Don't waste the Adley, Grayson and DL years.

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

Yes because you have a false belief that they are pocketing money and plan to spend it later.  It’s crazy to think that any team is doing that, especially this one.

You’re right.   Other teams spend the exact same amount of payroll every year and never reduce it when the team is bad and increase it when they’re good.   

[sevastras]

-Strasburg, Harper, Rendon

-Correa, Appel, Aiken, Bregman

-Chipper Jones

-Ken Griffey Jr

-Machado, who knows the next great top end player that could be drafted next year

Why be mediocre this year when you can have 4 straight years of top end picks giving you a huge wave a talent going into being competetive?  It would be a wasted year this year to field a somewhat competetive team just so you can see the young kids play.  Want to watch the future? Sign up for MiLB tv and watch those games.

 

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

You’re right.   Other teams spend the exact same amount of payroll every year and never reduce it when the team is bad and increase it when they’re good.   

None of this means they are saving it for some rainy day.  It doesn’t work like that.

[spiritof66]

7 hours ago, wildcard said:

I think most of us expect these three will be promoted to AAA in the 2nd half.   And they will be in the Majors in 2022.   They will only be under team control for 6 years unless they are extended.  With the team's history on long term contracts and  Elias' leaning toward being transactional like Tampa, extensions may not be the approach the Orioles take.   Under that approach the O's may trade these players after 4 and half to 5 years.

The new CBA terms  are unknown but It does not seem that team control of players will get longer.  One of the changes that may be made is to  stop the ability to keep control of a player prior to free agency for 7 years.

Dan Duquette was hired in late 2011.  He decided that the players that Andy MacPhail had left him were good enough to build around so that if he just added a few players he could turn a 69 win team into a contender.   And he did just that.  He won 93 in 2012 and went to the playoffs.  

The addition of these three players will be a big jump forward for the team.  And there will be many pitchers competing for the last 2 spots in the rotation and the pen including Bradish, Baumann,  Kremer, Zimmermann, Lowther, Akin,  T Wells, Smith, Peralta, Blaine Knight, A Wells, Fry, Scott, H Harvey, Tate, Vespi, Sulser,  and Bishop.   The areas  that needs bolstering is 2B, SS and 3B.    There are young players to compete for those spots in Grenier, Leyba, Vavra, Ortiz and Jones but no established infielders.    There will be quality free agents on the market.

There is the making of the winning and maybe contending team next season if the right moves are made this off season and if players like Mancini,  Means, Santander Sulser and Fry are not traded at the 2021 deadline.   

I hope the O's do not waste the talents of Adley, Grayson and DL in 2022.  The O's control of them is already a short window.  The time to put a contending Orioles team on the field is 2022 with the development we are seeing in the minors.

I agree -- I mean, really agree -- with the spirit of this post. A few thoughts: 

First, I don't see the team as you describe it as a contender in 2022. Contending would take some unexpected strong performances, a few probably high-priced guys to fill in gaps, and a lot of luck. As far as I'm concerned, the objective wouldn't be to contend, but to put a talented, exciting team on the field that would win some games -- 70, 78, even 85. Who knows? (An aside: if what you advocate were to happen, I think I'd want to see a new manager, too.)

Second, a lot of posters seem to assume, and you may be assuming as well, that when these three guys get promoted to the big club they pretty quickly will be very good major leaguers. That's not crazy; so far, they've been that good. But a lot of players who have very good or great ML careers take some time -- a season, even two or more -- to become successful. To me, that possibility strengthens your point: promoting a talented player starts his CBA clock, but it also gives him ML experience that may be necessary to make him productive at that level, and more MiL experience probably wouldn't help in some instances. Not starting the clock just means delaying that development.

Third, some prospects, even some of the best prospects, never provide any major league value at all. (I learned this shortly after the dawn of my baseball fandom, when the Phillies traded one of my favorite players, Rip Repulski, to the Dodgers for a hotshot second baseman who had just been runner-up for MVP of the International League. George (Sparky) Anderson began the season as the Phils' starter but played his way out of MLB by the end of the season.) If any of our top guys aren't going to make it, we might as well find out sooner rather than later. I'm not even going to mention injuries or the possibility that the new CBA will shorten or otherwise screw around with the time for team control. 

Finally, I don't know what Elias's general plan is for the franchise a few years down the road if there's some short-term success and he's still around, or whether he has one. He has said, as recently as last December (https://pressboxonline.com/2020/12/03/after-dealing-jose-iglesias-orioles-gm-mike-elias-says-priority-is-accumulating-young-talent/ ), that "the Tampa Bay Rays .  .  . have been a successful model to follow as far as winning with homegrown talent." I'm not sure that tells me much since from what I see the Rays don't seem to care at all about holding onto their home-grown talent, and a lot of the Rays' current talent has been acquired by trading the best of that home-grown talent when it is at or near its peak value and by shopping successfully for short-term bargains in the trade and free-agent markets. If Elias means what he says about looking to the Rays as a model -- and I have no idea whether he does -- that means no long-term contracts and, in all likelihood, an Oriole team with few if any veteran stars, home-grown or otherwise. We may be talking about just two or three years with the Orioles before GRod or Hall or Adley or Henderson or Westburg gets swapped for younger talent. If I thought Elias was likely to go "full Tampa Bay," it might affect my view.

Elias has said repeatedly that he intends to build an infrastructure that will enable the Orioles to field a team capable of competing consistently in the division. Under the current divisional alignments and economic structure of MLB (and the Orioles), I think that is an unrealistic goal. I'm OK with that; it sounds good and is a worthy aspiration. But it also is something that Elias tends to say when he is preaching patience. If Elias is telling us that the Orioles' infrastructure needs a lot of remedial work and that he has the resources, the expertise and the will to fix that, great. But if he's telling us to be patient while he transforms the franchise into one that can go toe-to-toe, season after season, with the Orioles' division rivals, I call  . And I'm at least a little suspicious. By the nature of where the Orioles' rebuilding process stands, it's been hard to assess Elias's performance thus far; it's going to be a lot easier to judge him a couple of years after these guys start their major league careers. In my experience, human nature -- not saying it's Elias's nature, I have no idea -- can lead those with good intentions to defer their days of reckoning when they have a sincere belief there's a sound reason for doing so. 

We have had five seasons of bad baseball in Baltimore -- most of them very, very bad -- partly because that's the way Elias apparently has wanted it. While he keeps preaching patience I am, and I think many of the rest of us are, getting

 

 

[wildcard]

23 hours ago, wildcard said:

I think most of us expect these three will be promoted to AAA in the 2nd half.   And they will be in the Majors in 2022.   They will only be under team control for 6 years unless they are extended.  With the team's history on long term contracts and  Elias' leaning toward being transactional like Tampa, extensions may not be the approach the Orioles take.   Under that approach the O's may trade these players after 4 and half to 5 years.

The new CBA terms  are unknown but It does not seem that team control of players will get longer.  One of the changes that may be made is to  stop the ability to keep control of a player prior to free agency for 7 years.

Dan Duquette was hired in late 2011.  He decided that the players that Andy MacPhail had left him were good enough to build around so that if he just added a few players he could turn a 69 win team into a contender.   And he did just that.  He won 93 in 2012 and went to the playoffs.  

The addition of these three players will be a big jump forward for the team.  And there will be many pitchers competing for the last 2 spots in the rotation and the pen including Bradish, Baumann,  Kremer, Zimmermann, Lowther, Akin,  T Wells, Smith, Peralta, Blaine Knight, A Wells, Fry, Scott, H Harvey, Tate, Vespi, Sulser,  and Bishop.   The areas  that needs bolstering is 2B, SS and 3B.    There are young players to compete for those spots in Grenier, Leyba, Vavra, Ortiz and Jones but no established infielders.    There will be quality free agents on the market.

There is the making of the winning and maybe contending team next season if the right moves are made this off season and if players like Mancini,  Means, Santander Sulser and Fry are not traded at the 2021 deadline.   

I hope the O's do not waste the talents of Adley, Grayson and DL in 2022.  The O's control of them is already a short window.  The time to put a contending Orioles team on the field is 2022 with the development we are seeing in the minors.

Add to this.

2022 will be Elias' 4th year of the rebuild.   Time to show results. Time to commit to winnng.    He can't say winning does not matter in his 4th year.   

Offense:   The only thing that is really working so far is Mullins in CF and Mancini at 1B/DH.  40% through the  season Mountcastle is showing improvement after a poor start.   Santander is not an offensive leader at this point but is playing hurt and is just playing well enough to hold his spot.   Hays and Stewart have 700ish OPS which is not what the team needs.  They will play a lot this season but have to improve to hold on to their spots.   Diaz, Turchin, Rizer and even Jones may challenge for left field next year if they continue not to hit.   We knew 2B/SS/ 3B were placeholders and that is how it is working out.   Of course. Adley is the catcher.

Elias has to hope that Vavra, Jones  or Leyba can take over 2B next season.   SS and 3B probably has to be FA acquisitions with Grenier and/or Ortiz seeing time at SS if they develop.    

I don't see how Elias puts together a productive offense without Mancini.  That means an extension is needed.  Two years plus and option year would be good.  Then evaluate where the team is in July of 2022.  Where will the O's find an offensive and clubhouse leader without Mancini when 2022 is a year where results matter?    

As I said in the OP I think the pitching options in 2022 are deep which is what the O's need.   The roster turnover between now and  opening day 2022 will be a lot.  Maybe 15-17 players will be gone and replaced with promotions and needed veterans players IMO.  

As Elias looks at the 2021  trades deadline, I think what matters is he really needs to show results in the majors next year.   Galvis is really the only established player he can afford to trade that might bring back something.  If any of  Matt Harvey, Armstrong, Lakins, Plutko,  Severino, Franco,  Valaika, Wilkerson,  Martin, Valdez, Mattson, Sceroler,  and  Bannon can bring back lower level minor leaguers like Elias just did with Taylor Davis then those deals would  be welcomed because none of them are probably on the team for the Rule 5 draft in December.

This year's trade deadline is more about building a team that shows improvement  in  2022 than anything else IMO.   If Elias can't show that improvement I think everyone from ownership to management to the fans will be questioning the path they are on.

Hyde looks pretty beat up from losing  in the post game presser.  And its not really his fault.   Elias has not given him the players to succeed yet.

The building for the future will continue to come from high draft choices  and international signing in 2021 and 2022 as well as development of the prospect they already have.

 

 

[Aristotelian]

I don't think extending Mancini is the answer. If he is that important that just shows how far away we are from being competitive. There have got to be better options to replicate his .820 OPS. If we can get anything back for him I'm taking it. We are so much better off if we have an open DH slot to keep guys like DJ Stewart off the field. Now you may say we should DFA DJ Stewart but there will be another. I'm sorry, building around a RH DH is not a great idea.

[Sports Guy]

11 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

I don't think extending Mancini is the answer. If he is that important that just shows how far away we are from being competitive. There have got to be better options to replicate his .820 OPS. If we can get anything back for him I'm taking it. We are so much better off if we have an open DH slot to keep guys like DJ Stewart off the field. Now you may say we should DFA DJ Stewart but there will be another. I'm sorry, building around a RH DH is not a great idea.

You don’t trade him for “anything”. That’s a terrible idea.

The return has to be pretty good.

I think the bigger question to consider with him will be his 2022 salary.  Will the Orioles be willing to pay him 7.5-10M?  If not, you really need to trade him between now and the start of ST 2022.

[Just Regular]

1 hour ago, Aristotelian said:

I don't think extending Mancini is the answer. If he is that important that just shows how far away we are from being competitive. There have got to be better options to replicate his .820 OPS. If we can get anything back for him I'm taking it. We are so much better off if we have an open DH slot to keep guys like DJ Stewart off the field. Now you may say we should DFA DJ Stewart but there will be another. I'm sorry, building around a RH DH is not a great idea.

As DJ Stewart has hit credibly and gone slip and slide on the grass, I too have started to see Stewart and Mancini linked in a way I haven't really before.

Frankly if 2022's team can only cost $50M, i think I think giving Stewart most of Mancini's role at Arb1 cost and using that $8M-$10M (depending on how many RBI's last 60% of season, naturally) elsewhere on the roster could be better.   As ever if our forecast for 2022 is not competitive, please do Mancini the kindness of getting him to a winner next month.

I hope Mancini mashes here the next 1.5 seasons and forces Elias to consider giving him Trumbo money, but I don't know from here if for 2023 he is likely then to do any better than CJ Cron did this past offseason.

[interloper]

On 6/15/2021 at 10:53 AM, Sports Guy said:

And you help them in 2022 but having them up here in 2021, especially Adley.  

Certainly debatable. Did Mountcastle's time last year help him this year? It seems that no it did not. Not saying they shouldn't have brought him up - they definitely should have.  

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, interloper said:

Certainly debatable. Did Mountcastle's time last year help him this year? It seems that no it did not. Not saying they shouldn't have brought him up - they definitely should have.  

Experience is always helpful...what you do with that experience is up to you.

[vab]

3 hours ago, wildcard said:

Add to this.

2022 will be Elias' 4th year of the rebuild.   Time to show results. Time to commit to winnng.    He can't say winning does not matter in his 4th year.   

Offense:   The only thing that is really working so far is Mullins in CF and Mancini at 1B/DH.  40% through the  season Mountcastle is showing improvement after a poor start.   Santander is not an offensive leader at this point but is playing hurt and is just playing well enough to hold his spot.   Hays and Stewart have 700ish OPS which is not what the team needs.  They will play a lot this season but have to improve to hold on to their spots.   Diaz, Turchin, Rizer and even Jones may challenge for left field next year if they continue not to hit.   We knew 2B/SS/ 3B were placeholders and that is how it is working out.   Of course. Adley is the catcher.

Elias has to hope that Vavra, Jones  or Leyba can take over 2B next season.   SS and 3B probably has to be FA acquisitions with Grenier and/or Ortiz seeing time at SS if they develop.    

I don't see how Elias puts together a productive offense without Mancini.  That means an extension is needed.  Two years plus and option year would be good.  Then evaluate where the team is in July of 2022.  Where will the O's find an offensive and clubhouse leader without Mancini when 2022 is a year where results matter?    

As I said in the OP I think the pitching options in 2022 are deep which is what the O's need.   The roster turnover between now and  opening day 2022 will be a lot.  Maybe 15-17 players will be gone and replaced with promotions and needed veterans players IMO.  

As Elias looks at the 2021  trades deadline, I think what matters is he really needs to show results in the majors next year.   Galvis is really the only established player he can afford to trade that might bring back something.  If any of  Matt Harvey, Armstrong, Lakins, Plutko,  Severino, Franco,  Valaika, Wilkerson,  Martin, Valdez, Mattson, Sceroler,  and  Bannon can bring back lower level minor leaguers like Elias just did with Taylor Davis then those deals would  be welcomed because none of them are probably on the team for the Rule 5 draft in December.

This year's trade deadline is more about building a team that shows improvement  in  2022 than anything else IMO.   If Elias can't show that improvement I think everyone from ownership to management to the fans will be questioning the path they are on.

Hyde looks pretty beat up from losing  in the post game presser.  And its not really his fault.   Elias has not given him the players to succeed yet.

The building for the future will continue to come from high draft choices  and international signing in 2021 and 2022 as well as development of the prospect they already have.

 

 

Unless you have some inside source to whatever Angelos is running this thing now, your whole premise that Elias has to start winning next year is just made up. If left to his own devices, I would fully expect next year to be another rebuild year. Hopefully a bit better, a few more prospects up but no wholesale change to the current philosophy. If ownership buts in and says win now, well we know how that will end up. We've been looking at it for almost 25 years, save 2012-2016. 

[DrungoHazewood]

On 6/15/2021 at 11:39 AM, Ruzious said:

There's no doubt in my mind that if the O's had Acuna, he'd have played 2 more years in the minors, and in that time - frustration might have eaten away at him and damaged his career.  

You have no doubt that the Orioles would have looked at a 19-year-old in AAA OPSing .940 and said "we'll keep him in AAA for two more full seasons"?  I think they would have done the same thing the Braves did, send him to AAA for a month of his age 20 season, then call him up.  Maybe a bit longer if he OPS'd the same .556 he did for Gwinnett.

The Orioles have never had a 19-year-old dominate AAA, at least not in a long time.  There's a plan, but the plan changes when you have a generational talent.

[wildcard]

1 hour ago, vab said:

Unless you have some inside source to whatever Angelos is running this thing now, your whole premise that Elias has to start winning next year is just made up. If left to his own devices, I would fully expect next year to be another rebuild year. Hopefully a bit better, a few more prospects up but no wholesale change to the current philosophy. If ownership buts in and says win now, well we know how that will end up. We've been looking at it for almost 25 years, save 2012-2016. 

I don't think the Angelos bought in for an 8 year rebuild.   By the 4th year there better be some improvement and I think Elias knows that.  And wants that.   2021  should be the last year of tanking.

[SteveA]

42 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

You have no doubt that the Orioles would have looked at a 19-year-old in AAA OPSing .940 and said "we'll keep him in AAA for two more full seasons"?  I think they would have done the same thing the Braves did, send him to AAA for a month of his age 20 season, then call him up.  Maybe a bit longer if he OPS'd the same .556 he did for Gwinnett.

The Orioles have never had a 19-year-old dominate AAA, at least not in a long time.  There's a plan, but the plan changes when you have a generational talent.

Of course not.   We never would have had the 19 year old in AAA to begin with.

[NCRaven]

10 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Of course not.   We never would have had the 19 year old in AAA to begin with.

You're right, of course.  Manny skipped AAA, didn't he?