Taking Elias and Hyde’s comments at face value

[btdart20]

4 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

1) While not ruling it out, unlikely to trade established MLers

2) As of today, the IF is likely to be Mountcastle, Urias, Mateo and Henderson.

4) They want a LH bat that can has good versatility.

I haven't read through the whole thread (just snippets of the first page)...

1. Did I miss that somewhere along the way?  I don't recall any type of comment along these lines.  Did they use the term 'established'?  Defining 'established' is key.  Does it mean core/important?  Does it mean a solid MLB floor?  Are Mateo and Urias established based on 2022?  Is Mountcastle established given his up/down nature?  Of the 2022 O's, only Mullins and Santander are established in my book.  The rest are too young or too variable.  

2. Agreed.  They also mentioned that Gunnar will move around a bit as well based on match-ups (and maybe how Mateo is doing offensively?).  So, there will be days where Gunnar is at SS, Urias at 3B, with someone else at 2B (LHH?  Vavra?).  

4.  Plus, Elias mentioned not using a set DH.  

C - Adley

IF - Gunnar, Mateo, Urias, and Mounty around the horn.  Does bringing in the LHH 1B/OF types signals that Mounty is on a short leash?  Or simply about no 1B org depth? 

   * I'd like to see significant time for Westburg and ultimately Ortiz.  Obviously, I don't want to see Mateo and Urias (or Mountcastle if Westburg gets some 1B time) do poorly.  But I do think the long-term upside/floor of Westburg and Ortiz but blocked by Mateo/Urias.  If we're in the playoff hunt, I wouldn't anticipate trading Mateo/Urias in season though.  But if we can trade one/both now (even taking less than market value), I think it's a net positive.

CF - Mullins is the only guy I see with a set role in the OF.  Yes, he's got market value, but Elias values Mullins' defense and he's a plus offensive player.  Only "hole" is a non-plus OBP of a table-setter, so he'd be a better fit lower in the line-up if we had a more traditional/high OBP w. speed leadoff guy.

LF - Does talking up Hays' defense say anything about their trust/lack of trust in his offense?  Either way, I do think Franchy will see some LF time in OPACY with his speed and LHH bat.  It also buys a little time for Cowser to prove it.

    * IF Cowser has a strong ST, I'd really consider Cowser on the OD roster to stuff the ROY ballot box.  Seattle just got an extra 1st round pick in the 2023 draft.  The pick and slot $ are worth a lot to a small/mid-market team.

RF - Santander could see more/less RF time depending on who else they sign.

COF/DH options -

Belt could fit.  He's a rebound candidate that fits the swing decision/hard hit model with warts on page to lower his contract value.  I haven't looked at his stats recently, but he's been a guy who doesn't fit the old school narrative of stats and swing decisions.

Brantley could fit as well with the short contract.  I have to think he's more a DH type at this point though.  Unless he has a 1B mitt I'm not aware of.

Benitendi is the high end of the options.  Which likely means he's not an option if there's bidding.  He'll go to whoever loses out on Nimmo.

Grossman could be a guy we kick the tires on.  Career .347 OBP but coming off a bad year (or aging?).  He doesn't chase bad pitches and has solid speed.

SP - Gibson, Grayson, Kremer, Bradish...  And I think Hall gets his shot.  

FA options -

I'm still holding out the vain hope for Senga.  I don't they'll go long enough for Rodon and Bassitt doesn't really fit age/contract length-wise. 

Manaea and Syndergaard fits the 'rebound' narrative.  A 1-year deal with options.  I don't really want either but both have ML upside.  If we're shopping this tier, then I can see us adding an ML ready (but not established) arm in a trade package.

Trade options -

If we're looking at trades, I could see Kremer or Bradish adding value in a package to upgrade top of the rotation.  The idea being to trust the process that Povich, Johnson, and/or a few others are ready in a year or two.  The profile of potential matches would be teams looking for payroll trimming (SD, NYM, ATL, MIL) or managing their horizons (KC, CLE, DET) who need MLB type talent back could fit the bill.

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, Pickles said:

NOT trading Santander and Tate is not the type of move that comes back to bite you.  Signing a guy for 6 years and 180 million?  That can come back and bite you.  Trading away six years of a guy who goes on to put up 25 WAR in those years, that can come back to bite you.

Now, I won't argue that Santander and Tate might well be at peak value/coming off career best performances.  I think, particularly of Tate, that could be the case.  But missing out on the pretty minimal return- even if those guys both completely crater, which seems very unlikely- isn't going to hinder the ability to compete going forward.

 

Do we trust Elias to trade Tate and Santander? I've given Elias his props for his drafting and development, but let's remember, he traded Castro at his peak value for Kevin Smith and Victor González, and Givens for Vavra, Nevin and Mishael Deson. Add in trading Bleier for Isaac Deleon, and it's not like he has a great track record of trading his relievers for value.

I'm not saying Elias is a bad trader, I'm just saying is he has yet to prove he can acquire impact talent or trade his potential impact talent depth for positions of need. 

I'm a little disappointed so far that all of his focus seems to be on free agents and not trading. Now maybe teams are waiting until the major free agents fall into to place to start trading for need, but I've always felt this is the areas where Elias needs to do well in this offseason especially since we know the Orioles are not going to be in on significant Free Agents that demand 5 or more years.

[Sports Guy]

He indicated that trading ML pieces may not help us because we then have to replace those guys.

When I say established, I’m only saying that to me the guy who have shown that they good players in a real sample size.

A guy like Stowers is a MLer but I don’t think they hesitate to trade him, thus the qualifier of established MLer.

Agree that Urias or Mateo could go.. but I have questions about Santander and especially Mullins.

[Aristotelian]

7 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Do we trust Elias to trade Tate and Santander? I've given Elias his props for his drafting and development, but let's remember, he traded Castro at his peak value for Kevin Smith and Victor González, and Givens for Vavra, Nevin and Mishael Deson. Add in trading Bleier for Isaac Deleon, and it's not like he has a great track record of trading his relievers for value.

I'm not saying Elias is a bad trader, I'm just saying is he has yet to prove he can acquire impact talent or trade his potential impact talent depth for positions of need. 

I'm a little disappointed so far that all of his focus seems to be on free agents and not trading. Now maybe teams are waiting until the major free agents fall into to place to start trading for need, but I've always felt this is the areas where Elias needs to do well in this offseason especially since we know the Orioles are not going to be in on significant Free Agents that demand 5 or more years.

Wasn't Bradish an Elias acquisition? The return on Jorge looks pretty solid so far. It is true he hasn't pulled off a major Jones/Tillman type of deal but he didn't exactly inherit a lot of assets to play with. I don't *not* trust him to trade Tate (and I think Perez would be a sneaky option to sell high on).

[Sports Guy]

12 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Do we trust Elias to trade Tate and Santander? I've given Elias his props for his drafting and development, but let's remember, he traded Castro at his peak value for Kevin Smith and Victor González, and Givens for Vavra, Nevin and Mishael Deson. Add in trading Bleier for Isaac Deleon, and it's not like he has a great track record of trading his relievers for value.

I'm not saying Elias is a bad trader, I'm just saying is he has yet to prove he can acquire impact talent or trade his potential impact talent depth for positions of need. 

I'm a little disappointed so far that all of his focus seems to be on free agents and not trading. Now maybe teams are waiting until the major free agents fall into to place to start trading for need, but I've always felt this is the areas where Elias needs to do well in this offseason especially since we know the Orioles are not going to be in on significant Free Agents that demand 5 or more years.

Tony, FWIW I heard the Cleveland GM on MLB radio the other day and he said that all the talk has been about free agents and that trade talk hasn’t been plentiful as of yet. He expects that to change soon.

[Sports Guy]

Rangers looking for a LFer.  Dane Dunning potentially available?

Dunning+ for Santander?  
 

Not sure Dunning is enough to move the needle but will they realistically get anyone better, especially when you factor in cost, age and service time?

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/12/rangers-rumors-left-field-starting-pitching.html

[Tony-OH]

27 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Tony, FWIW I heard the Cleveland GM on MLB radio the other day and he said that all the talk has been about free agents and that trade talk hasn’t been plentiful as of yet. He expects that to change soon.

That sounds about right. I think there's a lot to be done before next spring and I'll think we're going to see that.

[Tony-OH]

37 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Wasn't Bradish an Elias acquisition? The return on Jorge looks pretty solid so far. It is true he hasn't pulled off a major Jones/Tillman type of deal but he didn't exactly inherit a lot of assets to play with. I don't *not* trust him to trade Tate (and I think Perez would be a sneaky option to sell high on).

I was speaking on his return for relievers so I probably should not have included Santander in there.

I'm not saying Elias is a bad trader, I'm just saying he hasn't proved himself a good trader either. Bradish looks like a keeper for Bundy, but I would have hope he would have hit on guy like Bundy since he had starting pitching value and cheap controllability.

So let's give him a win for Bundy. Losses for Bleire and Castro and a incomplete but looking like a D for Givens. Iglesias, Lopez and Mancini's are incomplete. 

[tabletop]

46 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Rangers looking for a LFer.  Dane Dunning potentially available?

Dunning+ for Santander?  
 

Not sure Dunning is enough to move the needle but will they realistically get anyone better, especially when you factor in cost, age and service time?

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/12/rangers-rumors-left-field-starting-pitching.html

If you needed a LF would you trade a 1-2 WAR 4ish era guy who hasn't entered arbitration yet for a 1-2 WAR outfielder whose defense is declining and is going to make 7+ million?

For me, I would much rather have Dunning.

[Aristotelian]

8 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I was speaking on his return for relievers so I probably should not have included Santander in there.

I'm not saying Elias is a bad trader, I'm just saying he hasn't proved himself a good trader either. Bradish looks like a keeper for Bundy, but I would have hope he would have hit on guy like Bundy since he had starting pitching value and cheap controllability.

So let's give him a win for Bundy. Losses for Bleire and Castro and a incomplete but looking like a D for Givens. Iglesias, Lopez and Mancini's are incomplete. 

Tough grader! I guess I wasn't expecting much from any of those deals. I wouldn't close the book on the Givens trade. Vavra is still an interesting player to me, although appears to be out of favor similar to Stowers. 

[Sports Guy]

Just now, tabletop said:

If you needed a LF would you trade a 1-2 WAR 4ish era guy who hasn't entered arbitration yet for a 1-2 WAR outfielder whose defense is declining and is going to make 7+ million?

For me, I would much rather have Dunning.

Well, you aren’t looking at all the factors though:

1) Dunning appears to be an odd man out, so he rots in AAA for no reason. The will lose value doing that.

2) To sign a LFer as good or similar to Santander, you are spending way more money and way more years.  Texas has been spending like money is no object but at some point, maybe they would rather not have the 3-4 year commitment at 10-15M per year?

I don’t know that I would do the deal straight up.  I think value for value it’s ok but is Dunning the guy you want to be your other starting rotation addition? I’m not sure.  If they sweetened the pot, it may make it easier.

[tabletop]

11 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Well, you aren’t looking at all the factors though:

1) Dunning appears to be an odd man out, so he rots in AAA for no reason. The will lose value doing that.

2) To sign a LFer as good or similar to Santander, you are spending way more money and way more years.  Texas has been spending like money is no object but at some point, maybe they would rather not have the 3-4 year commitment at 10-15M per year?

I don’t know that I would do the deal straight up.  I think value for value it’s ok but is Dunning the guy you want to be your other starting rotation addition? I’m not sure.  If they sweetened the pot, it may make it easier.

Well, to the first point I would strongly disagree and think a team with deGrom and Heaney in their rotation would want all the major league ready pitching depth they could have pitching in AAA.

To the second point I guess it depends on how you view Santander's season last year. If you think that's who he is going forward he's a 2+ WAR guy then sure that makes sense. I would doubt most teams expect that to continue though.

[turtlebowl]

9 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Tough grader! I guess I wasn't expecting much from any of those deals. I wouldn't close the book on the Givens trade. Vavra is still an interesting player to me, although appears to be out of favor similar to Stowers. 

I mentioned this a couple days ago.  I think when decisions are being made about the 8 starting positional players in the field, defense is a higher priority than what we are probably considering.  So basically the players that will likely be considered nuggets are going to need to be above average defenders.  If you aren't and the organization doesn't believe you ever will be then at best you will be a role player.  I think Santander will be a DH this season more than not and honestly the next guy moved will likely be Mountcastle as soon as they can find a replacement the offers better defense with respectable offensive production.

This past season we heard Odor was playing because of his D.  As much as we all laughed at this I am now thinking this could be the blue print of the team moving forward.  I think the organization has determined that Vavra and Stowers will never be plus defenders so they have basically been ruled out from a starting role unless their is injuries.

[RZNJ]

14 minutes ago, turtlebowl said:

I mentioned this a couple days ago.  I think when decisions are being made about the 8 starting positional players in the field, defense is a higher priority than what we are probably considering.  So basically the players that will likely be considered nuggets are going to need to be above average defenders.  If you aren't and the organization doesn't believe you ever will be then at best you will be a role player.  I think Santander will be a DH this season more than not and honestly the next guy moved will likely be Mountcastle as soon as they can find a replacement the offers better defense with respectable offensive production.

This past season we heard Odor was playing because of his D.  As much as we all laughed at this I am now thinking this could be the blue print of the team moving forward.  I think the organization has determined that Vavra and Stowers will never be plus defenders so they have basically been ruled out from a starting role unless their is injuries.

That's an interesting take.   You might have something there although I think Mayo might be an exception.

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, Aristotelian said:

Tough grader! I guess I wasn't expecting much from any of those deals. I wouldn't close the book on the Givens trade. Vavra is still an interesting player to me, although appears to be out of favor similar to Stowers. 

Tough grader or are you an easy grade?