Orioles signing Rougned Odor

[Too Tall]

There's a cartoon I use to keep on my office wall. It pictured a buzzard sitting on a large rock overlooking a freeway. The caption read, "Patience hell, I'm going out and kill me something!" There are times following the Orioles over the last few years and particularly from 1998 to 2013, I thought of that bird. I'm not there yet but....... I want to see what next year brings and the year following. If this team doesn't start supporting the cast that I think is on the way from the minors, then the Oriole in my mind will become a Buzzard. In other words, I subscribe to Elias's Plan at least for now and refuse to get all wet and bothered over single moves or no-moves at the beginning of an offseason that will be interrupted by a labor stoppage. 

[Aristotelian]

6 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

While I don't think the team is for sale I don't think that building the facility in any way shows the team isn't for sale.

Spending 10M on that facility is going to make the team more attractive to buyers and probably increase the value of the franchise by at least the 10M they will be spending.  From what I've read the Orioles were the only team without a facility of that approximate type.  If I'm buying a team that's a feature I'm expecting to be in place.

If you were buying a team, wouldn't you rather have the $10M cash to deploy on your own international facility? Kind of like selling your house, it's usually dumb to do the kitchen remodel and expect it to increase the value of your house by the same amount. 

[Can_of_corn]

9 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

If you were buying a team, wouldn't you rather have the $10M cash to deploy on your own international facility? Kind of like selling your house, it's usually dumb to do the kitchen remodel and expect it to increase the value of your house by the same amount. 

Nope.  I'd rather have it up and running and not have to wait 2-3 years.  If there is anything about the facilities that my experts decided needed tweaking I don't imagine it would take long to get those changes made.

I'd say it is more akin to adding a garage to a property that didn't have one.  Odds are really good that the new owner is going to want one and all the other houses for sale have one.

 

Edit- Let's say you are buying a house.  Would you rather have one with a newly refurnished kitchen or one completely lacking a kitchen so you can go ahead and plan an expansion on the house and get built exactly the type of kitchen you want...as you live in the house without a working kitchen?

Edited December 1, 2021 by Can_of_corn

[Tony-OH]

37 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

While I don't think the team is for sale I don't think that building the facility in any way shows the team isn't for sale.

Spending 10M on that facility is going to make the team more attractive to buyers and probably increase the value of the franchise by at least the 10M they will be spending.  From what I've read the Orioles were the only team without a facility of that approximate type.  If I'm buying a team that's a feature I'm expecting to be in place.

Who said it means it's not for sale? He ask is there any reason reason to believe the team is spending millions to compete. I gave him an example.

I have no strong opinion on whether the team will ultimately be sold, but I don't think Elias is not spending because of it. I think he's not majorly spending on major league talent but it's not the right time in HIS opinion for HIS rebuild.

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Who said it means it's not for sale? He ask is there any reason reason to believe the team is spending millions to compete. I gave him an example.

I have no strong opinion on whether the team will ultimately be sold, but I don't think Elias is not spending because of it. I think he's not majorly spending on major league talent but it's not the right time in HIS opinion for HIS rebuild.

You said "Why would team that is just trying to cut corners for sale build a $10+ million training facility in the Dominican?".

I was trying to show that even if the team is cutting corners to aid a sale that might not preclude spending on a facility in the Dominican.  They might view it as an investment in the team that would pay dividends when the team is sold.

I agree that a possible sale is not the reason for the low payroll.

[SteveA]

2 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

I am confused, does signing Odor on November 30 mean the offseason is done?

We have 11 hours and 13 minutes before the offseason is done.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, SteveA said:

We have 11 hours and 13 minutes before the offseason is done.

We might just slide right into next offseason.

[HowAboutThat]

1 hour ago, spiritof66 said:

I'm surprised that so many of you don't have the same take I do as to what's going on with the Orioles.

I start with the premise that Elias has a solid and pretty conventional understanding about how to build a winning ballclub: you have to gather talent from all available sources, and try to arrange it so that players of different ages and experience levels will all be able to contribute at the same time, without trying to arrange it so that every important player's age or period of team control is virtually identical. I am confident that he appreciates that because the Orioles are so far behind the Astros and most other teams in reaping the benefits of international talent they've signed and developed, they will have to be aggressive in bringing in talent from outside the system in order to compete for a division title. 

I've never fully understood in detail how the Houston-style rebuild is supposed to work in Baltimore. But I do know that to build a contending team you can't just keep piling up high draft picks and adding prospects to your minor league teams. You have to seize opportunities, whenever they present themselves, to bring in talent that you think is going to improve the team right away. "Flipping the switch" has always seemed to me to be an unfortunate metaphor for improving an MLB team: it doesn't make sense to lock yourself into a plan that has you trying to shift instantaneously from minimizing spending, amassing minor-league talent and not caring about winning to acquiring the talent you need to compete. The opportunities aren't likely to present themselves on that kind of convenient, highly efficient timetable.

If you're serious about winning more than 60-70 games, let alone contending, you have to act when those opportunities to improve the team arise, even though it means paying much-higher-than minimum salaries before the team is very good or after a player's skills have diminished. Elias hasn't done that, and it's pretty clear as he fills up the roster with guys who won't move the needle that he's not trying to do that. I've read a lot about how he might grow or acquire bats or arms, but I see no sign, absolutely none, that he's getting ready to add established or expensive talent or that he has any plan to do that, let alone when he would do that.

To me, the only logical inference is that Elias's task isn't to build a winning team. It's to get the team ready for a sale soon after Peter Angelos dies, while trying to maintain some hope and good will from Oriole fans. Every decision the Orioles have made since 2018 is consistent with the conclusion that the Angeloses want to take reasonable steps to sell the team: Build up the most neglected pieces of the infrastructure (acquiring and developing international talent and, so we're told, analytics) that would enhance the value of the franchise (or more accurately, whose egregious absence would depress that value). Defer the promotion of the most valuable talent in the system, maximizing the term of a buyer's control. Minimize future salary commitments (including cleaning up the Chris Davis situation as best they could). Put together a minimum-cost roster that can be retained, cast off or traded, by current ownership as well as by a buyer. (This is where the Odor signing fits in. The Orioles want infield depth for 2022, but not for the reasons most teams do: to keep the team's performance up in the event of injury or unavailability for some other reason. The Orioles seek that depth so that, if one of these infielders establishes trade value, they can move him for another prospect or two, increasing the supply of low-salaried talent and furthering the illusion that they're building for the future.) This just doesn't look like a team with a capable general manager who is searching for and implementing ways to build a team that will more games, so I don't believe that's what it is. 

There is a lot of overlap between things a team does in the early stages of a Houston-style rebuild and reasonable things to do when the 92-year-old owner can't sell the team now (for tax reasons, and maybe others) but whose heirs expect to sell it when he succumbs. But eventually those two paths will start to diverge, as the rebuilding takes steps to improve the team: acquiring better talent, even though that requires payroll increases and multi-year commitments; promoting the best MiL players, even rushing them in some instances; trading surplus talent for talent where there's a shortage; entering into and extending contracts of valuable players. To me, the Orioles should have begun to do some of those things a year ago, but I can see an argument for deferring it to this off-season. The fact that the Orioles haven't begun and don't appear about to begin the process of building the team, now that it's been fully torn down, tells me that's not the plan and won't be the plan until there's new ownership in place.

I don't expect the Angeloses or Elias (or anyone else) to share their intentions with us. All I can do is try to figure out what's going on from what they do. (They say virtually nothing, and I discount that anyway.) What they do tells me that, right now, there's no plan to try to build a winning team. (There is a potential flaw in what I believe is the Angelos's plan: if Peter Angelos lives beyond another five years or so, the team may be embarrassed into spending some money. Of course, the Angeloses may know much more about the likelihood of that than I do.)

Am I missing something? Have the Orioles done anything that supports the conclusion that present ownership intends to take steps to build the Orioles into a competitive team, including spending the many, many millions of dollars that will be needed to do that?

Very logical. Whether it is correct or not remains to be seen, but it definitely fits what we know. However, if this is the case, I’m moving to Seattle, where they are building an exciting team, and they have a very good broadcasting crew and brilliant writers at Lookout Landing. 

[HowAboutThat]

55 minutes ago, Too Tall said:

There's a cartoon I use to keep on my office wall. It pictured a buzzard sitting on a large rock overlooking a freeway. The caption read, "Patience hell, I'm going out and kill me something!" There are times following the Orioles over the last few years and particularly from 1998 to 2013, I thought of that bird. I'm not there yet but....... I want to see what next year brings and the year following. If this team doesn't start supporting the cast that I think is on the way from the minors, then the Oriole in my mind will become a Buzzard. In other words, I subscribe to Elias's Plan at least for now and refuse to get all wet and bothered over single moves or no-moves at the beginning of an offseason that will be interrupted by a labor stoppage. 

My version of that cartoon is a famous far side cartoon, which I’ve never been able to locate, it shows a bunch of lions stalking some zebras on the Serengeti, And one of them turns to the others and says, “forget about all this’ weeding out the sick and old’ stuff, I want something in its PRIME!”

I thought about that almost every time Dan made a trade…

[Sports Guy]

25 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Who said it means it's not for sale? He ask is there any reason reason to believe the team is spending millions to compete. I gave him an example.

I have no strong opinion on whether the team will ultimately be sold, but I don't think Elias is not spending because of it. I think he's not majorly spending on major league talent but it's not the right time in HIS opinion for HIS rebuild.

I think Elias would be doing a lot more at the ML level if he had ownership that cared.

[Sports Guy]

53 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Nope.  I'd rather have it up and running and not have to wait 2-3 years.  If there is anything about the facilities that my experts decided needed tweaking I don't imagine it would take long to get those changes made.

I'd say it is more akin to adding a garage to a property that didn't have one.  Odds are really good that the new owner is going to want one and all the other houses for sale have one.

 

Edit- Let's say you are buying a house.  Would you rather have one with a newly refurnished kitchen or one completely lacking a kitchen so you can go ahead and plan an expansion on the house and get built exactly the type of kitchen you want...as you live in the house without a working kitchen?

I can assure you that you are incorrect about the kitchen..provided you are doing it up to “today’s standards”.

Having the facility done is definitely a good thing for the sale of the team. 

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

I can assure you that you are incorrect about the kitchen..provided you are doing it up to “today’s standards”.

Having the facility done is definitely a good thing for the sale of the team. 

Huh?

You'd take the house without a kitchen?

[Aristotelian]

50 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

 

 

Edit- Let's say you are buying a house.  Would you rather have one with a newly refurnished kitchen or one completely lacking a kitchen so you can go ahead and plan an expansion on the house and get built exactly the type of kitchen you want...as you live in the house without a working kitchen?

I would absolutely go for the no kitchen if the cost of a new kitchen was priced in. We currently live in an adequate but not great kitchen. I'm not gonna tear out a functioning kitchen so we're basically stuck with it unless we want to double pay for the existing kitchen as well as a renovation. Now, if the international facility is perfect in every way and exactly what a new owner wants it should be OK, but I don't think it makes the organization any more attractive then $10M cash to deploy as the new ownership sees fit. 

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Huh?

You'd take the house without a kitchen?

Ugh..I meant to quote the other guys pose, not yours.  He’s wrong about the kitchen.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Aristotelian said:

I would absolutely go for the no kitchen if the cost of a new kitchen was priced in. We currently live in an adequate but not great kitchen. I'm not gonna tear out a functioning kitchen so we're basically stuck with it unless we want to double pay for the existing kitchen as well as a renovation. Now, if the international facility is perfect in every way and exactly what a new owner wants it should be OK, but I don't think it makes the organization any more attractive then $10M cash to deploy as the new ownership sees fit. 

I'd say our current kitchen is a microwave sitting on an foldable table and some sporks.

I think they are at about the same level as when the spring training gym equipment was in tents.