Who are the #19 and #20 Prospects?

[Moose Milligan]

15 hours ago, RZNJ said:

Good stuff, Moose.  However, I tend to believe the Orioles current regime believes in the same hitting approach espoused by the Giants.  I agree a poor team should be giving guys chances but there are only so many spots on a team.  We gave chances to similar players like Alberto, Ruiz, Severino.   They missed on Yaz.  I still file it as one of those things.  The light bulb went on.  Do you believe the Orioles current organization doesn't encourage not expanding the zone with two strikes and taking your normal swing with two strikes?

Well, thanks.  Wish I could have replied sooner, was out all day.

Good points on Alberto, Ruiz, Severino.  And you're right, it's one of those things and we can't be expected to get all the moves right.  No one bats 1.000. 

14 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Still waiting on a reason why Yaz SHOULD have had a chance.

To me, using the word should implies that he earned it.  It implies that he proved to the organization that he was a MLer and they overlooked him and didn’t give him that chance.

Is that what people believe?

I don't believe he SHOULD have had a chance, I just question the move for DSJR.  I don't think DSJR was a significantly better upgrade.  For me, a 4th outfielder should be able to field really well and be decent (not amazing with the bat).  Yaz, by all accounts, has a good glove.  DSJR does not.  If the argument is that DSJR is younger, well that's fine.  

14 hours ago, Frobby said:

I think the issue here isn’t whether Yaz should have gotten a major league shot based on his MiL performance, but whether the Orioles’ development team hindered his performance by trying to force him into a box regarding his approach at the plate.   That’s what Yaz has said.    I can’t really blame Elias’ crew for failing to pick that up in the few weeks they had to look at Yaz before he was traded.    It’s on the old regime if Yaz was poorly coached.  

These are good points worth considering, too.  Even if we brought Yaz up, I don't think he performs here like he did in SF so it's a moot point despite this being a fun, spirited debate.

[HowAboutThat]

Im a teacher, and one of my mantras is”we collect solutions”

Im constantly dealing with rigid Dogmatists-idiots- who insist on one way of doing things.

I don’t know what thing are like here, though teaching is teaching regardless of the discipline. But there’s no justification for dogmatism in any discipline. It’s the coach’s job to find what works. And with Yaz, it’s obvious that SOMETHING worked. And it’s equally obvious the Orioles didn’t find it.

[Number5]

10 hours ago, Philip said:

No, I think that’s hyperbole. There are a lot of guys in the organization that are just filler, they know it, we know it, and for whatever reason they are willing to hang around for a while. So the answer to your question is, “no I don’t think everybody in the minors should be brought up,” But yaz wasn’t just filler. And when he went to the Giants he did not become a mere stopgap, he became a star that anybody in the National League would like to have. I agree with all the people who say that that indicates that something is wrong with the process. However I’ve made my point multiple times, and it’s all water under the bridge anyway. So it doesn’t matter. Let’s just hope Whatever mistake happened does not reoccur.

There was nothing in existence at the time to support the emboldened statement.  Certainly not his minor league career, nor his performance in the few weeks of spring training that Elias could see.  You are basing everything you say on hindsight.  Please provide your evidence that shows that Yaz was something other than what he had shown himself to be in the minors BEFORE the trade was made.  Until you do that, I'm afraid that you just aren't convincing anyone.  That others, most of us in fact, in hindsight, wish we hadn't traded Yaz is quite obvious, but that doesn't mean Elias failed in any way at the time, given the information available to him at the time.  There was simply no outcry from people upset about the trade at the time.  It was pretty much a ho-hum deal.

[HowAboutThat]

5 minutes ago, Number5 said:

There was nothing in existence at the time to support the emboldened statement.  Certainly not his minor league career, nor his performance in the few weeks of spring training that Elias could see.  You are basing everything you say on hindsight.  Please provide your evidence that shows that Yaz was something other than what he had shown himself to be in the minors BEFORE the trade was made.  Until you do that, I'm afraid that you just aren't convincing anyone.  That others, most of us in fact, in hindsight, wish we hadn't traded Yaz is quite obvious, but that doesn't mean Elias failed in any way at the time, given the information available to him at the time.  There was simply no outcry from people upset about the trade at the time.  It was pretty much a ho-hum deal.

I’ve made multiple points multiple,times. I made the same points during the 47-win season, and I made them multiple times. I’m moving on..

[Sports Guy]

8 hours ago, Philip said:

I’ve made multiple points multiple,times. I made the same points during the 47-win season, and I made them multiple times. I’m moving on..

But being a 47 win team doesn’t mean you try out “old” mediocre players when they have done nothing to show you that they deserve that chance.

[Tony-OH]

14 hours ago, Number5 said:

There was nothing in existence at the time to support the emboldened statement.  Certainly not his minor league career, nor his performance in the few weeks of spring training that Elias could see.  You are basing everything you say on hindsight.  Please provide your evidence that shows that Yaz was something other than what he had shown himself to be in the minors BEFORE the trade was made.  Until you do that, I'm afraid that you just aren't convincing anyone.  That others, most of us in fact, in hindsight, wish we hadn't traded Yaz is quite obvious, but that doesn't mean Elias failed in any way at the time, given the information available to him at the time.  There was simply no outcry from people upset about the trade at the time.  It was pretty much a ho-hum deal.

So if I understand your position, Elias bares no responsibility for quickly evaluating and getting rid of Yaz. So how long does Elias need to have a guy in his organization before he bares some responsibility?

[Sports Guy]

27 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

So if I understand your position, Elias bares no responsibility for quickly evaluating and getting rid of Yaz. So how long does Elias need to have a guy in his organization before he bares some responsibility?

To be clear, do you think 3 weeks is enough?

[Tony-OH]

7 hours ago, RZNJ said:

Yaz was in the minors for 6 years and a well known college player.  I'd say he was evaluated by many baseball scouts and evaluators for many years.  I don't think you'll find anyone who thought he was a swing change and philosophical change from being an impact player at the ML level.   You didn't have him ranked in our top 30 prospects.  What did you miss?

Elias has brought in different technologies that are supposedly used to help evaluate players as well as help them improve. They used those vests, those devices on the knobs of the bats and Statcast.

What I'm saying is that Elias may want to take a look at what they missed with Yaz. Clearly his development or lack thereof was not on Elias' watch, but he brought in these technologies and they apparently did not indicate that Yaz had the potential to do what he's done.

I also clearly stated that I never had Yaz on any of my lists so you can take the smart ass "What did you miss?" comment and keep it to yourself because that's disrespectful. I don't have nearly the access that the Orioles have on all of his data (Data was collected on AAA players in 2019 and available to the teams) so the question becomes, why did Yaz show nothing and then with some quick changes with SF coaches he becomes an impact player?

If I'm Elias, I want to know the answer to that. 

I also clearly showed that Elias's record of bringing in similar players to a Yaz has been pretty dismal. 

When you take the two together, I think it's fair to ask the question what did they miss? If you don't fine, but at the end of the day, Elias gave away an impact player for nothing and has acquired none in two years. those are facts that can't be denied no matter how much you wanna wear orange colored glasses.

 

[Number5]

8 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

So if I understand your position, Elias bares no responsibility for quickly evaluating and getting rid of Yaz. So how long does Elias need to have a guy in his organization before he bares some responsibility?

I'm surprised by this comment, Tony.  I'm not sure how you can blame Elias for Yaz coming out of nowhere to perform as he has for the Giants.  You really think there was reason to expect that Elias should have seen that coming?  Wow.

[Tony-OH]

21 minutes ago, Number5 said:

I'm surprised by this comment, Tony.  I'm not sure how you can blame Elias for Yaz coming out of nowhere to perform as he has for the Giants.  You really think there was reason to expect that Elias should have seen that coming?  Wow.

You a few others really are missing my point. I'm done trying to make it. Read what I wrote in other posts.

[Jammer7]

20 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Elias has brought in different technologies that are supposedly used to help evaluate players as well as help them improve. They used those vests, those devices on the knobs of the bats and Statcast.

What I'm saying is that Elias may want to take a look at what they missed with Yaz. Clearly his development or lack thereof was not on Elias' watch, but he brought in these technologies and they apparently did not indicate that Yaz had the potential to do what he's done.

I also clearly stated that I never had Yaz on any of my lists so you can take the smart ass "What did you miss?" comment and keep it to yourself because that's disrespectful. I don't have nearly the access that the Orioles have on all of his data (Data was collected on AAA players in 2019 and available to the teams) so the question becomes, why did Yaz show nothing and then with some quick changes with SF coaches he becomes an impact player?

If I'm Elias, I want to know the answer to that. 

I also clearly showed that Elias's record of bringing in similar players to a Yaz has been pretty dismal. 

When you take the two together, I think it's fair to ask the question what did they miss? If you don't fine, but at the end of the day, Elias gave away an impact player for nothing and has acquired none in two years. those are facts that can't be denied no matter how much you wanna wear orange colored glasses.

 

I know Elias wants to know if he missed something in his evaluation, sure. Why wouldn't he. But I doubt he is losing sleep over this.

Yaz was traded on March 23, 2019. At that time, he was a 28 year old OF with average speed, maybe an average arm, below average power for a corner OF that does not play CF. He's 5-10 178 lbs. and was no longer a prospect. He was slowed by injuries, often playing dinged up. Dan Duquette alluded to his injuries in an interview that I saw and stated he had struggled with his progression. He had never really excelled in AAA. He was behind Austin Hays, Yusniel Diaz, Anthony Santander, Ryan McKenna, Cedric Mullins and DJ Stewart for playing time in AA/AAA OF playing time. No one knew that several of these players would struggle with injuries and inconsistency, but they were all much more highly regarded prospects than Yaz. At that time, the only AAA OF he was more highly regarded than was Jaycob Brugman, and he was absolutely terrible. Elias decided to cut bait so that actual prospects could play meaningful innings and get the developmental at bats. No other team even thought so much of him as to take him in the rule 5 draft. Did the Giants know something? No, they just got lucky that this one panned out. They had no idea he would do what he has done, no way. 

As far as the technology, it isn't something that will diagnose and fix every swing. It gives you lots of data, and it takes time, more than a few weeks, to work through any changes/adjustments needed. Obviously, Elias and his staff were not impressed with what they saw compared to the other guys. Then, Yaz was traded and something changed over the next few months in AAA for him. Great for him. Maybe he started to make good changes from what he learned from the Elias staff, but it took time to begin to show in games. That is often the case with swing changes, approach adjustments. Maybe it was the Giants who found something. Maybe it was something else, who knows. 

Was he going to be the same player in Baltimore, facing the AL East? IDK, I would guess likely not. There have been many examples over they years of players who had impact careers out West and got traded to an Eastern team, only to struggle. Would it have been nice to see him do that here in Baltimore, of course. I just don't see why this has become such a hotly contested thing. Hindsight is easy to see clearly. His tools have never indicated this kind of production. There is not one prospect report that says he would do anything like he is doing. 

I know you are pretty positive about Elias and Sig. To point to Elias's failure to produce waiver wire pick ups and minor trades into an impact player is incomplete, honestly, in COVID 2020 crazy season. He has no money to spend, and yet most of the ML team was picked up off waivers and minor league free agency and still competed on most nights. The final record looks worse than it was. I would say his record was excellent in the first half. Santander got hurt and many young players struggled badly. Solid approaches went out the window entirely. 

• Pedro Severino had an OPS north of .850 in July/August and he began to look like an all star (offensively), but he chased much more in September and his numbers faded badly to .250/.322/.388/.710
• Jose Iglesias was an impact signing, despite the injuries and many at bats in the DH role .373/.400/.556/.956
• Hanser Alberto is what he is a well below-average defender with little power, and he faded badly in September as well .283/.306/.393/.698
• Pat Valaika was very good, I thought, for what his role is. .277/.315/.475/.791
• Rio Ruiz is probably not the answer at 3B, but I think he gets one more year to see if he can figure it out .222/.286/.427/.713
• Richie Martin will be vastly improved, he reported so much stronger than in 2019 and I think his injury robbed him of a breakout of sorts, the swing looked so much more fluid and quick in Spring camp.
• Ramon Urias might just make Alberto expendable, and I believe he will hit and produce better overall numbers and play better defense.
• Obviously, Dwight Smith Jr. was a failure. Early in 2019, he certainly looked like he was a certain upgrade to Yaz. The the injuries in late May, neck and shoulder. He has not been the same since.

Most of the resources have gone into minor league and international infrastructure. To criticize Elias for the Yaz trade in hindsight, honestly it's silly. No one batted an eye at the time of the deal. Can we just be happy for the guy and not look for someone to blame? If there is a pattern here, then ok, there's a problem. This one baffles everyone because no one saw this coming.

And where would Yaz play in our OF next season? Over Mountcastle, Santander, Hays, Mullins, Mancini...? 

[Tony-OH]

6 minutes ago, Jammer7 said:

I know Elias wants to know if he missed something in his evaluation, sure. Why wouldn't he. But I doubt he is losing sleep over this.

Yaz was traded on March 23, 2019. At that time, he was a 28 year old OF with average speed, maybe an average arm, below average power for a corner OF that does not play CF. He's 5-10 178 lbs. and was no longer a prospect. He was slowed by injuries, often playing dinged up. Dan Duquette alluded to his injuries in an interview that I saw and stated he had struggled with his progression. He had never really excelled in AAA. He was behind Austin Hays, Yusniel Diaz, Anthony Santander, Ryan McKenna, Cedric Mullins and DJ Stewart for playing time in AA/AAA OF playing time. No one knew that several of these players would struggle with injuries and inconsistency, but they were all much more highly regarded prospects than Yaz. At that time, the only AAA OF he was more highly regarded than was Jaycob Brugman, and he was absolutely terrible. Elias decided to cut bait so that actual prospects could play meaningful innings and get the developmental at bats. No other team even thought so much of him as to take him in the rule 5 draft. Did the Giants know something? No, they just got lucky that this one panned out. They had no idea he would do what he has done, no way. 

As far as the technology, it isn't something that will diagnose and fix every swing. It gives you lots of data, and it takes time, more than a few weeks, to work through any changes/adjustments needed. Obviously, Elias and his staff were not impressed with what they saw compared to the other guys. Then, Yaz was traded and something changed over the next few months in AAA for him. Great for him. Maybe he started to make good changes from what he learned from the Elias staff, but it took time to begin to show in games. That is often the case with swing changes, approach adjustments. Maybe it was the Giants who found something. Maybe it was something else, who knows. 

Was he going to be the same player in Baltimore, facing the AL East? IDK, I would guess likely not. There have been many examples over they years of players who had impact careers out West and got traded to an Eastern team, only to struggle. Would it have been nice to see him do that here in Baltimore, of course. I just don't see why this has become such a hotly contested thing. Hindsight is easy to see clearly. His tools have never indicated this kind of production. There is not one prospect report that says he would do anything like he is doing. 

I know you are pretty positive about Elias and Sig. To point to Elias's failure to produce waiver wire pick ups and minor trades into an impact player is incomplete, honestly, in COVID 2020 crazy season. He has no money to spend, and yet most of the ML team was picked up off waivers and minor league free agency and still competed on most nights. The final record looks worse than it was. I would say his record was excellent in the first half. Santander got hurt and many young players struggled badly. Solid approaches went out the window entirely. 

• Pedro Severino had an OPS north of .850 in July/August and he began to look like an all star (offensively), but he chased much more in September and his numbers faded badly to .250/.322/.388/.710
• Jose Iglesias was an impact signing, despite the injuries and many at bats in the DH role .373/.400/.556/.956
• Hanser Alberto is what he is a well below-average defender with little power, and he faded badly in September as well .283/.306/.393/.698
• Pat Valaika was very good, I thought, for what his role is. .277/.315/.475/.791
• Rio Ruiz is probably not the answer at 3B, but I think he gets one more year to see if he can figure it out .222/.286/.427/.713
• Richie Martin will be vastly improved, he reported so much stronger than in 2019 and I think his injury robbed him of a breakout of sorts, the swing looked so much more fluid and quick in Spring camp.
• Ramon Urias might just make Alberto expendable, and I believe he will hit and produce better overall numbers and play better defense.
• Obviously, Dwight Smith Jr. was a failure. Early in 2019, he certainly looked like he was a certain upgrade to Yaz. The the injuries in late May, neck and shoulder. He has not been the same since.

Most of the resources have gone into minor league and international infrastructure. To criticize Elias for the Yaz trade in hindsight, honestly it's silly. No one batted an eye at the time of the deal. Can we just be happy for the guy and not look for someone to blame? If there is a pattern here, then ok, there's a problem. This one baffles everyone because no one saw this coming.

And where would Yaz play in our OF next season? Over Mountcastle, Santander, Hays, Mullins, Mancini...? 

Clearly I am failing to get my point across. I'm tired. Have any opinion you want.

At the end of the day, you have an opinion, I have facts. My facts state that Elias has dumped one player that became an impact player and he has not acquired any. Does that mean he will never acquire any? No. 

Does it mean he missed something of that the technology may not always have the answers, incomplete. I like a lot of what Elias has done in changing things within the organization, but so far his talent evaluations of players he's brought in have not been very good. Grant it, these guys are waiver claims and few of them will turn into anything, but so far he's found middle/long relievers and utility guys or sub par guys they've run out as starters the last two years.

I expect things to improve, but what we don't know yet is whether he will be given a budget to help improve the team in the future. Afterall, if they are really making coaching moves based on salary (I still don't believe this) then you can throw away any chances of the team being competitive soon so he will need to build completely from within.

My hope was that Elias had the technological and scouting eye to find unearthed talent in other organizations. Instead, he failed to pick up Yaz's potential and the guys he has selected have not shown they are part of a winning future.  Sure, maybe we can give him a pass on Yaz, but he also hired the coaches yet the SF coaches in less then a few weeks found a way to make Yaz an impact player.

The man at the top gets credit when things go well, but also must take the blame when they don't.

 

[LookinUp]

13 hours ago, Number5 said:

You really think there was reason to expect that Elias should have seen that coming? 

I think the point that Tony and I are trying to make that people might not get is this.

If there's one case where you want to know what you missed and why you missed it, it's the case of the player who suddenly becomes a big time impact guy when he leaves. I don't care about his age. I care what he became. If I lose Yaz, I want to know exactly why I lost him. That doesn't mean the decision itself was bad, but it needs to be understood. It's really another Jake Arrieta case. He was given a million chances here and never panned out. Leaves, gets different opinions and blows up. I want to know why.

In hindsight, it's clear that former group of Orioles baseball people were never going to get Arrieta to succeed here. That was a problem. It's also a problem if we have a guy like Yaz and can't get him to succeed here. A big problem that I want to know the answer to.

[Sports Guy]

12 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

I think the point that Tony and I are trying to make that people might not get is this.

If there's one case where you want to know what you missed and why you missed it, it's the case of the player who suddenly becomes a big time impact guy when he leaves. I don't care about his age. I care what he became. If I lose Yaz, I want to know exactly why I lost him. That doesn't mean the decision itself was bad, but it needs to be understood. It's really another Jake Arrieta case. He was given a million chances here and never panned out. Leaves, gets different opinions and blows up. I want to know why.

In hindsight, it's clear that former group of Orioles baseball people were never going to get Arrieta to succeed here. That was a problem. It's also a problem if we have a guy like Yaz and can't get him to succeed here. A big problem that I want to know the answer to.

I think people get the point you are making.  They just think it’s wrong or don’t exactly agree with the entirety of what you are saying.

And, even more than that, they disagree that the technology is going to show enough in a small sample size of a few weeks for this to be brought up at all.

It seems that some want to place the blame on Elias, his staff and his methods and say all of that failed when it comes to Yaz.  All we are saying is that he wasn’t here long enough for that to be true and he wasn’t here long enough because he proved over a long stretch of time that he wasn’t a good player.  
 

I think if you want To blame anyone, you blame Duq and the people he has working for him.

[LookinUp]

10 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

All we are saying is that he wasn’t here long enough for that to be true and he wasn’t here long enough because he proved over a long stretch of time that he wasn’t a good player.  

If that's the case, that they were really only here a few weeks, I agree that it's not worth fretting too much over. Tony's other points about finding our own Yaz are good ones I think, but my concern was over losing an impact guy in the first place without knowing it. If that's on Duq, fine. I thought Elias was here longer.