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

[eddie83]

17 minutes ago, LTO's said:

He was never going to bring back an orgs top 5 prospect which is really bad considering his age and prospect pedigree. You are really overrating his value at that time and the effect Odays contract had. 
 

Dan and co. brought him up before he developed a consistent breaking pitch and after a while his fastball was teed off on. That’s a failure of development for a very promising prospect.  What even is the point of mentioning Erod and Davies? Both of them developed elsewhere. The fact that both of them were traded for rentals means that Dan clearly didn’t value them very highly. Another absolute failure on his part in regards to pitching in the org. Dan stripped this org down to nothing to win ONE playoff series. I don’t get why people look back so fondly on his time. 

I disagree with a lot of this. Clearly when another team takes on money the Braves did with O’Day it impacts the return. Gausman was young, durable and cheap with 2.5 years of control left. As far as his pitch mix does he have a good breaking ball now? I know he threw well last year but don’t  know all the details. 
 

I think Erod and Davies is fair but Tillman is the opposite of that. 
 

I defend Dan all the time. He was in win mode and had a limited pool to deal from due to no Intl presence. Clearly the deals didn’t work out but you have to look at the big picture. This team has a window due to the arms he brought in 2012. Manny came up. Davis blossomed. If you aren’t going to try and win what are you waiting for?  The owner wasn’t going to spend on pitching. 

[Can_of_corn]

33 minutes ago, LTO's said:

He was never going to bring back an orgs top 5 prospect which is really bad considering his age and prospect pedigree. You are really overrating his value at that time and the effect Odays contract had. 
 

Dan and co. brought him up before he developed a consistent breaking pitch and after a while his fastball was teed off on. That’s a failure of development for a very promising prospect.  What even is the point of mentioning Erod and Davies? Both of them developed elsewhere. The fact that both of them were traded for rentals means that Dan clearly didn’t value them very highly. Another absolute failure on his part in regards to pitching in the org. Dan stripped this org down to nothing to win ONE playoff series. I don’t get why people look back so fondly on his time. 

I'm overrating the O'Day contract?

Would you agree that a hurt O'Day had basically no value when traded?

According to Cot's Contracts the Braves paid O'Day a rounding error short of 11M.

The O's traded Matusz to the same Braves in 2016.  The Braves assumed the 3M left on Matusz's contract and the O's sent a second round pick with him for a couple of 16th round non-prospects.

Looking at that simple math, the Braves thought 3M was worth a low second round pick.  So if the O's got 11M in salary relief from those same Braves...

 

ERod was a top 100 prospect when he was with the O's.

Davies wasn't some unpolished nobody in low A ball.

[LTO's]

5 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

disagree with a lot of this. Clearly when another team takes on money the Braves did with O’Day it impacts the return. Gausman was young, durable and cheap with 2.5 years of control left. As far as his pitch mix does he have a good breaking ball now? I know he threw well last year but don’t  know all the details. 

I mean first of all it’s not like O’day was Chris Davis. He was paid fair value for a contending team at the time and was still a solid reliever who got hurt one time. As you said, Gausman was young, cheap and durable and a former top 5 pick. He should have been able to bring back more than senior sign with a back end of the rotation ceiling, even with O’day. He was damaged goods. 
 

Tillman was solid but like all of our starters at that time, he benefited greatly from an elite defense. Ironically, most of the stalwarts of that defense were on the team before he got here. 

I don’t think many of the smarter orgs in baseball currently would come anywhere close to considering trading an Erod level prospect for a rental reliever. The Parra trade never made any sense and still doesn’t so no need to even go there. 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, LTO's said:

I mean first of all it’s not like O’day was Chris Davis. He was paid fair value for a contending team at the time and was still a solid reliever who got hurt one time. As you said, Gausman was young, cheap and durable and a former top 5 pick. He should have been able to bring back more than senior sign with a back end of the rotation ceiling, even with O’day. He was damaged goods. 
 

Tillman was solid but like all of our starters at that time, he benefited greatly from an elite defense. Ironically, most of the stalwarts of that defense were on the team before he got here. 

I don’t think many of the smarter orgs in baseball currently would come anywhere close to considering trading an Erod level prospect for a rental reliever. The Parra trade never made any sense and still doesn’t so no need to even go there. 

Chapman trade?

[eddie83]

27 minutes ago, LTO's said:

I mean first of all it’s not like O’day was Chris Davis. He was paid fair value for a contending team at the time and was still a solid reliever who got hurt one time. As you said, Gausman was young, cheap and durable and a former top 5 pick. He should have been able to bring back more than senior sign with a back end of the rotation ceiling, even with O’day. He was damaged goods. 
 

Tillman was solid but like all of our starters at that time, he benefited greatly from an elite defense. Ironically, most of the stalwarts of that defense were on the team before he got here. 

I don’t think many of the smarter orgs in baseball currently would come anywhere close to considering trading an Erod level prospect for a rental reliever. The Parra trade never made any sense and still doesn’t so no need to even go there. 

O’Day was hurt at the time of the trade. He pitched in only 8 games the next year. It was a bad contract at that point. No idea if how or if he would bounce back. That severely impacted that deal  

You can say that about the staffs in the 60’s and 70’s as well.  
 

 

I have no issue with the Erod deal. Miller was a beast here. Reinforcing the pen for a run made sense and Miller was great here. Ran into a hot team and it didn’t work out. Miller allowed no runs in playoffs. Erod stays and comes up when team is about done? I just believe and not about that specific deal when you have a shot at a title to go for it. The Parra trade was bad, can’t defend that. 

[eddie83]

32 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Chapman trade?

I personally find those types of deals to be more philosophical than player specific. 
 

I’m someone when a team has a legit chance at a title to go for it. Doesn’t mean you give up the farm but I doubt Cubs regret it. 

[Can_of_corn]

5 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

I personally find those types of deals to be more philosophical than player specific. 
 

I’m someone when a team has a legit chance at a title to go for it. Doesn’t mean you give up the farm but I doubt Cubs regret it. 

That was the one Dan Deadline Deal that I really liked.

Miller was a needle mover.

[linedrive]

If the O's don't finish the season as one of the five worst teams in baseball, will these experts who are trashing us apologize??? I doubt it.

Sure, the O's are purposely tanking, but I think we're better than advertised, and next year we could be contenders.

[Redskins Rick]

11 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

That was the one Dan Deadline Deal that I really liked.

Miller was a needle mover.

I agree, he was a needle mover, it made the Birds, even stronger. But, I think more importantly it kept Miller out of Detroit Land. Where they had a really good team, with the exception of their pen.

[Oriole1940]

The so called experts have no great knowledge of  baseball or probably anything else.  They are only former perts who are now ex  perts.

[Moose Milligan]

13 hours ago, linedrive said:

 

Sure, the O's are purposely tanking, but I think we're better than advertised, and next year we could be contenders.

A lot can happen between now and next year but I think it's a giant stretch to believe we can be contenders next year.  

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

A lot can happen between now and next year but I think it's a giant stretch to believe we can be contenders next year.  

Depends on how you define contender.  

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

Depends on how you define contender.  

Contender to miss the playoffs?  Absolutely.

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, Moose Milligan said:

Contender to miss the playoffs?  Absolutely.

Next year isn’t a year I expect them to contend although I can envision a scenario where they could.  
 

Next year should be a year where they finish around 500 and, again, if things go right, could be a fringe WC team.

This will take both development from key guys and the team not being the cheap SOBs they are currently being.  
 

I have a lot of belief in the young talent this organization has and I’m hoping we start to see a lot of them this year.

[ThomasTomasz]

I've contended since tanking started that it is embarrassing, but until MLB actively does something to discourage it, this is going to continue happening.  Considering the success other teams have had, I'm not against it at all.  

I do think there was decent talent here when Elias got here.  Not a great amount of it, but better than what many people thought.  Where I am hoping that the difference between Elias and past regimes comes into play is analytics and player development.  Analytics speaks for itself- we were in the stone age previously.  We are working our way back up, and it is promising to hear players at all levels talk about the difference that technology has made for them.  

Player development is going to be the key, specifically pitching.  No one can deny that the Orioles have invested heavily into pitching via the draft.  But what happens to them?  We have tons of Matt Hobgood's and Matt Riley's over the years.  Some, like Brian Matusz and Zach Britton, fail as starters but carve out a role in the bullpen.  Meanwhile, in a disturbing trend of the last regime, guys like Arrieta, Bundy and now Gausman look like different pitchers entirely once leaving Baltimore.  

A lot was made about a lot of firings that happened a year into Elias's tenure.   That is a good thing.  The "Oriole Way" was outdated and not working.  Elias gave them a chance to adapt to the new way, but it didn't work out.  In the past 30 years, despite the investment in pitching, we've only developed two TORP pitchers- Mike Mussina and Erik Bedard.  That has to change, above all else.  We can not continue to have mediocre starters and expect to win.  

Of course, the investment into the international pipeline is going to be big, and we are now getting top talents signed, but those players are still years away from making a discernable impact.