Would This Season Be Considered A Disappointment?

[Sports Guy]

12 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I'm disappointed he isn't using this season to get more young players ML playing time.

I'm disappointed that this deep into the rebuild he still isn't making a pretense of trying to win games.

I'm disappointed that ownership's chief motive appears to be slashing spending.

Yep.

There are bright spots on the ML team this year and there are a lot of good things happening in the minors but overall, the ML team is garbage, has very little foundation and no real evidence that they are going to be knocking on the contention door anytime soon. 
 

Its Not the wins and losses that bother me, it’s the total lack of competitiveness and the idea that they have found very few long term answers.  We have seen regression throughout the whole pitching staff.  Hays and Mountcastle have flashed but can’t stay consistent.  Santander looks like a shell of himself (hopefully the AS break does wonders for him).  You are getting nothing from third base and outside of Urias recent run and Galvis to start the year, the MI has been rough.

Mullins and Means have been great and Mancini, despite his current slump, has largely been good.   Not much else to hang your hat on this year.

All of that being said, what happens before the trade deadline and how this team, particularly several of the young players, look in the second half is really all that matters. What kind of momentum can these guys get for the last 75ish games?  Can guys start to stay healthy and be more consistent?  Will some of these young pitchers start to look better?  
 

You can still go into the offseason feeling pretty good about things.  But for right now, it’s horrible and Elias has to start to show the fans that he knows how to build a ML team that can win games.  That is something everyone is assuming he can do but he has yet to prove he can.

[eddie83]

I would say yes. I thought between 95-98 losses, looks like much worse than that.

-I knew the pitching would be bad but it’s much worse than that. I was hopeful one of the young arms would pan out but never got my hopes to high.

-Santander has had a rough year. I really wanted to see what he could do with a full year.  
 

-Hoped Mountcastle could stick in LF but I never banked on it. So not too disappointed about that.  
 

-In the minors it’s about Diaz and Baumann. In general the minors have been a positive. 
 

 

[Roll Tide]

31 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I’m pretty disappointed.    I predicted 61-65 wins, which would be slightly less than last year’s 67.5 win pace.   Instead, we’re on pace for 51 wins.   So we’re about 10 games worse than I thought.    

Probably the bigger disappointment is the poor performance of Akin and Kremer and lack of forward progress from Lowther and Baumann.   We really needed at least some modest yield from that crop.    I’m still hoping at least one of those guys pulls it together, but at this point I’m not confident that will happen.   
 

Yeah … hoping Akin & Kremer are side effects of the list season 

Im not surprised that we are worse. As long as we are selling the loss of our better players should result in more losses

[MijiT88]

20 hours ago, SteveA said:

My biggest disappointment is that the first wave of second tier pitching prospects -- Kremer, Akin, Zimmerman, Lowther, has been so bad.   No, I know these guys weren't MLB top 100 prospects.   But they were at least considered to have some ability.  I would have hoped that we would have gotten a decent performance out of a few of them.   Only Zimmerman has even been a serviceable major leaguer, and he has a 1.475 WHIP.

Combined stats for those guys:

163 IP
196 hits
65 walks
153 strikeouts
37 HRs
120 earned runs
1.60 WHIP
6.53 ERA

Coming into the season, I really believed that one thing the Astros did was develop pitchers.   I figured they used all the modern analytics and technology to perfect their mechanics and to analyze which pitches they should throw and get the most out of them.   So I thought that out of those four guys, we would get a couple who could at least stick in the majors.   

You can't find enough DL Halls and Grayson Rodriguezes to build a full healthy staff just out of can't miss guys.   You have to have some guys who aren't supposed to be that great become at least effective back of the rotation starters for you.    And these guys, to me, were candidates for that role and so far it has been a complete disaster.

I read this and honestly tried to think of who the Astros have developed as pitchers through their system. They did develop two of their long term starters (Keuchel and McCullers) but they signed or traded for the rest of their rotation in the likes of McHugh, Fister, Fiers, Verlander, Morton, Cole, Grienke, and Miley. Maybe Elias is taking the same approach to this...

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, MijiT88 said:

I read this and honestly tried to think of who the Astros have developed as pitchers through their system. They did develop two of their long term starters (Keuchel and McCullers) but they signed or traded for the rest of their rotation in the likes of McHugh, Fister, Fiers, Verlander, Morton, Cole, Grienke, and Miley. Maybe Elias is taking the same approach to this...

Which is totally going to work because the other teams didn't read the literal book that was written about how the Astros did things.

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, MijiT88 said:

I read this and honestly tried to think of who the Astros have developed as pitchers through their system. They did develop two of their long term starters (Keuchel and McCullers) but they signed or traded for the rest of their rotation in the likes of McHugh, Fister, Fiers, Verlander, Morton, Cole, Grienke, and Miley. Maybe Elias is taking the same approach to this...

I really hope not.

By that I mean, it’s ok to have a philosophy.  I personally like the idea of prioritizing position players.  
 

But I am really tired of hearing well This happened and that happened in Houston, therefore it will happen here (btw, this is a general point, not saying you are doing this).

A lot of things come into play that allow things to work out correctly, including a lot of luck.  You could do the same thing in one place and it works and then in another place it doesn’t work and luck could be a big reason for that.
 

Also, we need to stop acting like Elias was the reason Houston won.  Elias was part of the organization.  He wasn’t the head guy.  He wasn’t the architect.  He was a building block.  Maybe we give him too much credit for what happened in Houston?  Or maybe he doesn’t get enough credit?  Who knows.  One thing we do know is that he wasn’t in charge.

[Frobby]

48 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I’m pretty disappointed.    I predicted 61-65 wins, which would be slightly less than last year’s 67.5 win pace.   Instead, we’re on pace for 51 wins.   So we’re about 10 games worse than I thought.    

Probably the bigger disappointment is the poor performance of Akin and Kremer and lack of forward progress from Lowther and Baumann.   We really needed at least some modest yield from that crop.    I’m still hoping at least one of those guys pulls it together, but at this point I’m not confident that will happen.   
 

I should have added to this that the health setbacks for Kjerstad are hugely disappointing.   I’m still hoping for a full recovery, but at a minimum he’s lost more than a full season of development time and there’s a real risk that his condition won’t allow him to play at all.   That’s a huge blow for the team, to say nothing of the consequences for the young man.  

[LTO's]

3 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Which is totally going to work because the other teams didn't read the literal book that was written about how the Astros did things.

What does that have to do with literally anything? Oh, there was a book that detailed a strategy that isn't complex in the slightest. Guess that means teams bad teams aren't going to move ML assets for prospects!

[eddie83]

24 minutes ago, MijiT88 said:

I read this and honestly tried to think of who the Astros have developed as pitchers through their system. They did develop two of their long term starters (Keuchel and McCullers) but they signed or traded for the rest of their rotation in the likes of McHugh, Fister, Fiers, Verlander, Morton, Cole, Grienke, and Miley. Maybe Elias is taking the same approach to this...

Luhnow is gone now obviously but they have 3 starters all from International market pitching well in their rotation. Same big league pitching coach.  
 

There is no question Elias will have to fill from outside the organization.

[Sports Guy]

23 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I should have added to this that the health setbacks for Kjerstad are hugely disappointing.   I’m still hoping for a full recovery, but at a minimum he’s lost more than a full season of development time and there’s a real risk that his condition won’t allow him to play at all.   That’s a huge blow for the team, to say nothing of the consequences for the young man.  

I have a lot of doubt that Cowser is drafted if Kjerstad is healthy.  I think that could be an indictment on Kjerstad’s future but we will see.  I hope not.  
 

Maybe all it means is Kjerstad will be a first baseman or something.

[MurphDogg]

I still remain cautiously optimistic that two back of the rotation mainstays emerge out of the Zimmermann, Lowther, Akin, Baumann, Kremer, Bradish, Kevin Smith, Wells group.

Baumann had been hurt but has looked better the last two starts at Bowie. Wells has been pretty decent at Norfolk. Smith has looked good between Bowie and Norfolk. Zimmermann has had some decent starts at the MLB level. The rest have largely struggled.

That said, it is a pretty big group, and we don't need anyone out of it to be more than a #4 starter. 

If Rodriguez and Hall continue to progress, the rotation could be pretty decent in 2023.

[Frobby]

11 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I have a lot of doubt that Cowser is drafted if Kjerstad is healthy.  I think that could be an indictment on Kjerstad’s future but we will see.  I hope not.  
 

Maybe all it means is Kjerstad will be a first baseman or something.

Elias said the opposite: 

“We don’t draft for need. The baseball draft is very challenging. We just try to make a good pick. That’s what our goal is. We want, hopefully, an impact player, and the draft is fraught with a lot of risk, so we’re trying to get value out of these picks as much as possible.”

https://www.masnsports.com/school-of-roch/2021/07/orioles-select-college-outfielder-colton-cowser-in-first-round.html

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

Elias said the opposite: 

“We don’t draft for need. The baseball draft is very challenging. We just try to make a good pick. That’s what our goal is. We want, hopefully, an impact player, and the draft is fraught with a lot of risk, so we’re trying to get value out of these picks as much as possible.”

https://www.masnsports.com/school-of-roch/2021/07/orioles-select-college-outfielder-colton-cowser-in-first-round.html

Of course he’s  going to say that.

But the reality is when you draft college bats early, you expect them to move fast.  If they don’t, they aren’t good. 
 

Now, if Cowser is really a CFer, it doesn’t effect Kjerstad.  Of course that means they intend to trade Mullins and/or they don’t feel they have a LFer.  
 

I would agree there are other things at play here but the bottom line is you have taken 2 college OFers the last 2 years.  When you take a college player, your expectation should be that they are in the majors within 2 years.  We can only play 3 players out there, so they are trading guys, releasing guys or guys aren’t making it.  Kjerstad’s health is a real question mark right now and not being there makes it easier to take an OFer that should be in the majors quickly.

[LTO's]

5 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

There is no question Elias will have to fill from outside the organization.

So do most, if not all, teams in this league. You don’t even have to look further than the AL East. None of Ryu, Cole, Eovaldi, Matz, Stripling, Sale, Taillon, Kluber, Hill, Pivetta etc etc were drafted by the team they are pitching for right now. This is the case for a ton of teams. I’m not saying don’t draft pitchers but if you’re drafting one you shouldn’t be expecting them to be a big league starter. That’s what makes drafting pitchers high such a unique risk and why I have no issue with Cowser over Rocker. Cowser over Leiter....that’s a different story.

[Can_of_corn]

55 minutes ago, LTO's said:

What does that have to do with literally anything? Oh, there was a book that detailed a strategy that isn't complex in the slightest. Guess that means teams bad teams aren't going to move ML assets for prospects!

They had an advantage in knowledge over other teams which positively impacted transactions.  I see no evidence we have that sort of advantage.