Hard to keep Hays out of this lineup

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, Going Underground said:

I think the Yankees did it last year with Andujar. I am sure I can find others with those teams.

He was up in 2017 and has 1.020 years service time.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/andujmi01.shtml

[Spl51]

7 minutes ago, theocean said:

It's pretty ridiculous that Elias & Co couldn't put together a better Opening Day roster than what they have - especially given how favorably free agency went for teams and their payrolls. The O's are straight up tanking, trying to spend as little money as possible, keeping service time down for any possible contributor, and are perfectly happy playing some pretty terrible baseball. 

Which is fine, whatever. It's a strategy. It'll probably work. But, in five or six years when they finally have a decent team on the field - I'm not so sure I'm really going to care about the O's like I normally have. I love baseball - but I just straight up don't even care this year. I have tickets to Opening Day and every time I see it marked on my calendar, it just feels like an annoying obligation I have to do. If I'm checked out all year, do I ever come back like I used to? Is that even a bad thing? Would picking up fishing be a far more fulfilling use of my time than fanatically rooting for a corporation and their millionaire employees?

I'm sure someone will respond to this thinking they are clever by posting a picture of the Astros in the playoffs or something - and I'm sure I wouldn't completely ignore the O's in the playoffs if they ever make it again. But, that doesn't mean I'm going to be anywhere near the level of fan I used to be. It doesn't mean that I'm going to bother keeping MASN or go to any games. It doesn't mean I'm going to be talking to friends or relatives about the O's. It doesn't mean that I'm going to be that active in trying to indoctrinate my kids with O's fandom.

And I've been a pretty diehard fan my entire life. How are the fans who came to the O's between 2012-2016 feeling? You know, the ones that actually fill the seats.

So the 2-3 seasons of bad baseball you will have to watch is not worth a new generation of Orioles fans that will potentially see the first world series in Baltimore in 40 years? I just think it's a lot of entitlement.

[atomic]

 

5 minutes ago, Spl51 said:

So the 2-3 seasons of bad baseball you will have to watch is not worth a new generation of Orioles fans that will potentially see the first world series in Baltimore in 40 years? I just think it's a lot of entitlement.

LOL.  There is no gurantee that this is a winning strategy.  Remember Elias totally missed on two #1 overalls picks back to back.  That is pretty hard to do but he managed it.  I think the team needs new ownership to be successful going forward.  I don't want to see the team be a joke for the next 3 years.  And people saying it is a good strategy are probably not going to want to watch the team.  The next generation doesn't even care about baseball in Baltimore.  

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, RZNJ said:

Great examples. 2 of the 3 regularly are two of the highest revenue and payroll teams in the sport.

The poster I was replying to used the word "all".  Are you saying they meant to use the word "some"? 

[interloper]

Also Elias never really said "we're having a strict competition and whoever puts up numbers makes the team". That's never been said. Hyde always just said it's going to be a lot of young guys competing and that's very much true.

[El Gordo]

There may be no crying in baseball but there sure is a lot of it on baseball message boards.

[LocoChris]

1 hour ago, interloper said:

Corn getting his undies in a bunch about being "lied to" after some guys put up good ST numbers. 

You wanted a GM who understands how to bring prospects along properly. You know these guys will be up soon again. You know there are legit competitions this spring at C, SP, RP, and MI still at play. And yet this amounts to being lied to.

Wow.

 

Was talking about atomic lol

[atomic]

7 minutes ago, interloper said:

Also Elias never really said "we're having a strict competition and whoever puts up numbers makes the team". That's never been said. Hyde always just said it's going to be a lot of young guys competing and that's very much true.

I guess it depends on what you consider young. If you consider ages 27 to 29 young than you might have a point.  But I don't think the rest of baseball would think that was young.

[theocean]

17 minutes ago, Spl51 said:

So the 2-3 seasons of bad baseball you will have to watch is not worth a new generation of Orioles fans that will potentially see the first world series in Baltimore in 40 years? I just think it's a lot of entitlement.

I think there's plenty of middle ground between not fielding a AAA team and putting a semi-capable team on the field. I'm not advocating signing Harper or something, but it'd be nice if the right side of our infield had more than 292 career at-bats combined. With Free Agency the way it was this year, that could have been done for very little money - and without impacting the rebuild.

I've never seen an Orioles World Series either. And no entitlement here, I'm not expecting anything. Just expressing my opinion. And my opinion is I don't know how interested I'll be after a bunch of tanking - and I wonder what the state of the Orioles fanbase will be after it.

 

[DrungoHazewood]

35 minutes ago, Rene88 said:

Service time. Why anyone is surprised about this is beyond me. The goal is to be bad and showcase tradable pieces.

No one is surprised.  Few think they shouldn't be doing this given the current rules. 

What a lot of us are saying is that a professional sport shouldn't have incentives to tank.  There should be downsides to winning 55 games instead of 75.  Now all the downsides are with 75 wins, with the exception of a small, almost trivial level of fan interest that's higher with 75 wins.

[interloper]

10 minutes ago, El Gordo said:

There may be no crying in baseball but there sure is a lot of it on baseball message boards.

I've never seen people get so bent out of shape about a ST roster cut. People taking "competition" extremely literally. I'm happy someone is taking a hard line on both prospect development and the meaninglessness of ST stats. We were never promised a strict competition for all positions. That's an incorrect and misguided perception of what was actually said. If you were thinking that this whole time, that's on you.

[El Gordo]

8 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Just pointing out the obvious to you as to why some teams do it and others don't need to.   When the poster said all teams do it I think most of us get it and don't have to get so literal and pick just for the sake of picking.  

[Can_of_corn]

12 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Just pointing out the obvious to you as to why some teams do it and others don't need to.   When the poster said all teams do it I think most of us get it and don't have to get so literal and pick just for the sake of picking.  

I think that when someone says "all the teams do it" an attempt is being made to rationalize the action.  Such rationalization falls flat when you say "We aren't the only team that is doing it.".

This wasn't an attempt to nitpick, it was an attempt to show that acting in such a fashion isn't mandatory for teams.  The O's didn't feel a need to do this with Schoop or Markakis and I don't think the organization was hurt.  They felt a need to do it with Wieters and I don't think the organization was helped.

[LTO's]

56 minutes ago, atomic said:

He played half a season last year.  Just admit if he made the team you would be praising the decision just as much. 

Sure. He played half a season last year. And he was terrible. Nowhere near good enough to earn a call up to the big leagues. What point are you trying to make? Your case for him breaking camp with the O's is because of the spring training stats from 40 ABs against minor leaguers. Just admit it. You don't know how to run a baseball team.

[DrungoHazewood]

35 minutes ago, atomic said:

 

LOL.  There is no gurantee that this is a winning strategy.  Remember Elias totally missed on two #1 overalls picks back to back.  That is pretty hard to do but he managed it.  I think the team needs new ownership to be successful going forward.  I don't want to see the team be a joke for the next 3 years.  And people saying it is a good strategy are probably not going to want to watch the team.  The next generation doesn't even care about baseball in Baltimore.  

There's no guarantees in life, but under the current structure this is a way to increase the odds of long-term success.  Nobody likes fielding a terrible team for years.  But that's where the incentives are.  Yes, they should change the rules so that teams want to win 75 or 80 instead of 55 or 60.  But until that's reality teams will do what makes the most sense for the long-term health of the franchise: tanking.

There is another option: have an entrenched monopoly in a massive media and population center, so you have the revenues that you don't ever have to make a choice between building for the future and short-term success.  So if you've got a time machine and can alter reality so that Baltimore becomes a thriving megalopolis with a 100-year history of baseball dynasty... please, go fix this.