I kind of enjoyed the Phillies series

[Ruzious]

Just now, SteveA said:

The amazing thing is, as bad as their bullpen is, it's still a big improvement over last year's dumpster fire Philly bullpen, which approached historic levels of badditude.

Yup, being a Braves fan, I enjoyed watching the Phillies implode at the end of so many games - and didn't like them beating the O's.    

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

Sometimes your burn it to the ground rebuild gives you the Astros, sometimes you get the Phillies.

The Phillies would be a pretty good team if they had a solid bullpen.  Last year they converted only 44% of their save opportunities; this year it’s 51%.   Major league average is 61%.   They’ve actually had the 7th most save opportunities in MLB this year (68).   So, they’d have 5-6 more wins with a solid bullpen.   

That said, the Phillies have been out scored this season and have outperformed their Pythagorean record by several games, so they’re not that good.   

I kind of enjoy the fact that Girardi is finding out what life is like when you don’t have guys like Rivera, Chapman, Betances, Britton etc.   Makes a manager’s job WAY harder.   

 

[Just Regular]

1 hour ago, RZNJ said:

Are the Philles that bad?   That was my thought during the series.   They can't be that good.   That lineup, outside of Harper and Realmuto, doesn't inspire fear.

I am fascinated to see if Dombrowski can make this cake rise.   I don't think he's ever failed, but they are getting older not better like the late Duquette teams.   Phillies becoming Orioles in '23 is one of the best case scenarios, but it is just about impossible to imagine Dombrowski steering a team that way.    Unless they thread the needle now, another summer or two below .500, and their four best will want out of town.

(We won't need the catcher and his jerky $23.1 AAV)

 

[Can_of_corn]

8 minutes ago, Frobby said:

The Phillies would be a pretty good team if they had a solid bullpen.  Last year they converted only 44% of their save opportunities; this year it’s 51%.   Major league average is 61%.   They’ve actually had the 7th most save opportunities in MLB this year (68).   So, they’d have 5-6 more wins with a solid bullpen.   

That said, the Phillies have been out scored this season and have outperformed their Pythagorean record by several games, so they’re not that good.   

I kind of enjoy the fact that Girardi is finding out what life is like when you don’t have guys like Rivera, Chapman, Betances, Britton etc.   Makes a manager’s job WAY harder.   

 

I don't recall what his bullpen with the Marlins looked like.

[Frobby]

18 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I don't recall what his bullpen with the Marlins looked like.

Heck, I even forgot he managed them!

[Frobby]

25 minutes ago, OrioleDog said:

I(We won't need the catcher and his jerky $23.1 AAV)

 

Well, he’s been more than worth that in Year 1 of his 5 year deal.   Granted he’ll probably be a wreck in the last year or two of it, but he might build up enough surplus value in the first 3 to make it a decent investment overall.  

That said, hopefully we’ll be getting similar production for the league minimum for the next three years, and/or will sign our guy long term for a fraction of that AAV.
 

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, Moose Milligan said:

Yep, a lot of this rebuild stuff is luck.  I don't think people here are going to understand that if/when our rebuild falls on its face.

Of course you try to mitigate the luck factors as much as you can but really..at the end of this day a lot of this stuff is out of the control of what the owners/managers/GMs are trying to do.

Of course.  Health, attitude, etc…so much that you can’t account for.

[Just Regular]

56 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Well, he’s been more than worth that in Year 1 of his 5 year deal.   Granted he’ll probably be a wreck in the last year or two of it, but he might build up enough surplus value in the first 3 to make it a decent investment overall.  

That said, hopefully we’ll be getting similar production for the league minimum for the next three years, and/or will sign our guy long term for a fraction of that AAV.
 

I'm ready to buy a FA year at 23.2 just on general principle!   Realmuto's a wonderful baseball player, but unless he's giving Mauer 100K a year to do whatever charity he wants to do, I feel the term he sought was in bad taste.

Guesstimating what Adley might sell a FA season for next March....three springs ago, Eloy sold two of his free agent years at ~17.5/each to make an Opening Day roster.   The Orioles would have to go about 33% extra on the raw dollars.    I doubt Louis and John share my interest in this project, though maybe they'd be more interested at the flat Eloy price.

Eloy Jimenez rf
6 years/$43M (2019-24), plus 2025-26 options

• 6 years/$43M (2019-24), plus 2025-26 club options
  • signed extension with Chicago White Sox 3/22/19
  • $5M signing bonus
  • 19:$1M, 20:$1.5M, 21:$3.5M, 22:$6.5M, 23:$9.5M, 24:$13M, 25:$16.5M club option ($3M buyout), 26:$18.5M club option ($3M buyout)
  • award bonuses
  • replaced one-year deal re-signed 3/19
  • most lucrative contract ever for player with no Major League service

[Can_of_corn]

8 minutes ago, OrioleDog said:

I'm ready to buy a FA year at 23.2 just on general principle!   Realmuto's a wonderful baseball player, but unless he's giving Mauer 100K a year to do whatever charity he wants to do, I feel the term he sought was in bad taste.

Guesstimating what Adley might sell a FA season for next March....three springs ago, Eloy sold two of his free agent years at ~17.5/each to make an Opening Day roster.   The Orioles would have to go about 33% extra on the raw dollars.    I doubt Louis and John share my interest in this project, though maybe they'd be more interested at the flat Eloy price.

Eloy Jimenez rf
6 years/$43M (2019-24), plus 2025-26 options

• 6 years/$43M (2019-24), plus 2025-26 club options
  • signed extension with Chicago White Sox 3/22/19
  • $5M signing bonus
  • 19:$1M, 20:$1.5M, 21:$3.5M, 22:$6.5M, 23:$9.5M, 24:$13M, 25:$16.5M club option ($3M buyout), 26:$18.5M club option ($3M buyout)
  • award bonuses
  • replaced one-year deal re-signed 3/19
  • most lucrative contract ever for player with no Major League service

Huh?

Six years 43M?
 

Rudy Castillo signed a 7 year 72.5M deal in 2014.

[Just Regular]

20 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Huh?

Six years 43M?
 

Rudy Castillo signed a 7 year 72.5M deal in 2014.

Maybe Cot's is projecting the 75 if the options are exercised?

I figure Eloy is a decent comp as a starting point if rules about the same, and cost certainty, goodwill, shiny distractions etc. are wanted.

Brandon Lowe's 60% as rich extension from that same spring might become a relevant comp for an infielder in another year or two.

[Moose Milligan]

3 hours ago, RZNJ said:

Luck is the residue of design.   The more good decisions you make, the luckier you tend to get.

I respectfully disagree with Branch Rickey.

You can design all you want, doesn't mean that it's going to work out.  The NFL is a better example, but the same thoughts apply to baseball...but the NFL, the way they scout, draft, develop, I mean...there's nothing like it.  The amount of time, money and effort they spend on the entire draft process is unbelievable.  

And yet for all their efforts, some of them still don't get it right.  Look at the Orioles right now, is anyone going to argue with what they've done from an analytics perspective?  J2 perspective?  That's the thing, almost all of the decisions they make in the moment are probably viewed as good decisions...that's why they're made.  You don't know if it's a good decision for sure until it's in hindsight.  

 

[Moose Milligan]

3 hours ago, SteveA said:

The success of any individual player certainly has a ton of luck involved.

But if you improve the processes -- scouting, data analysis helping decide which players to acquire and how to get the most out of the ones you have, player development, teaching, analytics helping you make game/lineup decisions, etc., then the outcomes you get should trend upwards, as opposed to if you didn't make those improvements.

That was the promise that the Elias/Mejdal team had for me.  They would improve all those processes and we'd draft a guy who had a 30% chance of success over a guy with a 20% chance of success that we might have taken in the past, and then superior development and analytics would help the guy reach his potential 40% of the time instead of 30% of the time.   Repeat that over dozens of players and we'd have better players.

And starting to see poor results from mid level pitching prospects on the third year in is a huge disappointment and red flag as far as I am concerned.   Maybe I can't see the forest for the trees.   Maybe Akin will become a decent #5 starter, and Zimmermann will get healthy and also be a back end starter, and Kremer will recover from a lost year for whatever reason and become a usable major leaguer.  Then suddenly this year wasn't as much of a failure as it appears in the short term view.   And obviously the deliberate use of over a dozen non-prospect pitchers to eat almost 400 innings (Harvey 127.2 Plutko 56.1 Watkins 51.1 Valdez 46 Eshelman 24 Ellis 22.1 Greene 20 Anderson 10 Wade 8.2 Knight 8.2 LeBlanc 6.2 Hanhold 6.1 Jannis 3.1 Barreda 2.2 Fla 1.1 Burdi 1 Waddell 1 Kriske 0.1) = over 30% of our innings this year ... that makes the pitching look worse than it was because none of those guys will be around.

But right now, the state of pitching in our system is a concern.   

Sure, you can improve the processes.  

Look, all of these franchise have tools and processes and a whole assortment of things at their disposal, and I'm assuming all of these franchises probably think they're doing things the right way...or are going to put them in place and by God, that'll do it.  And it doesn't always work.  How can it work for everyone?  

  And yes, you're right...the processes apparently have improved here in Baltimore, however the results have been bad.   

[EddeeEddee]

1 hour ago, Moose Milligan said:

Sure, you can improve the processes.  

Look, all of these franchise have tools and processes and a whole assortment of things at their disposal, and I'm assuming all of these franchises probably think they're doing things the right way...or are going to put them in place and by God, that'll do it.  And it doesn't always work.  How can it work for everyone?  

  And yes, you're right...the processes apparently have improved here in Baltimore, however the results have been bad.   

Sorry, but the processes are showing results in the minors.  When was the last time they had the #1 prospect and the #1 pitching prospect -- and the #1 minor league system?  It doesn't mean the Orioles are bound for glory, but the difference is everyone sees a change at the lower levels -- whose personnel will be graduating to the big leagues over the next few years.  Now they just have to stop trading away the likes of Josh Hader and Eduardo Rodriguez for rentals -- and eventually they'll have to make smarter decisions on free agents.

[Moose Milligan]

14 minutes ago, EddeeEddee said:

Sorry, but the processes are showing results in the minors.  When was the last time they had the #1 prospect and the #1 pitching prospect -- and the #1 minor league system?  It doesn't mean the Orioles are bound for glory, but the difference is everyone sees a change at the lower levels -- whose personnel will be graduating to the big leagues over the next few years.  Now they just have to stop trading away the likes of Josh Hader and Eduardo Rodriguez for rentals -- and eventually they'll have to make smarter decisions on free agents.

Sorry, but we've got the #1 prospect only because we picked him first overall.  A monkey could have made that pick.  And while G-Rod is fantastic, he was part of the previous regime's processes.  If you really want to point to him as part of the recent success, that's fine...I'd accept that he's been developed under this current regime and they partially deserve some credit for his status.  

As mentioned earlier, the young pitchers this year have been disappointing practically across the board.  That cannot be ignored.  If we are talking about processes, the lack of performance from guys were were looking to step up and achieve this year has to be addressed.  

[RZNJ]

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I respectfully disagree with Branch Rickey.

You can design all you want, doesn't mean that it's going to work out.  The NFL is a better example, but the same thoughts apply to baseball...but the NFL, the way they scout, draft, develop, I mean...there's nothing like it.  The amount of time, money and effort they spend on the entire draft process is unbelievable.  

And yet for all their efforts, some of them still don't get it right.  Look at the Orioles right now, is anyone going to argue with what they've done from an analytics perspective?  J2 perspective?  That's the thing, almost all of the decisions they make in the moment are probably viewed as good decisions...that's why they're made.  You don't know if it's a good decision for sure until it's in hindsight.  

 

Right. Results matter and luck is part of that but it comes down to talent evaluation in the end.  Tampa Bay isn't lucky. They're good.  All front offices aren't created equal where the only differences are budget and luck.  We don't know yet about Elias and his team but there are certainly signs in amateur acquisitions that they might be pretty good.  

The skepticism and negativity is a pretty lazy way to evaluate what's going on. You'll believe it when you see Results at the ML level. Hindsight is 20/20.  Why don't we all take a break and come back in 5 years and predict the past.  In the meantime it's just a big yawn.