Connolly: Elias does not have approval to take on salary to add prospects in a trade

[interloper]

2 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Because trading away Villar and Bundy were good baseball moves for the future.  So we could have used that savings to make another good baseball move for the future.  

I don't see a lot of teams tossing out their first round picks for cash. A questionable and desperate strategy to create budget room that even the Orioles haven't used. Doesn't sound like Elias was approached by the Angels to gauge interest either. 

[sportsfan8703]

Just now, interloper said:

I don't see a lot of teams tossing out their first round picks for cash. Doesn't sound like Elias was approached by the Angels to gauge interest.

We just completed a trade with the Angels, you don't think Cozart and the possibility of a better package was discussed?  

[interloper]

8 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

We just completed a trade with the Angels, you don't think Cozart and the possibility of a better package was discussed?  

I have no idea. Does Elias like the prospect? I don't think Elias wants to pay $12 million for a 2019 draft pick, mostly. Is there a chance that prospect creates $12 million worth of value at the ML level at any point? And I think that's probably a tough sell right now to ownership. "Hey I know we want to keep budget low while we rebuild, but can I have this draft pick for $12 million? He may or may not be any good." 

We just gave out our highest pitcher contract ever to Cobb and the guy makes $14 million/year sitting on the shelf. I think it's reasonable to pump the brakes on spending for a minute.

[sportsfan8703]

4 minutes ago, interloper said:

I have no idea. Does Elias like the prospect? I don't think Elias wants to pay $12 million for a 2019 draft pick, mostly. Is there a chance that prospect creates $12 million worth of value at the ML level at any point? And I think that's probably a tough sell right now to ownership. "Hey I know we want to keep budget low while we rebuild, but can I have this draft pick for $12 million? He may or may not be any good." 

We just gave out our highest pitcher contract ever to Cobb and the guy makes $14 million/year sitting on the shelf. I think it's reasonable to pump the brakes on spending for a minute.

Everyone always complains that the local beat writers are too easy on the O's FO.  Well here is Connelly telling us that Elias doesn't have permission to do something he may have wanted to do, and everyone quickly dismisses the writer.  

[interloper]

Just now, sportsfan8703 said:

Everyone always complains that the local beat writers are too easy on the O's FO.  Well here is Connelly telling us that Elias doesn't have permission to do something he may have wanted to do, and everyone quickly dismisses the writer.  

It's been a weird trend from Connolly, who has seemed anti-Elias from the jump. There's nothing to call out here. It's a total non-story. In no way do we know that "he may have wanted to". That's not stated in the article, and it wasn't stated by Elias.

[sportsfan8703]

2 minutes ago, interloper said:

It's been a weird trend from Connolly, who has seemed anti-Elias from the jump. There's nothing to call out here. It's a total non-story. In no way do we know that "he may have wanted to". That's not stated in the article, and it wasn't stated by Elias.

How is it anti-Elias?  He's saying Elias can't do what he wants.  That's not anti-Elias.  That's just reporting about ownership.

Edited December 11, 2019 by sportsfan8703

[Mr. Chewbacca Jr.]

26 minutes ago, interloper said:

The fact that anyone thinks Elias "can't do things his way" when he literally created the international scouting and analytics departments out of thin air, hired a ton of his own people, traded for prospects he himself hand-picked, and handled the 2018 draft almost completely by himself because he wanted to is really stretching. 

Would he like to cut Davis? Yeah probably! But you can't just ignore the mountain of other stuff he has accomplished as he himself designed it to be accomplished. 

I read the article and I think it's pretty speculative. It totally makes sense that Elias would at least have to check with his bosses to make sure its okay to add $12 million to payroll just to buy a prospect. Same thing with Davis, they still owe him $90+ million, they aren't going to compete anyway - so might as well do your due diligence to see if you can get something out of him.

If anything, the bad move here is Billy Eppler having to give away a first round pick because he gave a crappy contract to a crappy player.

[interloper]

2 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

How is it anti-Elias?  He's saying Elias can't do what he wants.  That's not anti-Elias.  That's just reporting about ownership.

We don't know if he wanted to!

[Mr. Chewbacca Jr.]

1 minute ago, sportsfan8703 said:

How is it anti-Elias?  He's saying Elias can't do what he wants.  That's not anti-Elias.  That's just reporting about ownership.

I wouldn't really say the article is reporting, it's more editorial-ish. His only "source" is that he heard that Elias instructed scouts to look into poorly performing players with expensive contracts to see if they had something left in the tank. He doesn't have anyone on record saying Elias can't do what he wants. He doesn't have anyone on record saying Elias wanted to trade for Cozart.

Quite honestly, Dan Connely has seemed like he's had a bit of an anti-Elias angle ever since he fired a bunch of longtime Orioles employees.

[interloper]

You're acting as if Connolly knows that Elias went to get approval for this trade and got turned down. That almost certainly isn't the case. Either way, we don't know. It's one trade. Elias has specific taste and data that support who they target for prospects. 

[interloper]

1 minute ago, Mr. Chewbacca Jr. said:

I wouldn't really say the article is reporting, it's more editorial-ish. His only "source" is that he heard that Elias instructed scouts to look into poorly performing players with expensive contracts to see if they had something left in the tank. He doesn't have anyone on record saying Elias can't do what he wants. He doesn't have anyone on record saying Elias wanted to trade for Cozart.

Quite honestly, Dan Connely has seemed like he's had a bit of an anti-Elias angle ever since he fired a bunch of longtime Orioles employees.

Bingo. It's VERY clear that it happened around that time. Where's the Connolly article about how many jobs Elias has created in the organization? It's bias and I've come to expect much better from Connolly as a journalist. It's been disappointing.

[sportsfan8703]

12 minutes ago, interloper said:

Bingo. It's VERY clear that it happened around that time. Where's the Connolly article about how many jobs Elias has created in the organization? It's bias and I've come to expect much better from Connolly as a journalist. It's been disappointing.

Roch is a puppet.  Connolly is biased.  Seems awfully convenient. 

[Philip]

10 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Roch is a puppet.  Connolly is biased.  Seems awfully convenient. 

Correct. That’s why I am here every day.

[Philip]

Meanwhile, it’s important to consider the main goal going forward, and that is to rethink how much a player is worth. Mike is creating a huge farm system with lots and lots of worthwhile pieces so that he doesn’t ever have to sign someone to a huge contract. When you have ten worthwhile LHP prospects, you don’t have to go out and sign one high-dollar one. And when you trade Bundy, it’s better to get four young possibilities than one right-now probability.

Going forward Mike wants a true pipeline, where he can trade a valuable guy when his arbitration salary gets high, and shuffle in the next guy. He’ll NEVER pay for Rondon or Cole or Stanton because he won’t need to, but also because it’s a bad idea. The Padres will never be anything, except expensive.

A team that wins 90 a year and always makes the playoffs is a good team, and that’s our goal. With the road between system and Show being long enough and wide enough, we won’t need to worry about high-priced FAs.

 

[Just Regular]

1 hour ago, sportsfan8703 said:

We just completed a trade with the Angels, you don't think Cozart and the possibility of a better package was discussed?  

I could imagine it might not have been.  I can't say it's impossible this wasn't a Gerrit Cole bubble that all happened in a 48-hour window once the Strasburg benchmark forced the Angels to re-evaluate/increase what they thought would be a ballpark Cole bid.   It would have been nice to have the Giants certainty that "we're rich enough for this" to be Johnny on the spot and have the benefit of dealing with Eppler under duress.