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

[jamalshw]

I didn't care for the Bundy deal this winter. I would have much preferred a quality over quantity deal for him, but with quantity, Elias may have found something. We will find out in a couple years.

While I didn't like the value we got, I don't think it was reasonable to expect him to have the season he's had to date. I also don't think it's reasonable to expect this 2.49 ERA/2.95 FIP Bundy to continue. The homers have been the biggest issue for him and he's done better this year, but as others have pointed out, the ballparks have helped.

I think it's also important to keep it in perspective that we are talking about an eight game and 50.2 innings sample size. He has been someone to run hot and cold in the past. In his struggle of a 2018 season, he had a 1.98 ERA in June and a 2.97 ERA in his first six starts. I don't think the Bundy we are seeing this year through eight starts is the real Bundy...it's possible, but ultimately, I expect some regression. He's still a useful big league starter and I would have liked a better package in return, but in this revisionist look back and what might have been, we should remember eight starts is not indicative of true value.

[Sports Guy]

This Bundy stuff gets annoying.

First of all, it has been pointed out several times that Bundy  had stretches like this when he pitched here.

 6 of his 8 starts are against Oakland and Seattle...those 2 teams have pretty poor offenses (Ranked in the bottom third in the AL in a lot of major offensive categories) and play in great parks to pitch in.  
 

Bundy always had good K and BB numbers here.  However, his HR rate was poor and he wasn’t exactly a significant innings eater.  His ERA, FIP and xFIP were ok at their best and poor at their worst.  He has a career ERA+ of 98 and that is with it being 180 so far this year.  He has also seen declining velocity in recent years.

He is an average-ish pitcher, who will look better in a better pitching environment.  I doubt teams who had HR friendly parks would have considered him, so his market becomes more limited.

Would I have liked to have gotten A little more for him?  Sure but some of the arms they got are intriguing and it’s pretty awful to try and judge the trade right now, considering they haven’t pitched yet.

To me, the argument is, should they have just kept him vs trading him.  I don’t think the market for him was overly strong, so I doubt they could have gotten much more for him.  If you think they should have just kept him, that’s fine but understand the likely outcome was a 4.2-4.7 ERA, 165 IP season.  That wouldn’t have fetched much and maybe worse than what they got because of team control.

[Roll Tide]

41 minutes ago, LTO's said:

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. 

If Smith ends up being a 4A player the deal would look really bad later. I dont care that he just blew a lead. With Castro you get a hard throwing guy that struggles with control. Some games he looks brilliant and some games he will look lost. A good manager will exploit that when he's on and have a quick hook when he's not.

Saying hes not good is an exaggeration that your using to make your argument. There are many MLB relievers who are worse

[Moose Milligan]

I think if we can all agree on one thing other than Chris Davis, it might be that Bundy wasn't going to turn it around here.  Similar to how Arrieta wasn't going to evolve into the dominant starter he became in Chicago while wearing an Orioles uniform.

It's too early to tell what the return is on the Bundy trade, that's something we should be able to agree on, too.

I feel like a lot of the times here, we throw our hands up and go, "UGH!  Arrieta, how could we let him get away?  Now Bundy?  And Little Yaz? How can we keep whiffing on trades like this?!?!" But I'm pretty sure this is not a unique sports fan experience.  That if you were to track down a diehard message board of the Colorado Rockies or some other offbeat team, they'd have similar sob stories of the guys that got away and how much better off they'd be if they didn't make those trades.  

Elias is fine.  He's not going to "win" every trade.  Some guys are going to get away and find success elsewhere, just like some guys are going to be sent here who''ll end up blossoming.  Ultimately what matters is if the franchise is moving forward.  Our system is better than what it was when he took over.  He's started an international program that didn't exist before he arrived and it'll take a long time for some of those guys to surface.  He's got a better plan than DD seemed to.  

 

[Sports Guy]

10 minutes ago, Roll Tide said:

If Smith ends up being a 4A player the deal would look really bad later. I dont care that he just blew a lead. With Castro you get a hard throwing guy that struggles with control. Some games he looks brilliant and some games he will look lost. A good manager will exploit that when he's on and have a quick hook when he's not.

Saying hes not good is an exaggeration that your using to make your argument. There are many MLB relievers who are worse

Castro is mediocre.  The idea that he can throw hard is meaningless.  If you can’t control it, it doesn’t matter.

He could develop later in his career but he was going to make 3ishM next year and the team has a lot of young arms.  
 

Much rather have Smith and 3M than Castro.

[OFFNY]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

 

I have no idea if I like the return that we got for Bundy, considering the fact that none of the four have pitched this year.   

 

o

 

o

[OFFNY]

1 hour ago, El_Duderino said:

 

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

 

o

 

Andy MacPhail has an account here, too ...... some guy from Brewster, NY who goes by the acronym "OFFNY."

 

o

[gold21030]

9 hours ago, Rojo13 said:

Plus last time I checked Duquette didn't trade the 11th best player in baseball away for almost nothing. 

I haven't seen much talk on here about Dylan Bundy. Is anyone besides me upset he's not on the team or that we didn't get way more for him in a trade?

Do people forget that he was the #4 overall pick in the draft and we traded him away for basically nothing? His 1.9 WAR is 11th best in baseball this year. Imagine if he was starting for us this year. I don't get why anyone would trade him  for what we got - other than to save money (and saving money and tanking this year is probably would be what I would have done as the GM as well). But if we're going to blame the trade on money,, do you not think Dan wanted to have more of an international presence? He was dealing with budgetary constraints as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree that DD brought in some good talent to the minor leagues and left the farm system with some talent, but where he really failed was depth and player (well more so pitcher) development. And Elias does get a lot of credit from me for putting an analytics framework in place. That alone is the most important thing he has done for the franchise, and even if he fails to create a competitive team in the last few years, he will have helped this team immensely.

But I don't think it is fair to attack Elias for trading Bundy without mentioning that DD traded Jake Arrieta (Cy Young Award winner) and Pedro Strop (solid reliever) for nothing. He also traded Zach Daives for half a year of an over-performing Parra.

I'd like to give Bundy a full year of success before anointing him the next Arrieta. Let the league adjust and see what happens.

Edited September 8, 2020 by gold21030

[Camden_yardbird]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

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.   

The nice thing about a total rebuild is you can take time to evaluate players.  Yaz was traded in March after getting next to no evaluation ABs in ST.  He had an okay .753 OPS in the minors the year before but a very respectable .832 OPS in 2017.  He always showed a good eye at the plate and decent pop in the minors.

We know what happened here.  Elias came in, saw a 28 year old minor league outfielder who wouldn't be here long and FAILED to evaluate the asset.  What value we place on that asset is up to interpretation and is what you are getting at. 

But his failure was evaluating the asset.  We can level that criticism given data and hindsight.  

I think we can level a similar crisis with regard to Bundy.  He clearly had time to evaluate the player, but given the opportunity to attempt to alter his play the organization failed.  And it was a simple alteration, with two players in Corbin and Boyd as models.  I mean, I was advocating they go slider heavy in late 2018/ spring 2019 and I am not a coach.  That path should have been evident.

My criticism of Elias is that he has been slow to adjust, in evaluation, in maximization of player value, and in making meaningful trades.  In baseball there is a fine line between GMs that succeed and GMs that other GMs quickly identify as a guy they can take advantage of, and the latter can lead to disastrous results for a franchise.  I think Elias is still skirting that line through 1.5 seasons.  It could go either way.

 

[Roll Tide]

35 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Castro is mediocre.  The idea that he can throw hard is meaningless.  If you can’t control it, it doesn’t matter.

He could develop later in his career but he was going to make 3ishM next year and the team has a lot of young arms.  
 

Much rather have Smith and 3M than Castro.

We've been through this before .... The saved money only matters if they spend it

[Sports Guy]

9 minutes ago, Roll Tide said:

We've been through this before .... The saved money only matters if they spend it

Yes and no.  Just having it available is worth it.

That being said, no reason not to save the money if you have as good or better options..which the Os do, at least potentially.

The money is part of the equation in the deal.  Ignoring it is wrong.

[OriolesMagic83]

I know most of "this season" is over, but there's only been a little over 40 games played for most teams.  I'm betting that Bundy had similar stretches over around 40 games in the past.  There were several times when O's fans, including myself thought he had "turned the corner" after stringing several good starts together.  Lets see how he does over a full season before proclaiming him an ace.

[DrungoHazewood]

4 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Are you telling me you've been on the internet this long and haven't mastered the art of having an opinion without relying on data?

I like the trade, but I know that's wrong because opinions on the internet aren't valid unless they're hypercritical.

[DrungoHazewood]

7 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

I know most of "this season" is over, but there's only been a little over 40 games played for most teams.  I'm betting that Bundy had similar stretches over around 40 games in the past.  There were several times when O's fans, including myself thought he had "turned the corner" after stringing several good starts together.  Lets see how he does over a full season before proclaiming him an ace.

I made that point the other day. Bundy has pitched like this for the Orioles in the past, including long enough ago that he still threw hard.  I'll believe the O's failed him if he keeps this up for like 200 more innings.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Moose Milligan said:

I feel like a lot of the times here, we throw our hands up and go, "UGH!  Arrieta, how could we let him get away?  Now Bundy?  And Little Yaz? How can we keep whiffing on trades like this?!?!" But I'm pretty sure this is not a unique sports fan experience.  That if you were to track down a diehard message board of the Colorado Rockies or some other offbeat team, they'd have similar sob stories of the guys that got away and how much better off they'd be if they didn't make those trades.  

Elias is fine.  He's not going to "win" every trade.  Some guys are going to get away and find success elsewhere, just like some guys are going to be sent here who''ll end up blossoming.  Ultimately what matters is if the franchise is moving forward.  Our system is better than what it was when he took over.  He's started an international program that didn't exist before he arrived and it'll take a long time for some of those guys to surface.  He's got a better plan than DD seemed to.  

 

Part of being an armchair GM is believing that if you do this one weird thing that your team will win all the trades and never let anyone go who will then have some success somewhere else.  Every team has players who leave and go on to success elsewhere.  Look at the 2020 Orioles.  Santander was left unprotected in the Rule 5 and the O's scooped him up.  Severino was waived by the Nats.  Anyone in baseball could have had Iglesias for $3M.  Alberto was waived by the Yanks and the Giants (and Orioles!) in the space of a few months.  The Braves waived Rio Ruiz.  The O's picked up Paul Fry for international slot money from Seattle (who happen to have a 6.30 bullpen ERA this year).

I think that the Orioles of the last 20 odd years have had relatively few players leave and then go on to success elsewhere because they've had relatively little talent in general for much of that period.