach first base on a strikeout.

I'll take a strikeout over a weak grounder to short.