Keith Law on the Orioles draft

[Sydnor]

10 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I personally will never believe any Orioles pitching prospect short of Grayson is a 3, until they prove it on a major league field.   Even with Grayson I’m crossing my fingers, knowing our team’s history.   

I’m with you. I’m hopeful about Rodriguez and DL Hall, but Hall has the elbow and some very real reliever risk IMO. I tend to view everyone else as maybe lightning will strike and we’ll end up with a serviceable pitcher, but some might say that I’m just jaded.

[Frobby]

5 minutes ago, Sydnor said:

I’m with you. I’m hopeful about Rodriguez and DL Hall, but Hall has the elbow and some very real reliever risk IMO. I tend to view everyone else as maybe lightning will strike and we’ll end up with a serviceable pitcher, but some might say that I’m just jaded.

I think Hall will either be a decent starter or, if not, a very good reliever.   

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, Sydnor said:

I agree with you on almost everything in your draft related posts. I think (and certainly don’t want to put words into your mouth their mouths) that they have a higher opinion of the system than we do.

I see depth, but limited upside. I’ve seen posts penciling Westburg and Vavra into starting positions on the MLB team. It is an easy thing to say that I’ll be shocked if either is an above average regular, but I’ll say it because that’s why I think they needed to add higher ceiling talent. I wasn’t as high on Lawler as you, but was high on Rocker, House, and Watson. If people think Westburg will be a quality starter at SS, Vavra (24 in AA) the will be a quality starter at 2b, and Bradish will be a 3, they probably think we have high ceiling talent. I just disagree.

I like the talent in the system but I can’t say I love it.  Are we really a top 5 system?  I’m skeptical but I think 8-12 range is probably accurate.

I just think we lack the elite talent at the top, at least depth wise.  
 

Westburg and Henderson could change that but right now, I think we are still lacking.

I think Law is over the top in what he is saying and ranking us so low BUT I do understand his thoughts and I do agree about the lack of high level, high end talent.

I do think there is good depth in solid guys and that is important too.

[interloper]

People asking where the money went when the O's have signed exactly 2 guys so far. Alright. 

[LookinUp]

8 minutes ago, interloper said:

People asking where the money went when the O's have signed exactly 2 guys so far. Alright. 

Well, that's not all they're saying. They're saying that it would be odd to spend above slot on the guys we picked and will likely pay above slot for. So they're concluding either that 1) we won't go far above slot, which means we operated on a tight budget, or 2) we picked the wrong guys to go above slot on.

For the latter, I'll trust Elias over analyst types. For the former, if we're cheap in the end, I'll be upset.

[Can_of_corn]

8 minutes ago, interloper said:

People asking where the money went when the O's have signed exactly 2 guys so far. Alright. 

They signed one and two who should require the most money.  They picked up two guys that look like ~10K senior signs and none of the other guys look like traditional overslot candidates.

I guess I'd be less unhappy if they spend all the saving on guys like Rhodes and Willems but it seems as if they would be overpays which isn't a great thing either.

[Frobby]

56 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I like the talent in the system but I can’t say I love it.  Are we really a top 5 system?  I’m skeptical but I think 8-12 range is probably accurate.

I just think we lack the elite talent at the top, at least depth wise.  
 

Westburg and Henderson could change that but right now, I think we are still lacking.

I think Law is over the top in what he is saying and ranking us so low BUT I do understand his thoughts and I do agree about the lack of high level, high end talent.

I do think there is good depth in solid guys and that is important too.

What do you consider to be “elite talent at the top?”

For starters let’s consider anyone with a FV of 50 or higher to be elite.   Per Fangraphs, the O’s (pre-draft) had five of those coming into the season: Rutschman (one of only two players ranked 65 or higher), Rodriguez (one of 49 players ranked 55 or higher), and Hall/Mountcastle/Kjerstad.   Since then, they’ve upgraded Hall to 55, but Mountcastle has graduated and Kjerstad is off the radar for now.   

In any event, the other teams who had 5+ players at 50 FV or higher are:

ARI: one 60, two 55, three 50

CLE: seven 50’s

DET: two 60’s, three 55’s

LAD: one 55, four 50’s

MIA: four 55’s, two 50’s

MIN: two 60’s, one 55, four 50’s

NYY: eight 50’s

PIT: one 60, one 55, six 50’s

SDP: two 60’s, one 55, two 50’s

SFG: one 60, four 50’s

SEA: two 60’s, one 55, three 60’s

TBR: one 80, three 60’s, nine 50’s (damn!)

TOR: one 60, one 55, five 50’s

Of those teams, Fangraphs rates us above CLE, LAD, NYY, SFG, and TOR.  Some of that is Rutschman’s very high value as a 65 (valued at $62 mm excess value), some is better depth below the 50-level players.

Based on this (and it’s just Fangraphs’ opinion), I’d agree we don’t have an “elite” number of “elite” prospects.   We are heathy in that regard, maybe above average, but that’s all.   
 

[Three Run Homer]

On 7/18/2021 at 7:42 PM, Can_of_corn said:

Harsh.  So if a guy gets picked in the 15th round, makes it to the majors and puts up -.2 WAR over three seasons that's a bad pick?

I don't think a 15th round pick is ever a bad pick--you don't expect much from a 15th rounder, so if they don't produce positive WAR it would be neither a good or a bad pick.  A bad pick would be someone like Matt Hobgood--a high first round pick who doesn't turn into a productive major leaguer.  

The point is, what good does it do you to pick someone in the 15th round who turns out to scrap his way to a cup of coffee in the majors?  I'm happy for the player, of course, but for the organization and its fans, what matters is positive WAR.  

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, Three Run Homer said:

I don't think a 15th round pick is ever a bad pick--you don't expect much from a 15th rounder, so if they don't produce positive WAR it would be neither a good or a bad pick.  A bad pick would be someone like Matt Hobgood--a high first round pick who doesn't turn into a productive major leaguer.  

The point is, what good does it do you to pick someone in the 15th round who turns out to scrap his way to a cup of coffee in the majors?  I'm happy for the player, of course, but for the organization and its fans, what matters is positive WAR.  

Kinda?  There is some value in a fringe guy putting up slightly below replacement level numbers.

 

[RZNJ]

Gotta chime in on the Hobgood pick.   It's my recollection that he was supposed to go mid to late first round.   It's also my recollection that he had touched 97 mph in HS but when he got to Bluefield he as throwing 89-91.   I believe he later had rotator cuff surgery or shoulder surgery of some kind.

Jordan reached for a helium pick and it backfired bigtime but it's not all black and white.   Chris Smith was a bad pick to at #7 but how do we know how bad a pick he was.  There's another kid who hurt his arm before throwing a professional pitch.    These were looked at as bad picks but that was compounded by health issues.   

[Sports Guy]

Hobgood was an ownership pick.  They didn’t want to spend money.

That being said, it’s such an annoying discussion without context.

The thing about that sucked and the only part that really matters is that they were being cheap and it’s just another feather in the cap for the worst owner arguably in sports the last 25 years.

However, most of the first round sucked that year.  Yes, we could have had Trout and yes, the Orioles and 24 other teams completely missed on that.  But outside of that, you had mostly guys who failed and some guys who had a modest career.

Overall, it was a pretty poor draft.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Major_League_Baseball_draft

[Can_of_corn]

15 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Hobgood was an ownership pick.  They didn’t want to spend money.

That being said, it’s such an annoying discussion without context.

The thing about that sucked and the only part that really matters is that they were being cheap and it’s just another feather in the cap for the worst owner arguably in sports the last 25 years.

However, most of the first round sucked that year.  Yes, we could have had Trout and yes, the Orioles and 24 other teams completely missed on that.  But outside of that, you had mostly guys who failed and some guys who had a modest career.

Overall, it was a pretty poor draft.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Major_League_Baseball_draft

They spent 8.8 Million that draft.

That wasn't an ownership being cheap draft.

[Sports Guy]

3 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

They spent 8.8 Million that draft.

That wasn't an ownership being cheap draft.

But that doesn’t mean they wanted to spend a lot of that money on one guy.

As I look back at that draft, IiRC, the name most of us wanted was Tyler Matzek.  Grant Green was another popular guy as well.

Matzek got the 4th highest bonus that round and was drafted 10th.  
 

Of course, he flamed out too but I don’t have any faith that PA would have given the go ahead to spend that amount of money on one guy at that point in time.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

But that doesn’t mean they wanted to spend a lot of that money on one guy.

As I look back at that draft, IiRC, the name most of us wanted was Tyler Matzek.  Grant Green was another popular guy as well.

Matzek got the 4th highest bonus that round and was drafted 10th.  
 

Of course, he flamed out too but I don’t have any faith that PA would have given the go ahead to spend that amount of money on one guy at that point in time.

I don't think ownership directed them to go underslot in the first and spread the money around.

I also wanted Matzek.

[Tony-OH]

On 7/19/2021 at 8:05 AM, webbrick2010 said:

So can we say now that the O's are not going to spend their draft allotment?

Saved over 1 million on first round, with no obvious over-slot guys. I kept hearing that it was okay to go under-slot to use the money on later high upside difficult signees, and folks didn't seem to want to believe that the strategy was just a directive from Angelos to save money, similar to all of the other cost savings like slashing broadcast staff.

Have you ever gone back and looked at your posts and just shaked your head and gone, "Damn, I was wrong there?"

They spent nearly all of there cap money and may still spend it all if they sign their last guy. There was clearly no "Angelos directive" to save money on this draft unless you think the directive went like this: "Dear Mike, please save me at least 100K because I have my eye on some outdoor furniture for the mansion and my inheritance has not come through yet!"