O's were contenders!!

[now]

So much ado about replacement level players. Alongside the revolving door of AAA and AAAA fodder, how much does the needle move with the Maikel Francos and F. Galvises and J. Lyles of the world? Face it - contention, and quality outside acquisitions, will come when the true prospects arrive and are ready to perform at contention level. 

[maybenxtyr]

3 minutes ago, now said:

So much ado about replacement level players. Alongside the revolving door of AAA and AAAA fodder, how much does the needle move with the Maikel Francos and F. Galvises and J. Lyles of the world? Face it - contention, and quality outside acquisitions, will come when the true prospects arrive and are ready to perform at contention level. 

Most are not arguing that point. I'm guessing here, but prospects can't begin to help the team when they are still in the MiL.

 

As for the ML team I think releasing Odor and moving Urias back to 2B would help the team and Urias.

[spiritof66]

23 hours ago, Frobby said:

There’s something between trying to win and tanking, I think.   That’s where we are this year.   It would have been tanking if we’d traded away some of our better players.   

21 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

   .    .    .

Out and out tanking. 

I find the use of the term "tanking" rarely helpful and often confusing -- it means different things to different people. Before its recent use in connection with the Orioles, I thought "tanking" referred to players not playing as hard or as well as they could because they had a financial or other interest in their team losing (or a lack of interest in winning). Now I don't know what it means.

Every GM, every team, has to decide how much of the franchise's limited resources (dollars, roster spots and playing time) to devote to improving the current team (and "current" often will extend a bit beyond the current season) and how much to invest in improving future teams. While there may be comparable approaches that I didn't notice or have forgotten, Elias (and the Orioles) have taken as extreme a "put all the chips on trying to win in the future" approach as any I can recall. I hope it works, though the apparent inflexibility of Elias's approach and his apparent disinterest in diverging from it by making moves that might improve the team now and in the future recently have made me more skeptical.

The extremity of Elias's approach has created some additional problems, in my opinion. Obviously, when ownership is silent and the GM does virtually nothing to improve the current team, and even says he's not all that interested in how that team performs, attendance and interest in the team are going to wane. And the cynic, or at least this cynic, can't help but notice a couple of indirect consequences that flow from Elias's  extreme strategy.

First, the inclusion in the Orioles' slashing of current payroll rewards the team's majority owner, after decades of his terrible management and (mostly) on-field failure, by ensuring him and his co-owners a nice profit -- among MLB's largest last year, according to Forbes -- whether or not they win any games or sell any tickets. That aspect of the Orioles'/Elias's strategy has drawn the ire of other MLB owners, players and their union, and members of the media. To me, it's maddening to see the Orioles, having finally moved beyond being derided for years as MLB's "laughingstock," depicted as rapacious cheapstakes who are eroding the integrity of the competition that lies at the heart of the game. There's been some chatter about how the large profits are being socked away by the owner to fund much larger payrolls in the future. I'll believe that if I see it. I'm not even sure that the current owner or his heirs will own the team if and when the day for substantially increased spending arrives. (By the way, while I've said repeatedly that I think there's a good chance MLB owners won't approve the passage of controlling ownership to his heir(s), I think that prospect has increased by the Orioles' prominence as the poster child of intentionally fielding low-payroll, non-competitive teams and continued adherence to that practice despite the criticisms of it.)

Second, Elias's slow promotion of tomorrow's sure-fire big-leaguers who, we're told, will form the (inexpensive) core of a contending team continues to make it difficult to judge Elias's success. He's already done the easy part -- things like cutting payroll to the bone, signing marginal major leaguers and other teams' failed prospects to fill in the empty spots on the Orioles, acquiring talent by use of priority in the draft. (He also has built up the Orioles' international presence and signings, and has increased its analytics capacity. I give him zero credit for doing those things; almost anyone near the game of baseball not named Peter Angelos could see the necessity for those steps. If Elias has done and is doing those things well, I'd certainly give him credit. But I don't know how to assess that, or to compare how well he's done those things to other teams' accomplishments in those areas.) It's a bit of an overstatement, but in my view Elias has done, and continues to do, the easy stuff, and that's not what I care about. I think the most difficult decisions Elias has faced regarding the Orioles' players have been whether to trade any of Mullins, Mancini, Santander or Means. While we don't know what exploration he's made about trades, again the grade has to be Incomplete. 

The hard part of the job, for Elias as for any GM, is to build a pennant-winning or contending major league team while the other 29 teams are doing the same thing and trying to beat your team on a daily basis. As far as I know, Elias has never set or even ballparked a season when he expects the Orioles to get there, and that time seems to be drifting further away. But my best guess is that we're talking about 2025-27 as a realistic target for contention with the core that's now in the shop. Though there's a possibility that a pennant or contention will arrive before that time, that would give Elias a seven-year tenure before we can judge his success or failure on the hard part of his job. There's a good chance, in my opinion, of a change in ownership before then, and if that happens there's no way to predict whether Elias would be retained. There's also a chance that before then he'll grab an opportunity to move on to a better franchise. Elias has defined what's important and not important, along with the sometimes-exaggerated lowly circumstances of the Orioles in 2018, in a way that will make it difficult to judge his success for at least two or three more years. 

I sincerely hope Elias's strategy succeeds. But even though my interest in what we now call sabermetrics started before Elias was born, as I watch the Orioles flounder I find myself clinging to a few convictions that many of you find old-fashioned and outmoded: 

If you're lucky enough to own or be responsible for the operation of a major league team,

1. You should be vitally interested in what that team and every player on it has done so far this season, how it did yesterday, how it does today and tomorrow, and in its outlook for this season and next. That has to be one of your priorities at all times, and your highest priority most of the time. 

2. You should be open to acquiring, from every available source, talent that you can afford and that you believe will improve your team.

3. If you have a player in your system who you think will be (after, say, 300 PAs or roughly half a season for a pitcher) a better player than the guy he would replace, you should promote him and start finding how good he really is.  

4. Your player payroll should be in the neighborhood (say, plus or minus 15 percent) of the median of other teams similar potential revenues. There may be specific factors that push that number up or down in a given season, and maybe the 15 percent is off. But if you're unwilling or unable to spend an amount like that, you owe it to your fans (and to the city that, in most cases, forks over substantial taxpayer money for your benefit) to get the hell out. 

If a team decides not to do any of those things, I wouldn't accuse it of tanking. But I'd worry about whether it's going to succeed, and about how long it will take to tell. 

 

[Can_of_corn]

To me tanking is simple.

Intentionally fielding a noncompetitive team in order to secure high draft picks. 

[maybenxtyr]

21 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

To me tanking is simple.

Intentionally fielding a noncompetitive team in order to secure high draft picks. 

I don't think they're "tanking" in that regard this season. I also don't think they're trying to compete either. 

 

I think this is just a team trying to exist and generate revenue. The part that perplexes me is why not at least start bringing up some of the MiL talent? Most likely they don't have enough in the minors to build a competing team year and and year out, so why not just play the kids? 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, maybenxtyr said:

I don't think they're "tanking" in that regard this season. I also don't think they're trying to compete either. 

 

I think this is just a team trying to exist and generate revenue. The part that perplexes me is why not at least start bringing up some of the MiL talent? Most likely they don't have enough in the minors to build a competing team year and and year out, so why not just play the kids? 

Elias seems, to me, to be deathly afraid of not squeezing every second of team control he can out of prospects.  He wants every ounce of leverage he can muster.

It's why I won't be shocked if Adley ends up missing Super 2 status.

[Can_of_corn]

5 minutes ago, maybenxtyr said:

I don't think they're "tanking" in that regard this season. I also don't think they're trying to compete either. 

 

I think this is just a team trying to exist and generate revenue. The part that perplexes me is why not at least start bringing up some of the MiL talent? Most likely they don't have enough in the minors to build a competing team year and and year out, so why not just play the kids? 

I also think Elias will happily take a shot at the draft lottery.

 

[sportsfan8703]

Adley is 24. He’s not a kid. The injury rehab is over. Adley not being up is out and out tanking. 

[maybenxtyr]

6 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Elias seems, to me, to be deathly afraid of not squeezing every second of team control he can out of prospects.  He wants every ounce of leverage he can muster.

It's why I won't be shocked if Adley ends up missing Super 2 status.

I don't expect him up prior to Memorial day...I don't know if that will clear Super 2 or not. 

 

It's not just AR. There is several guys that could be up gaining experience, especially allowing the team to move on from some of the players that do not belong on a ML roster. 

[maybenxtyr]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I also think Elias will happily take a shot at the draft lottery.

 

There's still a plenty of time to get back on the 105+ loss pace.

[sportsfan8703]

2 minutes ago, maybenxtyr said:

There's still a plenty of time to get back on the 105+ loss pace.

Keep running out the lineup we are and we might lose 120

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, maybenxtyr said:

There's still a plenty of time to get back on the 105+ loss pace.

Won't need to lose that many.  Three worst records have the same chance to win the top pick.

[sportsfan8703]

Adley should be up.  Diaz should be up with both Mountcastle and Hays hurt. If Urias is healthy he should be the everyday 2B. I think he’ll come back around. Idk what to do about the trainwreck that 3B is. 

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Adley should be up.  Diaz should be up with both Mountcastle and Hays hurt. If Urias is healthy he should be the everyday 2B. I think he’ll come back around. Idk what to do about the trainwreck that 3B is. 

Should have...he's hurt again.

[maybenxtyr]

6 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Won't need to lose that many.  Three worst records have the same chance to win the top pick.

Elias is an overachiever.