Bashing The O’s

[Mondo Trasho]

I don't know anything about rebuilding baseball teams or what players to sign or pick or whatever. I just know as a fan, I don't see the wisdom of adding additional payroll to win another 10-15 games. So I don't blame the O's for "tanking" if that's what it takes to eventually build a winner. 

I do think baseball has a problem though if the general perception is that every year 3-5 (or so) teams aren't even putting forth an effort to win that season. I'm not someone who thinks that a salary cap is the answer, but MLB has to think of something to make teams not have to resort to being uncompetitive. Maybe the answer is being much more selective on who gets to own a team. I don't know.

As for the Elias and the O's, I'm skeptical that we're going to compete anytime soon. Not because of any flaws in the process or in Elias. But just that the fundamentals of the organization have been so bad for so long that it seems unrealistic to expect a 5 year turnaround. Unless the goal is to compete for 3-5 years, then rebuild for 5-7 years. 

I don't know, just my thoughts about the process and "bashing the O's."

[maybenxtyr]

I'm jumping in on a Orioles Hangout favorite line now by saying it'll be criminal to not have Bradish in the rotation. Criminal!

[btdart20]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

The fact that a player helped to win a WS should have NOTHING to do with if you extend that player.

Agreed.  Decisions should primarily be based on future value, not history.  

Atlanta/Acuna signed a big deal in 2019 with team control through 2028.  But they did not re-sign Freddie Freeman who had been a key member of the team for the prior 15ish years, including last year's WS.  Plus they traded CF depth to fill the ML void at 1B to get Olson (who they locked in for his prime years).  They are forward thinking.  Losing Freddie stinks for the team/city.  But he's getting close to the end of his prime and Olson is just starting his prime.

[LookinUp]

19 minutes ago, Mondo Trasho said:

I just know as a fan, I don't see the wisdom of adding additional payroll to win another 10-15 games. 

I think there are folks on one side who interpret what the O's are doing like you do, as just biding their time while the talent base grows. Essentially, not wasting tens of millions on another 10-15 wins/year.

Others are overtly saying they're losing on purpose.

Regardless of the argument, it's clear they're being pretty extreme on the biding their time philosophy.

[Sports Guy]

40 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

Your posts on the last two pages of this thread have made me recognize that the O's are just legitimately behind where the Astros were at this point. The better talent (absent Rutschman) simply wasn't ready yet.

Especially remembering the Covid year, Bradish was just establishing himself last year. Rodriguez still hasn't thrown any real innings with a ML ball, plus I'm happy they were careful with him after Covid.

Kremer got a big chance and stunk. Zimmerman got hurt. Wells was bad pretty much everywhere. Akin has had a real chance. The one guy that I wish was really given a real chance was Lowther.

And now the team has 2 starting pitchers penciled in. That sure makes it seem to me like they're going to give innings to all of those guys and see what happens. Exactly what you asked for, just a year later.

Im Not sure I would say Kremer got a big chance but he did get a chance.  Once the trade deadline passed and you weren’t dealing Harvey, there was no reason not to give those Harvey starts to Kremer or another starter.

BTW, I’m not even saying those guys are going to be MLers.  They probably aren’t or at least not starters.  But in 2013, the Astros gave 70 starts to pitchers 25 or younger that each had an ERA over 5.  For comparison, the Orioles only gave 27 starts to players 25 or younger.  Now, if you extend that to 26, you add in 30 more starts for Akin and ZImmerman and Zimmerman probably gets another 15 or so starts if he stays healthy, although we don’t know if they would have sent him down at any sign of struggling.  

But those ZImmerman starts could have gone to Lowther (or whoever) and they chose not to.  

 

[geschinger]

14 minutes ago, btdart20 said:

Agreed.  Decisions should primarily be based on future value, not history.  

 

Primarily yes, but assume for a moment that they legitimately think Matt Olson was a better player but instead of Freeman being on the wrong side of 30 looking for a contract that took him well into the wrong side of 35 they were both 28.  I don't think there is any chance they choose Olson.

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, geschinger said:

Primarily yes, but assume for a moment that they legitimately think Matt Olson was a better player but instead of Freeman being on the wrong side of 30 looking for a contract that took him well into the wrong side of 35 they were both 28.  I don't think there is any chance they choose Olson.

Yes, if they could have avoided trading four players to bring back a magically de-aged Freeman they would have.

[geschinger]

16 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Im Not sure I would say Kremer got a big chance but he did get a chance.  Once the trade deadline passed and you weren’t dealing Harvey, there was no reason not to give those Harvey starts to Kremer or another starter.

BTW, I’m not even saying those guys are going to be MLers.  They probably aren’t or at least not starters.  But in 2013, the Astros gave 70 starts to pitchers 25 or younger that each had an ERA over 5.  For comparison, the Orioles only gave 27 starts to players 25 or younger.  Now, if you extend that to 26, you add in 30 more starts for Akin and ZImmerman and Zimmerman probably gets another 15 or so starts if he stays healthy, although we don’t know if they would have sent him down at any sign of struggling.  

But those ZImmerman starts could have gone to Lowther (or whoever) and they chose not to.  

 

I would have preferred to have seen more starts by the younger guys in 2021.  I'm just not sure if that was a failure of approach or more attributable to workload restrictions they rightly or wrongly follow.  Lowther as one example was going from 148 innings ('19) to 0 innings ('20) and he only threw 38 innings in the minor leagues in '21.  30 of those were in 8 starts in AAA which seems more like trying to build his capacity rather than starts that could have been in MLB instead.  If there is a 2020 MiLB season 2021 would have been a likely year to get someone like Bradish 100+ innings of MLB experience, etc...  

The carry over effect from Covid has put the Orioles a bit of a disdvantage in amassing enough innings from the young guys to let them take their lumps and see who can emerge.

[geschinger]

16 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Yes, if they could have avoided trading four players to bring back a magically de-aged Freeman they would have.

Yes, if their both free agents at the same age - no way they choose Olson over Freeman.  I don't remember who the best FA 3B was when Bergman was extended.  Rendon maybe?  If so that's another one where the history with the team would trump replacing him even if the replacement's future value is slightly higher.

[Sports Guy]

10 minutes ago, geschinger said:

I would have preferred to have seen more starts by the younger guys in 2021.  I'm just not sure if that was a failure of approach or more attributable to workload restrictions they rightly or wrongly follow.  Lowther as one example was going from 148 innings ('19) to 0 innings ('20) and he only threw 38 innings in the minor leagues in '21.  30 of those were in 8 starts in AAA which seems more like trying to build his capacity rather than starts that could have been in MLB instead.  If there is a 2020 MiLB season 2021 would have been a likely year to get someone like Bradish 100+ innings of MLB experience, etc...  

The carry over effect from Covid has put the Orioles a bit of a disdvantage in amassing enough innings from the young guys to let them take their lumps and see who can emerge.

Lowther was treated poorly in general.

Other players still threw innings, they just did in the minors.  Everyone dealt With the same issues and handled it in other ways.

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

The thing is, Houston was playing their young guys before 2014.  Kuechel already had 40ish ML starts.  Cosart had 10 starts in 2013.    Lyles made 65 ML starts before they traded him to the Rockies for Fowler.  Peacock had 14 starts and appeared in 18 games in 2013.

By 2014, Altuve already had 1500 ML PA.

In 2013, the Astros had 19 players get 100 or more plate appearances.  8 were older than 25 and 2 players were 30 or older.

In 2021, the Orioles had 17 players who to 100 or more plate appearances.  14 of them were 25 or older and they also had 2 players 30 or older.

In 2013, the Astros had 10 pitchers start games, with 8 of them getting 10 or more starts.  Of those 10 starters, 2 were 30 years old or older, 6 were 25 or younger and Bud Norris was dealt to the Os midseason.

In 2021, the Orioles had 15 players start (a few were openers).  Of those 15,  2 were older than 30 and only 3 were 25 or younger.  And Lopez, who was 28, was 3rd on the team in games started and he isn't now and never has been a starter at this level.

When you look at the Astros in 2013, they weren't playing a lot of guys with no future.  Carlos Pena got over 300 at bats (and performed poorly) and Bedard threw 150 innings and performed ok.   Outside of that, the starts and most of the PA went to players that had a chance to be part of a contender or a trade piece to help them get something.

Compare that with the 2021 Orioles..You had Severino, Galvis, Franco, Wynns, Guiterrez, Martin, Valaika and Ruiz.  Thats 1700 PA to players that aren't anything for the long term.  The Os gave hundreds of IP to pitchers with no long term future here and many of them got starts.

 

Thats part of the issue with this and why you can't use an apples to apples comp to the Astros.  We are playing far too many, go no where AAAA guys and not promoting our young talent to see what they can do.

I mean, look at these arguments.  We have people saying its dumb to bring in outside help until we are ready but yet those same people are saying its dumb to bring up prospects and waste their service time when the team isn't going to be any good.

Well, WTF is the solution?  You don't want talent brought up and you don't want talent brought in.  How the f*** is this team supposed to get better with 26 Pat Valaikas out there?

 

 

 

So Mullins, Mountcastle, Hays, Santander, Mancini, and Urias are Pat Valiaka's? Rutschman is going to be up this year. Stowers is very close and Westburg may not be too far behind this year. I haven't seen anyone against promoting them this year.

I guess I just don't understand your thought process that people are ok with losing and want Pat Valaika types on the team. The team is going to be made up of mostly guys from our system and the only holes that I see are on the infield where Urias looks like he's going to be solid, On top of it, we have help coming in the near future at 3B, SS and 2B (where Urias fits best).

Correa just signed a contract that lets him opt out after this season which means the Orioles could very well sign him next year (If the team is sold to an owner that cares).

Could the team have signed E-rod, perhaps, but it looks like Elias really wants to find out what he has in Bradish, Zimmermann, Lowther, T. Well, A. Wells, Baumann, Akin and Kremer.

I'm ok with this for THIS year, but yes, next offseason the Orioles should know where their holes are in the rotation and infield and makes the appropriate trade and FA acquisitions to make them competitive in 2023.

I do think the Orioles are going to be better this year as they transition from a team who definitely were not trying to win to a year in year out contender that hopefully starts in 2023.

 

 

[Frobby]

24 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Lowther was treated poorly in general.

Other players still threw innings, they just did in the minors.  Everyone dealt With the same issues and handled it in other ways.

I agree Lowther was hurt by being shuttled around.  He also had an injury or two that cost him some MiL time, as I recall.   

I do think there’s a point at which it’s very difficult to keep throwing a young guy out there.  When your ERA is well over 6.00 and you routinely are failing to last more than 3-4 innings, it just becomes untenable.   Hopefully we’ll see less of that this year when our young guys get their opportunities.  
 

 

[Sports Guy]

9 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

So Mullins, Mountcastle, Hays, Santander, Mancini, and Urias are Pat Valiaka's? Rutschman is going to be up this year. Stowers is very close and Westburg may not be too far behind this year. I haven't seen anyone against promoting them this year.

I guess I just don't understand your thought process that people are ok with losing and want Pat Valaika types on the team. The team is going to be made up of mostly guys from our system and the only holes that I see are on the infield where Urias looks like he's going to be solid, On top of it, we have help coming in the near future at 3B, SS and 2B (where Urias fits best).

Correa just signed a contract that lets him opt out after this season which means the Orioles could very well sign him next year (If the team is sold to an owner that cares).

Could the team have signed E-rod, perhaps, but it looks like Elias really wants to find out what he has in Bradish, Zimmermann, Lowther, T. Well, A. Wells, Baumann, Akin and Kremer.

I'm ok with this for THIS year, but yes, next offseason the Orioles should know where their holes are in the rotation and infield and makes the appropriate trade and FA acquisitions to make them competitive in 2023.

I do think the Orioles are going to be better this year as they transition from a team who definitely were not trying to win to a year in year out contender that hopefully starts in 2023.

 

 

First of all, as I explained, there was obvious sarcasm used in the Valaika comment. We had some good players.  Of course, apparently even though those are good players, we don't have a foundation yet so we can't go out and get other good players.  I am still trying to figure out that logic too.

Secondly, the argument being made is that we are n the same spot as the 2014 Astros.  That's wrong and my post outlines why its wrong.  We are at least a year behind that and while you can try to blame the pandemic, the bottom line is there is a lot more to it than that, including the team trying to manipulate service time as much as possible and giving the wrong players chances.  

[LookinUp]

I mean, the O's could have signed Lyles, Davies and Ed Rod. Even one more guy. Payroll is $60 million and they probably win 70 games. Young guys compete for innings. Don't block position players.

I understand the logic if they did that. I understand people wanting them to do that.

[Sports Guy]

27 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

I mean, the O's could have signed Lyles, Davies and Ed Rod. Even one more guy. Payroll is $60 million and they probably win 70 games. Young guys compete for innings. Don't block position players.

I understand the logic if they did that. I understand people wanting them to do that.

I wanted 2 starters.  ERod/Stroman and another cheap guy like Davies(I don’t think I ever actually wanted Davies but just using him as an example).  Add them to GRod and whoever ends up earning the other starts out of the group of arms we often talk about. 
 

Why would they have been wrong?  Wouldn’t you say in a year or so, when we are “attempting to win”, that it’s very likely we will need to add at least one starter?  Why do we have to wait to add that starter?

BTW, these questions are more general and not necessarily directed at you.