The offseason “elephant in the room”

[wildcard]

29 minutes ago, Frobby said:

You know who’s just about right for this team, from a price vs. production standpoint?    Hanser Alberto.    

Schoop, by the way, has had a pretty nice season.  
 

Not sure I am understanding you here.  Are you saying the a projected 3M salary for Hanser who has a  266/284/367/651 vs right-handed pitching is acceptable?   And right-handed pitching is probably at least 70% of the pitchers faced.

[Frobby]

46 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Not sure I am understanding you here.  Are you saying the a projected 3M salary for Hanser who has a  266/284/367/651 vs right-handed pitching is acceptable?   And right-handed pitching is probably at least 70% of the pitchers faced.

I am saying that I don’t judge players solely on a single attribute or weakness.    Also, though this is the second straight year Alberto has had pretty disparate L/R splits,  those do take a long time to stabilize and he did not have drastic splits in the minors so I’m willing to await further data.   And finally, while we could find a better overall 2B, I doubt we could do it for less than $3 mm.

Let me ask you this:

1.    Is there someone available for 2B who you think will be as good and as cheap or cheaper?

2.   If not, given the current state of our rebuild, do you think it’s worth spending more than $3 mm to get a better 2B?   If so, who would you like to sign and at what price would you guess we can get him?

[Tony-OH]

10 hours ago, Frobby said:

I’m certainly not going to bet against Trey recovering all of his baseball skills, but it would be a great exaggeration to say I wasn’t worried about it.    There’s certainly an appreciable risk that he won’t.   And as I’ve said several times, my wish for his baseball skills to return is vastly secondary to my wish that he remain healthy and cancer free and live a full, happy like.    Baseball would be the cherry on the sundae.  

This is where I'm at. My first wish is for Trey to live and love and happy life that is cancer free. Obviously second to this is his return to his previous form as a baseball player, but there is an inherent risk that won't happen.

AS Moose pointed out, many athletes have returned to form and we can hope and pray that he does, but more importantly, that Trey will be well long term.

[Sports Guy]

22 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I am saying that I don’t judge players solely on a single attribute or weakness.    Also, though this is the second straight year Alberto has had pretty disparate L/R splits,  those do take a long time to stabilize and he did not have drastic splits in the minors so I’m willing to await further data.   And finally, while we could find a better overall 2B, I doubt we could do it for less than $3 mm.

Let me ask you this:

1.    Is there someone available for 2B who you think will be as good and as cheap or cheaper?

2.   If not, given the current state of our rebuild, do you think it’s worth spending more than $3 mm to get a better 2B?   If so, who would you like to sign and at what price would you guess we can get him?

Why not just try Bannon?  

[HowAboutThat]

Why not Bannon? He should be up by now anyway.

[wildcard]

57 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I am saying that I don’t judge players solely on a single attribute or weakness.    Also, though this is the second straight year Alberto has had pretty disparate L/R splits,  those do take a long time to stabilize and he did not have drastic splits in the minors so I’m willing to await further data.   And finally, while we could find a better overall 2B, I doubt we could do it for less than $3 mm.

Let me ask you this:

1.    Is there someone available for 2B who you think will be as good and as cheap or cheaper?

2.   If not, given the current state of our rebuild, do you think it’s worth spending more than $3 mm to get a better 2B?   If so, who would you like to sign and at what price would you guess we can get him?

I think there are several alternatives better than what Alberto has shown over the last two seasons.

1) Elias will probably find someone equal or better on the waiver wire or for a small purchase with a salary less the 3M.  Probably for the minimum.

2) Bannon may not be ready yet but may be by mid next season.

3) Even Valiaka vs lefties and Wilkerson vs righties would be a better solution and cheaper.  Though I would rather find one player than go with a platoon.

[Tony-OH]

40 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Why not just try Bannon?  

Because he's not very good overall? 

Honestly I'm not totally down on Bannon, I just don't think he's shown enough consistency at the plate or in the field at 2B to merit anyone counting on him to be part of the future here. But, we've seen players improve this year who have come back up so I haven't given up on him totally.

He does have some tools to work from and at the end of the day, I'd probably like to see a full season at AAA before giving him consideration for the 2B job.

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Because he's not very good overall? 

Honestly I'm not totally down on Bannon, I just don't think he's shown enough consistency at the plate or in the field at 2B to merit anyone counting on him to be part of the future here. But, we've seen players improve this year who have come back up so I haven't given up on him totally.

He does have some tools to work from and at the end of the day, I'd probably like to see a full season at AAA before giving him consideration for the 2B job.

I have no idea what he looks like defensively but offensively, his numbers seem to be fine...at least enough to give him a chance while waiting on a guy like Vavra.

Alberto isn’t a guy I care if he’s here or not.

[luismatos4prez]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

You know who’s just about right for this team, from a price vs. production standpoint?    Hanser Alberto.    

Schoop, by the way, has had a pretty nice season.  
 

Agreed. Ruiz isn't good enough though, so I'd move Alberto to 3B and sign Schoop (or someone similar) to play 2B.

[Frobby]

7 minutes ago, wildcard said:

I think there are several alternative better than what Alberto has shown over the last two seasons.

1) Elias will probably find someone equal or better on the waiver wire or for a small purchase with a salary less the 3M.  Probably for the minimum.

2) Bannon may not be ready yet but may be by mid next season.

3) Even Valiaka vs lefties and Wilkerson vs righties would be a better solution and cheaper.  Though I would rather find one player than go with a platoon.

So you think a platoon of Valaika (-0.1 rWAR this year, -0.6 rWAR last year) and Wilkerson (-1.0 rWAR last year and taken off the 40-man roster this year) would outperform Alberto (0.4 rWAR this year, 2.9 rWAR last year)?     I recognize they might improve their numbers in a platoon situation, but I don’t think it’s very likely they would increase them by enough to outperform Alberto, and of course you’d have to use two roster spots to do it.   

As to finding someone better on the waiver wire or a cheap purchase, I asked who you wanted and don’t have an answer.    

What this comes down to is you don’t think Alberto is as good as his WAR figures say he is, because he’s had bad splits vs. RHP the last two years.    We simply disagree about that.    I think the numbers have been a fair reflection of Alberto’s value.    I’d peg him as a 1-2 WAR player for next year, and at $3 mm, that’s not bad.   

As to Bannon (also mentioned by SG and Philip), I am interested in him long term but he’s had very little AAA experience (20 games), struggled in the AFL last fall and wasn’t given a 60-man roster spot this year so I doubt the team is ready to roll the dice on him     It’s a shame the minor league season wasn’t played, because if it had he’d either be in the majors right now or at least we’d know more about whether we could pencil him in for 2021.

[wildcard]

34 minutes ago, Frobby said:

So you think a platoon of Valaika (-0.1 rWAR this year, -0.6 rWAR last year) and Wilkerson (-1.0 rWAR last year and taken off the 40-man roster this year) would outperform Alberto (0.4 rWAR this year, 2.9 rWAR last year)?     I recognize they might improve their numbers in a platoon situation, but I don’t think it’s very likely they would increase them by enough to outperform Alberto, and of course you’d have to use two roster spots to do it.   

As to finding someone better on the waiver wire or a cheap purchase, I asked who you wanted and don’t have an answer.    

What this comes down to is you don’t think Alberto is as good as his WAR figures say he is, because he’s had bad splits vs. RHP the last two years.    We simply disagree about that.    I think the numbers have been a fair reflection of Alberto’s value.    I’d peg him as a 1-2 WAR player for next year, and at $3 mm, that’s not bad.   

As to Bannon (also mentioned by SG and Philip), I am interested in him long term but he’s had very little AAA experience (20 games), struggled in the AFL last fall and wasn’t given a 60-man roster spot this year so I doubt the team is ready to roll the dice on him     It’s a shame the minor league season wasn’t played, because if it had he’d either be in the majors right now or at least we’d know more about whether we could pencil him in for 2021.

Bannon was added to the 60 man roster on Sept 5th and was in Bowie.  I am not saying he is ready to start the 2021 season.

I will be interested to see if Elias will spend 3M on Alberto in arbitration.

[Tony-OH]

3 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

I have no idea what he looks like defensively but offensively, his numbers seem to be fine...at least enough to give him a chance while waiting on a guy like Vavra.

Alberto isn’t a guy I care if he’s here or not.

Alberto is a decent stop gap option for now, but if Bannon got off to a hot start next year I would not be against seeing what he looks like at 2B or 3B. 3B is a bigger hole for me than 2B as Ruiz is a well below average MLB 3B both offensively and defensively.

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

 

As to Bannon (also mentioned by SG and Philip), I am interested in him long term but he’s had very little AAA experience (20 games), struggled in the AFL last fall and wasn’t given a 60-man roster spot this year so I doubt the team is ready to roll the dice on him     It’s a shame the minor league season wasn’t played, because if it had he’d either be in the majors right now or at least we’d know more about whether we could pencil him in for 2021.

It will be really interesting to see how Elias handles players after missing an entire year of games like they did. He has yet to show a willingness to aggressively promote players so I don't see Bannon up here until at least a half season of AAA time next year, but due to the missed season, who really knows how Elias will handle things.

As for Alberto, I agree, he's fine as a stop gap 2B as long as he's cheap.

[wildcard]

16 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

It will be really interesting to see how Elias handles players after missing an entire year of games like they did. He has yet to show a willingness to aggressively promote players so I don't see Bannon up here until at least a half season of AAA time next year, but due to the missed season, who really knows how Elias will handle things.

As for Alberto, I agree, he's fine as a stop gap 2B as long as he's cheap.

What qualifies as cheap?

[DrungoHazewood]

14 minutes ago, wildcard said:

What qualifies as cheap?

Setting aside Davis and Cobb, who are only Orioles because their contracts are untradeable, either Mancini or Alberto might be the most expensive 2021 Orioles.  They can afford Alberto, unless they've decided that almost every penny above the minimum is unacceptable.