Your initial 2021 draft grade

[Sports Guy]

15 minutes ago, Frobby said:

If starting pitchers are becoming less important, that just means relief pitchers are becoming more important.  At the end of the day, you still need 9 innings worth of pitching no matter how you divide it up.   

It seems to me that the Orioles model says (1) it’s easier to identify who will be a successful hitter than who will be a successful pitcher, and/or (2) it’s easier to find pitchers who have a decent chance of being successful pitchers in the later rounds of the draft than it is to find hitters there.   That dictates a strategy of choosing hitters in the early part of the draft and choosing the pitchers later.   But I still feel they are taking it too far to an extreme.   
 

Yes but getting relievers later in the draft makes sense.  That’s kind of my point.  They are waiting around for them and I just wonder if they see how pitching is going and if they think it’s going to keep trending downward in terms of going away from starters.  

Couod just be a coincidence and nothing more to it than what you are saying about their model.  Just makes me wonder if there is something else there.  Personally, I don’t believe them that they went BPA and that the BPA was never a pitcher.  

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

 

[7Mo]

41 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Yes but getting relievers later in the draft makes sense.  That’s kind of my point.  They are waiting around for them and I just wonder if they see how pitching is going and if they think it’s going to keep trending downward in terms of going away from starters.  
  

Or maybe they see needs in a lot of areas and at this point, they're targeting high floor hitters plus relievers.

And once the system is built up a little more, they target higher ceiling picks early, including starting pitching.

[LookinUp]

45 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Personally, I don’t believe them that they went BPA and that the BPA was never a pitcher.  

They have a different definition of what BPA is than you.

[Sports Guy]

23 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

They have a different definition of what BPA is than you.

I mean maybe?  There is only one definition of BPA.  
 

Now, who is your BPA varies but that’s a bs line that they always went BPA.  It’s bs when any evaluator says it in any sport.  

[LookinUp]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

I mean maybe?  There is only one definition of BPA.  
 

Now, who is your BPA varies but that’s a bs line that they always went BPA.  It’s bs when any evaluator says it in any sport.  

I think it's less BS in baseball than football, for example. In football, you have a more acute need to fill a position or the roster in general. In baseball, you're planning for several years down the road. Now, I do believe that orgs fill areas of need (see us with middle infielders last year and the Angels with pitchers this year), but I don't think that's significantly what's going on here.

I think what's going on here is they weight BPA by some preference of likely future production. If that's true, they'll take a higher probability/lower ceiling guy over a lower probability/higher ceiling guy. Thus the college bats. That's their BPA even if you objectively disagree.

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

I think it's less BS in baseball than football, for example. In football, you have a more acute need to fill a position or the roster in general. In baseball, you're planning for several years down the road. Now, I do believe that orgs fill areas of need (see us with middle infielders last year and the Angels with pitchers this year), but I don't think that's significantly what's going on here.

I think what's going on here is they weight BPA by some preference of likely future production. If that's true, they'll take a higher probability/lower ceiling guy over a lower probability/higher ceiling guy. Thus the college bats. That's their BPA even if you objectively disagree.

The problem with your comp is that in baseball, you have a cap on what you can spend, so you likely can't go BPA in every round.

[LookinUp]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

The problem with your comp is that in baseball, you have a cap on what you can spend, so you likely can't go BPA in every round.

Ok. I do agree on that for sure. 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

I mean maybe?  There is only one definition of BPA.  
 

Now, who is your BPA varies but that’s a bs line that they always went BPA.  It’s bs when any evaluator says it in any sport.  

Well, part of BPA is risk analysis.   So if you have a model that says pitchers are much riskier than hitters, that is frequently going to lead you to conclude that the BPA is a hitter — especially if other teams that don’t follow your model are picking pitchers ahead of where you would pick them.  

[Sports Guy]

6 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Well, part of BPA is risk analysis.   So if you have a model that says pitchers are much riskier than hitters, that is frequently going to lead you to conclude that the BPA is a hitter — especially if other teams that don’t follow your model are picking pitchers ahead of where you would pick them.  

Yea but its your model and you can manipulate that model however you want.

[LookinUp]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

Yea but its your model and you can manipulate that model however you want.

That's true, but they manipulate it based on their judgement, not based on a whim. 

[Sports Guy]

10 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

That's true, but they manipulate it based on their judgement, not based on a whim. 

Sure and I generally think whatever they are using is pretty good.  But if you are manipulating a model to say what you want it to say and what you want it to say takes away risk, I am guessing you will miss on a lot of talent.

[SteveA]

4 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

I came across this:

 

https://throughthefencebaseball.com/2021-mlb-draft-grading-each-team/

 

No idea if this guy has a clue as to what he is talking about.  What I want to point out is that he called this a pitching rich draft.  We also know through the first 10 rounds, pitching dominated the draft, which perhaps lends credence to his point about it being a pitching rich draft.

What is interesting is the Orioles only took the 1 pitcher in the top 10 rounds.    Is it possible that the Os feel starting pitchers are going to largely be a thing of the past?

We know we are seeing more and more pitchers happy to get through 5 innings and that teams are going to bullpens earlier than ever.  
 

Do the Orioles, with the models they use, feel that the idea of accumulating 4th and 5th starters is the way to go? Those guys, generally speaking, can get through a lineup once, maybe twice before the implode happens.  Those guys should also be far easier to find, whereas positional talent is easier to develop and more of a sure thing.  I just wonder if the Os see the future of starting pitching be even less than it is now and that they aren’t in a hurry to reach for guys with higher upside on the mound because the game is devaluing those guys to a point.

I mean sure, you want guys who throw 200+ innings but we they are becoming few and far between and perhaps they don’t feel the need to reach for that player over the more sure thing? 
 

I don’t know..just got me thinking when I saw that.  It may just be a coincidence but listening to Ciolek push their model and how they are handling pitching, just makes me wonder where the organization sees the future of the starting pitcher.

If that is our plan, and we are accumulating what we will call "one and a half times through the order" starters, shouldn't we also be accumulating the types of bullpen arms that Tampa likes.   Interchangable guys who come put and go max effort for an inning or two, and who all throw really hard?

[Frobby]

30 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

That's true, but they manipulate it based on their judgement, not based on a whim. 

I don’t think they “manipulate” it at all.   They do research into risk, then factor their research findings into their equations.   The whole idea is to maximize talent by avoiding choosing players who are bad risks.   

[Sports Guy]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I don’t think they “manipulate” it at all.   They do research into risk, then factor their research findings into their equations.   The whole idea is to maximize talent by avoiding choosing players who are bad risks.   

Did they set up the model?