Rutschman to Norfolk

[glenn__davis]

2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

I’m so tired of seeing “there is no reason in bringing him up this year”

There is plenty of reason to do it but it’s getting close to the point of, why bother bringing him up right now?  You might as well wait until late April.  

Right.  I would have been fine calling him up earlier in the season, but we're to the point of the season now where I'd rather just let him finish the year in the minors and gain that extra year (if that's still even a thing - hopefully it's not).

[Explosivo]

17 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Don't generalize about the board. Calling this board "a sorry lot" is a great way to make friends and influence people. No one forces you to stay here. If you dislike so many people that you feel a need to call them names, feel free to exit right. 

Well come on, look at it. We get great news about a great kid and future of our team and all they can do is quibble about things out of their control. It’s odd. We should all be happy for the kid and the future of the Orioles as this guy will have a greater impact than we can possible imagine. He’s our Johnny Bench and not only will he transform the position for this soon to be great team, but also he’ll have a deep impact on the pitching staff as well. Grayson is hopefully soon to follow in his footsteps to AAA and Westburg and Henderson are hopefully on their way to AA soon as well. It seems that the most vocal on here can be the most short sighted and it’s a bit annoying even if we are all fans of this soon to be great team. My only hope is those who choose to moan over good news will know what to do with themselves when we win it all soon.

Edited August 9, 2021 by Explosivo

[interloper]

Simple question:

Let's say Adley is brought up this year, giving him one less year before he leaves because the O's absolutely will not pay him the $2-300 million it will cost to lock him up beyond free agency, assuming he's as good as he's supposed to be (let's pretend for the sake of this argument). 

Then let's say he hits free agency right as the O's are a playoff caliber team. 

Was it worth it to see him in 2021? What is the upside? 

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, interloper said:

Simple question:

Let's say Adley is brought up this year, giving him one less year before he leaves because the O's absolutely will not pay him the $2-300 million it will cost to lock him up beyond free agency, assuming he's as good as he's supposed to be (let's pretend for the sake of this argument). 

Then let's say he hits free agency right as the O's are a playoff caliber team. 

Was it worth it to see him in 2021? What is the upside? 

So you are in favor of keeping him down all next year?

Seems to me like this same argument will apply in 2022.  

[DrungoHazewood]

50 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

Yeah, you and Tony are right, that age number I threw out is a little high. 

I don't know what the right number is, but the current system that leads to lesser players getting MLB service time while better players are stuck in the minors for an extended period of time needs to change.

I am a big advocate of something like you're talking about because in the pre-draft/free agency/service time era it was far more common to get players to the majors whenever they could play a productive role.  Today it's "are you ready to be a top caliber MLB player before we start your clock?"  In 1940 or 1960 it was more like "can you play a role for us?"  

Earl famously would start starters out pitching long relief, but that died because who wastes service time on long relievers?  Without service time stuff Rutschman could almost have come to the majors straight from college and learned on the job.  Jim Palmer went from pitching not so well in A ball to the majors at 19 and never looked back.  If he'd come up 20 or 30 years later he probably misses 25 MLB wins.  Brooks debuted at 18, Boog at 19. Milt Pappas threw nine innings of one-run ball at 18.

[interloper]

4 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

So you are in favor of keeping him down all next year?

Seems to me like this same argument will apply in 2022.  

No, it's 3 weeks next year before he gets an extra year.

From MLBTR: The Orioles have just a 38-72 record on the season, and they’d gain another year of control over Rutschman by waiting until the third week of the 2022 season to promote him to the big leagues, barring any changes to service time structure in collective bargaining talks between MLB and the MLB Players Association. 

[DrungoHazewood]

8 minutes ago, interloper said:

Simple question:

Let's say Adley is brought up this year, giving him one less year before he leaves because the O's absolutely will not pay him the $2-300 million it will cost to lock him up beyond free agency, assuming he's as good as he's supposed to be (let's pretend for the sake of this argument). 

Then let's say he hits free agency right as the O's are a playoff caliber team. 

Was it worth it to see him in 2021? What is the upside? 

The upside is that you're getting him exposed to MLB pitching and he's ready to contribute to a good team sooner.  You don't plan for the rebuild to fail and Rutschman to have to stick around 6-7 years to play on a good team.  If a major part of your planning is that they won't be any good until 2027 you might as well trade him now before he has a chance to disappoint, so we can reload for six years from now.  As a 30-year-old catcher he may not have a lot of value left.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, interloper said:

No, it's 3 weeks next year before he gets an extra year.

From MLBTR: The Orioles have just a 38-72 record on the season, and they’d gain another year of control over Rutschman by waiting until the third week of the 2022 season to promote him to the big leagues, barring any changes to service time structure in collective bargaining talks between MLB and the MLB Players Association. 

Why not wait until three weeks into 2023?

 

[glenn__davis]

14 minutes ago, interloper said:

Simple question:

Let's say Adley is brought up this year, giving him one less year before he leaves because the O's absolutely will not pay him the $2-300 million it will cost to lock him up beyond free agency, assuming he's as good as he's supposed to be (let's pretend for the sake of this argument). 

Then let's say he hits free agency right as the O's are a playoff caliber team. 

Was it worth it to see him in 2021? What is the upside? 

The upside is that there likely will be an adjustment to MLB pitching.  The sooner he get his MLB education started, the sooner he's ready to be come a good player and help this team out of this rebuild phase.

Now like I said earlier at this point they might as well just keep him down (and I don't think they ever had any intent on bringing him up this year anyway).  But there was potential upside to bringing him up this year.

EDIT - And I see now that Drungo basically made the same point.  Whoops.

[interloper]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

The upside is that you're getting him exposed to MLB pitching and he's ready to contribute to a good team sooner.  You don't plan for the rebuild to fail and Rutschman to have to stick around 6-7 years to play on a good team.  If a major part of your planning is that they won't be any good until 2027 you might as well trade him now before he has a chance to disappoint, so we can reload for six years from now.  As a 30-year-old catcher he may not have a lot of value left.

A clear and understandable answer- thanks! 

I think the one issue I have here is that everyone says how ML ready he is that I'm not buying that he even needs the month of MLB exposure. If he's that good, just bring him up next year and grab the extra year of time with him. You never know, so why not play it safe. 

[interloper]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Why not wait until three weeks into 2023?

 

Because I'm not an idiot, friend. Next year is the latest he should be brought up or you're wasting his best baseball years. 

[Sports Guy]

20 minutes ago, interloper said:

Because I'm not an idiot, friend. Next year is the latest he should be brought up or you're wasting his best baseball years. 

You can definitely argue that you wasted one of those years in 2021.

Why draw the line at next year, when the team isn’t going to be contending?

[Ruzious]

37 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

The upside is that you're getting him exposed to MLB pitching and he's ready to contribute to a good team sooner.  You don't plan for the rebuild to fail and Rutschman to have to stick around 6-7 years to play on a good team.  If a major part of your planning is that they won't be any good until 2027 you might as well trade him now before he has a chance to disappoint, so we can reload for six years from now.  As a 30-year-old catcher he may not have a lot of value left.

Right, it's especially important with a catcher, because their shelf-life is often limited in comp to other players.  We're essentially wasting a year of his career in the minors - a year of the #1 prospect in baseball.  That is not an efficient result.  And I think it frustrates everyone involved.  

[Ruzious]

22 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

You can definitely argue that you wasted one of those years in 2021.

Why draw the line at next year, when the team isn’t going to be contending?

Very true on both points..  

[NCRaven]

Rutschman has caugt 53 games and played first base or DH in 29 or something close to that.  I don't think that they are wearing him down as a catcher.  While I would have loved to see Adley in Baltimore, I think that's more of a flaw in the current CBA than it is in the Orioles development plan.  Given the system, keeping him down until next year makes sense.  Corn's strawman argument - well why not wait until 2023 - is nonsense and I suspect he knows it.  It's possible to believe waiting for 2022 is the right move, given the current CBA, without taking it to ridiculous extremes.