Is trading prospects during playoff runs really mortgaging your future?

[weams]

17 hours ago, Santandah said:

Hindsight is 20/20, and the decision looks bad now. But I at least understand the decision to hold onto the core and go for it one last time. Competitive windows don't don't open all that often. The Orioles took a decade and a half to build a team with a core of identifiable and really like-able players such as Adam Jones, the Machado-Schoop bromance, and Chris Davis before he became the albatross -- and they had a generational player the likes of which this franchise might not see again for another 20 years. They'd invested heavily on the team financially and had an owner who's not going to get another chance to see another window. So. They made the decision to keep the band together and give it another shot, one last shot.

The rebuild was inevitable, and they all knew it. They're not morons. And I do believe that given the constraints of the market and a budget that was already at its limit for a franchise like the Orioles in a market like Baltimore, they did what they could. Could they have made some better decisions, like not banking on getting anything from Chris Tillman? Sure. But the Cobb and Cashner signings on paper were deals at fair market value that should have strengthened the team's biggest weakness. No one could have predicted the complete collapse of the bullpen, even with Zach hurt. We all knew this wasn't going to be a good defensive team, but no one could have predicted the absolute collapse of the lineup -- or Davis being THIS bad. 

Sure, it may have been a decision that was made with a heavy influence of sentimentality. But, THAT is baseball. That's why the Americans who still love this game do love this game. They look back at the teams they grew up with and the stars they loved as kids with a wistfulness that other major sports just don't have.

The messaging that's coming out of the warehouse now at least makes it seem like they knew what they were doing, that there's a real plan going forward, and they all know it's going to be a long haul.

They went for it one last time, and I don't fault them for it. They lived in the moment maybe a little too long, but if you're not going to live in the moment, then what's the point of this whole thing?

A more sensible take than many. And who cares who the "Best" teams are during the playoffs. Give me a hot and lucky one. With Relievers. 

[hoosiers]

On ‎7‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 7:47 PM, 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 disagree vehemently with this OP.  As analytics become a more important part of baseball, the theory is that most guys who are obtained at the trade deadline usually only have marginal impact on team's ability to make the playoffs and win the WS.  It's not worth the prospect costs to make those trades IMO.  My only caveat would be in making trades that filled major injuries (like the LAD just did since Seager went down) or significant improvements (hence Milwaukee's interest in MM).

Regarding the conclusion, it is also a poor one for me - we are only netting young controllable talent for ZB and MM right now (possibly ZB).  We held on to many more players past their marketable value - Wieters, Davis, Hardy, Jones, O'Day, Brach, Tillman, JJohnson and others.  

I have posted for years that this team needs to be run more like Minnesota and Tampa Bay - over-investing in the farm system and trading guys at appropriate points in the pre-FA/production curve.  We have more $ than those franchises, but we fall into the same traps as richer franchises signing players to LTCs as the players age.  We need to hoard our prospects and sell off most pre-FA talents to cycle them for prospects.  Keep the payroll lower and expand it only for top talents.  Problem is this town goes nuts for the star players - even Melvin Mora was granted a meeting with the owner before being retained when he should have been traded.

[LookitsPuck]

Unless you run a damn near perfect organization with a high payroll, I'd say trading prospects during playoff runs does mortgage the future. Especially in the O's scenario where it's not just trading prospects, but also jettisoning draft picks like candy and trading 2nd/3rd tier "prospects" for players that don't move the needle.

[Hallas]

1 hour ago, hoosiers said:

I disagree vehemently with this OP.  As analytics become a more important part of baseball, the theory is that most guys who are obtained at the trade deadline usually only have marginal impact on team's ability to make the playoffs and win the WS.  It's not worth the prospect costs to make those trades IMO.  My only caveat would be in making trades that filled major injuries (like the LAD just did since Seager went down) or significant improvements (hence Milwaukee's interest in MM).

Regarding the conclusion, it is also a poor one for me - we are only netting young controllable talent for ZB and MM right now (possibly ZB).  We held on to many more players past their marketable value - Wieters, Davis, Hardy, Jones, O'Day, Brach, Tillman, JJohnson and others.  

I have posted for years that this team needs to be run more like Minnesota and Tampa Bay - over-investing in the farm system and trading guys at appropriate points in the pre-FA/production curve.  We have more $ than those franchises, but we fall into the same traps as richer franchises signing players to LTCs as the players age.  We need to hoard our prospects and sell off most pre-FA talents to cycle them for prospects.  Keep the payroll lower and expand it only for top talents.  Problem is this town goes nuts for the star players - even Melvin Mora was granted a meeting with the owner before being retained when he should have been traded.

I don’t know if I agree with the notion that deadline deals don’t have a big impact.  The marginal value of a win in a tight playoff race is absolutely not linear, and the extra win or two from adding a Manny Machado or an Andrew Miller has a pretty outsized impact on your playoff and division winning chances.  Not to mention the implications of signing a pitcher for playoff series (#1 and #2 starters play like 60% of the games in a playoff series.) 

I do agree that we need to invest more in a productive farm, but that’s a separate issue from making deadline deals in a pennant race.  If anything, if argue that our lack of farm system depth makes it harder to make impactful deadline deals because we can’t offer good prospect packages for the MLB players we are receiving.

[Santandah]

15 hours ago, weams said:

A more sensible take than many. And who cares who the "Best" teams are during the playoffs. Give me a hot and lucky one. With Relievers. 

amen to that! 

[Hallas]

5 hours ago, Cy Bundy said:

You know we are in last place right? We have little on the farm, we are the worst team in baseball, and we just traded away a very young, future hall of famer, for a guy who might be good one day.

 

We are now in the future. This is it. There seems to be a serious bit of irony in the original post. We gave away young assets in the past, and we are now the worst team in baseball. Ed Rod, Hader, Jake and two first round picks brought us back nothing. Each was a mistake. Rodriguez and Hader would be our two best trade chips today and they would bring us back much more now than they did when we dealt them. 

With the way the season has unfolded, we weren’t going to be good this season with or without those players.  We suck because Chris Davis hit like a pitcher, Trumbo was hurt, Beckham was hurt, and Cobb/Cashner have mostly pitched like dookie. On the other hand, EdRod got us Andrew Miller, whose dominant performance got us to the ALCS.  I can’t hate that trade.

Hader we didn’t see much gain for, which was disappointing.  But the idea was correct, in my opinion.

[Chromehill]

58 minutes ago, Hallas said:

With the way the season has unfolded, we weren’t going to be good this season with or without those players.  We suck because Chris Davis hit like a pitcher, Trumbo was hurt, Beckham was hurt, and Cobb/Cashner have mostly pitched like dookie. On the other hand, EdRod got us Andrew Miller, whose dominant performance got us to the ALCS.  I can’t hate that trade.

Hader we didn’t see much gain for, which was disappointing.  But the idea was correct, in my opinion.

For Hader, the O's got Bud Norris who was a big contributor to making the ALCS in 2014.  Problem was, Norris should have been traded after 2014 which would have allowed Gausman to start the year in the rotation. 

The trades I have an issue with are the Feldman and Parra trades.  In both of them, the O's gave up talent to acquire players who were not going to be difference makers for a playoff run.  One of the problems is recognizing if you are really in the playoff hunt, the O's were not in 2013 and 2015 and thus should have held, or at least if making a trade get something that will make a difference.  At least with the Norris trade in 2013, he still had 2+ years of control. 

[wildbillhiccup]

This isn't as simple as a yes or no. It really depends on your type of team. If you have unlimited resources then it's not mortgaging your future. If you don't then it might be. Is a run at a pennant worth setting the franchise back 5 - 6 years? For teams that aren't able to throw piles of money at free agents that's really the question. I'm sure teams like the Mariners, Brewers, and Braves are having those discussions right now. 

[Chromehill]

1 hour ago, wildbillhiccup said:

This isn't as simple as a yes or no. It really depends on your type of team. If you have unlimited resources then it's not mortgaging your future. If you don't then it might be. Is a run at a pennant worth setting the franchise back 5 - 6 years? For teams that aren't able to throw piles of money at free agents that's really the question. I'm sure teams like the Mariners, Brewers, and Braves are having those discussions right now. 

Agree.  Certainly the Orioles decision to make a run at the pennant this year and last year will set the franchise back many years.  However when you at it from the owner's perspective it makes sense.  If you own the team and are in your late 80's with serious health issues, you are not rebuilding. 

[24fps]

On July 21, 2018 at 1:49 PM, theocean said:

I agree. I think team success flows like the tides: a period of success, falloff, rebuild, success again.

The success and failure of baseball franchises in determined by people not nature.  How long between falloffs is the test.  In that regard I would like the Orioles to be considerably less regular than the tides.