Connolly/Elias interview: Dominican facility upgrades, etc

[interloper]

2 minutes ago, atomic said:

They haven't spent money to upgrade the facilities. They are talking nickle and dime stuff and they still will have the worst facility in DR in baseball. If they announce they are spending 5 million dollars plus on a new facility that is spending. Installing trackman to the worst facility in baseball? Give me a freaking break.  That is $30,000.  

Ok, well, we'll just have to see I guess. In the meantime, there's a million other things in this interview that are interesting. I should have made the thread title something else in hindsight. 

[TonySoprano]

5 minutes ago, atomic said:

.  I think Elias isn't allowed to spend the money by ownership. 

That makes no sense. Why allow Dan to acquire it then?  I’m going to give the sons the benefit of the doubt that they learned from their father’s many mistakes. In the case of the DR, for example

Do you believe you have the financial support from the organization to make significant changes?

Yeah. We know that this is going to be critical to our success going forward. So, whatever we need to do, I’m pretty confident we’ll be able to do it.

[interloper]

41 minutes ago, TonySoprano said:

I was going to post from this interview as well.  Elias confirms again there won’t be any multi-year deals signed.  When asked about Brady’s role, Mike talks about his value with team nutrition and strength and training.

Sounds like he may have found a role for Brady. That is, his original and best role.

[LTO's]

5 minutes ago, atomic said:

They haven't spent money to upgrade the facilities. They are talking nickle and dime stuff and they still will have the worst facility in DR in baseball. If they announce they are spending 5 million dollars plus on a new facility that is spending. Installing trackman to the worst facility in baseball? Give me a freaking break.  That is $30,000.  

Let the Marlins burn millions of dollars on low upside organizational filler type prospects in an already completely picked over market. Seems like a horrible way to do business. You seriously can't be advocating for overpaying any of these players left. There's a reason none of the actually well-run orgs are going to do that.

[TonySoprano]

13 minutes ago, interloper said:

Sounds like he may have found a role for Brady. That is, his original and best role.

Not exactly what one would assign to the title of VP, Baseball Operations.  It’s more like he should be the store manager of a GNC or run a health club, instead of a 7-figure salary job. He was pretty vague beyond that as to what use is Brady in the Front Office 

[atomic]

17 minutes ago, LTO's said:

Let the Marlins burn millions of dollars on low upside organizational filler type prospects in an already completely picked over market. Seems like a horrible way to do business. You seriously can't be advocating for overpaying any of these players left. There's a reason none of the actually well-run orgs are going to do that.

They are looking at signing Sanchez most likely and they have already signed the Mesa brothers after the completely picked over market.  I am not sure why you are defending the Orioles without any thought.  

[TonySoprano]

11 minutes ago, LTO's said:

Let the Marlins burn millions of dollars on low upside organizational filler type prospects in an already completely picked over market. Seems like a horrible way to do business. You seriously can't be advocating for overpaying any of these players left. There's a reason none of the actually well-run orgs are going to do that.

Might as well directly trade them some of our unused funds then since they already have some indirectly from the Phillies. 

[Moose Milligan]

Elias is the man.   Very positive stuff.

[interloper]

12 minutes ago, TonySoprano said:

Not exactly what one would assign to the title of VP, Baseball Operations.  It’s more like he should be the store manager of a GNC or run a health club, instead of a 7-figure salary job. He was pretty vague beyond that as to what use is Brady in the Front Office 

I have to think that title will eventually change. It seems to me that his role has been reduced. We hear a lot about Brad and Kent doing things. Chris Holt. Koby. This marks the first specific thing Elias has said about Brady, and you're right, it does not sound like a VP. 

[DrungoHazewood]

36 minutes ago, interloper said:

"We don’t have a weaponized model for high school statistics"

The man has a way with words.

Modeling with high school statistics has to be difficult and of limited value.  The spread in talent is vast.  You'll see 14-year-olds with 58 mph fastballs facing guys who'll be in the Sally League next year.  Throw in short seasons, small samples, bad weather, bad field conditions... I'd be awfully tempted to just not try, and completely rely on scouts.

[SteveA]

23 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Modeling with high school statistics has to be difficult and of limited value.  The spread in talent is vast.  You'll see 14-year-olds with 58 mph fastballs facing guys who'll be in the Sally League next year.  Throw in short seasons, small samples, bad weather, bad field conditions... I'd be awfully tempted to just not try, and completely rely on scouts.

But maybe it could be done to some extent at the highest levels.   The top schools/leagues in the warm weather states that produce the most prospects.

I'll bet that if you chose the right 10% of the high schools in the US, you might find that 10% produces 40-50% of the guys that get drafted out of HS.

[LTO's]

45 minutes ago, atomic said:

They are looking at signing Sanchez most likely and they have already signed the Mesa brothers after the completely picked over market.  I am not sure why you are defending the Orioles without any thought.  

The Mesa brothers, only one of which is an actual prospect, are gone. They are of no importance to what's left on the market. How much do you think the Orioles should spend on Sanchez? If you think they should spend the majority of what they have then I'm thankful you are not running things. Outside of him, there's nothing left. Elias in his Q&A said teams aren't expecting any other Cubans to hit the market this cycle. So the O's currently have 6 MM, Sanchez is worth around 2MM. What would you suggest they do with the 4 MM they'd have left? I'd much rather see them fix their facilities/begin to have a presence in VZ. There simply aren't any players left worth spending the money on. You can criticize the previous regime but it seems like spilled milk at this point.

[Luke-OH]

38 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Modeling with high school statistics has to be difficult and of limited value.  The spread in talent is vast.  You'll see 14-year-olds with 58 mph fastballs facing guys who'll be in the Sally League next year.  Throw in short seasons, small samples, bad weather, bad field conditions... I'd be awfully tempted to just not try, and completely rely on scouts.

I imagine the statistics they do look at are things like height, weight, age, 60 time, velocity, spin rate, exit velocity, bat speed.

If they have the player in for a workout, they can have high velocity BP work or live ABs. Then they can get more robust data with average EV, max EV, and launch angle distribution as well as bat speed and bat path data for hitters. 

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, atomic said:

They haven't spent money to upgrade the facilities. They are talking nickle and dime stuff and they still will have the worst facility in DR in baseball. If they announce they are spending 5 million dollars plus on a new facility that is spending. Installing trackman to the worst facility in baseball? Give me a freaking break.  That is $30,000.  

Speak the truth.  If Elias wasn't a tool of the pennypinching Angelos regime he would have showed up the first day with a whole new Dominican facility in 47 Conex boxes and the entire thing would have been set up and running before Christmas.  If you can't completely overhaul a neglected and blighted farm system in 11 weeks then why are you even here?  If the O's don't have a top-10  system by March 31st I have to think Elias is seriously on the hot seat.  Or would be if the organization wasn't completely morally bankrupt.

[DrungoHazewood]

4 minutes ago, Luke-OH said:

I imagine the statistics they do look at are things like height, weight, age, 60 time, velocity, spin rate, exit velocity, bat speed.

If they have the player in for a workout, they can have high velocity BP work or live ABs. Then they can get more robust data with average EV, max EV, and launch angle distribution as well as bat speed and bat path data for hitters. 

Right, more biometrics than in-game performance data.  I could certainly see the usefulness there.  I almost see that more as scouting than statistics.