What do you want from this rebuild?

[Legend_Of_Joey]

We know this is going to be a cold, soulless, "screw the fans" process.

But what is "acceptable" for the end result?

World Series champions?

Playoff contenders every year Elias is here after the "rebuild" is done?

Fighting for first in the East, even if they fall short a few times?

.500 or better and you are happy? 

Anything in between? 

[Can_of_corn]

I don't feel screwed.  I felt more screwed in the 2000's when they were spending shortsightedly trying to get to .500.

[Luke-OH]

9 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I don't feel screwed.  I felt more screwed in the 2000's when they were spending shortsightedly trying to get to .500.

Yes, that felt hopeless, rudderless.

[maybenxtyr]

10 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I don't feel screwed.  I felt more screwed in the 2000's when they were spending shortsightedly trying to get to .500.

Exactly. 

A quality team would make me happy. 

 

[MurphDogg]

Being watchable for the next couple years with young interesting players, being competitive for at least 5 years after that. I don't care much about World Series wins. Baseball is a long season and playoffs are a crap shoot. I want to enjoy the season.

[sportsfan8703]

14 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I don't feel screwed.  I felt more screwed in the 2000's when they were spending shortsightedly trying to get to .500.

Like I said in another thread, Miami trading for Villar was something the 2000's O's would've done.  

[Going Underground]

Hopefully it works out because having another 10 to 13 year losing streak would finish this team.Having four years of winning baseball in 30 years would clear out all the fans .

[Frobby]

I’d like a team that can seriously contend for a championship and is capable of being a winning team on a sustained basis, not just a team that every two decades can push its chips to the middle of a table for a 3-4 year period and produce a couple playoff teams and then have to be terrible for a while.    

The fact is, we play in a very good division.    It’s not realistic to think we’ll dominate that division all the time, even if we are very well run.    But we should go into every season thinking we can contend, and have years where things go our way and we make a deep playoff run.    
 

[Philip]

Progress. But it has to be caring progress.  Talking about meaningless “cosmetic victories” or “winning isn’t the priority “ is bad. We don’t care about wins?

lemme tell you, Mike, 56 is better than 55, and if you can get guys who can get 56, who are fun to watch, who don’t disrupt your almighty plan, you do it, because talking otherwise is insulting.

And you CAN win more games without ruining the future. Keeping Davis is insulting. Quibbling over insignificant salary is insulting. I’m not suggesting we duplicate any of our previous idiotic moves: no Jiminez contracts, no trading draft picks to save salary, no trading good prospects for bad players, and so on. We aren’t going to do any of that because the new leadership is smart.

But we can get better without  spoiling the plan.

Mike is ignoring that, and saying,” I don’t give a damn about wins because they don’t mean anything right now.”

on the contrary, they mean a lot.

[7Mo]

I'd be happy with an end result of a very bright front office and organization, comparable to the Rays, yet with a top half of the league budget that allows a team to extend the right guys instead of having to trade for budget reasons. An organization known for player development and smart evaluations. 

To me, that would be a top 3 in the East team, sometimes winning the division, sometimes finishing third, which would give a chance for a long playoff run sometimes.

The Rays with a decent budget. Not a team that signs big name free agents, or a team that winds up with burdensome contracts that don't perform.

[Frobby]

4 minutes ago, Philip said:

Progress. But it has to be caring progress.  Talking about meaningless “cosmetic victories” or “winning isn’t the priority “ is bad. We don’t care about wins?

lemme tell you, Mike, 56 is better than 55, and if you can get guys who can get 56, who are fun to watch, who don’t disrupt your almighty plan, you do it, because talking otherwise is insulting.

And you CAN win more games without ruining the future. Keeping Davis is insulting. Quibbling over insignificant salary is insulting. I’m not suggesting we duplicate any of our previous idiotic moves: no Jiminez contracts, no trading draft picks to save salary, no trading good prospects for bad players, and so on. We aren’t going to do any of that because the new leadership is smart.

But we can get better without  spoiling the plan.

Mike is ignoring that, and saying,” I don’t give a damn about wins because they don’t mean anything right now.”

on the contrary, they mean a lot.

Just to be clear, Elias has not used the term “cosmetic victories” that you put in quotes.    Those are your words, not his, right?    

I like winning.    I liked winning 54 games better than I liked winning 47 games, because that was 7 more times that I went to bed happy.     So I wouldn’t call those wins “cosmetic” or “meaningless.”

But at the same time, it’s just a fact that this team won’t be ready to contend for a couple of years at least, and that it should focus it’s resources on getting to that time as soon as possible and being ready to capitalize when that time arrives.    I’d much rather suffer a few sub-60 win seasons than a 14-year string of 63 - 79 win seasons.     From my point of view, just do what it takes, so long as we come out the other side with a team we can be proud of for a long time.   
 

[JR Oriole]

Winning a World Series once.  It has been 36 years and counting since we even appeared in one, let alone won it.  Just one time, being the last team standing at the end.  It should not be too much to ask after all of this time. 

[sportsfan8703]

I'd like to see us nab the two stud pitchers in back to back drafts.  Hancock and Rocker.  

[El Gordo]

55 minutes ago, Legend_Of_Joey said:

We know this is going to be a cold, soulless, "screw the fans" process.

But what is "acceptable" for the end result?

World Series champions?

Playoff contenders every year Elias is here after the "rebuild" is done?

Fighting for first in the East, even if they fall short a few times?

.500 or better and you are happy? 

Anything in between? 

Playoff contenders every year Elias is here after the "rebuild" is done.

[wildbillhiccup]

1 hour ago, Legend_Of_Joey said:

We know this is going to be a cold, soulless, "screw the fans" process.

But what is "acceptable" for the end result?

World Series champions?

Playoff contenders every year Elias is here after the "rebuild" is done?

Fighting for first in the East, even if they fall short a few times?

.500 or better and you are happy? 

Anything in between? 

I'm not naive enough to think we'll contend every year, but I want sustained success. And barring unforeseen circumstances for this to the lowest low...ever.