I'm starting to think we are 4-5 years away from competing for real

[Sports Guy]

45 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

And lose a year of service time? Angelos should sue Elias for GM malpractice if he does that.

By the way, Vlad Jr. also had twice as many minor league AB's before being promoted as Rutschman has now. From that standpoint assuming Rutschman is promoted a few weeks into April he will be ahead of schedule! 

Vlad was an Intl FA signed at a far younger age and not with the advanced tools at the time of coming into the system as Adley does.  That is an apples to oranges comparison.

[Ruzious]

20 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Vlad was an Intl FA signed at a far younger age and not with the advanced tools at the time of coming into the system as Adley does.  That is an apples to oranges comparison.

And not to mention, Vlad is a full year younger than Adley while having nearly 3 full MLB seasons under his belt.  

It's lunacy to say that Adley is ahead of Vlad's schedule.  

[spiritof66]

On 9/13/2021 at 10:28 AM, UMDTerrapins said:

It is what it is. And if I was Elias, working under the current rules, I wouldn't have brought them up this year either. 

What I'm thinking about is spring training 2022, with the talent upgrades and the excitement of the imminent debuts of some really exciting prospects. Add in healthy Santander/Hays, and hopefully a few good offseason additions, I can see us having a much better mindset than we do right now. We're in the last month of the most painful parts of a rebuild. 

I hope that's right, but I'm not at all sure.

For most of us, and certainly for Elias, expectations for the Orioles this season were close to zero, and this team met or came close to those expectations. If one of the main goals was to be at the bottom of the standings for purposes of the 2022 draft and claiming waived players, the Orioles did very well. (But if another goal was to identify pitchers and middle infielders, especially starting pitchers, who stand out as worth keeping, this season was not too successful.)

I'm expecting next year to be about as painful, and possibly more so, because most of us will have higher expectations for the Orioles to win some games and put on the field talent that gives rise to optimism for the immediate future. But I think we'll see only modest steps taken to upgrade the ML team: promotions that will yield some improvement -- but probable not immediate or dramatic --from this year's atrocious starting pitching and a catcher who can both catch the ball and hit over .200 (but who is likely to spend much of the season learning how to hit and adjust at the ML level). I expect to see acquisitions of pitchers dumped by other teams, and maybe another low-priced veteran infielder. I don't think the Orioles will spend much on talent from the outside.

The team's ownership has shown me that it's dedicated to spending as little money on MLB payroll as it can get away with. So far, that has fit well with Elias's rebuilding strategy. I think those two sets of objectives are about to diverge, and Elias's calls for us to "be patient" eventually will be seen as requests that we wait for new ownership with the resources and interest in putting a contending team on the field.

 

 

[UMDTerrapins]

Yeah, I expect huge growing pains next year. We'll win more games, but I'm not counting on us to be in contention or any crazy vaulting up the standings. For me the big difference is running out guys like Rodriguez, Hall, Baumann, and Bradish instead of Harvey, Eschelman, Watkins, Lopez, etc.   It's not just about their abilities, but in their possibilities as well. It's hard to get exited about a Spencer Watkins start with only 4-5 passable ML regulars in the starting lineup. I don't see that happening again next year.