NL VP of Scouting : " It’s embarrassing to the sport what they’re doing, or aren’t doing."

[LTO's]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

Those useful pieces are here in large part to what Elias walked into..again, which was not a bare cupboard despite the narrative that some want to push.

Literally every team in baseball has some collection of "useful" players that a new GM can trade for some 40+ FV prospects.  That's not impressive. The Orioles didn't have a Sale, Chapman, Machado type player to trade when Elias get here like other GMs of rebuilding teams had and of course there were absolutely no international prospects of note. No matter how you slice it, the Orioles farm system/young talent at the end of 2018 was bad relative to the rest of the league. Was it underrated? Probably a little. But it was still one of the least desirable positions in baseball at that time. Reading between the lines, you can tell the Angelos sons had to give Elias as much of a pitch to take this job as he had to give them. 

[Hank Scorpio]

8 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Certainly.  That team got old and bad, fast.  Davis not being here wouldn't have made a difference.

 

Probably not, but it would have freed up some money (perhaps just money headed for ownership's pockets, but whatever...)

I just think there was a little too much affection for the core post-2016, which you can probably pin that on Buck. To me, it was clear after losing the play in game to Toronto that year that they were MAYBE the third best team in the division, but probably more likely the fourth best. The rest of the division was young and talented and you knew the Yankees wouldn't be down for long. It was pretty clear that as Ubaldo Jimenez walked off the mound, that core's window was closed. 

Britton was coming off of a once in a career year and it was crystal clear to any realist that Machado wasn't sticking around. They each had two years left before free agency. 

If those two deals went down that offseason, this organization would probably be farther along @ this point. No guarantees, obviously... but when you're the Orioles and you're never going to re-load via free agency / hand out enormous contracts, you have to be one step ahead. They weren't, and the rest is history.

I do feel that has changed a bit with the current regime, but it remains to be seen obviously. 

 

 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

No way..the Davis contract isn’t nearly as close to as bad as that decision.

The narrative surrounding the Davis contract is largely bs.  While it was always dumb to give him that contract no one thought he would be this bad, no matter how against the deal you were.

Also, while he carries a high salary, his salary doesn’t stop this team from doing anything.  They may say that it does and try to act like it does but that’s all window dressing to fool the fans and for the current leadership to throw themselves a pity party.

Trading Manny and Britton at that point would have likely been franchise changing moves.  Elite talent coming back..guys under team control for years, making little to no money for most of it.  Foundation, core type guys.  
 

That easily trumps the Davis contract.  It’s not even close.

It’s really, really hard to trade away your best player and your star reliever after a season where the team made the playoffs.     Not saying they shouldn’t have done it, but we shouldn’t pretend that’s an easy decision.    Fan reaction would have been very intense.    

To me the dumbest decision was not signing Manny to an extension earlier in his career.    Reportedly the parties were less than $10 mm apart.   They should have gotten that done and that would have changed the decision tree in subsequent years considerably.   And it would have made Manny an even more valuable trade commodity if the O’s decided to go that route in subsequent seasons.   
 

[Can_of_corn]

11 minutes ago, LTO's said:

Literally every team in baseball has some collection of "useful" players that a new GM can trade for some 40+ FV prospects.  That's not impressive. The Orioles didn't have a Sale, Chapman, Machado type player to trade when Elias get here like other GMs of rebuilding teams had and of course there were absolutely no international prospects of note. No matter how you slice it, the Orioles farm system/young talent at the end of 2018 was bad relative to the rest of the league. Was it underrated? Probably a little. But it was still one of the least desirable positions in baseball at that time. Reading between the lines, you can tell the Angelos sons had to give Elias as much of a pitch to take this job as he had to give them. 

I don't think Dan did either.  Now if he had been allowed to trade Machado earlier I'd think you'd have a good point.

A few months of Machado, a Britton coming off of injury and Gausman with O'Day's contract attached are not super premium chips.

[Moose Milligan]

12 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It’s really, really hard to trade away your best player and your star reliever after a season where the team made the playoffs.     Not saying they shouldn’t have done it, but we shouldn’t pretend that’s an easy decision.    Fan reaction would have been very intense.    

To me the dumbest decision was not signing Manny to an extension earlier in his career.    Reportedly the parties were less than $10 mm apart.   They should have gotten that done and that would have changed the decision tree in subsequent years considerably.   And it would have made Manny an even more valuable trade commodity if the O’s decided to go that route in subsequent seasons.   
 

Agreed they should have gotten Manny locked up earlier.  

But I think they knew they weren't going to be able to extend him after the 2016 season.  Same with Britton.  It had to be done.  

[eddie83]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

No way..the Davis contract isn’t nearly as close to as bad as that decision.

The narrative surrounding the Davis contract is largely bs.  While it was always dumb to give him that contract no one thought he would be this bad, no matter how against the deal you were.

Also, while he carries a high salary, his salary doesn’t stop this team from doing anything.  They may say that it does and try to act like it does but that’s all window dressing to fool the fans and for the current leadership to throw themselves a pity party.

Trading Manny and Britton at that point would have likely been franchise changing moves.  Elite talent coming back..guys under team control for years, making little to no money for most of it.  Foundation, core type guys.  
 

That easily trumps the Davis contract.  It’s not even close.

You don’t sign Davis to a 7 year deal and then trade your best players a year later. Makes no sense. You are basically punting years 2-4 of a 7 year deal. 

[LTO's]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I don't think Dan did either.  Now if he had been allowed to trade Machado earlier I'd think you'd have a good point.

A few months of Machado, a Britton coming off of injury and Gausman with O'Day's contract attached are not super premium chips.

Dan definitely didn't either. Though I still think he could've done better as a whole than getting back a 5th starter, a fourth outfielder and a swingman for those guys. It was widely reported that Dan tried to trade Britton for Colin Moran in 2017 before Angelos stepped in. Would that have been a good move? I don't think so.

Regardless, I wasn't trying to compare Elias to Dan. Moreso the organization in 2018 relative to the beginning of other successful rebuilds around MLB. 

[Sports Guy]

17 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It’s really, really hard to trade away your best player and your star reliever after a season where the team made the playoffs.     Not saying they shouldn’t have done it, but we shouldn’t pretend that’s an easy decision.    Fan reaction would have been very intense.    

To me the dumbest decision was not signing Manny to an extension earlier in his career.    Reportedly the parties were less than $10 mm apart.   They should have gotten that done and that would have changed the decision tree in subsequent years considerably.   And it would have made Manny an even more valuable trade commodity if the O’s decided to go that route in subsequent seasons.   
 

Sometimes you just have to say, F the fans and do what’s smart.  Doing things the fans want you to do will always get your fired.

And yes, not signing Manny when they could have was also stupid...I wouldn’t rank that above not trading hiM and Britton but again, that’s another decision was way worse than the Davis contract.

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

You don’t sign Davis to a 7 year deal and then trade your best players a year later. Makes no sense. You are basically punting years 2-4 of a 7 year deal. 

You don’t sign Davis at all.  It’s not like that was smart decision and you need to continue to make smart decisions to justify it.

It was absolutely wrong to keep those guys.  The team was headed down and the teams in the division was headed up (and that was the biggest reason we were successful in those 5 seasons anyway imo).  They weren’t going to contend.

[Yossarian]

20 hours ago, Philip said:

Thank you for writing this, instead of, “I could care less.” @Yossarian and I thank you!

Indeed.

[Frobby]

6 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

You don’t sign Davis at all.  It’s not like that was smart decision and you need to continue to make smart decisions to justify it.

It was absolutely wrong to keep those guys.  The team was headed down and the teams in the division was headed up (and that was the biggest reason we were successful in those 5 seasons anyway imo).  They weren’t going to contend.

Here’s the OH preseason poll.   The median response was that the team would win 85-88 games.  35% said 89+, only 11% said under .500.    

Now, of course I realize that (1) any OH poll is likely to be inherently optimistic towards the Orioles, and (2) it’s the GM’s job to be more objective than the fans.   But, I think the trajectory of the team at the time wasn’t as obvious as you suggest.    

Vegas had the over/under at 80.5.   
 

[eddie83]

15 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

You don’t sign Davis at all.  It’s not like that was smart decision and you need to continue to make smart decisions to justify it.

It was absolutely wrong to keep those guys.  The team was headed down and the teams in the division was headed up (and that was the biggest reason we were successful in those 5 seasons anyway imo).  They weren’t going to contend.

Just stating the obvious, they were committed to trying to extend the window. 
 

Davjs wasn’t terrible in 16 actually. They extended O’Day as well before 16. 
 

Smart teams make decisions in concert. 

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Here’s the OH preseason poll.   The median response was that the team would win 85-88 games.  35% said 89+, only 11% said under .500.    

Now, of course I realize that (1) any OH poll is likely to be inherently optimistic towards the Orioles, and (2) it’s the GM’s job to be more objective than the fans.   But, I think the trajectory of the team at the time wasn’t as obvious as you suggest.    

Vegas had the over/under at 80.5.   
 

It was obvious if you weren’t wearing orange colored glasses and your head wasn’t buried in the sand.

And btw, even if they had a good 2017, the trajectory was still pointing down for them and up for everyone else.  It was still an inevitable collapse.  

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

Just stating the obvious, they were committed to trying to extend the window. 
 

Davjs wasn’t terrible in 16 actually. They extended O’Day as well before 16. 
 

Smart teams make decisions in concert. 

Dan, Buck and Peter were not worried about the long term costs involved.

[MCO'sFan]

I find the comment interesting in that the O's are certainly not the first team to rebuild in this manner. They are not even the most extreme version of the tanking. The Astros, Padres and Pirates all come to mind as teams that have tanked it worse than the O's. But, I guess the record is not complete yet.