How far are the O's away from being a winning team?

[Aristotelian]

5 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

 

I would be willing to bet that Mancini has outperformed at least half go the top 100 guys from the lists when he was in the minors.  Thats the point.

 

The lists mean very little.  They are fun talking points for fans but not much more than that.

So it doesn't matter that we've gone from bottom third to top 5 organizational ranking? That we now have 4-5 top 100 prospects versus 1 or 2? There is a middle ground between "rankings are 100% predictive" and "rankings mean nothing." Regardless, middle infield has the most uncertainty.

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, Aristotelian said:

So it doesn't matter that we've gone from bottom third to top 5 organizational ranking? That we now have 4-5 top 100 prospects versus 1 or 2? There is a middle ground between "rankings are 100% predictive" and "rankings mean nothing." Regardless, middle infield has the most uncertainty.

What matters is players who come up and produce.  Where they are ranked means nothing.

Is John Means any less of a pitcher because he wasn’t even a top 30 guy in our organization?  
 

It’s great the team has a lot of talent...talent means nothing without performance attached to it.  

[Aristotelian]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

What matters is players who come up and produce.  Where they are ranked means nothing.

Is John Means any less of a pitcher because he wasn’t even a top 30 guy in our organization?  
 

It’s great the team has a lot of talent...talent means nothing without performance attached to it.  

Of course actual performance is what matters, but we can't know that until after the fact. The question is whether we can predict anything based on what we know about the current talent. No doubt some players will outperform their expectations and some will underperform. If we are thin at a position, I don't think a good solution is to do nothing and pray for the next Means/Mancini. 

[Mr. Chewbacca Jr.]

2 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

It does not guarantee anything but I would rather have a higher ranked player than lower. At the very least it means someone thinks your player is better.

I don't think the ranks really work like that. They define who is closest to the majors, who is the most slam-dunk case to make the majors. It's a pretty fluid scale, so I wouldn't worry about who is #40 compared to #90 or whatever.

[wildcard]

2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

The ranking means nothing.

Elias seems to think ranking means something.   You don't.   Who is a fan supposed to believe?

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

It helps that he is pitching in the NL and in that park.

He had plenty of excellent stretches with the Os too.

Yes he did, though usually in the second half of the season.   He always started slow with us.

He also had a nice season last year, though not as good as this.  

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Elias seems to think ranking means something.   You don't.   Who is a fan supposed to believe?

Elias wants to push a narrative to the fan base to make it look like ownership isn’t a bunch of cheap SOBs.

 

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Yes he did, though usually in the second half of the season.   He always started slow with us.

He also had a nice season last year, though not as good as this.  

Kid has talent.  Never could develop the consistent FB command.  When he had that, he was tough to beat.

[Beysbol]

3 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Elias wants to push a narrative to the fan base to make it look like ownership isn’t a bunch of cheap SOBs.

 

I totally agree with this. I so wish they sold this team to people who actually give a damn and want to win. 

Edited May 12, 2021 by Beysbol

[foxfield]

4 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Elias wants to push a narrative to the fan base to make it look like ownership isn’t a bunch of cheap SOBs.

 

Elias is a pretty respected baseball guy who is young enough to still have plenty to prove.  If you honestly believe that Elias is investing his own time and reputation in pushing a narrative to cover ownership...well, I'll just say I think you are wrong.

That doesn't mean I disagree that ownership isn't cheap.  But the more enduring image really, is that ownership has done a poor job of hiring good baseball people and then staying out of their way.  The son's seem to have allowed Elias to completely rebuild even though they have given no indication they will ever spend money.  But I also think it would be unfair to cast the rebuild as being hampered by tight fisted ownership.  

At the end of the day, I think Elias wants to rebuild the Orioles into a winning franchise because that is the narrative that speaks well to his future and more importantly how baseball will judge him.

[owknows]

4 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Elias wants to push a narrative to the fan base to make it look like ownership isn’t a bunch of cheap SOBs.

 

Yeah...  you said it brother.

The Chris Davis, Ubaldo Jimenez, Mark Trumbo, Alex Cobb, Andrew Cashner,  signings were all just a clever ruse on the part of ownership to grossly overspend for years...  so they could later use that folly to justify their REAL desire to be cheap SOB's.

And they'd have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids.

[Can_of_corn]

23 minutes ago, owknows said:

Yeah...  you said it brother.

The Chris Davis, Ubaldo Jimenez, Mark Trumbo, Alex Cobb, Andrew Cashner,  signings were all just a clever ruse on the part of ownership to grossly overspend for years...  so they could later use that folly to justify their REAL desire to be cheap SOB's.

And they'd have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids.

Different ownership.

[owknows]

Perhaps wiser ownership.

Not wishing to visit the sins of the father upon the future,

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, owknows said:

Perhaps wiser ownership.

Not wishing to visit the sins of the father upon the future,

Interesting sidestep.

[owknows]

3 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Interesting sidestep.

To what I considered a trivial distinction