I’ve pretty much stopped watching

[DrungoHazewood]

18 hours ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

Thanks for the update. Gentrification might help a little, but that dome was out-of-date as soon as the Rays made their debut. 

It was one of the last parks built pre-Camden Yards.  As soon as OPACY opened almost every park built in the last half-century was dated, especially the weird artificial turf domes like Tampa's and the Metrodome and the Kingdome.  Unfortunately for the Rays the park was built to attract a team, their franchise wasn't awarded until a decade later when the new park boom was well underway.

It was like your family buying you a car when you were six and putting it in the garage until you could got your license in the year 2000.  On your 16th birthday you wake up and mom and dad say "surprise, you get a brand new 1990 Chevy Cavalier!"

[eddie83]

13 hours ago, orioles22 said:

If they had some money, they could have bought some older talent to at least be competitive. I think it's safe to say the talent level would be a lot better with a payroll of $100 million or so. But more than that, the fact we are looking at trading our top players because we may not sign them is very depressing.

They have chose not to spend money right now because they aren’t good enough to contend.
 

The FA pool is the key here. Teams can’t sign players who aren’t available. 
 

I don’t think they are looking to trade anyone because they can’t sign them.  

[orioles22]

3 hours ago, eddie83 said:

They have chose not to spend money right now because they aren’t good enough to contend.
 

The FA pool is the key here. Teams can’t sign players who aren’t available. 
 

I don’t think they are looking to trade anyone because they can’t sign them.  

I hope you're right and they will spend money when they can contend, including signing Adley, Hall, Rodriguez and company when it's time. Otherwise, I feel there is no point to continue following the Orioles as I have for many years.

[fansince1988]

I cut the cord after the 2017 season when I realized they were going into tank mode. I couldn't bring myself to invest quality time in another long stretch of benthic baseball after watching almost all of the 14 year losing streak. 

[Oriole1940]

I hope people who believe that the crop of young prospects that are mentioned a lot as being about ready to call up are of major league quality, because we just witnessed yet another failure today vs Toronto.  I can remember when the Orioles would call up  very young prospects,  esp. pitchers. and they were somewhat competitive from day 1.  And in a couple years  many were regular rotation members.  Now if they can get thru the batting order twice, it is reason to cheer, regardless of the score.  As I said yesterday, incompetence rules this organization.  Top to bottom it seems to be true of all areas in between.  I know some prospects do not pan out for all teams, even the Cardinals, but  a good % do make major league players.  The reverse is true here, and has been true for more years than I care to remember.  For goodness sake, scout correctly, sign correctly, develop correctly, and promote correctly, and if present members of the organization cannot do that, get people who can.  Winning organizations are able to, why not the Orioles?        

[ThomasTomasz]

On 6/26/2021 at 5:01 PM, Oriole1940 said:

I hope people who believe that the crop of young prospects that are mentioned a lot as being about ready to call up are of major league quality, because we just witnessed yet another failure today vs Toronto.  I can remember when the Orioles would call up  very young prospects,  esp. pitchers. and they were somewhat competitive from day 1.  And in a couple years  many were regular rotation members.  Now if they can get thru the batting order twice, it is reason to cheer, regardless of the score.  As I said yesterday, incompetence rules this organization.  Top to bottom it seems to be true of all areas in between.  I know some prospects do not pan out for all teams, even the Cardinals, but  a good % do make major league players.  The reverse is true here, and has been true for more years than I care to remember.  For goodness sake, scout correctly, sign correctly, develop correctly, and promote correctly, and if present members of the organization cannot do that, get people who can.  Winning organizations are able to, why not the Orioles?        

I think what we are seeing right now is the true weakness of the Duquette system and how poor it would be if he was still here.  While he did draft Hall and Rodriguez and some others, a lot of credit needs to be given to how John Wasdin helped change some of the pitching philosophy in 2017 and 2018.  Coming out of the Athletics organization, which is driven heavily by analytics, helped those two draft classes before we got to Elias.  Otherwise, I think Duquette largely left behind a barren organization with nothing in the mid to upper echelons, and we are seeing that right now with how bad the MLB product is.  

So to your point……scout correctly.  I have a lot more confidence in this organization now with the technology available and how to use it correctly.  We are also using all avenues to acquire players and not ignoring the J2 market.  

Sign correctly.  We haven’t botched any college signings, and we are active in the J2 signings, including two top 30 players last year and two seven figure bonuses.  We also brought in and good surplus value from Iglesias, Galvis, Alberto, and some others.  

Develop correctly.  Our farm rankings from everyone except Keith Law have ascended over the tenure of Elias.  We developed our first TORP since Erik Bedard in John Means.  Guys like Iglesias, Alberto, Galvis and Santander went from afterthoughts to productive players.  Kyle Bradish has gone from a fringe prospect to someone getting a lot of attention right now, same with Mike Baumann before the elbow injury.  We still have to prove something here, but I feel a lot more confident in how we coach and develop players now, especially with analytics at our disposal, than I did before with an organization littered by people who were only here because they were “former Orioles.”  

Promote correctly.  Obviously we still need to prove this.  But I do think a pass needs to be given for some things as it pertains to not having anything beyond the development site last year.  

Bottom line: Elias inherited an organization that was subpar from top to bottom.  While the record hasn’t moved the needle, the needed infrastructure changes have happened.