Trying to Salvage a Game (vs. D-RAYS, 7/03)

[Sessh]

13 hours ago, Philip said:

This season, Joey was at -0.1WAR. Broxton is -0.8.

Broxton WRC is THIRTY-TWO(32)

Joey’s is 73.

Neither is the Risen Savior, but Joey is better. It’s somewhat disingenuous to talk about career totals, because two years ago doesn’t matter. Not only is Joey better now? Joey makes contact, which means he makes things happen.

Joey has 2DRS, Broxton has 1DRS.

Even if Broxton has a better arm, overall, Joey is better. It’s moot now, but Broxton makes the team weaker and offers nothing.

Wasn't my intent to be disingenuous, but you're making the argument that we never should have taken a chance on him at all and I don't see any basis for wasting another year on Rickard when we could be taking a flier on Broxton. Also, again, the point of this season is not winning games or putting together a strong team. Winning is not a priority. It's beneficial to this rebuild to NOT win right now, so while I agree that Broxton is bad and isn't working out, he is still helping us achieve our immediate goals. Any way you look at this, it's not bad for the Orioles.

Rickard was definitely not a part of the future plans. Definitely. That's the only thing that matters and letting him go is part of us moving forward to new things some of which will not work out. Things not working out means we get a higher draft choice and that is the goal, not winning games or worrying about who is going to make things happen in the near term.

[Philip]

52 minutes ago, Sessh said:

Wasn't my intent to be disingenuous, but you're making the argument that we never should have taken a chance on him at all and I don't see any basis for wasting another year on Rickard when we could be taking a flier on Broxton. Also, again, the point of this season is not winning games or putting together a strong team. Winning is not a priority. It's beneficial to this rebuild to NOT win right now, so while I agree that Broxton is bad and isn't working out, he is still helping us achieve our immediate goals. Any way you look at this, it's not bad for the Orioles.

Rickard was definitely not a part of the future plans. Definitely. That's the only thing that matters and letting him go is part of us moving forward to new things some of which will not work out. Things not working out means we get a higher draft choice and that is the goal, not winning games or worrying about who is going to make things happen in the near term.

Again, I don’t deny anything you said, and I don’t have a problem with getting rid of Joey(Although I liked him a lot) But there was no reason to think that Broxton would be worth having. There was nothing in his performance to suggest that suddenly he was going to improve. Logically they only got him because he is fast and provides good defense. Joey is also fast and provides good defense: not quite as fast and perhaps not quite as good, but always head in the game, almost no dumb mistakes, and his much better offense More than compensates for the difference.

If you want to get rid of Joey, sure, but don’t replace him with Broxton. That’s a step down.

[Sessh]

1 hour ago, Philip said:

If you want to get rid of Joey, sure, but don’t replace him with Broxton. That’s a step down.

No, it wasn't Rickard has struggles his whole career to keep his OPS above .700. He never had a season where he had an OPS+ of average or better and he never had a season where he put up even 1 WAR. Broxton did it twice (2.1 and 1.6) and had one season with a 107 OPS+ with a .784 OPS only three seasons ago as a rookie, then hit 20HR the next season. Saying he was a step down is just simply wrong. Even if it is a long shot, at least Broxton had something to potentially bounce back to and had far more impressive tools than Rickard. It was in no way a step down.

[Sessh]

... and yes, I know in hindsight, one can sit here and say we should have never done it, but it was a risk worth taking. We got him for practically nothing. It was a lottery ticket which is what any acquisition would have been. Taking a flier on him was not a bad move. Anyway, agree to disagree. Lottery tickets are usually losers, but sometimes you can hit big. Right now, trying to hit the lottery is just what we're doing to some degree. It won't be like this in 3-4 years and if it is, something has gone terribly wrong.