Is trading prospects during playoff runs really mortgaging your future?

[Hallas]

So, we're all sitting here with a post-cinderella hangover after our 5 year run, since we're the worst team in baseball and stuck in rebuilding at least through 2019.  So I had a thought on that: are you really mortgaging your future by trading prospects to extend your playoff chances?  The Orioles traded 3 years worth of decent major league pieces (Hader, Ariel Miranda, probably a few others) but no top tier prospects.  Still, that price wasn't nothing.  However, now that we're rebuilding, we've got the 5 for 1 in the Machado trade, and Britton is almost certainly getting moved, and there's an outside chance that Gausman, Brach, and a few other players get moved as well.  While some of this is predicated on having tradeable pieces, this assumption is somewhat covered by the fact that, if you are in a pennant race, you probably have some talented players on your roster that helped you get there.   There's also a timing component here, in terms of starting to suck when your window is about to shut and you can start entertaining deadline trades.  By both criteria here, it seems to have worked out pretty well for the Orioles.  And while we were never good from 1999-2008, we still managed to develop Bedard, who netted us 30 WAR worth of all-star level talent in TIllman and Jones.  And obviously those players were pretty integral to our success in 2012-2016.

Conclusion: I no longer really think that you're mortgaging your future by trading your minor league talent away in a playoff race, because if you're trading for pieces to help you in a pennant race, that means you already have some good players.   And if you have good players, you can always trade back for young controllable talent when things don't roll your way.

[weams]

12 hours ago, Hallas said:

So, we're all sitting here with a post-cinderella hangover after our 5 year run, since we're the worst team in baseball and stuck in rebuilding at least through 2019.  So I had a thought on that: are you really mortgaging your future by trading prospects to extend your playoff chances?  The Orioles traded 3 years worth of decent major league pieces (Hader, Ariel Miranda, probably a few others) but no top tier prospects.  Still, that price wasn't nothing.  However, now that we're rebuilding, we've got the 5 for 1 in the Machado trade, and Britton is almost certainly getting moved, and there's an outside chance that Gausman, Brach, and a few other players get moved as well.  While some of this is predicated on having tradeable pieces, this assumption is somewhat covered by the fact that, if you are in a pennant race, you probably have some talented players on your roster that helped you get there.   There's also a timing component here, in terms of starting to suck when your window is about to shut and you can start entertaining deadline trades.  By both criteria here, it seems to have worked out pretty well for the Orioles.  And while we were never good from 1999-2008, we still managed to develop Bedard, who netted us 30 WAR worth of all-star level talent in TIllman and Jones.  And obviously those players were pretty integral to our success in 2012-2016.

Conclusion: I no longer really think that you're mortgaging your future by trading your minor league talent away in a playoff race, because if you're trading for pieces to help you in a pennant race, that means you already have some good players.   And if you have good players, you can always trade back for young controllable talent when things don't roll your way.

I agree.

[wildcard]

I think the O's and other clubs do mortgage their future when they trade youth in a pennant race.  But it is a necessary evil.   To make a mid season correction in many case is needed to succeed in making the playoffs.   Its the nature of the beast.

[foxfield]

It is very interesting how we debate heatedly over this point with very short sighted rationale.  

In time, we won't really fuss about Hader or  Miranda.  The pain of Britton in the bullpen in Toronto and playing KC without Davis or Manny will continue to grow.  Opportunities in sports as in life must be seized, and opportunities missed seem to grow in lore....

 

OP is well written and thought out.

[Aristotelian]

DD's modus operandi has been to field a competitive team within constraints of budget and keeping top prospects. He has never truly gone for it. He did not sign Cruz. Bundy, Harvey, and Sisco were never on the table. Instead he favored C prospects for minor pieces like Parra, Bud Norris, etc. Yes, we lost Hader and Davies, but we never went truly all in. Some people thought he should have mortgaged the future more.

That said, we probably could have gotten a Gleybar/Acuna type of prospect if we had traded Manny and Britton at the right time if the organization (not necessarily DD) had the foresight to do it. We got some return but perhaps not as much as we should.

[tntoriole]

13 hours ago, Hallas said:

So, we're all sitting here with a post-cinderella hangover after our 5 year run, since we're the worst team in baseball and stuck in rebuilding at least through 2019.  So I had a thought on that: are you really mortgaging your future by trading prospects to extend your playoff chances?  The Orioles traded 3 years worth of decent major league pieces (Hader, Ariel Miranda, probably a few others) but no top tier prospects.  Still, that price wasn't nothing.  However, now that we're rebuilding, we've got the 5 for 1 in the Machado trade, and Britton is almost certainly getting moved, and there's an outside chance that Gausman, Brach, and a few other players get moved as well.  While some of this is predicated on having tradeable pieces, this assumption is somewhat covered by the fact that, if you are in a pennant race, you probably have some talented players on your roster that helped you get there.   There's also a timing component here, in terms of starting to suck when your window is about to shut and you can start entertaining deadline trades.  By both criteria here, it seems to have worked out pretty well for the Orioles.  And while we were never good from 1999-2008, we still managed to develop Bedard, who netted us 30 WAR worth of all-star level talent in TIllman and Jones.  And obviously those players were pretty integral to our success in 2012-2016.

Conclusion: I no longer really think that you're mortgaging your future by trading your minor league talent away in a playoff race, because if you're trading for pieces to help you in a pennant race, that means you already have some good players.   And if you have good players, you can always trade back for young controllable talent when things don't roll your way.

And if you are the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers...you can do that...but what they can also do is fill in their misses with buys and eat bad contracts like Davis.  

LA can trade a guy like Diaz, not because they drafted him through the regular draft,, but because they can afford to sign a prospect out of Cuba for 31 million, and still trade him just as a prospect and then just factor that into their planning budget.   Ultimately teams like ours can’t have the depth that money can provide, so, most likely, teams like us, the Royals, the Astros, the Indians, etc...at best we will cycle into occasional times of being good and, if we are lucky and skillful, the times when we are good will repeat in a few years of being bad.  But the money teams, while they will not win every year, they will most likely always be in the playoffs.   Their mistakes don’t cost them and their resources make their system depth greater.  But who wants to do it that way anyway??  

[Frobby]

13 hours ago, Hallas said:

So, we're all sitting here with a post-cinderella hangover after our 5 year run, since we're the worst team in baseball and stuck in rebuilding at least through 2019.  So I had a thought on that: are you really mortgaging your future by trading prospects to extend your playoff chances?  The Orioles traded 3 years worth of decent major league pieces (Hader, Ariel Miranda, probably a few others) but no top tier prospects.  Still, that price wasn't nothing.  However, now that we're rebuilding, we've got the 5 for 1 in the Machado trade, and Britton is almost certainly getting moved, and there's an outside chance that Gausman, Brach, and a few other players get moved as well.  While some of this is predicated on having tradeable pieces, this assumption is somewhat covered by the fact that, if you are in a pennant race, you probably have some talented players on your roster that helped you get there.   There's also a timing component here, in terms of starting to suck when your window is about to shut and you can start entertaining deadline trades.  By both criteria here, it seems to have worked out pretty well for the Orioles.  And while we were never good from 1999-2008, we still managed to develop Bedard, who netted us 30 WAR worth of all-star level talent in TIllman and Jones.  And obviously those players were pretty integral to our success in 2012-2016.

Conclusion: I no longer really think that you're mortgaging your future by trading your minor league talent away in a playoff race, because if you're trading for pieces to help you in a pennant race, that means you already have some good players.   And if you have good players, you can always trade back for young controllable talent when things don't roll your way.

I think it depends on the depth of your minor league system, and your ability to buy expensive players when you don’t have a cheap solution in your minor league system.    There’s no one size fits all solution.    And, of course, you have to acquire players that actually help you.    

We never have had a very deep system, and our payroll has a limit, so trading a Davies or an EdRod comes at a big cost for us.    It forces us to spend on the Ubaldos, Cobbs and Cashners.   And it forces us to concentrate more on drafting pitchers, and next thing you know there’s a shortage of positional talent in the system.   And when the return is Gerardo Parra, that doesn’t help.   (Miller, obviously, is another story.)

[Grt 2BA FL Gator]

13 hours ago, Hallas said:

So, we're all sitting here with a post-cinderella hangover after our 5 year run, since we're the worst team in baseball and stuck in rebuilding at least through 2019.  So I had a thought on that: are you really mortgaging your future by trading prospects to extend your playoff chances?  The Orioles traded 3 years worth of decent major league pieces (Hader, Ariel Miranda, probably a few others) but no top tier prospects.  Still, that price wasn't nothing.  However, now that we're rebuilding, we've got the 5 for 1 in the Machado trade, and Britton is almost certainly getting moved, and there's an outside chance that Gausman, Brach, and a few other players get moved as well.  While some of this is predicated on having tradeable pieces, this assumption is somewhat covered by the fact that, if you are in a pennant race, you probably have some talented players on your roster that helped you get there.   There's also a timing component here, in terms of starting to suck when your window is about to shut and you can start entertaining deadline trades.  By both criteria here, it seems to have worked out pretty well for the Orioles.  And while we were never good from 1999-2008, we still managed to develop Bedard, who netted us 30 WAR worth of all-star level talent in TIllman and Jones.  And obviously those players were pretty integral to our success in 2012-2016.

Conclusion: I no longer really think that you're mortgaging your future by trading your minor league talent away in a playoff race, because if you're trading for pieces to help you in a pennant race, that means you already have some good players.   And if you have good players, you can always trade back for young controllable talent when things don't roll your way.

I don’t disagree with the OP. Looking back, Dan kind of stayed in the middle with what he did. And I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. In some ways we are fortunate that we so clearly suck this year to trade our ML talent. The Royals went for it last year and didn’t trade anyone. 

So I think your conclusion makes sense, as long as on the back end you are able to turn that major league talent back into prospects. 

And I don’t necessarily blame the FO for trying to extend the window. I even thought that we could make a run at wild card spot once we got Cobb. Yet, you could argue that if we traded some guys earlier last year instead of still “buying” guys like Beckham, our rebuild could be shorter. Same with 2013/15. And yet, easy to say in hindsight as all those teams technically were in the thick of it until they faded out. 

[Natty]

Most 'prospects' never pan out. The percentage that make it to the majors and stay is very low.

[Mondo Trasho]

The ideal scenario is to have an organization that is constantly turning out talent, that way you can make trades and know that you've got more behind them. The problem is a lot of organizations have good prospects come in waves rather than a steady stream. Also, the market doesn't always go in your favor. You could end up buying in a seller's market and then turning around and selling during a buyer's market.

[Frobby]

46 minutes ago, Natty said:

Most 'prospects' never pan out. The percentage that make it to the majors and stay is very low.

And yet, they’re the lifeblood of every good team.    

[Reboulet'sStache]

It's an organizational approach more than anything.  

The Dodgers, Sox, Yankees, they are all exceptions to a degree. 

But most teams need to constantly be restocking the farm.  That's the life blood of every club.  If you aren't willing to get involved in the international market.  If you aren't willing to sell high on guys that could be replaced, even when you are competitive, if you are trading relief pitchers and draft picks to the Dodgers so they will eat the pitcher's salary, if you're giving up picks to sign middle of the road pitchers, then yes, trading prospects is mortgaging the future. 

[weams]

 

[BarclaySouthway]

56 minutes ago, weams said:

 

Quote

When Edwin Encarnacion’s three-run homer soared over the left-field wall in the bottom of the 11th inning to win the American League wild-card game on Oct. 4, 2016, nearly 50,000 Toronto Blue Jays fans released such a thunderous racket that you couldn’t hear the most telling of sounds emanating from the visitors’ dugout.

It’s taken nearly two years, but it is now loud and clear.

That was the unmistakable bang of the Baltimore Orioles’ competitive window slamming shut.

It was a walk-off defeat that was simultaneously heartbreaking and controversial — baseball’s best closer at the time, Zach Britton, remained “unpitched” in the bullpen while the most beleaguered starter in franchise history, Ubaldo Jiménez, served up the season-ender.

We know now that moment also marked the beginning of the end of the Orioles’ respectability run — three playoff appearances in five seasons.

That is a nice lede.

Couldn't read the rest of the article though.

 

[davearm]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

I think it depends on the depth of your minor league system, and your ability to buy expensive players when you don’t have a cheap solution in your minor league system.    There’s no one size fits all solution.    And, of course, you have to acquire players that actually help you.    

It matters just as much, if not more, what you've got at the big league level.

Gleyber Torres was only expendable because of Russell and Baez. Eloy Jimenez because of Heyward Almora Happ Schwarber.

Meanwhile the Cubs have spent the better part of a decade looking for another Chris Archer.