My Tampa Bay Rays obsession. Why? And what it means to the O's.

[wildcard]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

Let’s face it.  This isn’t really difficult stuff.  There are a lot of people on this site that far more difficult jobs than building a good baseball team.

We don’t need to follow any one particular model.  We just need to be smart.  The ways to win in sports are the same.  Build through the draft, develop your guys and don’t try to build through free agency.  In fact, stay away from free agents as much as possible.  You certainly need to sign some and sprinkle them in with what you have but going overboard almost always costs you.

Just be smart.  Don’t make the same mistakes that are consistently made that don’t work out.

This is probably true for the small market teams.   Large market teams with money are going to improve through signing high profile free agents.  Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers....

[Sports Guy]

10 minutes ago, wildcard said:

This is probably true for the small market teams.   Large market teams with money are going to improve through signing high profile free agents.  Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers....

Yea they are…and a lot of the times, they don’t win because of it.  And by win, I mean titles.  Sure, you win in the reg season and sure the reg season is the larger sample size and yes playoffs are about luck in a lot of ways..but the playoffs are also about playing the best teams with the best talent and most of the best talent is under 30, not over it.  
 

The Orioles won from 2012-2016 in large part because the Yanks and Sox weren’t good.  They stopped building through  the farm and started to just try to buy titles.  This has especially been true for the Yankees since Mussina. 
 

 

[Aristotelian]

2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Let’s face it.  This isn’t really difficult stuff.  There are a lot of people on this site that far more difficult jobs than building a good baseball team.

We don’t need to follow any one particular model.  We just need to be smart.  The ways to win in sports are the same.  Build through the draft, develop your guys and don’t try to build through free agency.  In fact, stay away from free agents as much as possible.  You certainly need to sign some and sprinkle them in with what you have but going overboard almost always costs you.

Just be smart.  Don’t make the same mistakes that are consistently made that don’t work out.

I think this is easier said than done. You still have to compete against every other team that is presumably being run by people running from generally competent to incredibly smart. I agree the first step is don't do anything stupid but that gets you only so far. Particularly when you are at a clear competitive disadvantage versus at least two teams in your division. 

[Sports Guy]

Just now, Aristotelian said:

I think this is easier said than done. You still have to compete against every other team that is presumably being run by people running from generally competent to incredibly smart. I agree the first step is don't do anything stupid but that gets you only so far. Particularly when you are at a clear competitive disadvantage versus at least two teams in your division. 

In every business, you are presumably competing against smart people and yet some businesses thrive and others fail.

There is luck involved, which no one ever wants to hear because they think luck means you aren’t capable or aren’t smart but the reality is luck means a lot.

But as long as you draft, develop and scout well and then make smart decisions via when or who to trade a guy and who to sign and who not to sign, you should find yourself in a good position most of the time.

Identifying who to trade and who not to trade can obviously get tricky too but I think there are ways to make it easier.  

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Let’s face it.  This isn’t really difficult stuff.  There are a lot of people on this site that far more difficult jobs than building a good baseball team.

It’s a pretty hard job if you ask me.  By the nature of competitive sports half the teams are not going to be considered good.   Then you look at the market disparities, and the fact that you’re starting from a position that most other teams are already better than you.   I don’t consider building a good team to be an easy task at all.   

[Can_of_corn]

7 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It’s a pretty hard job if you ask me.  By the nature of competitive sports half the teams are not going to be considered good.   Then you look at the market disparities, and the fact that you’re starting from a position that most other teams are already better than you.   I don’t consider building a good team to be an easy task at all.   

You've got a bunch of folks with really impressive resumes running teams and a lot of them are "failing" at any point in time.

[wildcard]

12 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It’s a pretty hard job if you ask me.  By the nature of competitive sports half the teams are not going to be considered good.   Then you look at the market disparities, and the fact that you’re starting from a position that most other teams are already better than you.   I don’t consider building a good team to be an easy task at all.   

The hardest part of building a MLB team is the year in year out discipline that is required to stay on course.   The owner and is friends want to win now.  The fans want to win now.   The players want to win now.  The temptation is to sign FAs and trade prospects for veteran players.   We saw it happen for 13 years the the O's.  How many high draft choices did the O's lose as compensation?

[Can_of_corn]

17 minutes ago, wildcard said:

The hardest part of building a MLB team is the year in year out discipline that is required to stay on course.   The owner and is friends want to win now.  The fans want to win now.   The players want to win now.  The temptation is to sign FAs and trade prospects for veteran players.   We saw it happen for 13 years the the O's.  How many high draft choices did the O's lose as compensation?

We have seen zero indications that ownership is pressuring Elias when it comes to wins.

Zero.

[Sports Guy]

45 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It’s a pretty hard job if you ask me.  By the nature of competitive sports half the teams are not going to be considered good.   Then you look at the market disparities, and the fact that you’re starting from a position that most other teams are already better than you.   I don’t consider building a good team to be an easy task at all.   

I said it’s not a hard job compared to what many others do.  This isn’t rocket science.  
 

Doing the smart thing isn’t hard to do.  Learning from everyone else’s consistent mistakes and not doing them isn’t hard to do.

Understanding the best way to build a team isn’t hard to do.

Now, developing guys isn’t easy.  Keeping guys healthy isn’t easy.  “Making your own luck” isn’t easy.  But setting yourself up for all of that isn’t hard.

I will never be convinced that it is.  These are all pretty simple concepts.

[Sports Guy]

28 minutes ago, wildcard said:

The hardest part of building a MLB team is the year in year out discipline that is required to stay on course.   The owner and is friends want to win now.  The fans want to win now.   The players want to win now.  The temptation is to sign FAs and trade prospects for veteran players.   We saw it happen for 13 years the the O's.  How many high draft choices did the O's lose as compensation?

And guess what, they were always wrong in making those decisions and you are almost always wrong when you try to sign middle guys at the expense of draft picks and prospects.  
 

How many times did the Os sign a player to a contract and almost everyone knew it was going to be a disaster?  I mean, it was way more often than not.  Why?  Because it’s not hard to figure out why they are mistakes.  It’s the same pattern over and over again.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I said it’s not a hard job compared to what many others do.  This isn’t rocket science.  
 

Doing the smart thing isn’t hard to do.  Learning from everyone else’s consistent mistakes and not doing them isn’t hard to do.

Understanding the best way to build a team isn’t hard to do.

Now, developing guys isn’t easy.  Keeping guys healthy isn’t easy.  “Making your own luck” isn’t easy.  But setting yourself up for all of that isn’t hard.

I will never be convinced that it is.  These are all pretty simple concepts.

Lot more rocket scientists out there compared to GMs of ML teams.

In concept it's easy.

Shooting a basketball is easy.

In practice, when competing against others it's extremely difficult.

Shooting a basketball is easy.  Trying to make a basket with Draymond Green defending you is extremely difficult.

Building a team, in theory, is easy.

In practice, building a team when you are competing for resources with Ivy League Wunderkinds is extremely difficult.

[Frobby]

15 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Lot more rocket scientists out there compared to GMs of ML teams.

In concept it's easy.

Shooting a basketball is easy.

In practice, when competing against others it's extremely difficult.

Shooting a basketball is easy.  Trying to make a basket with Draymond Green defending you is extremely difficult.

Building a team, in theory, is easy.

In practice, building a team when you are competing for resources with Ivy League Wunderkinds is extremely difficult.

Yeah, and I’m not too hung up on Ivy League.   But it’s an extremely competitive environment.   

[Sports Guy]

23 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Lot more rocket scientists out there compared to GMs of ML teams.

In concept it's easy.

Shooting a basketball is easy.

In practice, when competing against others it's extremely difficult.

Shooting a basketball is easy.  Trying to make a basket with Draymond Green defending you is extremely difficult.

Building a team, in theory, is easy.

In practice, building a team when you are competing for resources with Ivy League Wunderkinds is extremely difficult.

Ok

[wildcard]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

We have seen zero indications that ownership is pressuring Elias when it comes to wins.

Zero.

Not Elias.   But Peter did that all the time.  

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Not Elias.   But Peter did that all the time.  

He did it some of the time.

Also, Peter isn't a factor any longer.

I've not heard any report that current ownership is pressuring the current front office at all when it comes to putting a winning product on the field.