Let’s Be Buyers

[foxfield]

4 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I don't understand why we're entertaining trading prospects right now.  This is a roughly .500 team with multiple highly valuable players still in the minors.  It's very easy to get into a situation where the player you trade for is not only much more expensive and under team control for less time, but also not as good as the players you sent away.  Also, the Orioles are still very much longshots to even get to the 2022 playoffs.  

Don't lose focus on the goal.  The goal isn't a '22 lottery ticket.  It's being contenders for a long time to come.

 

2 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

You're asking if it's inconceivable the Orioles end up in 3rd place after they've won nine in a row, 12 of 13, and 24 of their last 29 to be sitting on 60-49 after being 35-44?  No, not at all.  But I'm not sure you're asking about the right inconceivable thing...

I apologize if this is crude.  But regarding the choice to going for it now or simply keep improving towards being a contender...I see the following relevance.

Some people go in to a bar or club looking to score that night...right now and are willing to pursue that goal in spite of costs.  Others, are pursing a relationship and while not necessarily not trying to score, they are making decisions to make the best possible run at a long term relationship.

I am casting dispersions on no man...or woman....I am simply in the camp that The Orioles (Elias and Sig) are pursing a relationship that can foster long term satisfaction.  I do not think they will make any decision that is not helping that goal.  

Edited July 27, 2022 by foxfield

[DrungoHazewood]

5 minutes ago, foxfield said:

 

I apologize if this is crude.  But regarding the choice to going for it now or simply keep improving towards being a contender...I see the following relevance.

Some people go in to a bar or club looking to score that night...right now and are willing to pursue that goal in spite of costs.  Others, are pursing a relationship and while not necessarily not trying to score, they are making decisions to make the best possible run at a long term relationship.

I am casting dispersions on no man...or woman....I am simply in the camp that The Orioles (Elias and Sig) are pursing a relationship that can foster long term satisfaction.  I do not think they will make any decision that is not helping that goal.  

Yes, agree with all of that.

But when you've been stationed on an oil rig in the North Sea for the last five years with a bunch of dudes in steel-toed boots and hard hats, it's a challenge to not have a one-night stand when you finally get some shore leave.  

Edited July 27, 2022 by DrungoHazewood

[DrungoHazewood]

15 minutes ago, deward said:

It's worth mentioning that Norris was a reasonably valuable member of the rotation for the 2014 division champs. That trade looks bad now, with the hindsight of how Hader turned out, but I don't consider it indefensible at the time.

I'm sure I argued at the time that Hader was quite unlikely to pan out, as a guy in low-A with good-but-not-great numbers.  But it's been a really bad trade.  Norris had two bad partial seasons and one year as a decent #3 starter.  We traded one of the best relievers in baseball for one 2-win season.  They should have just sucked it up and signed some free agent for too much money.

[Three Run Homer]

3 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I don't understand why we're entertaining trading prospects right now.  This is a roughly .500 team with multiple highly valuable players still in the minors.  It's very easy to get into a situation where the player you trade for is not only much more expensive and under team control for less time, but also not as good as the players you sent away.  Also, the Orioles are still very much longshots to even get to the 2022 playoffs.  

Don't lose focus on the goal.  The goal isn't a '22 lottery ticket.  It's being contenders for a long time to come.

I agree that this team is not likely to be going to the World Series this year and thus it makes no sense to be in the market for a rental like Luis Castillo.  But the organization's talent is by design heavily biased towards position players.   Unless we think that the O's are going to open their wallets and sign a top free-agent starter or two in the offseason, it makes sense to think about using position player prospects or young position players in the majors to try to acquire controllable pitching, which could help us in the short term and long term.     

[Aristotelian]

3 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I'm sure I argued at the time that Hader was quite unlikely to pan out, as a guy in low-A with good-but-not-great numbers.  But it's been a really bad trade.  Norris had two bad partial seasons and one year as a decent #3 starter.  We traded one of the best relievers in baseball for one 2-win season.  They should have just sucked it up and signed some free agent for too much money.

We won the division and Bud won the game 3 clincher of the divisional series. Arguably that was worth the 10+ wins Harder has produced from 2017 to now.

[Tryptamine]

The Orioles should be all over Tarik Skubal or Pablo Lopez. Skubal in particular is going to take a major haul, but in a system mostly devoid of healthy good SP prospects outside of Grayson, they'd be very big pickups.  

[DrungoHazewood]

18 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

We won the division and Bud won the game 3 clincher of the divisional series. Arguably that was worth the 10+ wins Harder has produced from 2017 to now.

That was also the time period where you could sign Bartolo Colon for 2/20, so something like that was a much better option.  It's not that hard to find 170 innings of a 108 ERA+ without routinely giving away Eduardo Rodriguez, Josh Hader, Kyle Davies, etc.  I know win now is a thing, but the 2018 landing would have been less catastrophic and maybe someone would have walked away alive with those prospects still in the org.

[DrungoHazewood]

31 minutes ago, Three Run Homer said:

I agree that this team is not likely to be going to the World Series this year and thus it makes no sense to be in the market for a rental like Luis Castillo.  But the organization's talent is by design heavily biased towards position players.   Unless we think that the O's are going to open their wallets and sign a top free-agent starter or two in the offseason, it makes sense to think about using position player prospects or young position players in the majors to try to acquire controllable pitching, which could help us in the short term and long term.     

What's the Orioles' current payroll?  Like $25M?  About 0.6 Scherzers.  If anyone can afford a free agent pitcher or three it's the Orioles.

[deward]

58 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I'm sure I argued at the time that Hader was quite unlikely to pan out, as a guy in low-A with good-but-not-great numbers.  But it's been a really bad trade.  Norris had two bad partial seasons and one year as a decent #3 starter.  We traded one of the best relievers in baseball for one 2-win season.  They should have just sucked it up and signed some free agent for too much money.

That's the thing, though, prospects are always a gamble. Especially pitchers. Sometimes you trade away a low-A lefty with a good arm and questionable control and he turns out to be Josh Hader. Sometimes you overvalue a Hayden Penn and miss out on the chance to trade him while he was worth something. I don't blame Duq for going for it while the window to potentially win a WS was open. The Norris trade was a reasonable gamble that didn't work out on the back end. Giving up Rodriguez was a stiff price, everyone knew that at the time, but would have been fully worth it if Miller had helped close out the clinching game of the 2014 WS. The Parra trade looked bad from day one, I've never understood the logic there.

[LookinUp]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I'm sure I argued at the time that Hader was quite unlikely to pan out, as a guy in low-A with good-but-not-great numbers.  But it's been a really bad trade.  Norris had two bad partial seasons and one year as a decent #3 starter.  We traded one of the best relievers in baseball for one 2-win season.  They should have just sucked it up and signed some free agent for too much money.

I 100% argued that he didn't have the control to be very good.

I'm still pretty convinced he wouldn't be nearly as good here as he's been with the Brewers. That changed when Elias and company got data and procedures in place.

But that's the consideration now. Can we turn guys into Josh Hader? I think so and it weighs on what I think of trades.

[OriolesMagic83]

41 minutes ago, deward said:

That's the thing, though, prospects are always a gamble. Especially pitchers. Sometimes you trade away a low-A lefty with a good arm and questionable control and he turns out to be Josh Hader. Sometimes you overvalue a Hayden Penn and miss out on the chance to trade him while he was worth something. I don't blame Duq for going for it while the window to potentially win a WS was open. The Norris trade was a reasonable gamble that didn't work out on the back end. Giving up Rodriguez was a stiff price, everyone knew that at the time, but would have been fully worth it if Miller had helped close out the clinching game of the 2014 WS. The Parra trade looked bad from day one, I've never understood the logic there.

I remember when the A's made the  trade proposal of Mulder for Loewen, Riley? and either Penn or Maine.  I was one of the posters that thought that was a ridiculous overpay by the O's at the time.  Doesn't sound bad for the O's now.

[Roll Tide]

1 hour ago, Tryptamine said:

The Orioles should be all over Tarik Skubal or Pablo Lopez. Skubal in particular is going to take a major haul, but in a system mostly devoid of healthy good SP prospects outside of Grayson, they'd be very big pickups.  

Elias is not mortgaging the rebuild for Skubal. I would hope he’s gotten approval to add some payroll and do a dump deal like Bumgarner.

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

We won the division and Bud won the game 3 clincher of the divisional series. Arguably that was worth the 10+ wins Harder has produced from 2017 to now.

Not in my opinion.  We would have gone to the ALCS and lost with or without Norris IMO.  I’d rather have had Hader.  But as I recall, I was neutral on this trade when it happened.  Can’t say I protested vigorously.   I was hoping for a 2013 playoff run at the time, and our starting pitching had been bad to that point.   Norris was disappointing that year after we acquired him, but we wouldn’t have made the playoffs even if he’d done well, because our offense evaporated in the last two months of 2013.

[Three Run Homer]

Houston is willing to trade starting pitching for help at outfield or 1B, per Jeff Passan of ESPN (quoted in MLBTR).  The story mentions Jose Urquidy as a trade candidate.  He's a league-average starter this year; his peripherals are nothing special.   He'd be an upgrade on Jordan Lyles and is controllable for a couple more years.    I think Santander would be a fair offer.  

[Tryptamine]

Not sure you want Urquidy. The ERA looks nice, but the peripherals don't and it's not like he's a FIP beater because he induces a lot of soft contact. He's giving up a 31.9 HARD% and 50.8 MED%. On a competitive team he shouldn't be more than a #5, if that.  He's not even really a proven innings eater at this point.