New Rosenthal column

[NCRaven]

22 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

What about the rebuild do you think will be the reason we are contenders?

 

1 minute ago, UMDTerrapins said:

I think it's part of larger point he's making that you don't have to rebuild/tank because the talent you can acquire through the draft can be replicated through international development, and that the amateur draft is largely a crap shoot. 

He asked a simple question.  Virtually everyone agreed that a full rebuild was necessary after 2018.  We can argue about how it's been done and any progress that's been made.  But, I don't think there was any disagreement over the tactic three seasons ago.  If the draft is a crap shoot, the international market is no better.  Both are legitimate areas to improve talent.  Both have their risks and rewards.  Draft, international signings, trades and free agent signings are all means to improve the team.  All can contribute to the rebuild.

I would like the rebuild to begin showing progress at the ML level in 2022.  Promoting Rutschman by the end of April and Rodriguez and Hall sometime mid season will be a start.  Signing a starter and 3rd baseman to two or three year deals would be big too.

[UMDTerrapins]

3 minutes ago, NCRaven said:

 

He asked a simple question.  Virtually everyone agreed that a full rebuild was necessary after 2018.  We can argue about how it's been done and any progress that's been made.  But, I don't think there was any disagreement over the tactic three seasons ago.  If the draft is a crap shoot, the international market is no better.  Both are legitimate areas to improve talent.  Both have their risks and rewards.  Draft, international signings, trades and free agent signings are all means to improve the team.  All can contribute to the rebuild.

I gather SG will make it clear what he's getting to....I shouldn't have speculated. Personally, I don't disagree with the decision to rebuild in 2018. And I think Elias has done a nice job restoring organizational talent. I do think that if we look at the last 20 years of drafts, it's pretty amazing what percentage of picks amount to nothing at the ML level. So while it may appear that a high draft slot only gives you a slight advantage for the first few rounds, those rounds are pretty critical to making a difference on the ML club, though no assurance is made that they actually will. The larger theory with rebuilding is that you have to amass a stable of productive ML players at low salaries for a time in order to compete with the big market teams, which is not possible unless you give yourself that draft advantage for a few years. I think if a rebuild is done properly, there is merit to that theory. I also think that if a front office is highly skilled at scouting/development/free agents/trades that it can overcome the need to get that rebuild advantage. But I think that is more likely to produce Maryland basketball under Mark Turgeon type results rather than deep playoff runs. Always good, but never great. But that's all such macro thinking on my part. 

[Frobby]

41 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

International commitment has zero to do with rebuilding.

 

40 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Huh? This doesn't make any sense at face value. Can you explain your line of thinking here?

I guess it’s the “re” part of “rebuilding.”   You can’t rebuild what was never built before!

[Camden_yardbird]

51 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

That's true, but the problem is only partly about the large differences in teams' MLB payrolls. The core of the problem -- and it's unique to MLB among major American sports -- is the disparity in revenues that teams have: how much money franchises generate, mostly through ticket sales and cable rights fees, and can spend to improve their teams (after giving effect to the minor equalization measures that are in place, like revenue sharing and luxury taxes). 

High-revenue teams can, and generally do, have the highest MLB payrolls. Because those payroll figures are public and readily available, we can compare them and, in many cases, bemoan the large gaps in the payrolls of high-revenue and low-revenue teams. But the higher-revenue franchises have identified other ways of spending money to improve their current and future teams that don't show up in payroll: MLB managers and coaches, scouting, analytical workers and other resources, instructional personnel and equipment, minor league personnel, international scouting, signing bonuses and player development, posting fees for foreign stars, Arizona or Florida training sites, and probably a dozen more things I don't know anything about. While there are figures that enable us to back into estimates of teams' overall expense level, we don't know what teams spend on these things (Other than an occasional announcement of the construction of a new training facility) and so aren't in a position to talk about them, let alone compare them..

A high-revenue team's competitive advantage is not limited to higher MLB payrolls. It's pretty clear that the highest-revenue teams like the NYYs, Dodgers, RS and Cubs, plus some (like the current Mets, apparently, and the Tigers in the past) that are willing to spend from their owners' resources, can afford high MLB payrolls and high spending on the other things they believe will help a team. Lower-revenue teams must choose among payroll and each other item. Most teams, possibly every team, can afford a $100 million payroll, but for many of them raising their payroll to that level will require them to cut back on other things they would prefer to spend on -- adding to the competitive advantage that the higher-revenue teams already enjoy. 

All this helps explains what happened to the Orioles in the last decade. Since buying the team in 1993, Peter Angelos always has devoted a very high portion of his teams' expenses to MLB payrolls. My guess is that operating that way wasn't too unusual in the 1990s. When the ways in which teams invested in finding and developing players broadened, as described above, Angelos continued to put virtually all his eggs in the payroll basket. Whether he didn't understand the changes in the game, or was too stubborn to embrace anything new, or was too arrogant to admit the possibility that he'd been making bad decisions about how the team should be run, Angelos's Orioles skimped on or ignored other kinds of investments described above. His devotion of the Orioles' resources to MLB payroll enabled the Orioles to maintain pretty high MLB payrolls, even after the days of sold-out Camden Yards crowds and winning Oriole teams were over. While that arguably enabled the Orioles to reach the playoffs, by the time Angelos checked out in 2018 it also contributed to their being far behind their competition -- especially their AL East competition -- in access to and development of international players, scouting efforts, minor league player development and the use of analytics. 

This is a really great analysis of how big and small market teams are different but I think there is one very important aspect that is worth mentioning.  

In a competitive team environment, large market teams can take larger risks without the same drawbacks.  A $10 million dollar contract that is 5% of your $200 payroll is not going to hurt you as much as the same contract that is 20% of your $50 million dollar payroll.

So a team like the Giants can sign Gausman last year as a throw away contract (good if it works out, okay if doesn’t) and reap the benefits when that works out.

Whereas the Orioles throw away contracts this season were $1 million to Harvey or $800k to Franco.

Its a completely different competitive test, where every decision means significantly more to small market teams because each contract takes up a bigger percentage of their payroll, with out the added resources (analytics and scouting) that get put into those decisions.

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

Huh? This doesn't make any sense at face value. Can you explain your line of thinking here?

You don’t have to rebuild to have an international presence and to improve on how you do things internationally.

[TonySoprano]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

I’m not asking if the rebuild will be viewed as a success.  I’m asking if we will be winning because of it.  Those are 2 different conversations.  
 

I never said anyone is happy with losing  but a lot of people are ok with it and are fine with the idea that they are building something and this takes time.  

Without jumping in a DeLorean, and grabbing a future Sports Almanac, we don't know what the roster will look like in those years.  

Will tanking brings in prospects that you can build around? 
Will the O's use the added payroll flexibility to fill in the gaps? 

If the answer to both of those is "yes," you can argue that tanking was one contributing factor and had to happen.   To have any meaningful success in 2 or 3 years,  it has to be both.   If the Orioles do only one of those two, my assumption is it will be the first one, but it won't be enough on its own.    They already went the other route back in the late 90s - early 2000s when there were years they had a top 10 payroll.

For years, they've given a lot of lip service to this ideal called "sustained success" but what does that look like?   Washington had it for several years, until they didn't, and now have to start over.   TB has it for 4 seasons and counting.   How long before they have to start over?  Not having the resources of the Dodgers or Yankees, what other choice is there?   

Does whatever is left of the fanbase have the patience to see it through? 

[George Zuverink]

12 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

You don’t have to rebuild to have an international presence and to improve on how you do things internationally.

if A, then B does not mean if B, then A.

You do have to have an international presence to have a chance of rebuilding successfully, if you didn’t have one before.

 

[NCRaven]

16 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

You don’t have to rebuild to have an international presence and to improve on how you do things internationally.

This is true, in and of itself.  But improving our international presence can have a significant impact on the rebuild by providing additional talent.  Question, did you oppose a tear down and rebuild after 2018?

[ThomasTomasz]

6 hours ago, sevastras said:

I counted the J2 prospects on BA top 100 the other day, I actually went all the way down to 200. Top 100 was 32 and top 200 is 62, so the Os basically took themselves out of 1/3rd of the prospect market. 

Agreed.  And when you can’t develop starting pitching……….it’s not good. As many good memories I have of 2012-2016, it almost feels like we lucked into it.  This organization had a lot of holes, and it was going to take time to address them.  

I also think we overrated a lot of the guys that we expected results from this year, because they were former top 10 prospects from when Elias took over……..and the farm system was barren.  Outside of Kremer, I wasn’t expecting to see much from the crop of guys this year.  

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, ThomasTomasz said:

Agreed.  And when you can’t develop starting pitching……….it’s not good. As many good memories I have of 2012-2016, it almost feels like we lucked into it.  This organization had a lot of holes, and it was going to take time to address them.  

I also think we overrated a lot of the guys that we expected results from this year, because they were former top 10 prospects from when Elias took over……..and the farm system was barren.  Outside of Kremer, I wasn’t expecting to see much from the crop of guys this year.  

How about you remove all the players that were in the minors when Eilias took over and see what's left before you call it barren when he got here.

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, Can_of_corn said:

How about you remove all the players that were in the minors when Eilias took over and see what's left before you call it barren when he got here.

I agree with you.  The system may have been well below average, but any system with Rodriguez, Hall, Mountcastle, Hays, Means and others can’t really be called barren.  

[GuidoSarducci]

17 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I agree with you.  The system may have been well below average, but any system with Rodriguez, Hall, Mountcastle, Hays, Means and others can’t really be called barren.  

Hall and Rodriguez haven’t thrown a single pitch in the MLB yet.

We don’t know how well Mountcastle and Hays  are going to continue to improve. Theyre a bit above replacement  now, but only spotting 1.0 / 0.7 fWAR respectively.  Hays is also on the IL a lot. 

I’ll give you Means is looking solid.  On a contender he’s probably #3 in the rotation.  Maybe he evolves into a legit ace like Scherzer. 

 

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, GuidoSarducci said:

Hall and Rodriguez haven’t thrown a single pitch in the MLB yet.

We don’t know how well Mountcastle and Hays  are going to continue to improve. Theyre a bit above replacement  now, but only spotting 1.0 / 0.7 fWAR respectively.  Hays is also on the IL a lot. 

I’ll give you Means is looking solid.  On a contender he’s probably #3 in the rotation.  Maybe he evolves into a legit ace like Scherzer. 

 

The bar to be exceeded was Barren.  I'm unsure what your definition of the word is. 

[Frobby]

Just now, GuidoSarducci said:

Hall and Rodriguez haven’t thrown a single pitch in the MLB yet.

We don’t know how well Mountcastle and Hays  are going to continue to improve. Theyre a bit above replacement  now, but only spotting 1.0 / 0.7 fWAR respectively.  Hays is also on the IL a lot. 

I’ll give you Means is looking solid.  On a contender he’s probably #3 in the rotation.  Maybe he evolves into a legit ace like Scherzer. 

 

Very tough grader.  To me “barren” implies devoid of any significant talent.  Sure Rodriguez hasn’t thrown a major league pitch yet, but he’s literally ranked the no. 1 pitching prospect in baseball by at least two major sources.   Hall is also extremely highly regarded and my only reservation about him relates to the health of his elbow.  Mountcastle and Hays are, at a minimum, major leaguer contributors.   As to Means, I don’t expect him to become Scherzer but he’s certainly been a significant asset for three years now.   I’m highlighting those five but there a number of others who may contribute.  So to me, “barren” is hyperbole.  

[foxfield]

3 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

What about the rebuild do you think will be the reason we are contenders?

That is really funny and now it's pretty clear you are just looking to push.  YOU asked a question based on the Orioles being successful.  Not me.  I also noted its a trick question because in Sports Guy world the rebuild is over already.  Which I acknowledged in my previous answer...IF we have to accept that then no the rebuild would not be the reason.  The better question is Why not?  The answer to that is that...the rebuild isn't over.