Interesting tidbits from Rosenthal's Elias/Zaidi article

[Camden_yardbird]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Got an example?  I don't recall this happening.

Ironically.  Chapman and Gleyber Torres come to mind.

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, Camden_yardbird said:

Ironically.  Chapman and Gleyber Torres come to mind.

That deal happened in July.  Under current rules a player has to be with a team for an entire season to be hit with a QO.

[foxfield]

1 hour ago, Redskins Rick said:

For me the honeymoon is just about over. I am very curious to see what he does during the next off-season, and what this team looks like in ST camp.

 

Well, I dont think the honeymoon is over, but it's time to stop talking about what we are going to do and get on with getting on....

[Frobby]

29 minutes ago, Pickles said:

The thing is, those guys aren't undervalued.  Those are mostly the 5 big inherited contracts Zaidi took over.

They're just living up to their salaries, all at the same time, in ways none of them have in a few years.

This is no sustainable.

It reminds me of when Aubrey Huff posted an .891 OPS for the 2010 Giants and they won the World Series.  Then they re-signed him for 2/$20 mm and he stunk for two years (but they won the 2012 WS anyways).    

It also reminds me a bit of the 2013 Red Sox who gave big contracts to Victorino, Napoli, Drew and Gomes.  They all played great in 2013 and they won the WS, then the Sox went back to last place for two years.    

But nobody’s giving back their trophies.   
 

[spiritof66]

After comparing the Giants' Opening Day payroll ($149.5 mm) to the Orioles' ($57 mm), Rosenthal says that the "difference in resources, however, is not as much of an advantage for Zaidi as it might appear" since Zaidi started with about $111 mm in contract commitments to six players, only one of whom Zaidi signed. 

That's ridiculous. The closer look, the more you see differences not only between the teams, but between their financial resources. Zaidi inherited five big contracts totaling about $91 million, all to productive players: Posey, Belt, Crawford, Longoria, Cueto (on the IL but now back). Each of the four veteran position players who were under contract when Zaidi arrived is OPSing .889 or higher. Yet Rosenthal treats them like some kind of albatross strangling the team's finances and impeding Zaidi's effort to build a winner. The Giants' current payroll is about $158 million, so Zaidi has spent about $67 mm to surround those five players with additional talent, including the $18.9 million to Gausman by giving him a qualifying offer. The Orioles started the season owing about $33 million to Chris Davis and Alex Cobb, neither of whom will contribute to the Orioles this year (unless you want to say Davis's absence helps the team). The total payroll is now about $65 million, so Elias has spent about $32 mm to field an entire team. I would call that a pretty substantial difference in resources. 

For the most part, the two GMs have been shopping in different markets. I don't know whether Elias looks for guys making the minimum to $1 million (when it gets much higher, the objective is to flip them for veterans rather than to improve the Orioles) because the ownership restricts him or he restricts himself, but in either case it's ridiculous to say that Zaidi's advantage in resources is anything other than what it is -- quite large.

 

[Pickles]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

It reminds me of when Aubrey Huff posted an .891 OPS for the 2010 Giants and they won the World Series.  Then they re-signed him for 2/$20 mm and he stunk for two years (but they won the 2012 WS anyways).    

It also reminds me a bit of the 2013 Red Sox who gave big contracts to Victorino, Napoli, Drew and Gomes.  They all played great in 2013 and they won the WS, then the Sox went back to last place for two years.    

But nobody’s giving back their trophies.   
 

Something has been going on in San Francisco for a decade + now that defies logic.

I mean, it's just a really bad comparison on multiple levels for many reasons.  Most of which have been hashed out here.

Like I said, let's revisit this in three years.  I bet it looks radically different.  And no amount of money can prop up an aging core indefinitely.  

[interloper]

I mean.

In some ways, Duquette deserves more credit than Zaidi for his good teams working with a terrible farm system, no international presence except for Asia, ownership meddling, a cantankerous manager, and a small-to-mid size budget. Right? He inherited a few good ML pieces, but that's about it. 

[Frobby]

29 minutes ago, interloper said:

I mean.

In some ways, Duquette deserves more credit than Zaidi for his good teams working with a terrible farm system, no international presence except for Asia, ownership meddling, a cantankerous manager, and a small-to-mid size budget. Right? He inherited a few good ML pieces, but that's about it. 

I wouldn’t say the farm system he inherited was terrible.  It had Manny, Schoop, Eduardo Rodriguez, Zach Davies, Dylan Bundy and Mychal Givens, as well as several promising pitchers who had been up and down (Tillman, Arrieta, Britton, Matusz).   I guess those four had lost rookie eligibility so they weren’t technically prospects.   There were some lesser pieces like Caleb Joseph and Christian Walker.

[Pickles]

Just now, Frobby said:

I wouldn’t say the farm system he inherited was terrible.  It had Manny, Schoop, Eduardo Rodriguez, Zach Davies, Dylan Bundy and Mychal Givens, as well as several promising pitchers who had been up and down (Tillman, Arrieta, Britton, Matusz).   I guess those four had lost rookie eligibility so they weren’t technically prospects.   There were some lesser pieces like Caleb Joseph and Christian Walker.

Yeah, DD didn't inherit a terrible farm system.

[Sports Guy]

2 hours ago, Pickles said:

Yeah, DD didn't inherit a terrible farm system.

Neither did Elias (not saying you said this, just making the point because people seem to think it was)

[interloper]

16 hours ago, Frobby said:

I wouldn’t say the farm system he inherited was terrible.  It had Manny, Schoop, Eduardo Rodriguez, Zach Davies, Dylan Bundy and Mychal Givens, as well as several promising pitchers who had been up and down (Tillman, Arrieta, Britton, Matusz).   I guess those four had lost rookie eligibility so they weren’t technically prospects.   There were some lesser pieces like Caleb Joseph and Christian Walker.

Ok, that's fair. But those guys were all major league ready, so once they came up it was pretty barren. Kind of the opposite of now where it's pretty light at the higher levels, but stacked in the lower levels. 

[Camden_yardbird]

On 8/10/2021 at 4:22 PM, Can_of_corn said:

That deal happened in July.  Under current rules a player has to be with a team for an entire season to be hit with a QO.

Chapman could get a QO because he was with the Yankees all season.  Cashman told theo if you want him I want your best prospect.

[Pickles]

On 8/10/2021 at 8:30 PM, Sports Guy said:

Neither did Elias (not saying you said this, just making the point because people seem to think it was)

It was bad.  There was talent.  But it was all mostly very far from the ML level.  Here we are three years later and there hasn't been much of a "wave."  We've discussed the "weak" return for the July firesale.  

I will say, there's a lot to criticize DD for, but ironically I think they drafted pretty well under him.

[Sports Guy]

7 hours ago, Pickles said:

It was bad.  There was talent.  But it was all mostly very far from the ML level.  Here we are three years later and there hasn't been much of a "wave."  We've discussed the "weak" return for the July firesale.  

I will say, there's a lot to criticize DD for, but ironically I think they drafted pretty well under him.

I wouldn’t call it bad.  GRod, Hall, Mountcastle and Baumann stop it from being bad imo.  And all of the young arms we have seen fail this year, a lot of them were here as well.  And while they have failed, some of that has to fall on Elias and his group for not developing them well.  It’s not like the talent isn’t there.

Dont get me wrong, I’m not saying the farm system was that good when he got here but people act as if he had zero to work with and that’s just not true.  It certainly wasn’t deep, that’s for sure.