Interesting Cuts?

[sportsfan8703]

On 7/3/2022 at 5:42 PM, Frobby said:

I like Gutierrez.   But I like Westburg and Henderson more.  

Nevin or Guiterrez is our de facto 3B for the first 15 games of next year. 

[NelsonCruuuuuz]

2 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Nevin or Guiterrez is our de facto 3B for the first 15 games of next year. 

Oh snap, is that correct in terms of service time I am guessing?

[ChuckS]

3 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Nevin or Guiterrez is our de facto 3B for the first 15 games of next year. 

You could maybe justify playing the service games with Henderson but not with a 24 year old Westburg who is just a borderline top 100 prospect. Vavra and Prieto could also be in the picture.

Nevin and Gutierrez should not be anywhere near the MLB roster next year. 

[wildcard]

7 hours ago, ChuckS said:

You could maybe justify playing the service games with Henderson but not with a 24 year old Westburg who is just a borderline top 100 prospect. Vavra and Prieto could also be in the picture.

Nevin and Gutierrez should not be anywhere near the MLB roster next year. 

By not promoting Westburg and Henderson this season Elias  is allowed to protect two other players from the Rule 5 draft in December.  I think there is a good chance he does just that.

[Sports Guy]

7 hours ago, ChuckS said:

You could maybe justify playing the service games with Henderson but not with a 24 year old Westburg who is just a borderline top 100 prospect. Vavra and Prieto could also be in the picture.

Nevin and Gutierrez should not be anywhere near the MLB roster next year. 

You can’t even justify it with Henderson, not if he keeps playing at a high level.  You can bring him up today or have him start his first game on Opening Day 2023 and the amount of time you have him is the same.

Had Adley not gotten hurt and was on the team on OD, he would have ended up with the same service time as he would have if he was brought up this time last year, as I wanted.  It sure would have been nice to get these first few hundred at bats out of the way last year so that Adley could be ready to take off to start this year.  
 

Same concept for Gunnar, Westburg and Stowers.  All of them have shown the talent and ability at AAA and at times, are dominating competition and, in the case of Henderson, are doing it at a far younger age than league average.  That bodes extremely well for the long term.  The idea that he is only 21 is meaningless.  If they are ready, I don’t care if they are 19 or 25.  You get them up.

[ChuckS]

5 hours ago, wildcard said:

By not promoting Westburg and Henderson this season Elias  is allowed to protect two other players from the Rule 5 draft in December.  I think there is a good chance he does just that.

I was talking about the start of 2023.  I have no expectations that either is promoted this season, but would be pleasantly surprised if it happened. 

[ChuckS]

5 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

You can’t even justify it with Henderson, not if he keeps playing at a high level.  You can bring him up today or have him start his first game on Opening Day 2023 and the amount of time you have him is the same.

Had Adley not gotten hurt and was on the team on OD, he would have ended up with the same service time as he would have if he was brought up this time last year, as I wanted.  It sure would have been nice to get these first few hundred at bats out of the way last year so that Adley could be ready to take off to start this year.  
 

Same concept for Gunnar, Westburg and Stowers.  All of them have shown the talent and ability at AAA and at times, are dominating competition and, in the case of Henderson, are doing it at a far younger age than league average.  That bodes extremely well for the long term.  The idea that he is only 21 is meaningless.  If they are ready, I don’t care if they are 19 or 25.  You get them up.

I don’t disagree with most of why you said but Henderson and Westburg are in a different boat and yes, age is a factor. 

Holding back Westburg to secure his age 30 season is silly. For Henderson, given his skill and age…securing an extra year should be under consideration. Whether it’s what is best for the franchise right now is debatable. 

[emmett16]

5 hours ago, wildcard said:

By not promoting Westburg and Henderson this season Elias  is allowed to protect two other players from the Rule 5 draft in December.  I think there is a good chance he does just that.

Very Good point.  With that said, I’d be shocked if Westburg  isn’t up this later this year and doesn’t  have an IF positioned locked down going into 2023.  It’s time to win now & there are pieces in the pipeline behind him.  If he comes up and performs his value skyrockets.  

[forphase1]

6 hours ago, wildcard said:

By not promoting Westburg and Henderson this season Elias  is allowed to protect two other players from the Rule 5 draft in December.  I think there is a good chance he does just that.

Great point and one that's often overlooked or ignored while complaining about service time manipulation.

[NelsonCruuuuuz]

24 minutes ago, forphase1 said:

Great point and one that's often overlooked or ignored while complaining about service time manipulation.

Elias could also trade some prospects he’s not as high on to make the team better. Values of prospects go to zero when they don’t pan out, we should be leveraging our farm system to improve our team long term. You also are going to lose some of them in the rule 5. 

[Just Regular]

55 minutes ago, ChuckS said:

Holding back Westburg to secure his age 30 season is silly.

For guys who are good not great, it isn't just about Club control of free agency years.   If a guy like Westburg is held for early 2023, it can be about another minimum wage season and pushing Arb1-Arb2 another year down the road.

Then, shuckydarn, tendering him Arb3 might be too expensive because he's past peak, ya know.

The thoroughbreds need to avoid soft tissue injuries relatively harmless to their long-term outlooks and excel 6 more weeks before the 2019-2020 Mountcastle fork in the road presents itself.    Even AAA MVP's have stuff to work on sometimes.

I grant wildcard's point about they'd be two less 40-man protects, but hope readying 2023's players outweighs that now.   The tipping point has to be somewhere.

If all goes really well the next few years we'll either lose someone decent in the Rule 5, or like the Yankees in July will trade five medium guys for Joey Gallo.

 

[forphase1]

1 minute ago, NelsonCruuuuuz said:

Elias could also trade some prospects he’s not as high on to make the team better. Values of prospects go to zero when they don’t pan out, we should be leveraging our farm system to improve our team long term. You also are going to lose some of them in the rule 5. 

While he COULD do that, I'm just not sure we are in that position yet.  At what position in the minors do we have so much depth we can reasonably trade from without creating potential holes in the MLB team in the near future?  Our infield talent, while highly ranked, is also fairly thin.  Once you get past Westburg and Henderson, do we know if we have much if they don't pan out?  Mayo?  Norby?  Same with our OF depth.  Stowers and Cowser.  Then who?  Kjerstad is hitting great, but with the health issues I'm certainly not ready to pencil him in future lineups.  Point being while our farm system is heavy at the top with like 6 of the top 100 players, we still don't quite have the depth to be using them to acquire much, and the top talent that we have I doubt Elias is willing to trade, unless it was just a great deal.

I do agree that at some point we need to start leveraging the talent in the minors to improve the MLB team.  That's one reason why I want more of the young talent to be brought up to the majors so we can see who is expendable in the minors.  If we called up Henderson, Westburg and Vavra and they performed like they are in AAA, then the Mayo, Norby, Ortiz, Hernandez and other infield talent in our top 25 prospects could be traded potentially.  But until we know how some of these guys pan out it's dangerous to trade.  Don't want to end up having another hole in the MLB team because prospects don't pan out.   

[Can_of_corn]

8 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

For guys who are good not great, it isn't just about Club control of free agency years.   If a guy like Westburg is held for early 2023, it can be about another minimum wage season and pushing Arb1-Arb2 another year down the road.

Then, shuckydarn, tendering him Arb3 might be too expensive because he's past peak, ya know.

The thoroughbreds need to avoid soft tissue injuries relatively harmless to their long-term outlooks and excel 6 more weeks before the 2019-2020 Mountcastle fork in the road presents itself.    Even AAA MVP's have stuff to work on sometimes.

I grant wildcard's point about they'd be two less 40-man protects, but hope readying 2023's players outweighs that now.   The tipping point has to be somewhere.

If all goes really well the next few years we'll either lose someone decent in the Rule 5, or like the Yankees in July will trade five medium guys for Joey Gallo.

 

Things that can be worked on in the majors, as opposed to just being sent home.

[NelsonCruuuuuz]

48 minutes ago, forphase1 said:

While he COULD do that, I'm just not sure we are in that position yet.  At what position in the minors do we have so much depth we can reasonably trade from without creating potential holes in the MLB team in the near future?  Our infield talent, while highly ranked, is also fairly thin.  Once you get past Westburg and Henderson, do we know if we have much if they don't pan out?  Mayo?  Norby?  Same with our OF depth.  Stowers and Cowser.  Then who?  Kjerstad is hitting great, but with the health issues I'm certainly not ready to pencil him in future lineups.  Point being while our farm system is heavy at the top with like 6 of the top 100 players, we still don't quite have the depth to be using them to acquire much, and the top talent that we have I doubt Elias is willing to trade, unless it was just a great deal.

I do agree that at some point we need to start leveraging the talent in the minors to improve the MLB team.  That's one reason why I want more of the young talent to be brought up to the majors so we can see who is expendable in the minors.  If we called up Henderson, Westburg and Vavra and they performed like they are in AAA, then the Mayo, Norby, Ortiz, Hernandez and other infield talent in our top 25 prospects could be traded potentially.  But until we know how some of these guys pan out it's dangerous to trade.  Don't want to end up having another hole in the MLB team because prospects don't pan out.   

The cost for salary dumps and rentals are significantly lower in past years. With a top rated system, you can leverage marginal talent for a decent piece. 

[Frobby]

8 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

You can’t even justify it with Henderson, not if he keeps playing at a high level.  You can bring him up today or have him start his first game on Opening Day 2023 and the amount of time you have him is the same.

There is one difference though.  If they bring them up next year on Opening Day and one finishes top 3 in ROY, the O’s get an extra draft pick.  If they were brought up now, there wouid be almost no chance of a top 3 ROY finish this year, and they wouldn’t be eligible for ROY next year.   

I’m not saying that factor shouid control any decisions, just that it’s one factor to add into the mix.   

For me, the biggest factor is whether getting them some significant big league time this year will (1) give them a jump start for having a strong 2023, and (2) allow the team a chance to see how ready they are to make a material contribution to the big league team, which will help in deciding what offseason moves to make.  My personal feeling is, if either or both are continuing to play well in AAA, I’d like to see them promoted sometime in August.   I see wildcard’s point about the Rule 5 effect but I think the factors above outweigh that downside.