New Rosenthal column

[Just Regular]

Media cycles, man.    The trade deadline juice finishes, you don't really want to start working the real life races too hard until September, what are you gonna do in the dog days?

Can SI throw a bone and give us a 2025 World Series champions cover or something?

[wildcard]

Tampa and the A's have found  formulas that allows them to compete with the big money teams.  The owners and the union should make sure nothing impedes their progress.  Instead they should bolster their methods anyway they can.

The O's should be at the end of their tanking.  With top prospects arriving and a low payroll the O's can supplement their roster with sensible spending.   The New CBA should also support them if both the union and owners want 30 teams to compete.

As far as stopping tanking, if MLB wants to take money from the rich teams to support the poorer teams that would be helpful.  And if they want to designate that the money they  give them must be used for player salaries that seems fine as well.

[Tony-OH]

I think very few of us are against tanking as it's the only way to really get this franchise back to being some semblance of a winning franchise again that can compete in most years. The question remains, is the rebuild working?

From a minor league perspective, the fact that BA considers the Orioles system second in all of baseball is certainly a good thing. Of course, that's partially on Elias and partially on Gary Rajsich who was behind drafting players like Rodriguez, Hall, Baumann, Rom and Neustrom.

The Orioles J2 efforts and scouting has been a huge step in the right direction with several players being interesting, including De Leon and Pinto, who were acquired in the trades of Bleier and Givens respectively. Deson, Acevedo, and Ramirez have been interesting position players in the FCL, though much hyped Luis Gonzales has disappointed.

Both of the bonus babies in the DSL, Hernandez and Basallo have not lit things up in their first taste of pro ball but Hernandez does have a nice K-BB ratio and Basallo is one of the youngest players playing in the league and holding his own a bit.

I think the big issue in the rebuild is two fold, the failure of the ready or what was thought of as ready players, and the lack of starting pitching depth in the system due to Elias' near aversion to drafting pitchers in the first ten round of his drafts.

The failures of Akin and Kremer as starters, the step backwards by Lowther, the injury of Zimmermann and Hunter Harvey, along with Hays and Santander's injuries and lack of performance are the main reasons for the Orioles disastrous season this year. All of these players were expected to play a role this season as lights in a long tunnel of failure, but they all ended up being a trainwreck vs players who can contribute to a successful future in Baltimore. 

That's not to say that none of these players can't rebound and improve and find roles that suit them at the major league level, just that they all ended up as almost worse case scenarios.

It's too early to say the rebuild is not working or that Elias does not have the organization heading in the right direction, but also understandable to be frustrated over watching this team challenge every record of futility. 

In the 3rd year of Ludnow's rebuild, the Astros were 70-92 and had Altuve, Springer, and several starting pitchers under 30 who were pitching well. It's fair to say he was ahead of where Elias is at the moment, particularly at the major league level. Of course, he wasn't playing in the AL East.

The Orioles need to almost entirely rebuild their pitching staff and Mullins and Mountcastle may be the only two players who could be part of a playoff Orioles team on the current team. While the team is deep in outfield prospects, but it has very little starting pitching depth outside of Rodriguez, Hall and Baumann and Hall and Baumann both still have some reliever risk to them.

Most of their top infield prospects have defensive concerns (Westburg's arm and range at SS, Henderson staying on the left side of the infield, Vavra's range at 2B, Jones sticking at 2B) or bat concerns (Grenier, Hernaiz and Ortiz). 

There is still a long road ahead and Elias is going to need to show he can acquire near ready talent or young ready talent to add to his system of talent for the Orioles to compete anytime within the next 3-5 years.



 

 

[Sports Guy]

Question for everyone, especially those who are happy that they are still (essentially) tanking/trying not to win/whatever terminology you want to use…

If the Orioles become legit contenders in 2 or 3 years, do you think that will have happened because they tanked/went through a rebuild, etc…?

[UMDTerrapins]

I don't have a Rosenthal beef, but I've always greatly respected his reporting while I couldn't care less about his opinions. 

[wildcard]

22 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I think very few of us are against tanking as it's the only way to really get this franchise back to being some semblance of a winning franchise again that can compete in most years. The question remains, is the rebuild working?

From a minor league perspective, the fact that BA considers the Orioles system second in all of baseball is certainly a good thing. Of course, that's partially on Elias and partially on Gary Rajsich who was behind drafting players like Rodriguez, Hall, Baumann, Rom and Neustrom.

The Orioles J2 efforts and scouting has been a huge step in the right direction with several players being interesting, including De Leon and Pinto, who were acquired in the trades of Bleier and Givens respectively. Deson, Acevedo, and Ramirez have been interesting position players in the FCL, though much hyped Luis Gonzales has disappointed.

Both of the bonus babies in the DSL, Hernandez and Basallo have not lit things up in their first taste of pro ball but Hernandez does have a nice K-BB ratio and Basallo is one of the youngest players playing in the league and holding his own a bit.

I think the big issue in the rebuild is two fold, the failure of the ready or what was thought of as ready players, and the lack of starting pitching depth in the system due to Elias' near aversion to drafting pitchers in the first ten round of his drafts.

The failures of Akin and Kremer as starters, the step backwards by Lowther, the injury of Zimmermann and Hunter Harvey, along with Hays and Santander's injuries and lack of performance are the main reasons for the Orioles disastrous season this year. All of these players were expected to play a role this season as lights in a long tunnel of failure, but they all ended up being a trainwreck vs players who can contribute to a successful future in Baltimore. 

That's not to say that none of these players can't rebound and improve and find roles that suit them at the major league level, just that they all ended up as almost worse case scenarios.

It's too early to say the rebuild is not working or that Elias does not have the organization heading in the right direction, but also understandable to be frustrated over watching this team challenge every record of futility. 

in the 3rd year of Ludnow's rebuild, the Astros were 70-92 and had Altuve, Springer, and several starting pitchers under 30 who were pitching well. It's fair to say he was ahead of where Elias is at the moment, particularly at the major league level. Of course, he wasn't playing in the AL East.

 

 

I don't think it a fair comparison with the 2014 Astros.   There is not much doubt that if Adley and Grayson would have had full 2020 seasons in the minors they would have been in the majors in 2021.    And Mullins is having a much better year than Altuve or Springer had in 2014.  Mountcastle and Mancini have better power than those two had in 2014.   The O's have  also have Means.     Houston also got to play 19 games vs the Rangers who had a .414 win percentage.

Yes, the O's 2021 wins look bad compared to the 70-92 Astros.  But there are reasons.

[wildcard]

44 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Question for everyone, especially those who are happy that they are still (essentially) tanking/trying not to win/whatever terminology you want to use…

If the Orioles become legit contenders in 2 or 3 years, do you think that will have happened because they tanked/went through a rebuild, etc…?

Partly.  The rest is mainly how Elias and ownership build the team in the next 2 years

[Frobby]

2 minutes ago, wildcard said:

I don't think it a fair comparison with the 2014 Astros.   There is not much doubt that if Adley and Grayson would have had full 2020 seasons in the minors they would have been in the majors in 2021.    And Mullins is having a much better year than Altuve or Springer had in 2014.  Mountcastle and Mancini have better power than those two had in 2014.   The O's have  also have Means.     Houston also got to play 19 games vs the Rangers who had a .414 win percentage.

Yes, the O's 2021 wins look bad compared to the 70-92 Astros.  But there are reasons.

I expected the O’s to be pretty bad this year, but they’re definitely worse than expected.   I think Tony diagnosed well the individual disappointments in 2021 that are of concern.  I do think there are legit reasons they’re not on quite the same timetable the Astros were on, but we really need to start seeing some substantial progress at the major league level next year.

[Just Regular]

33 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

If the Orioles become legit contenders in 2 or 3 years, do you think that will have happened because they tanked/went through a rebuild, etc…?

The proof will be in the Adley Supporting Cast and the payroll.   I'm with you that today's likeliest franchise cornerstones 2019 pick 1-1 and Rodriguez were already in the organization before Elias got to make any strategic decisions how to deploy whatever assets ownership provided him to fund technology, technology-literate human resources, Latin American real estate and these 2020-2021 teams.

After Rutschman in the 2019 draft, Elias arguably went Stars and Scrubs more than 2020-2021's Spread the Wealth style in splurging for Henderson.   

Run production wise, what I put on Elias are will Henderson, Kjerstad, Westburg, Cowser, Norby combine with Mullins, Mountcastle, Rutschman, Santander to form an elite offense?    Run prevention wise, will peak Orioles Junior Varsity types like Hays, Neustrom, Stowers, Mayo grow into enough value to become Chris Sale, Aaron Nola or Zack Wheeler in 2023?

Payroll wise as the teams improve, that's more ownership than GM.   Who knows if the thin payrolls of now are paying down Duquette's credit card bill or saving for Rutschman's peak teams?

[NelsonCruuuuuz]

1 hour ago, wildcard said:

Tampa and the A's have found  formulas that allows them to compete with the big money teams.  The owners and the union should make sure nothing impedes their progress.  Instead they should bolster their methods anyway they can.

The O's should be at the end of their tanking.  With top prospects arriving and a low payroll the O's can supplement their roster with sensible spending.   The New CBA should also support them if both the union and owners want 30 teams to compete.

As far as stopping tanking, if MLB wants to take money from the rich teams to support the poorer teams that would be helpful.  And if they want to designate that the money they  give them must be used for player salaries that seems fine as well.

First off, thanks for all you contribute on here. I sincerely love your posts and the thought/research that go into each post. You are awesome.

What makes you think we are at the end of our tanking? I respectfully disagree. We have a franchise catcher, but no SS or infield, SP is thin at best, no CF (plenty of corner OFers). Elias passing on Lawlar was very telling IMO. Until the team is sold, there will be no greenlight to compete and the moves he makes backs that up. I would anticipate a trade of Mancini or Means and a comment in the offseason similar to Jose Iglesias "We just aren't as far along in the rebuild as we had hoped after careful evaluation, blah blah blah".

Could I be wrong? Absolutely. But I don't think we are close at all to competing in the AL East. Not even remotely close. 

[Tony-OH]

13 minutes ago, wildcard said:

I don't think it a fair comparison with the 2014 Astros.   There is not much doubt that if Adley and Grayson would have had full 2020 seasons in the minors they would have been in the majors in 2021.    And Mullins is having a much better year than Altuve or Springer had in 2014.  Mountcastle and Mancini have better power than those two had in 2014.   The O's have  also have Means.     Houston also got to play 19 games vs the Rangers who had a .414 win percentage.

Yes, the O's 2021 wins look bad compared to the 70-92 Astros.  But there are reasons.

Do you read my entire post before commenting who do you skim it so you can quickly try and posts some kind of retort?

I already explained the reasons why the team is so bad, but whether you want to agree with it or not, the Astros were significantly ahead of where the Orioles are after three years AT THE MAJOR LEAGUE LEVEL, even considering the COVID 2020 year. 

It did not do a comparison of the farm systems. 

[UMDTerrapins]

46 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Question for everyone, especially those who are happy that they are still (essentially) tanking/trying not to win/whatever terminology you want to use…

If the Orioles become legit contenders in 2 or 3 years, do you think that will have happened because they tanked/went through a rebuild, etc…?

I'm making the mistake of jumping in without having enough time to properly lay out my positions. But I will say that our next stretch of competitive seasons will be fueled by some players that we wouldn't have been able to draft without being as bad as we were. That includes next year obviously. Could we have brought in comparable talent in that time without having those high picks? And/or without trading off our marketable assets? And with a GM working under the Angelos family? Hard to imagine we could. My biggest criticism of Elias so far is that he did a terrible job of using our garbage seasons to bring in cast offs from other organizations who ultimately prove to be useful/tradable assets given full time opportunity. His trades have generally focused on bringing in young prospects, which I can't argue with philosophically. But I would have liked to see us try to acquire some prospects that come along with salary dumps. There is some responsibility to put a watchable product on the field, and he hasn't done that. Further, though I support the rebuild as a necessary step for the Orioles, there is a limit on how many seasons you should ask fans to hang in there with 100 loss seasons. And a real damage done to the brand, particularly with the Nats in our back yard. While people like to chime in on anti-tanking rules being necessary, I don't see how you can tie the creative hands of organizations who are at a permanent financial disadvantage. And there's no leveling the playing field financially. So this is just the reality we live in with MLB in my opinion.

[foxfield]

https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/08/23/rays-winning-not-entertaining-the-opener

This article about the Rays is worthy of a read.  I think Tom Verducci is at least looking at this honestly.  IS this good for baseball...is it entertaining. 

And honestly there is simply too much focus on "tanking" as if it alone does anything.  It doesn't and yet no one really claims it does.  Tearing down contracts, trading older players who won't be around for the next period of opportunity don't mean you have to lose....But it almost always does not because teams are trying to lose.  That is merely a byproduct of a rebuild.

If you have no talent in the minors and your major league teams losing 115 games and you are spending 150 Million dollars trying to win.....and you completely ignore 1/3 of the talent acquisition process.  You are going to lose for a few years.

That the Orioles are losing 18 straight games in 2021 is disappointing and frustrating for all of us as fans and I am sure it is for the players coaches etc.  But from November 2018, when this process began, this was always going to happen.  The shock and horror at bad baseball is laughable.  Seeing the national media routinely taking shots left and right is laughable.  Of course even as I type I have the lingering fear that I had when this began...And that is if this doesn't work...then what? 

And then I tell myself again to enjoy Mullins.  Enjoy Mancini.  Enjoy Hays and Mateo even.  I hope the O's win tomorrow night.  But my concern is how well the minor leaguers are doing.  Everyone of them that hits is one fewer purchase in trade or FA to get the Orioles back on top.  

[wildcard]

8 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Do you read my entire post before commenting who do you skim it so you can quickly try and posts some kind of retort?

I already explained the reasons why the team is so bad, but whether you want to agree with it or not, the Astros were significantly ahead of where the Orioles are after three years AT THE MAJOR LEAGUE LEVEL, even considering the COVID 2020 year. 

It did not do a comparison of the farm systems. 

Tony, I read the your whole post.  Its a good post.   But I just think  the final paragraph  does not take the loss of the 2020 minor league season  into account and what it would have meant to have Adley and Grayson in the majors in 2021.   Its JMO.

[Tony-OH]

1 minute ago, wildcard said:

Tony, I read the your whole post.  Its a good post.   But I just think  the final paragraph  does not take the loss of the 2020 minor league season  into account and what it would have meant to have Adley and Grayson in the majors in 2021.   Its JMO.

I'm not sure Rodriguez would have been in the major s this year either way. Rutschman for sure would have been, but he alone would not have changed the fortune of this team that much.