Olney on O’s losing

[Sports Guy]

3 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

That’s the thing. We tanked ourselves. Of course your hole is going to be deeper if you operate the way they did. They basically invested it all in the major league team at the expense of the future. 
 

This isn’t directed at you but I am sick and tired of hearing about 2018. F’ing tired of it.  They tried to win that year. The media and even some on here bring that up. Using 2018 as an example is pure laziness and inaccurate.  

Agree that you can’t use 2018.  Thats lazy journalism.

[Ohfan67]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

This point has already been addressed.

Not really. This is a model driven rebuild. They have modeled the best way/most efficient way for the Orioles to rebuild. The few extra millions the terrible teams get to spend in the draft have a disproportionately large effect on the probability of acquiring a high WAR player. There’s no where else in the process when investing a few million has the small but realistic potential to provide so much long-term value and increase the probability of having multiple young players reach prime at the same time. It’s a horrendous princess and I hate the system that incentives this approach. 
 

[Ohfan67]

Just now, Ohfan67 said:

Not really. This is a model driven rebuild. They have modeled the best way/most efficient way for the Orioles to rebuild. The few extra millions the terrible teams get to spend in the draft have a disproportionately large effect on the probability of acquiring a high WAR player. There’s no where else in the process when investing a few million has the small but realistic potential to provide so much long-term value and increase the probability of having multiple young players reach prime at the same time. It’s a horrendous princess and I hate the system that incentives this approach. 
 

Process, not princess. 

[eddie83]

I hate to break in to anyone but this team with Gerrit Cole instead of Harvey in the rotation was still a 5th place team and picking in top 5. 

[Pickles]

4 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

I hate to break in to anyone but this team with Gerrit Cole instead of Harvey in the rotation was still a 5th place team and picking in top 5. 

That's what I find so odd.

Smart people, informed fans, people who spent years CALLING for EXACTLY what they're doing now- through many years when we were actually WINNING games- now, seem to be calling for the charge of the 67 win brigade.

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, Pickles said:

That's what I find so odd.

Smart people, informed fans, people who spent years CALLING for EXACTLY what they're doing now- through many years when we were actually WINNING games- now, seem to be calling for the charge of the 67 win brigade.

You do know that they can do both, right?  
 

Again, Elias came in and did what he needed to do.  He cleaned house.  He got rid of the long term payroll concerns, obtained solid guys in trades and re-built the infrastructure.  All of that is great. But the rebuild is over.  You have accomplished what a rebuild is supposed to do.  Tear things down, get rid of long term payroll commitments and build up the MiL system.  
 

 But it’s now time to do a lot more at the ML level.  He can continue to do all of those smart things AND put a better product on the field.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

21 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

That’s the thing. We tanked ourselves. Of course your hole is going to be deeper if you operate the way they did. They basically invested it all in the major league team at the expense of the future. 
 

This isn’t directed at you but I am sick and tired of hearing about 2018. F’ing tired of it.  They tried to win that year. The media and even some on here bring that up. Using 2018 as an example is pure laziness and inaccurate.  

Besides 2018 being the worst team in Orioles history, it was the fact they made an attempt to compete for the wildcard that made this season the worst for me. The plan wasn't to tank, but it sure seemed that way from the results.

No one in 1988 expected the Orioles to be good, and most people thought the 1989 Why Not! O's would be even worse than the prior season. The 2018 team is in rarified air with it's ineptitude. 

The rebuild started from rock bottom in 2018 and Elias had to build out the international system from nothing. I don't want a repeat of 1998 to 2011 years again and be happy because the Orioles fielded a 78 win team.

The sports writers won't give the Orioles credit for winning 78 games and will writ articles on why aren't the Orioles tanking. And how the O's hold be investing resources into the farm system, over wasting money on high priced free agents that won't push the O's into the playoffs. 

[Pickles]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

You do know that they can do both, right?  
 

Again, Elias came in and did what he needed to do.  He cleaned house.  He got rid of the long term payroll concerns, obtained solid guys in trades and re-built the infrastructure.  All of that is great. But the rebuild is over.  You have accomplished what a rebuild is supposed to do.  Tear things down, get rid of long term payroll commitments and build up the MiL system.  
 

 But it’s now time to do a lot more at the ML level.  He can continue to do all of those smart things AND put a better product on the field.

I want to see the product on the ML field getting better, yes.  Going forward, absolutely.

But we're winning 60 games this year because of a bunch of decisions made before Elias even got here.  I frankly don't care that he could have been a little more efficient and we could have won 65!

 

[Moshagge3]

If I'm in the player's union, I'm a lot more concerned about ostensibly competitive teams like Boston and Cleveland shipping out their stars (Betts and Lindor) because they don't even want to make an effort to retain them as free agents. Cleveland is a mediocre .500 team and Boston is sinking like a stone with RF/1B being a major hole for them, but with MLB looking to alter the playoff structure to guarantee a spot to teams in the barely .500 range, look for a lot of teams to try this model. That's what is damaging to the game, IMO, and that's what the union should be fighting.

[Sports Guy]

7 minutes ago, Pickles said:

I want to see the product on the ML field getting better, yes.  Going forward, absolutely.

But we're winning 60 games this year because of a bunch of decisions made before Elias even got here.  I frankly don't care that he could have been a little more efficient and we could have won 65!

 

Previous decisions certainly hurt Elias, as did the debacle of 2020.

 

But it’s silly to make it seem like that’s the only reason they suck.

[scbalt52]

14 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

You do know that they can do both, right?  
 

Again, Elias came in and did what he needed to do.  He cleaned house.  He got rid of the long term payroll concerns, obtained solid guys in trades and re-built the infrastructure.  All of that is great. But the rebuild is over.  You have accomplished what a rebuild is supposed to do.  Tear things down, get rid of long term payroll commitments and build up the MiL system.  
 

 But it’s now time to do a lot more at the ML level.  He can continue to do all of those smart things AND put a better product on the field.

You know what, you're right! What is Mike Elias doing running this team, you should be! You bring up things I'm sure he has never thought of and has no reason for.

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, Moshagge3 said:

If I'm in the player's union, I'm a lot more concerned about ostensibly competitive teams like Boston and Cleveland shipping out their stars (Betts and Lindor) because they don't even want to make an effort to retain them as free agents. Cleveland is a mediocre .500 team and Boston is sinking like a stone with RF/1B being a major hole for them, but with MLB looking to alter the playoff structure to guarantee a spot to teams in the barely .500 range, look for a lot of teams to try this model. That's what is damaging to the game, IMO, and that's what the union should be fighting.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with not wanting to pay 300M+ for a player over 10-15 years.  

[Pickles]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

Previous decisions certainly hurt Elias.  But it’s silly to make it seem like that’s the only reason they suck.

Could you chart out a path to respectability starting in November 2018 that wasn't totally reliant upon hindsight?

[JR Oriole]

Given that there are less than 2 months left in the season (for us, at least), I am not really focused on the major league product.  I would like to knock the Red Sox out of playoff contention, and we have lots of opportunities to do that.  But beyond that, it doesn't matter much to me.  

But next year, I would like to see more success at the ML level.....and I think we have a right to expect that after the past several seasons.  To an earlier question, I did enjoy those seasons in the 2000s more than what we have done since 2017.  I don't enjoy watching the Os and knowing that we will lose 2 out of every 3 games played....which was not always the case in the 2000s.  I especially don't enjoy losing constantly to Tampa, which is a painful reminder of how superior they are to us as an organization.  

After 38 seasons since 1983, I think Orioles fans have been conditioned to accept the fact that playoff success is something meant for other fanbases.  And minor league organizational rankings and low payrolls just don't move the needle much for me from an excitement perspective.  So I guess that leaves rooting for a respectable ML product....again, not too much to ask in my opinion.

[LookinUp]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

I think tanking for 1-2 years is perfectly fine.  Anything beyond that is a money grab and an excuse for ownership to be cheap.

I said in another thread that the FA we should target is Sherzer. The two reasons are 1) we need pitching, but more so 2) I think the O's need a Jayson Werth moment as wise or unwise as that may seem. I'd go with a visible strategy change, but that requires ownership to pony up the money.

And that's the bottom line that is unspoken. Is this rebuild style due to 1) our GM reallocating resources toward player development, 2) our ownership being cheap, or 3) is it due to our ownership stripping the club down for sale? What does PA's health have to do with any of this? I don't think we know. And we know that Covid was horrific for the business side of things. That's still a major drag on revenue, I'd wager. 

There are just more variables than the historic "should they tank" conversation.