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

[Sports Guy]

It’s clear there is no pressure from ownership to win.  You don’t need a report to tell you that.

[wildcard]

40 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

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.

I hope the owners have an expectation that the team will improve from here forward.

[Frobby]

6 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

It’s clear there is no pressure from ownership to win.  You don’t need a report to tell you that.

I am assuming that when Elias took the job, he gave ownership a pretty detailed explanation of what his plan was and how long it was likely to take.   Both he and the owners were careful, in the press conference in which Elias was introduced, not to put out any specific timetable.  Elias has stuck to that approach ever since, but he has said this offseason that he expects the team to get continuously better from here.   The owners are pretty much invisible so it’s hard to know what they’ve communicated to Elias or vice versa.  I doubt he gets forever to show forward progress in the W/L record.  

[spiritof66]

9 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Yes the Orioles should identify things that work and incorporate them into their models.

I don't think that is the same as copying what the Rays do and hoping it works.

If you go chasing after when works today I don't think you ever find what is going to work tomorrow.

I think the O's need some sort of edge to have a real shot at being competitive and I don't think you get that edge by chasing what has worked in the past.

I think it's important that Elias have some of the qualities of a sponge, especially in light of the fact that he's still pretty new at the task of building a ballclub: that is, he and his staff should be looking closely at what other teams are doing, to see whether any of those things might be helpful to the Orioles. You can call that "chasing after what works today," but I think it's a critical part of competing in this business.

I also think it's important that Elias and his staff be smart and original enough to come up with some of their own ideas about how to build a roster and deploy players in a way that will enable them to compete on a limited payroll.

I haven't seen either of these qualities in Elias so far. Not saying they're not there, but he hasn't displayed them in ways that I've seen. And it really bothers me that he keeps referring to the Astros as the model for what he's trying to do here. I don't know quite what he means when he says that, but it concerns me that he may mean something along the lines of "I learned how to rebuild a bad team when I was in Houston, and that's what we're gonna do here." I don't think  transplanting the Houston strategy, without more inspiration as well as perspiration, will work in Baltimore.

[Frobby]

42 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

And it really bothers me that he keeps referring to the Astros as the model for what he's trying to do here. I don't know quite what he means when he says that, but it concerns me that he may mean something along the lines of "I learned how to rebuild a bad team when I was in Houston, and that's what we're gonna do here." I don't think  transplanting the Houston strategy, without more inspiration as well as perspiration, will work in Baltimore.

Where does he keep referring to the Astros?   Can’t say I’ve seen a lot of that.  

[spiritof66]

23 hours ago, Frobby said:

Where does he keep referring to the Astros?   Can’t say I’ve seen a lot of that.  

I had just read a recent post with a Sun article of a couple years ago where Elias likened the difficult situations the two teams found themselves in. Seems to me there've been more, but maybe I misstated, or least overstated, that.

On reflection, I don't think my reference to what Elias has said was fair. It doesn't matter what Elias says -- not that he says much. If the Orioles were generating some interesting ideas that might help them win games, I wouldn't want or expert him to talk about them. Let's see what he does when we get to the point where the Orioles get serious about playing winning baseball.