Orioles sign Adam Frazier

[eddie83]

We just need them to sign a pitcher. 
 

The news cycle will change!! 

 

Givens didn’t bump the needle enough. Nobody hated that. 

[LookinUp]

5 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

It’s the end of the world if Westburg does not get 650 at bats in the majors this year?

...

That money was not being used anywhere else.

The bottom line is Odor, Aguilar and Phillips all happened, and all in the middle of a pennant race.

That's borderline unforgiveable.

Now he's spending $8 million on a guy who doesn't project as better, or much better, than what we have in house.

It stinks, and the "money's burning a hole in Elias' pockets" is a terrible justification.

At $3 million, I like the move. At $8 million, given last year, I don't trust the move.

[eddie83]

4 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

The bottom line is Odor, Aguilar and Phillips all happened, and all in the middle of a pennant race.

That's borderline unforgiveable.

Now he's spending $8 million on a guy who doesn't project as better, or much better, than what we have in house.

It stinks, and the "money's burning a hole in Elias' pockets" is a terrible justification.

At $3 million, I like the move. At $8 million, given last year, I don't trust the move.

I promise I am done on this thread. This is it. Dead serious. 
 

The amount of anger over those 3 players floors me. Phillips had 17 at bats. Aguilar had around 50. 20 vs LHP. Odor was a stopgap in a year they weren’t pushing for a spot. Vavra was called up. They kept playing Odor over him. 
 

To me all those moves are not a big deal. Having a pitching coach with a drinking problem ruin Arrieta and impact potentially other starters that is a big deal. The whole chain of events that set off after it. If Arrieta pans out here maybe they win the WS. Will never know. I done on this thread.  Promise. 

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, RZNJ said:

2022 is another story.   He lost foot speed and he lost all ability to hit the ball with any authority, not that he had much to begin with.   He had a pretty solid career up until 2021 but this signing does bring back feelings of Garret Atkins.

See, we agree afterall!

[Tony-OH]

6 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

I promise I am done on this thread. This is it. Dead serious. 
 

The amount of anger over those 3 players floors me. Phillips had 17 at bats. Aguilar had around 50. 20 vs LHP. Odor was a stopgap in a year they weren’t pushing for a spot. Vavra was called up. They kept playing Odor over him. 
 

To me all those moves are not a big deal. Having a pitching coach with a drinking problem ruin Arrieta and impact potentially other starters that is a big deal. The whole chain of events that set off after it. If Arrieta pans out here maybe they win the WS. Will never know. I done on this thread.  Promise. 

the problem we have is it shows Elias' ability to judge talent when the team has needs. He chose these guys and then in Aguilar's case, played him over Stowers when they needed to evaluate Stowers at the big league level anyways. 

It's not the amount of PAs given to Phillips and Aguilar, it the fact Elias and company evaluated them with their process and they failed. That's concerning to some of us.

[Sports Guy]

35 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

How many at bats?  How many? It’s the end of the world if Westburg does not get 650 at bats in the majors this year? His career forever ruined. Not to mention the fact that with Urias here he was not getting that anyway. Urias won a GG for crying out loud. 

This time a year ago I bet everyone had DL Hall in the 2023 rotation. How many want him there now? 
 

You honestly think this situation will not play itself out? I’m suppose to believe that the same man in Elias who’s biggest reason for getting this job was for his drafting/scouting/player development skills now has no clue how to do that? 

I don’t love the move, I understand it. The move is completely logical. That money was not being used anywhere else. If you have another position player in mind you preferred, wonderful. That player whoever it was would be blocking someone from at bats. I like Westburg, I like Ortiz, Cowser all of them. It’s a 162 game season. They have deep position player depth. That’s a good thing. 
 

The position players around here will still be cheap for awhile. I would expect Elias in the future to continue to add players to enhance that over the years. All the time you see contending teams make additions to improve their roster. They don’t assume everything will go right and if does than better yet. 

At the end of the day until he starts to unwind the position players at the AAA/MLB level he has two options. Add nobody/bench player or add someone he thinks still has something left. He may whiff here. He will certainly whiff on moves. Everyone does. 

The young guys miss out on at least a few hundred at bats, if not more, with him on the team.

It’s a completely unnecessary move. We have ML ready prospects thriving in AAA who need and should be in the majors.

Instead you blocked them with a go nowhere vet player and you are paying him a salary that all but guarantees him significant playing time throughout the season.

With this team tanking, rebuilding and finally being at a place where they can win, in large part because of the talent coming up through the system, it’s mind boggling to me that anyone would be ok with blocking them with a inferior talent.

I was completely against Correa or Turner but at least those guys are high level, elite talents that can put you over the top.  Frazier is nothing close to that. 
 

It’s a horrible decision on every level imaginable.

[Sports Guy]

22 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

I promise I am done on this thread. This is it. Dead serious. 
 

The amount of anger over those 3 players floors me. Phillips had 17 at bats. Aguilar had around 50. 20 vs LHP. Odor was a stopgap in a year they weren’t pushing for a spot. Vavra was called up. They kept playing Odor over him. 
 

To me all those moves are not a big deal. Having a pitching coach with a drinking problem ruin Arrieta and impact potentially other starters that is a big deal. The whole chain of events that set off after it. If Arrieta pans out here maybe they win the WS. Will never know. I done on this thread.  Promise. 

They would also DH Odor over Stowers iirc. 
 

You actually believe, a team as tight as the Os, would just cut/bench a guy making 8M?  A guy that they have targeted from day 1? A guy who fits the description of someone they wanted?  You actually believe that?

[OriolesMagic83]

On 12/19/2022 at 8:54 AM, Yardball85 said:

1 year, $7.5M?

With $4 million deferred over 30 years.

[Number5]

47 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

The bottom line is Odor, Aguilar and Phillips all happened, and all in the middle of a pennant race.

In fairness, the Orioles weren't expected to be in a pennant race when they signed Odor.  Why they continued to start him once they were surprisingly in contention is another question.

[LookinUp]

5 minutes ago, Number5 said:

In fairness, the Orioles weren't expected to be in a pennant race when they signed Odor.  Why they continued to start him once they were surprisingly in contention is another question.

I know this is beating a dead horse, but I mostly haven't been the one beating it. So, I'll just say...

It was one thing to sign Odor to a bad team. Fine.

It was another thing to keep him on the roster when we were in contention. Fine, I guess.

It was crazy to play him as much as they did with better options on the roster and in the minors.

My problem with Frazier isn't the player, it's the fact he's probably going to play a lot. He needs to exceed his probable outcomes for this to make sense, IMO.

[RZNJ]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

See, we agree afterall!

Amazing.  We do, pretty much.

[Hank Scorpio]

I would have preferred internal options. I think Ortiz or Westburg are both as likely to be as productive.

 Obviously this discounts Frazier’s veteranosity and leadership, which are things, I guess. 

I don’t think this is a sign they’re punting the season. It’s disappointing that they haven’t jumped on any of the available starting pitching but predictable given the org’s lack of interest in free agency historically.

[Yardball85]

19 hours ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

With $4 million deferred over 30 years.

LOL - exactly. 

[RZNJ]

I don’t recall seeing this quote before.  This is from one of Roch’s columns before Frazier.

“If we don’t, I think we’ll be OK,” executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias said last week during a Winter Meetings interview with "MASN All Access."

“We’ve got Terrin Vavra, we’ve got Joey Ortiz, who we just added to the 40-man roster, we’ve got some other players that aren’t on the 40-man yet but are really good-looking prospects that are in Triple-A, so we’ve got options in the infield. But it is an area where there’s a fit for a veteran to come in just because (Ramón) Urías, Gunnar (Henderson) and (Jorge) Mateo, they can cover all those spots, but not all three of them are going to play 162 games, so we’ve got some more timeshare to be had at a minimum.”

No mention of Westburg specifically although you’d assume he and Norby are the “good looking prospects who are in AAA”.

This is a case of Elias telling us exactly what he was going to do before he did it.

 

[Roll Tide]

2 hours ago, RZNJ said:

I don’t recall seeing this quote before.  This is from one of Roch’s columns before Frazier.

“If we don’t, I think we’ll be OK,” executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias said last week during a Winter Meetings interview with "MASN All Access."

“We’ve got Terrin Vavra, we’ve got Joey Ortiz, who we just added to the 40-man roster, we’ve got some other players that aren’t on the 40-man yet but are really good-looking prospects that are in Triple-A, so we’ve got options in the infield. But it is an area where there’s a fit for a veteran to come in just because (Ramón) Urías, Gunnar (Henderson) and (Jorge) Mateo, they can cover all those spots, but not all three of them are going to play 162 games, so we’ve got some more timeshare to be had at a minimum.”

No mention of Westburg specifically although you’d assume he and Norby are the “good looking prospects who are in AAA”.

This is a case of Elias telling us exactly what he was going to do before he did it.

 

I hear you ….but, for most of the season Odor played every day. If Hyde does that it’s a bad signing. I don’t see them paying him $8 million for a part time role.