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

[Moose Milligan]

7 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

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.

I think everything would have to break right for them to be a fringe WC team next year.  

[Just Regular]

4 hours ago, Redskins Rick said:

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.

It was the one and only instance we had the luxury of purchasing October tools and not 162-tools since the tournament berth was on lock by the trade deadline.   Fingers crossed we get the day Dean Kremer is left off a playoff roster.

[OFFNY]

35 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

 

Depends on how you define contender ......  

 

o

 

Entering the ring with a record of 38-0 with 32 KO's, ranked #4 in the world by the WBC ......

 

 

 

o

[foxfield]

19 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Contender to miss the playoffs?  Absolutely.

Potential contender to battle the teams who are not tanking for respectability and future contention potential.  Potentially.

[Camden_yardbird]

23 hours ago, LTO's said:

How exactly is tanking going to produce results at the major league level after only 1 minor league season and less than 1.5 drafts worth of talent acquisition? Also, the team was better in 2019 than 2018 (not saying much) and they were on pace to better than the 2019 team last year. What exactly is the indictment? 

If you get the same results with another cog in the machine that means the cog is fungible...no value added.  You are disagreeing with the premise that we got the same results or that those results are significant, which is fine.  But if you believe we would have gotten the result with any other GM...thats not great.

Obviously its not that cut and dry.  We have to see how his traded for assets perform in the minors this year.  I just don't like his breadth rather than quality approach of trading or his devaluation of the assets left to him when he came in.

[LTO's]

17 minutes ago, Camden_yardbird said:

But if you believe we would have gotten the result with any other GM...thats not great.

I'm asking you what you think another GM would've done in Elias' situation that would've made the major league team significantly better while also improving the farm system. The improvement in the minor league pitching after the new regime took over was noticeable. I have no reason to believe that wouldn't have continued in 2020. It sucks that the minor league season was canceled and the draft was shrunk. That's hardly an indictment on Elias though. 

19 minutes ago, Camden_yardbird said:

I just don't like his breadth rather than quality approach of trading 

I don't think is an indefensible opinion. Although I don't think Elias had the ML talent to get a true quality, top 5 in system type prospect from any team. If that's the case, you sort of have to go with the breadth approach and trust your scouting and analytics to find an undervalued guy. I think he may have made a mistake with Pop but that remains to be seen. Outside of that, I'm not sure he really "devalued" anyone. When he got here this was the worst franchise in baseball and it wasn't really close. 

[Il BuonO]

1 hour ago, OFFNY said:

o

 

Entering the ring with a record of 38-0 with 32 KO's, ranked #4 in the world by the WBC ......

 

 

 

o

Bum of the month club....

[Camden_yardbird]

46 minutes ago, LTO's said:

I'm asking you what you think another GM would've done in Elias' situation that would've made the major league team significantly better while also improving the farm system. The improvement in the minor league pitching after the new regime took over was noticeable. I have no reason to believe that wouldn't have continued in 2020. It sucks that the minor league season was canceled and the draft was shrunk. That's hardly an indictment on Elias though. 

I don't think is an indefensible opinion. Although I don't think Elias had the ML talent to get a true quality, top 5 in system type prospect from any team. If that's the case, you sort of have to go with the breadth approach and trust your scouting and analytics to find an undervalued guy. I think he may have made a mistake with Pop but that remains to be seen. Outside of that, I'm not sure he really "devalued" anyone. When he got here this was the worst franchise in baseball and it wasn't really close. 

Yaz has become a solid regular if not better.  Bundy was a cy young candidate last year.  Pop wasn't protected (we will see).

He devalued players that were here.

We can keep make excuses or just admit that he didn't value these players correctly, give them chances, try and make the appropriate adjustments (i.e. it was extremely evident Bundy could follow the path of other successful slide dominate pitchers.)

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Moose Milligan said:

I think everything would have to break right for them to be a fringe WC team next year.  

We’ll know a lot more at the end of this season about how far away the team is from contending.   But in almost any event, I would expect a big jump in the W-L record next year and a much more competitive team.   And, I do think it’s possible that Elias will begin to spend some money.   Not that we have to do everything the same way as the Astros did, but after year 3 of their rebuild they bumped the payroll from $44 mm to $93 mm.
 

[linedrive]

3 hours 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.  

Agreed. Maybe it is a stretch, but we've gone from Worst to First before, and we have some pretty good, young players in the lineup already. Stretch or not, it wouldn't surprise me to see the O's contending until the last week of the 2022 season, if not stealing a Wild Card spot  from a more deserving team. It will depend on how our young players develop, but contending next year is not inconceivable.

[ThomasTomasz]

1 hour ago, Camden_yardbird said:

Yaz has become a solid regular if not better.  Bundy was a cy young candidate last year.  Pop wasn't protected (we will see).

He devalued players that were here.

We can keep make excuses or just admit that he didn't value these players correctly, give them chances, try and make the appropriate adjustments (i.e. it was extremely evident Bundy could follow the path of other successful slide dominate pitchers.)

Yaz reminds me of Joey Bats and Justin Turner as an extreme late-bloomer.  That is not really a fair assessment of the development system, especially since Yaz pre-dated Elias even coming on board.  

I’ll take the argument with Bundy, as he had a year with Brocail, but I often wonder how many changes we can make in a year.  I also wonder if part of his issue was mental, or if he was just damaged goods here like Arrieta.  

Gotta admit, I wonder about Pop too.  I was speculating him in a dynasty league for a while.  He has the potential to be an elite reliever and I don’t understand where he was worse than any of the Rule 5 guys we got.  

In all, I just think it’s too early to tell.  There was plenty to devalue Bundy before Elias even got here.  Yaz’s situation is unique and is a rarity.  And Pop is TBD.