If only Elias hadn't traded the 11th best player in baseball (Bundy) for next to nothing

[Frobby]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Sorry, should have been using the green font for that one.  My apologies.

No, I knew what you were doing.   Just had a few points I wanted to get out there.   

[Sports Guy]

SSS alert

[Camden_yardbird]

Yaz and Bundy really do feel like Elias came in and felt like he had some abandoned assets that he had to get whatever he could for.  

He also got less for Villar than the marlins did.  That said his deadline deals looked a lot better so maybe he needed to get his trading legs underneath him.

[Roll Tide]

2 minutes ago, Camden_yardbird said:

Yaz and Bundy really do feel like Elias came in and felt like he had some abandoned assets that he had to get whatever he could for.  

He also got less for Villar than the marlins did.  That said his deadline deals looked a lot better so maybe he needed to get his trading legs underneath him.

Really? The only deal that looks good so far is the Givens trade. None of the others are clear yet and the 1 for 1+ Castro deal traded a major league reliever for what could be a fringe 5th starter or AAAA.  Smith has some upside but I’m sure he’s a productive back end rotation guy at best.

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, Camden_yardbird said:

Yaz and Bundy really do feel like Elias came in and felt like he had some abandoned assets that he had to get whatever he could for.  

He also got less for Villar than the marlins did.  That said his deadline deals looked a lot better so maybe he needed to get his trading legs underneath him.

I don’t think the Yaz deal can really be compared to the other two.   Bundy and Villar were established major league players, getting expensive and with limited years of remaining control.    But everyone understood those two players had value at the major league level.    There was absolutely nothing in Yaz’s long MiL history to suggest he’d be a productive major leaguer.   What’s happened with him was completely unforeseeable.   

[El_Duderino]

I didn’t know Dan Duquette had an account on here. 

[Aristotelian]

Interesting post. Despite the thread title, it was mostly about DD not being bad, in which case I don't disagree. DD was GM of the year in 2014. He inherited a good core, made a few inspired acquisitions, and was overall a good steward. He tried to prolong the window longer than he should have but ownership played a role in the terrible Davis contract.

On Bundy, at the time he was not the 11th best player, and if you had to pick the top 11 players today I do not think Bundy would be anywhere close to that list. We saved $5M, which is not nothing and will help us in the future, plus some prospects that could pan out but unfortunately the minors are shut down. Mattson is certainly interesting (12+ K/9 in AA). We had zero leverage in any trade negotiation at the time with the entire world knowing that we were not trying to compete in 2020. It is very hard to know without being inside Elias's office what the offers for Bundy were like or whether we could have gotten more. It is possible he could have held onto Bundy for another year but we don't know whether he would have the same year is having, he would have been $5M more expensive with a year less service time, so who knows that we get anything better even with his recent success. 

[Can_of_corn]

I'll disagree on the leverage point.  Unless of course the Angels somehow knew no other team had interest.  The Angels pretty clearly needed pitching to support all the money they are paying the hitters.

[ScGO's]

4 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Interesting post. Despite the thread title, it was mostly about DD not being bad, in which case I don't disagree. DD was GM of the year in 2014. He inherited a good core, made a few inspired acquisitions, and was overall a good steward. He tried to prolong the window longer than he should have but ownership played a role in the terrible Davis contract.

On Bundy, at the time he was not the 11th best player, and if you had to pick the top 11 players today I do not think Bundy would be anywhere close to that list. We saved $5M, which is not nothing and will help us in the future, plus some prospects that could pan out but unfortunately the minors are shut down. Mattson is certainly interesting (12+ K/9 in AA). We had zero leverage in any trade negotiation at the time with the entire world knowing that we were not trying to compete in 2020. It is very hard to know without being inside Elias's office what the offers for Bundy were like or whether we could have gotten more. It is possible he could have held onto Bundy for another year but we don't know whether he would have the same year is having, he would have been $5M more expensive with a year less service time, so who knows that we get anything better even with his recent success. 

Dan was a solid GM; he was the MacGyver of baseball. Angelos was pretty much like "Here's a drinking straw and a paper clip, now go build me a baseball team!"

The Bundy and Villar trades were mostly about saving money (which I'm fine with bc I know how much money needed to be saved to improve our analytics, Dominican facilities, front office hires, etc), but I felt we got some potential value in the Bundy trade. I think Villar is actually more valuable this season than last because his contract is shorter and cheaper.  Lots of baseball people weren't sold on him yet after last season.  He continued his success into this season and he no longer had as high of a price tag, so the BJs gave more value in return.

I think Elias is doing a phenomenal job, but he's been given so much more to work with than Dan, so I don't want to say one is better than the other.  I think Dan would be doing a lot of what Mike is doing if he was given the freedom to do so.

[webbrick2010]

Looks to me that all of the Elias "deals" were primarily to cut payroll, so I believe all complaints as always should be directed to ownership

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, weams said:

Kevin Gausman

Dan traded Kevin.

[Aristotelian]

1 minute ago, ScGO's said:

I think Elias is doing a phenomenal job, but he's been given so much more to work with than Dan, so I don't want to say one is better than the other.  I think Dan would be doing a lot of what Mike is doing if he was given the freedom to do so.

What do you mean that Elias has been given more to work with? He inherited a terrible farm system with no prospects outside of Mountcastle, and one of (perhaps the) worst contract in all of baseball history. The one thing he has been given is relative autonomy, and that may in the long run be more valuable.

I don't know that DD would have had the stomach for a total rebuild. His MO seemed to be to try to compete every year, albeit without trading top prospects. Aside from Manny, Bundy, Harvey, Mountcastle, etc, he pretty much gutted the system. In the process we lost guys like Eduardo, Davies, Hader. He never seemed to consider trading Manny earlier and instead focused on prolonging the window. Of course, we will never know how much of that was DD and how much was directive from ownership. 

[LTO's]

57 minutes ago, Roll Tide said:

Really? The only deal that looks good so far is the Givens trade. None of the others are clear yet and the 1 for 1+ Castro deal traded a major league reliever for what could be a fringe 5th starter or AAAA.  Smith has some upside but I’m sure he’s a productive back end rotation guy at best.

Miguel Castro isn't good. Getting that return for him is, on paper, good value. I haven't seen a single scout or analyst say anything otherwise. Castro actually just blew the game yesterday. 

[LTO's]

DD made a bunch of bad moves here, particularly at the end. Bad trades, burning high value draft picks for bad players, letting Cruz and Markakis go and replacing them with Trumbo and Snyder. It's pretty obvious now that he is not on the hook for the Davis deal but I think if you average out DD's good moves with his bad moves I think you get an average to below average tenure as GM here given the state of things when he left. Seems like people are way quicker to give him the benefit of the doubt than Elias so far when Elias is literally in the process of fixing the previous regime's mistakes.

[Lucky_13]

How can you say they traded Bundy for next to nothing? We have no idea how the return has performed for the Orioles or will perform. 

If Mattson becomes a productive reliever and Bradish becomes part of a future Orioles rotation, thats a win not even counting the other two prospects they got.  At the end of the day, Elias traded an average starter getting expensive (99 ERA+) for four prospects which is good for the rebuild. Not to mention he pretty much replaced Bundy's 2019 production with Tommy Milone for a minor league contract.