Olney on O’s losing

[interloper]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

Fixed that for ya. 

Trust me, I agree with those that think tanking is not good for the game, particularly over a long stretch of time like Elias is putting us through. This is why I believe things have to change next year. The Orioles have to start trying to win. We can't go into the 2022 season with another embarrassment of a team.

I sympathize with this sentiment, but I also don't know that the O's can do all that much in the offseason. Their best bet is to make a savvy trade or two for some impact MLers, but they aren't going to have much success in free agency until the core proves it's close and the team looks more attractive. 

I agree the time for the Franco's of the world are about done, I just don't know if Elias is going to have many avenues to improve the team this offseason. I'm pretty interested to find out. Gun to my head though? I'd say Elias is going to do almost the exact same thing he did last offseason. 

[Pickles]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

Well, we are talking about that Elias needs to find those guys now and he has failed miserably at doing it so far.

Part of what should be acknowledged, is almost every decent pickup he makes he immediately ships them out.

[SteveA]

Let's take a look at what assumptions were made going into this season, as near as we can guess, in terms of bringing in veterants to help this team:

-- For OF/1B/DH we had Hays, Mullins, Mountcastle, Santander, Stewart, and Mancini, and also McKenna, and Diaz expected to be in the picture at some point during the season.   (And Chris Davis).   I think it is reasonable to go into the season with those guys and not go out and sign a  Josh Reddick or something to try to "improve" the situation.   Someone who would take playing time away from potential prospects.   I think signing any veteran OF would have been a bad move.   Now Diaz had a lost season, Mountcastle proved himself not to be an outfielder, Santander and Hays missed time with injuries, DJ is showing us he is probably not a major league hitter.   That's all good... we had to find this stuff.   I think it is clear we should not have brought someone in to supplement any of those 5   positions (LF-CF-RF-1B-DH).   

-- Catcher:  obviously there are many that believe Rutschman should have been up this year, but let's not beat that dead horse.   It's clear that that was never going to happen.   So should we have brought in another C?   We started the season with Severino, Sisco, and Wynns.   In all honesty, I was quite suprised we tendered Pedro last fall.   But we did.   That was probably a poor decision.   He came into the season with a .680ish career OPS and that's about what he's done.   We knew he was not very good behind the plate and if anything he has been even worse this year.   Sisco came into the year with a sub-.700 career OPS, but some onbase skills, and questionable defensive ability.  I contend it was reasonable to let him have one last chance to show some worth.   Unfortunately he was awful, but I don't think giving him the chance was that bad.  Wynns, and Cumberland, as 3rd and 4th options were reasonable.   So I would say mistake #1 was tendering Severino instead of letting him walk and replacing him with some reasonable journeyman who is perhaps better behind the plate.

   -- 3rd base:  We had Rio Ruiz, and we signed Franco.   I think this was a reasonable move, Franco is 28, ahd put up a .778 OPS last year and .780 in 2018.   If the option was bringing in someone a tier higher, more expensive, I don't think it would have been worth it on this team.   It's a shame he had such a bad first few months.    But I don't fault the move there.

   -- Shortstop:  We signed Freddy Galvis, and he performed fairly well and wound up being traded.   And now we have Richie Martin and Urias.   It was a weak free agent market at short.   I can't fault what was done here.

   -- Second base:  Screwed this one up royally.   Signed Yolmer Sanchez, which might have been an OK move, but then oddly cut him and moved Rio there where he had never played before.   This was completely mishandled.   Clearly mistake #2 was botching the second base situation.

   -- Bullpen:  We went into the season with Fry, Tate, Scott, Sulser, Harvey, Lakins, and Valdez expected to be our key bullpen guys.   The first three performed pretty well in the first half and now have fallen off a cliff.  Harvey has predictably been hurt, as has Lakins.  Valdez has been figured out.   Plutko was a reasonable backe end of the bullpen/long man based on his career.  We picked two Rule 5 guys and one of them turned out to be good, in my mind that worked out just fine.    And clearly there was a plan all along to fill the back end of the pen and rotation with a never ending rotation of minor league free agents, non prospects, and dumpster diving guys, going with quantity over quality to get through 162*9 = 1458 innings over the course of the season.   Flaa, Wade, Eshelman, Watkins, Greene, Waddell, Jannis, Knight, Diplan, Anderson, Leblanc, and soon the guy we picked up on waivers from Houston.   I think there also might have been an expectation that one of Akin/Lowther/Kramer/Zimmerman would have spent some time in the pen.   So, was that a bad plan?   I don't think hoping that Fry/Tate/Sulser/Harvey/Lakins would be your late inning guys was an awful plan, especially for a team that wasn't expected to win and the goal was more getting through all the innings instead of having a lockdown bullpen.   And Wells was a good pickup.   And I think you can maybe even justify the parade of disposable nobodies was an acceptable plan in a year when you are trying to get through a ton of innings with arms that hadn't pitched significant innings in 2 years.   So I don't think it was an AWFUL plan for the bullpen, but I think we could have benefited by bringing in one more veteran, reliable 6th-8th inning arm as a free agent.  Possible Mistake #3:  not adding one major league caliber arm to the bullpen.   I will note, however, that if our starting had been better our bullpen situation would not be nearly as dire.  

   -- Starting pitching:  So this is the big one.   We went into the season with Means as a sure thing.   We took a shot on Harvey as a back end of the pen guy, I don't think that's a bad idea in and of itself.  We took a cheap longshot on Felix Hernandez, it didn't work, NBD.   But we went into the season expecting at least 3 spots in the rotation to be filled with Akin/Lowther/Kremer/Lopez/Zimmerman, and that one or two of those guys would be helping in the back end of the bullpen.   (Plus we had LeBlanc).  That has been a failure.   Akin, Kremer, and Lowther have been almost unpitchable at the major league level.   Lopez has until recently been unable to complete the 5th inning without blowing up.   And Zimmerman has been OK but hurt.   So with hindsight, this plan looks awful;.   This, to me is the crux of the entire season.   We had some guys who had shown some ability in the minors, were at the age when it was sink or swim time in the majors,   Letting them start the season in the rotation was certainly not a mistake.   We had to find out what we had in them.   The problem to me is not that we had a bad plan, but that those guys have been such a complete and utter failure.   It makes me question all the good stuff we heard about the "Houston guys" ability to develop pitching, which was one of the biggest reasons I was excited with the Elias hire.   I don't know if going into the season with Means [3 of KA/ZL/DK/JL/BZ] Harvey was that terrible a plan.   It would be if you were really trying to contend.   But I don't think it was unreasonable to expect that to be adequate for a building team, as well as allowing us to find out about t hose guys as much as we could.   And we had Alex Wells and Baumann expected to be on the team at some point this year, only one has made it due to Bauman's injuries.   While it has been a failure, I am not going to say it was a horrible plan.   I'll say Possible Mistake #3:  not adding one reliable veteran starter.   I call that one #3 as well because I don't think it was necessary to add one reliever AND one starter, we probably should have done one or the other.

 

So in summary, when SportsGuy says we should have spent some money to improve this team, I think he is wildly overrating what really could have done and I doubt we would still be good.   But I do think it is safe to say we could/should have:

   1) Not tendered Severino and signed a reliable major league veteran C who can play some defense

   2) Handled the second base situation much better than we did

   3) Probably signed one more dependable veteran arm for either the rotation or the bullpen

I think we could have done all that for about $10 million.  We would still be in last place, but we would probably be hoping for 70 wins at this point instead of 60.   If we wanted to go that route.

I am far more upset about the failures of Akin/Lowther/Kremer than I am about not adding a few bells and whistles to win 70 games though.   It is a big concern to me because I felt developing pitching was something that Elias and company would be good at.   And so far it's been very disappointing.   I know that none of those three have overpowering top of the rotation stuff.   But I think they showed enough at the minor league level that they should be better than they have been at the major league level.   I mean there's more to developing pitching than just getting a bunch of Grayson Rodriguez's and DL Halls and not screwing them up.   We have a few success stories in that area -- Means and Tyler Wells -- but I had hoped for more.

[Ripken]

7 minutes ago, interloper said:

I sympathize with this sentiment, but I also don't know that the O's can do all that much in the offseason. Their best bet is to make a savvy trade or two for some impact MLers, but they aren't going to have much success in free agency until the core proves it's close and the team looks more attractive. 

I agree the time for the Franco's of the world are about done, I just don't know if Elias is going to have many avenues to improve the team this offseason. I'm pretty interested to find out. Gun to my head though? I'd say Elias is going to do almost the exact same thing he did last offseason. 

These are the reasons why many, including those who desperately wanted a complete rebuild, are growing tired of slow rolling prospects, ignoring any decent established player, and losing huge.  To say nothing of those who do not like the draft strategy.  I have given Elias a mulligan because of no minor league seasons last year.  He better get moving though.

 

[wildcard]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

No you didn’t fix anything.  

 

Tampa, a team in our division fighting those big bad teams with so much advantage have found a way to do it.  It can be done.

Oakland, competing with teams with much larger revenue streams has found a way.  
 

It can be done through intelligence and doing things the right way. 

The Orioles can do what those teams do and spend a lot more money, ala St Louis.  They just haven’t been able to accomplish it.

Obviously being able to spend is an advantage but again, it’s the advantage people make it out to be and quite frankly, spending big almost always leads to failure.

Here is what intelligence does:

Andrew Friedman joined the Rays in 2004 as Director of Baseball Development.  After the 2005 season he was named GM.  What was the first thing he did.  He tanked.  That allowed him to draft Evan Longoria with 3rd pick in the draft and the following year he drafted David Price with the #1 pick in the draft.

[interloper]

2 minutes ago, Ripken said:

These are the reasons why many, including those who desperately wanted a complete rebuild, are growing tired of slow rolling prospects, ignoring any decent established player, and losing huge.  To say nothing of those who do not like the draft strategy.  I have given Elias a mulligan because of no minor league seasons last year.  He better get moving though.

 

I get that. But to Elias' credit, he's given opportunities to the majority of the pitchers that were ready to come up and they've all tripped over their own nuts out there. All those guys should be embarrassed, man. And then they proceed to go down to AAA and suck there, too. It's like, well, we tried! And I'm over the yo-yo excuse. These are professional players who know how to perform and they just haven't when given opportunities.

Beyond Adley, I can't think of too many guys who you can argue should be up with the big league team right now. Jones? I guess, but I don't really have a problem giving his looks to Mateo right now. Not a lot of separation there in my mind. But I would DFA Franco to bring him up for sure. Past that I just don't know. Baumann? 

[Pickles]

23 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Let's take a look at what assumptions were made going into this season, as near as we can guess, in terms of bringing in veterants to help this team:

-- For OF/1B/DH we had Hays, Mullins, Mountcastle, Santander, Stewart, and Mancini, and also McKenna, and Diaz expected to be in the picture at some point during the season.   (And Chris Davis).   I think it is reasonable to go into the season with those guys and not go out and sign a  Josh Reddick or something to try to "improve" the situation.   Someone who would take playing time away from potential prospects.   I think signing any veteran OF would have been a bad move.   Now Diaz had a lost season, Mountcastle proved himself not to be an outfielder, Santander and Hays missed time with injuries, DJ is showing us he is probably not a major league hitter.   That's all good... we had to find this stuff.   I think it is clear we should not have brought someone in to supplement any of those 5   positions (LF-CF-RF-1B-DH).   

-- Catcher:  obviously there are many that believe Rutschman should have been up this year, but let's not beat that dead horse.   It's clear that that was never going to happen.   So should we have brought in another C?   We started the season with Severino, Sisco, and Wynns.   In all honesty, I was quite suprised we tendered Pedro last fall.   But we did.   That was probably a poor decision.   He came into the season with a .680ish career OPS and that's about what he's done.   We knew he was not very good behind the plate and if anything he has been even worse this year.   Sisco came into the year with a sub-.700 career OPS, but some onbase skills, and questionable defensive ability.  I contend it was reasonable to let him have one last chance to show some worth.   Unfortunately he was awful, but I don't think giving him the chance was that bad.  Wynns, and Cumberland, as 3rd and 4th options were reasonable.   So I would say mistake #1 was tendering Severino instead of letting him walk and replacing him with some reasonable journeyman who is perhaps better behind the plate.

   -- 3rd base:  We had Rio Ruiz, and we signed Franco.   I think this was a reasonable move, Franco is 28, ahd put up a .778 OPS last year and .780 in 2018.   If the option was bringing in someone a tier higher, more expensive, I don't think it would have been worth it on this team.   It's a shame he had such a bad first few months.    But I don't fault the move there.

   -- Shortstop:  We signed Freddy Galvis, and he performed fairly well and wound up being traded.   And now we have Richie Martin and Urias.   It was a weak free agent market at short.   I can't fault what was done here.

   -- Second base:  Screwed this one up royally.   Signed Yolmer Sanchez, which might have been an OK move, but then oddly cut him and moved Rio there where he had never played before.   This was completely mishandled.   Clearly mistake #2 was botching the second base situation.

   -- Bullpen:  We went into the season with Fry, Tate, Sulser, Harvey, Lakins, and Valdez expected to be our key bullpen guys.   The first three performed pretty well in the first half and now have fallen off a cliff.  Harvey has predictably been hurt, as has Lakins.  Valdez has been figured out.   We picked two Rule 5 guys and one of them turned out to be good, in my mind that worked out just fine.    And clearly there was a plan all along to fill the back end of the pen and rotation with a never ending rotation of minor league free agents, non prospects, and dumpster diving guys, going with quantity over quality to get through 162*9 = 1458 innings over the course of the season.   Flaa, Wade, Eshelman, Watkins, Greene, Waddell, Jannis, Knight, Diplan, Anderson, Leblanc, and soon the guy we picked up on waivers from Houston.   I think there also might have been an expectation that one of Akin/Lowther/Kramer/Zimmerman would have spent some time in the pen.   So, was that a bad plan?   I don't think hoping that Fry/Tate/Sulser/Harvey/Lakins would be your late inning guys was an awful plan, especially for a team that wasn't expected to win and the goal was more getting through all the innings instead of having a lockdown bullpen.   And Wells was a good pickup.   And I think you can maybe even justify the parade of disposable nobodies was an acceptable plan in a year when you are trying to get through a ton of innings with arms that hadn't pitched significant innings in 2 years.   So I don't think it was an AWFUL plan for the bullpen, but I think we could have benefited by bringing in one more veteran, reliable 6th-8th inning arm as a free agent.  Possible Mistake #3:  not adding one major league caliber arm to the bullpen.   I will note, however, that if our starting had been better our bullpen situation would not be nearly as dire.  

   -- Starting pitching:  So this is the big one.   We went into the season with Means as a sure thing.   We took a shot on Harvey as a back end of the pen guy, I don't think that's a bad idea in and of itself.  We took a cheap longshot on Felix Hernandez, it didn't work, NBD.   But we went into the season expecting at least 3 spots in the rotation to be filled with Akin/Lowther/Kremer/Lopez/Zimmerman, and that one or two of those guys would be helping in the back end of the bullpen.   (Plus we had LeBlanc).  That has been a failure.   Akin, Kremer, and Lowther have been almost unpitchable at the major league level.   Lopez has until recently been unable to complete the 5th inning without blowing up.   And Zimmerman has been OK but hurt.   So with hindsight, this plan looks awful;.   This, to me is the crux of the entire season.   We had some guys who had shown some ability in the minors, were at the age when it was sink or swim time in the majors,   Letting them start the season in the rotation was certainly not a mistake.   We had to find out what we had in them.   The problem to me is not that we had a bad plan, but that those guys have been such a complete and utter failure.   It makes me question all the good stuff we heard about the "Houston guys" ability to develop pitching, which was one of the biggest reasons I was excited with the Elias hire.   I don't know if going into the season with Means [3 of KA/ZL/DK/JL/BZ] Harvey was that terrible a plan.   It would be if you were really trying to contend.   But I don't think it was unreasonable to expect that to be adequate for a building team, as well as allowing us to find out about t hose guys as much as we could.   And we had Alex Wells and Baumann expected to be on the team at some point this year, only one has made it due to Bauman's injuries.   While it has been a failure, I am not going to say it was a horrible plan.   I'll say Possible Mistake #3:  not adding one reliable veteran starter.   I call that one #3 as well because I don't think it was necessary to add one reliever AND one starter, we probably should have done one or the other.

 

So in summary, when SportsGuy says we should have spent some money to improve this team, I think he is wildly overrating what really could have done and I doubt we would still be good.   But I do think it is safe to say we could/should have:

   1) Not tendered Severino and signed a reliable major league veteran C who can play some defense

   2) Handled the second base situation much better than we did

   3) Probably signed one more dependable veteran arm for either the rotation or the bullpen

I think we could have done all that for about $10 million.  We would still be in last place, but we would probably be hoping for 70 wins at this point instead of 60.   If we wanted to go that route.

I am far more upset about the failures of Akin/Lowther/Kremer than I am about not adding a few bells and whistles to win 70 games though.   It is a big concern to me because I felt developing pitching was something that Elias and company would be good at.   And so far it's been very disappointing.   I know that none of those three have overpowering top of the rotation stuff.   But I think they showed enough at the minor league level that they should be better than they have been at the major league level.   I mean there's more to developing pitching than just getting a bunch of Grayson Rodriguez's and DL Halls and not screwing them up.   We have a few success stories in that area -- Means and Tyler Wells -- but I had hoped for more.

Great post.  Sums up a lot of my feelings.

[7Mo]

33 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Let's take a look at what assumptions were made going into this season, as near as we can guess, in terms of bringing in veterants to help this team:

-- For OF/1B/DH we had Hays, Mullins, Mountcastle, Santander, Stewart, and Mancini, and also McKenna, and Diaz expected to be in the picture at some point during the season.   (And Chris Davis).   I think it is reasonable to go into the season with those guys and not go out and sign a  Josh Reddick or something to try to "improve" the situation.   Someone who would take playing time away from potential prospects.   I think signing any veteran OF would have been a bad move.   Now Diaz had a lost season, Mountcastle proved himself not to be an outfielder, Santander and Hays missed time with injuries, DJ is showing us he is probably not a major league hitter.   That's all good... we had to find this stuff.   I think it is clear we should not have brought someone in to supplement any of those 5   positions (LF-CF-RF-1B-DH).   

-- Catcher:  obviously there are many that believe Rutschman should have been up this year, but let's not beat that dead horse.   It's clear that that was never going to happen.   So should we have brought in another C?   We started the season with Severino, Sisco, and Wynns.   In all honesty, I was quite suprised we tendered Pedro last fall.   But we did.   That was probably a poor decision.   He came into the season with a .680ish career OPS and that's about what he's done.   We knew he was not very good behind the plate and if anything he has been even worse this year.   Sisco came into the year with a sub-.700 career OPS, but some onbase skills, and questionable defensive ability.  I contend it was reasonable to let him have one last chance to show some worth.   Unfortunately he was awful, but I don't think giving him the chance was that bad.  Wynns, and Cumberland, as 3rd and 4th options were reasonable.   So I would say mistake #1 was tendering Severino instead of letting him walk and replacing him with some reasonable journeyman who is perhaps better behind the plate.

   -- 3rd base:  We had Rio Ruiz, and we signed Franco.   I think this was a reasonable move, Franco is 28, ahd put up a .778 OPS last year and .780 in 2018.   If the option was bringing in someone a tier higher, more expensive, I don't think it would have been worth it on this team.   It's a shame he had such a bad first few months.    But I don't fault the move there.

   -- Shortstop:  We signed Freddy Galvis, and he performed fairly well and wound up being traded.   And now we have Richie Martin and Urias.   It was a weak free agent market at short.   I can't fault what was done here.

   -- Second base:  Screwed this one up royally.   Signed Yolmer Sanchez, which might have been an OK move, but then oddly cut him and moved Rio there where he had never played before.   This was completely mishandled.   Clearly mistake #2 was botching the second base situation.

   -- Bullpen:  We went into the season with Fry, Tate, Sulser, Harvey, Lakins, and Valdez expected to be our key bullpen guys.   The first three performed pretty well in the first half and now have fallen off a cliff.  Harvey has predictably been hurt, as has Lakins.  Valdez has been figured out.   We picked two Rule 5 guys and one of them turned out to be good, in my mind that worked out just fine.    And clearly there was a plan all along to fill the back end of the pen and rotation with a never ending rotation of minor league free agents, non prospects, and dumpster diving guys, going with quantity over quality to get through 162*9 = 1458 innings over the course of the season.   Flaa, Wade, Eshelman, Watkins, Greene, Waddell, Jannis, Knight, Diplan, Anderson, Leblanc, and soon the guy we picked up on waivers from Houston.   I think there also might have been an expectation that one of Akin/Lowther/Kramer/Zimmerman would have spent some time in the pen.   So, was that a bad plan?   I don't think hoping that Fry/Tate/Sulser/Harvey/Lakins would be your late inning guys was an awful plan, especially for a team that wasn't expected to win and the goal was more getting through all the innings instead of having a lockdown bullpen.   And Wells was a good pickup.   And I think you can maybe even justify the parade of disposable nobodies was an acceptable plan in a year when you are trying to get through a ton of innings with arms that hadn't pitched significant innings in 2 years.   So I don't think it was an AWFUL plan for the bullpen, but I think we could have benefited by bringing in one more veteran, reliable 6th-8th inning arm as a free agent.  Possible Mistake #3:  not adding one major league caliber arm to the bullpen.   I will note, however, that if our starting had been better our bullpen situation would not be nearly as dire.  

   -- Starting pitching:  So this is the big one.   We went into the season with Means as a sure thing.   We took a shot on Harvey as a back end of the pen guy, I don't think that's a bad idea in and of itself.  We took a cheap longshot on Felix Hernandez, it didn't work, NBD.   But we went into the season expecting at least 3 spots in the rotation to be filled with Akin/Lowther/Kremer/Lopez/Zimmerman, and that one or two of those guys would be helping in the back end of the bullpen.   (Plus we had LeBlanc).  That has been a failure.   Akin, Kremer, and Lowther have been almost unpitchable at the major league level.   Lopez has until recently been unable to complete the 5th inning without blowing up.   And Zimmerman has been OK but hurt.   So with hindsight, this plan looks awful;.   This, to me is the crux of the entire season.   We had some guys who had shown some ability in the minors, were at the age when it was sink or swim time in the majors,   Letting them start the season in the rotation was certainly not a mistake.   We had to find out what we had in them.   The problem to me is not that we had a bad plan, but that those guys have been such a complete and utter failure.   It makes me question all the good stuff we heard about the "Houston guys" ability to develop pitching, which was one of the biggest reasons I was excited with the Elias hire.   I don't know if going into the season with Means [3 of KA/ZL/DK/JL/BZ] Harvey was that terrible a plan.   It would be if you were really trying to contend.   But I don't think it was unreasonable to expect that to be adequate for a building team, as well as allowing us to find out about t hose guys as much as we could.   And we had Alex Wells and Baumann expected to be on the team at some point this year, only one has made it due to Bauman's injuries.   While it has been a failure, I am not going to say it was a horrible plan.   I'll say Possible Mistake #3:  not adding one reliable veteran starter.   I call that one #3 as well because I don't think it was necessary to add one reliever AND one starter, we probably should have done one or the other.

 

So in summary, when SportsGuy says we should have spent some money to improve this team, I think he is wildly overrating what really could have done and I doubt we would still be good.   But I do think it is safe to say we could/should have:

   1) Not tendered Severino and signed a reliable major league veteran C who can play some defense

   2) Handled the second base situation much better than we did

   3) Probably signed one more dependable veteran arm for either the rotation or the bullpen

I think we could have done all that for about $10 million.  We would still be in last place, but we would probably be hoping for 70 wins at this point instead of 60.   If we wanted to go that route.

I am far more upset about the failures of Akin/Lowther/Kremer than I am about not adding a few bells and whistles to win 70 games though.   It is a big concern to me because I felt developing pitching was something that Elias and company would be good at.   And so far it's been very disappointing.   I know that none of those three have overpowering top of the rotation stuff.   But I think they showed enough at the minor league level that they should be better than they have been at the major league level.   I mean there's more to developing pitching than just getting a bunch of Grayson Rodriguez's and DL Halls and not screwing them up.   We have a few success stories in that area -- Means and Tyler Wells -- but I had hoped for more.

Really good post. The only thing I would argue with is that we needed to sign 2-3 more guys NOT to try to get to 70 wins instead of 60, but to have a few more trade pieces at the deadline. Second base could have been one of those 2-3 but something was really weird about how that happened.

[SteveA]

1 minute ago, 7Mo said:

Really good post. The only thing I would argue with is that we needed to sign 2-3 more guys NOT to try to get to 70 wins instead of 60, but to have a few more trade pieces at the deadline. Second base could have been one of those 2-3 but something was really weird about how that happened.

I've said all along that there is something we just don't know about the Yolmer Sanchez situation.   The timing was so odd.

[Pickles]

3 minutes ago, 7Mo said:

Really good post. The only thing I would argue with is that we needed to sign 2-3 more guys NOT to try to get to 70 wins instead of 60, but to have a few more trade pieces at the deadline. Second base could have been one of those 2-3 but something was really weird about how that happened.

Signing guys with the intention of trading them later for prospects is risky.  Very much so.

[Pickles]

I'll add: Particularly when you probably have to overpay to get them in the first place.

[7Mo]

3 minutes ago, Pickles said:

Signing guys with the intention of trading them later for prospects is risky.  Very much so.

So what should be done?

[Pickles]

1 minute ago, 7Mo said:

So what should be done?

There's no easy or quick fix.  

They're largely following their only path back to contention.

It's not guaranteed to be successful either.

[Sports Guy]

42 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Let's take a look at what assumptions were made going into this season, as near as we can guess, in terms of bringing in veterants to help this team:

-- For OF/1B/DH we had Hays, Mullins, Mountcastle, Santander, Stewart, and Mancini, and also McKenna, and Diaz expected to be in the picture at some point during the season.   (And Chris Davis).   I think it is reasonable to go into the season with those guys and not go out and sign a  Josh Reddick or something to try to "improve" the situation.   Someone who would take playing time away from potential prospects.   I think signing any veteran OF would have been a bad move.   Now Diaz had a lost season, Mountcastle proved himself not to be an outfielder, Santander and Hays missed time with injuries, DJ is showing us he is probably not a major league hitter.   That's all good... we had to find this stuff.   I think it is clear we should not have brought someone in to supplement any of those 5   positions (LF-CF-RF-1B-DH).   

-- Catcher:  obviously there are many that believe Rutschman should have been up this year, but let's not beat that dead horse.   It's clear that that was never going to happen.   So should we have brought in another C?   We started the season with Severino, Sisco, and Wynns.   In all honesty, I was quite suprised we tendered Pedro last fall.   But we did.   That was probably a poor decision.   He came into the season with a .680ish career OPS and that's about what he's done.   We knew he was not very good behind the plate and if anything he has been even worse this year.   Sisco came into the year with a sub-.700 career OPS, but some onbase skills, and questionable defensive ability.  I contend it was reasonable to let him have one last chance to show some worth.   Unfortunately he was awful, but I don't think giving him the chance was that bad.  Wynns, and Cumberland, as 3rd and 4th options were reasonable.   So I would say mistake #1 was tendering Severino instead of letting him walk and replacing him with some reasonable journeyman who is perhaps better behind the plate.

   -- 3rd base:  We had Rio Ruiz, and we signed Franco.   I think this was a reasonable move, Franco is 28, ahd put up a .778 OPS last year and .780 in 2018.   If the option was bringing in someone a tier higher, more expensive, I don't think it would have been worth it on this team.   It's a shame he had such a bad first few months.    But I don't fault the move there.

   -- Shortstop:  We signed Freddy Galvis, and he performed fairly well and wound up being traded.   And now we have Richie Martin and Urias.   It was a weak free agent market at short.   I can't fault what was done here.

   -- Second base:  Screwed this one up royally.   Signed Yolmer Sanchez, which might have been an OK move, but then oddly cut him and moved Rio there where he had never played before.   This was completely mishandled.   Clearly mistake #2 was botching the second base situation.

   -- Bullpen:  We went into the season with Fry, Tate, Sulser, Harvey, Lakins, and Valdez expected to be our key bullpen guys.   The first three performed pretty well in the first half and now have fallen off a cliff.  Harvey has predictably been hurt, as has Lakins.  Valdez has been figured out.   We picked two Rule 5 guys and one of them turned out to be good, in my mind that worked out just fine.    And clearly there was a plan all along to fill the back end of the pen and rotation with a never ending rotation of minor league free agents, non prospects, and dumpster diving guys, going with quantity over quality to get through 162*9 = 1458 innings over the course of the season.   Flaa, Wade, Eshelman, Watkins, Greene, Waddell, Jannis, Knight, Diplan, Anderson, Leblanc, and soon the guy we picked up on waivers from Houston.   I think there also might have been an expectation that one of Akin/Lowther/Kramer/Zimmerman would have spent some time in the pen.   So, was that a bad plan?   I don't think hoping that Fry/Tate/Sulser/Harvey/Lakins would be your late inning guys was an awful plan, especially for a team that wasn't expected to win and the goal was more getting through all the innings instead of having a lockdown bullpen.   And Wells was a good pickup.   And I think you can maybe even justify the parade of disposable nobodies was an acceptable plan in a year when you are trying to get through a ton of innings with arms that hadn't pitched significant innings in 2 years.   So I don't think it was an AWFUL plan for the bullpen, but I think we could have benefited by bringing in one more veteran, reliable 6th-8th inning arm as a free agent.  Possible Mistake #3:  not adding one major league caliber arm to the bullpen.   I will note, however, that if our starting had been better our bullpen situation would not be nearly as dire.  

   -- Starting pitching:  So this is the big one.   We went into the season with Means as a sure thing.   We took a shot on Harvey as a back end of the pen guy, I don't think that's a bad idea in and of itself.  We took a cheap longshot on Felix Hernandez, it didn't work, NBD.   But we went into the season expecting at least 3 spots in the rotation to be filled with Akin/Lowther/Kremer/Lopez/Zimmerman, and that one or two of those guys would be helping in the back end of the bullpen.   (Plus we had LeBlanc).  That has been a failure.   Akin, Kremer, and Lowther have been almost unpitchable at the major league level.   Lopez has until recently been unable to complete the 5th inning without blowing up.   And Zimmerman has been OK but hurt.   So with hindsight, this plan looks awful;.   This, to me is the crux of the entire season.   We had some guys who had shown some ability in the minors, were at the age when it was sink or swim time in the majors,   Letting them start the season in the rotation was certainly not a mistake.   We had to find out what we had in them.   The problem to me is not that we had a bad plan, but that those guys have been such a complete and utter failure.   It makes me question all the good stuff we heard about the "Houston guys" ability to develop pitching, which was one of the biggest reasons I was excited with the Elias hire.   I don't know if going into the season with Means [3 of KA/ZL/DK/JL/BZ] Harvey was that terrible a plan.   It would be if you were really trying to contend.   But I don't think it was unreasonable to expect that to be adequate for a building team, as well as allowing us to find out about t hose guys as much as we could.   And we had Alex Wells and Baumann expected to be on the team at some point this year, only one has made it due to Bauman's injuries.   While it has been a failure, I am not going to say it was a horrible plan.   I'll say Possible Mistake #3:  not adding one reliable veteran starter.   I call that one #3 as well because I don't think it was necessary to add one reliever AND one starter, we probably should have done one or the other.

 

So in summary, when SportsGuy says we should have spent some money to improve this team, I think he is wildly overrating what really could have done and I doubt we would still be good.   But I do think it is safe to say we could/should have:

   1) Not tendered Severino and signed a reliable major league veteran C who can play some defense

   2) Handled the second base situation much better than we did

   3) Probably signed one more dependable veteran arm for either the rotation or the bullpen

I think we could have done all that for about $10 million.  We would still be in last place, but we would probably be hoping for 70 wins at this point instead of 60.   If we wanted to go that route.

I am far more upset about the failures of Akin/Lowther/Kremer than I am about not adding a few bells and whistles to win 70 games though.   It is a big concern to me because I felt developing pitching was something that Elias and company would be good at.   And so far it's been very disappointing.   I know that none of those three have overpowering top of the rotation stuff.   But I think they showed enough at the minor league level that they should be better than they have been at the major league level.   I mean there's more to developing pitching than just getting a bunch of Grayson Rodriguez's and DL Halls and not screwing them up.   We have a few success stories in that area -- Means and Tyler Wells -- but I had hoped for more.

Well first of all, the failures of those starters can also be put at his feet to some extent.

 

Secondly, we agree that the Orioles have had some bad luck with injuries and poor play.

 

For me, I wanted them to add at least one back end of the pen arm and at least 1 real starter and maybe 2.  

Moves don't always work out (I wanted Franco signed too, at least once the other options were gone) but I also want to see a better attempt, especially with the pitching staff.

[7Mo]

Just now, Pickles said:

There's no easy or quick fix.  

They're largely following their only path back to contention.

It's not guaranteed to be successful either.

So you are content waiting 1.5 to 2 more years for guys to work their way from A+ and AA and leave it at that?