Phillips, Evans and more released

[Aristotelian]

12 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Sure there was.  In fact, two.  My comment is on the final page of the second thread - basically, we should see what’s out there but let’s not kid ourselves that a trade wouldn’t hurt our bullpen    

 

Ha, I have no memory of these threads. Appears I said to hold out for a Bregman type of prospect. I'm still OK with that. If we had done the Arroyo package we'd still be about where we are now. We even got Blach for free.

[Frobby]

13 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Ha, I have no memory of these threads. Appears I said to hold out for a Bregman type of prospect. I'm still OK with that. If we had done the Arroyo package we'd still be about where we are now. We even got Blach for free.

I don’t think there’s ever been a “trade player X” thread where I took a categorical position for or against trading the player.   In my mind, no matter who it is, it just depends on what return is offered.   And it never hurts to know what offers are out there.   You can always decide the return isn’t enough and say no.   So I’ve never really seen the point of “we will not discuss trading player X.”   I guess that sends a message to the player, but that has minimal impact in my opinion.  

[ShoelesJoe]

15 hours ago, Il BuonO said:

Britton should have been moved after his incredible season. His value was never going to be higher.

If memory serves, that off season featured a bunch of top closers (Chapman and Jansen among them) who were free agents. I don’t think teams were going to offer us a bounty for Zach when they could just go out and buy a top closer. 

[Tony-OH]

19 hours ago, eddie83 said:

The second O’Day was in the deal that trade was doomed from a prospect standpoint. All about money. 

There was no doubt that that deal was all about dropping salary which of course limits the talent coming back. Funny thing is, Zimmermann may end up the best pitcher we got sent back in all of the trades if he can get and stay healthy. He's probably not more than a 4th or 5th starter, but there's value in that.

[Tony-OH]

18 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

I don't really care if it happens or not. I care that those in charge of the team I root for were too incompetent to see the inevitable happening. This team was going nowhere after that 2016 season. The rest of the division was getting stronger (and that really was the biggest reason the Os had the run they did, at least arguably the biggest reason).

It didn't take that long to look into the crystal ball to see that the team was going downhill and the window was shut.

You should probably market that Sports Guy crystal ball to the highest bidder. I'm sure teams would love to have a ball that has 20/20 hindsight knowledge of the past.

[Sports Guy]

15 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

You should probably market that Sports Guy crystal ball to the highest bidder. I'm sure teams would love to have a ball that has 20/20 hindsight knowledge of the past.

Except I’m not using hindsight.  It was just obvious and common sense at the time.

[Tony-OH]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Except I’m not using hindsight.  It was just obvious and common sense at the time.

Well you are consistent in telling us things that were "obvious and common sense" to no one but yourself. 

No team is trading away their All-Star closer with two years left of control when they fancy themselves contenders in the next season unless they had a replacement. 

They had what looked like three good starting pitchers returning (Tillman, Gausman, Bundy) a superstar in Machado, Schoop, Trumbo coming off a 47 home run season. They could reasonably have expectations that Davis would rebound, Wieters and Jones still in their 27-31 peak years and Hardy coming off a solid year and a young Mancini looking like he was ready for the big leagues.

Add in an aging owner who was certainly not going to rebuild, and it was not common sens to rebuild.

In fact, 2017 was a season that was a series of bad things that took a contending team and made them into an afterthought. Tillman was awful, Gausman and Bundy underperformed, Britton got hurt, Miley and Ubaldo were terrible, Davis did not rebound and started look like the bust he was, everyone they brought in to try and right the ship stunk including making a dumb trade for Hellickson.

So no, it wasn't obvious and common sense then to trade Britton or anyone else. Now should a selloff started after 2017 or even at the All star break of 2017? Sure, that made more sense but you are never going to convince me that it was obvious and common sense over the winter of 2016 to start a selloff.

[Sports Guy]

10 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Well you are consistent in telling us things that were "obvious and common sense" to no one but yourself. 

No team is trading away their All-Star closer with two years left of control when they fancy themselves contenders in the next season unless they had a replacement. 

They had what looked like three good starting pitchers returning (Tillman, Gausman, Bundy) a superstar in Machado, Schoop, Trumbo coming off a 47 home run season. They could reasonably have expectations that Davis would rebound, Wieters and Jones still in their 27-31 peak years and Hardy coming off a solid year and a young Mancini looking like he was ready for the big leagues.

Add in an aging owner who was certainly not going to rebuild, and it was not common sens to rebuild.

In fact, 2017 was a season that was a series of bad things that took a contending team and made them into an afterthought. Tillman was awful, Gausman and Bundy underperformed, Britton got hurt, Miley and Ubaldo were terrible, Davis did not rebound and started look like the bust he was, everyone they brought in to try and right the ship stunk including making a dumb trade for Hellickson.

So no, it wasn't obvious and common sense then to trade Britton or anyone else. Now should a selloff started after 2017 or even at the All star break of 2017? Sure, that made more sense but you are never going to convince me that it was obvious and common sense over the winter of 2016 to start a selloff.

It absolutely was.  It was obvious the division was getting way better.  It was obvious that the team played over their heads for much of that 5 year stretch, particularly in 2016.  It was obvious the farm system was poor and didn’t have the talent to fall back on.  It was obvious they weren’t going to pay Manny what it took to keep him.  It was always obvious that Britton and Manny, both coming off years with legit MVP claims, were at peak value.  We also saw, at the time, the large returns in trades for relievers

Sorry if you couldn’t see those things but they were obvious imo.

Add all that up and i felt, at that time, that they should have been dealt.  The decision to not trade those guys was arguably the worst decision(s) the organization has ever made.  They were 2 of the most valuable players this team has seen in decades and you held onto them and turned them from Great assets to poor ones.

It’s the old adage from Schuerholz…trade a guy a year too early, not a year too late.  Even another back door run at a WC, which I agree was possible, wasn’t enough to not change the long term direction of the franchise imo.  It’s bigger than just one year.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t expect them to trade them.  We had an owner with zero ability to see the forest through trees, a manager who had greatly underperformed in the playoffs in his career and a GM who had no power and very little vision.  Add all of that up and I never actually thought they would trade these guys.

But they should have and if they had, chances are we would be in far better shape today than we are.

[Sports Guy]

And btw, if it were up to me, chances are I don't trade Manny after 2016 because I would have extended him earlier.  Maybe he is still dealt in 2018 or 2019 but he would have had more service time and would have fetched a lot more.

However, as things stood at that time, with no extension and no realistic hopes for one, he should have been traded.

[Tony-OH]

13 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

It absolutely was.  It was obvious the division was getting way better.  It was obvious that the team played over their heads for much of that 5 year stretch, particularly in 2016.  It was obvious the farm system was poor and didn’t have the talent to fall back on.  It was obvious they weren’t going to pay Manny what it took to keep him.  It was always obvious that Britton and Manny, both coming off years with legit MVP claims, were at peak value.  We also saw, at the time, the large returns in trades for relievers

Sorry if you couldn’t see those things but they were obvious imo.

Add all that up and i felt, at that time, that they should have been dealt.  The decision to not trade those guys was arguably the worst decision(s) the organization has ever made.  They were 2 of the most valuable players this team has seen in decades and you held onto them and turned them from Great assets to poor ones.

It’s the old adage from Schuerholz…trade a guy a year too early, not a year too late.  Even another back door run at a WC, which I agree was possible, wasn’t enough to not change the long term direction of the franchise imo.  It’s bigger than just one year.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t expect them to trade them.  We had an owner with zero ability to see the forest through trees, a manager who had greatly underperformed in the playoffs in his career and a GM who had no power and very little vision.  Add all of that up and I never actually thought they would trade these guys.

But they should have and if they had, chances are we would be in far better shape today than we are.

Gotcha. If I ever need a Monday morning quarterback with 20 20 vision I'll give you a call. We have nothing more to discuss with this. 

[RZNJ]

https://www.baseball-almanac.com/quotes/quobr.shtml

Schuerholz?  LOL

I knew Schierholz.  He was no Branch Rickey!

 

"I have vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals".   Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy and later Sportsguy of Orioles Hangout.