There Are Rumblings That the O's Will Not Take Rutschman

[Frobby]

9 hours ago, Philip said:

Who is? I’m not sure whether Grenier was the best pick, because  he’s a glove-first guy, but he was touted for his excellent defense.

regardless, there’s no reason to pick Witt over AR. Even if you want to Argue Hall or Carmona( who is what, 18 now?) over Grenier, the fact is we HAVE them.

We got NOBODY at catcher save Sisco and some stopgaps, and the jury is still out on all aspects of Sisco’s game.

Ergo, AR is a no-brainer.

Sisco is more likely to be a decent major league starting catcher than any of our shortstops are to be a decent major league starting SS.   And I don’t say that because I’m in love with Sisco.    The game gets harder as you move up the ladder and Sisco has had success at every level of the minors, was a top 100 prospect a few times and has played in the majors and is still young.    None of our shortstops has ever been considered a top 100 prospect and they are playing at much lower levels of the minors at this point so there’s no saying how they’ll progress as they move up.   

By the way, I don’t think any of this should be a consideration in choosing Rutschman or Witt.    Need shouldn’t be a factor here.

[TINSTAAPP]

25 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

There's a lot of hyperbole and false confidence.  Remember 2008 when Tim Beckham, Pedro Alvarez, Eric Hosmer, and Brian Matusz were all drafted ahead of Posey and most everyone thought all of that was reasonable?

Weren't there rumors that the Orioles were very high on Posey and were strongly considering drafting him even with Wieters in the system? Posey probably would have been an Oriole if they hadn't drafted Wieters the previous year. 

[DrungoHazewood]

Just now, Frobby said:

No he doesn’t.   Matusz ranks 25th in WAR among the 54 players chosen at no. 4.    They could have done much worse.    Heck, they got less from Loewen at no. 4 than they did from Matusz.   

It's the draft.  If you're not in the top 5% you've failed in the eyes of the fans and the chattering classes.  It's like championships.  You win 97 games and make it to the ALCS and lose: fail. 

About one-third of players selected at 1:1 have ended up with 5 WAR or less careers.  We all hope whomever they pick will be great, but there's about a 80-90% chance he's not going to be Buster Posey.

[Riggodrill44]

I'm not a scout, so i'm not sweating who we draft. I like to look at the big picture and find 4-5 3.0 war players from this draft.

[TheOtherRipken]

30 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

There's a lot of hyperbole and false confidence.  Remember 2008 when Tim Beckham, Pedro Alvarez, Eric Hosmer, and Brian Matusz were all drafted ahead of Posey and most everyone thought all of that was reasonable?

Posey was also a late climber that year - if I remember correctly he shot up the rankings very last minute and was slated to go much later. MLB draft only has hyperbole for ratings, its the biggest crapshoot of any major sport.

[Frobby]

11 hours ago, jrobb21613 said:

I think for me personally I’m more excited about watching a stud ss for years to come than I am a catcher. 

I just want to see a stud somewhere.    Doesn’t matter the position they play.    Just get me a guy capable of being the best player on his team.   

[interloper]

I keep thinking back to the winter when Elias said he was losing sleep trying to figure out SS/infield options. And he proceeded to claim a million infielders and select one in the Rule 5 draft. That has always made me wonder if he prefers Witt in this draft to get some semblance of MIF talent in the organization. 

[DrungoHazewood]

9 minutes ago, interloper said:

I have faith in whatever they choose to do. No reason not to. We know nothing. 

We know something.  The Orioles' staff knows more, but they're just weighing farily long odds with more knowledge than we have.

The error margins here are so large that an auto-draft would be largely indistinguishable from an average team's draft.  I'd bet that if some mid-draft team, say the Angels, took Baseball America's list of the top 500 draftees and just selected the highest-ranked guy remaining on the board (and picked random draft-eligible players when that ran out) no one would have the slighest inkling and it would be completely non-controversial.

Each team probably spends thousands of man-hours preparing for the draft, but getting only very marginal gains from picking off published rankings.  Especially in rounds 5+ where a lot (most?) teams get zero MLB value most years.

[wildbillhiccup]

13 hours ago, LTO's said:

"High-level scouts from two different teams picking later in the first round were insistent that Baltimore is not planning on taking Rutschman." Names that appear as considerations are JJ Bleday, Andrew Vaughn and Bobby Witt Jr.

If they don't take Rutschman it will speak volumes as to how long they expect the rebuild to take. At least five more years of suck.  

[interloper]

Just now, DrungoHazewood said:

We know something.  The Orioles' staff knows more, but they're just weighing farily long odds with more knowledge than we have.

The error margins here are so large that an auto-draft would be largely indistinguishable from an average team's draft.  I'd bet that if some mid-draft team, say the Angels, took Baseball America's list of the top 500 draftees and just selected the highest-ranked guy remaining on the board (and picked random draft-eligible players when that ran out) no one would have the slighest inkling and it would be completely non-controversial.

Each team probably spends thousands of man-hours preparing for the draft, but getting only very marginal gains from picking off published rankings.  Especially in rounds 5+ where a lot (most?) teams get zero MLB value most years.

Sure. But I mean the amount of extremely particular knowledge that results in a decision to select any of the top 4 guys is something we're just not privy to. And each guy is enormously talented so it's pretty impossible to be intellectually honest with ourselves if we're disliking whatever selection they make. Unless it's far and away a silly pick. 

[OregonBird]

My friend teaches HS math with ARs mom.  I texted her to see if Mrs R is giving any “tells”.

I really hope it’s Adley.

[wildbillhiccup]

10 minutes ago, interloper said:

I keep thinking back to the winter when Elias said he was losing sleep trying to figure out SS/infield options. And he proceeded to claim a million infielders and select one in the Rule 5 draft. That has always made me wonder if he prefers Witt in this draft to get some semblance of MIF talent in the organization. 

If I were him I'd be losing more sleep about our pitching pipeline. SS is one position. If they develop talent it can be addressed via trade or free agent signing. You can't address an entire starting rotation the same way. I don't want to see them get cute with this pick. Draft Rutschman and sort the rest out in the later rounds. 

[wildbillhiccup]

13 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

We know something.  The Orioles' staff knows more, but they're just weighing farily long odds with more knowledge than we have.

The error margins here are so large that an auto-draft would be largely indistinguishable from an average team's draft.  I'd bet that if some mid-draft team, say the Angels, took Baseball America's list of the top 500 draftees and just selected the highest-ranked guy remaining on the board (and picked random draft-eligible players when that ran out) no one would have the slighest inkling and it would be completely non-controversial.

Each team probably spends thousands of man-hours preparing for the draft, but getting only very marginal gains from picking off published rankings.  Especially in rounds 5+ where a lot (most?) teams get zero MLB value most years.

I feel like this logic applies much more in the later rounds. We've all seen clips / footage of the potential #1 picks. I'm not claiming to be as baseball savvy as a scout, but it's pretty clear that Rutchsman is the best player in the draft and it doesn't really seem that close. 

[DrungoHazewood]

12 minutes ago, TheOtherRipken said:

Posey was also a late climber that year - if I remember correctly he shot up the rankings very last minute and was slated to go much later. MLB draft only has hyperbole for ratings, its the biggest crapshoot of any major sport.

Baseball is the only sport that doesn't pawn off development to colleges or unaffiliated lower level leagues, or regularly allow teenagers to hang out on the active roster.  Hockey does it a little, but not to the same extent.

Soccer signs kids at ridiculously young ages, but there are thousands of teams at every possible level.  If your 15-year-old wonderkind flames out at 19 you just sell him to a Nottingham Forest and whatevers.  MLB's problem is they've taken responsbility for everyone needing another two, three, five years of development, so the failures are all theirs and the costs are sunk.

[DrungoHazewood]

Just now, wildbillhiccup said:

I feel like this logic applies much more in the later rounds. We've all seen clips / footage of the potential #1 picks. I'm not claiming to be as baseball savvy as a scout, but it's pretty clear that Rutchsman is the best player in the draft and it doesn't really seem that close. 

So if the O's were secretly going off BA's list, they'd take Rutschman first and no one would be any wiser.