Orioles acquire Ryan O’Hearn

[yark14]

7 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Such a weird, weird claim and then to DFA him knowing no one is picking up his $1.4 million contract is really a head scratcher.

4D chess.

[MurphDogg]

11 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Such a weird, weird claim and then to DFA him knowing no one is picking up his $1.4 million contract is really a head scratcher.

The Royals tried to do the same thing and failed. I am glad to see that they are willing to spend $1.4M on a AAA depth piece. His statcast numbers are decent and he has crushed AAA his last two partial seasons there (though only totaling 230 plate appearances). Maybe the new shift rules help him out too. He is an interesting option for a change of scenery guy and a step up from Tyler Nevin at the very least.

Edited January 13, 2023 by MurphDogg

[Tony-OH]

1 minute ago, MurphDogg said:

The Royals tried to do the same thing and failed. I am glad to see that they are willing to spend $1.4M on a AAA depth piece. His statcast numbers are decent and he has crushed AAA his last two partial seasons there (though only totaling 230 plate appearances). Maybe the new shift rules help him out too. He is an interesting option for a change of scenery guy and a step up from Tyler Nevin at the very least.

No one is going to convince me it was a smart idea to claim a guy with a $1.4 million salary to play in AAA for "depth". 

The only thing this move has for it that doesn't make it the most head scratching move of the offseason is the whole Anthony Bemboom move at the end of last year. Oh, and giving a 31-year old slow slap hitter a $8 million contract while blocking one of your top prospects after a full successful AAA season is a head scratcher too, but we've beaten that to death.

Now, is he a "step up" over Nevin? Sure, but that is a pretty low bar to get over and I'm betting they could of just signed O'hearn to a split minor league/major league contract once he passed through waivers (which he was, because we were the only organization that claimed since he went through the next time).

While Elias has done a great job building this franchise from a draft, development and use of analytics, this offseason has me questioning his ability to take a team to the next step. Not saying he can't do it, just saying these questionable decisions where he seems to be overly aggressive with players like Gibson, Frazier and O'Hearn, while getting beaten out on potential impact FAs like Bassitt and has yet to trade from his stable of prospects, does make me wonder. 

It appears to me that he plans on "hoping" this team over achieves once again while "hoping" all of his bounceback guys bounceback while "hoping" all his young players take step forwards. That's a lot of hope.

 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

No one is going to convince me it was a smart idea to claim a guy with a $1.4 million salary to play in AAA for "depth". 

I’m sticking with my theory that the O’s aren’t paying all of O’Hearn’s salary.  Consider this chronology:

Dec. 28: Braves DFA Diaz

Jan. 3: O’Hearn acquired from the Royals

Jan. 5: O’s claim of Diaz is announced

Now, the O’s must have known on the day they acquired O’Hearn that they had a claim in on Diaz and would need to DFA O’Hearn to make room for Diaz.  I just don’t think it’s logical that they would have taken on all of a $1.4 mm contract for a guy they already knew was likely to be DFA.  And I don’t think the O’s act that illogically.  

[ThisIsBirdland]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

No one is going to convince me it was a smart idea to claim a guy with a $1.4 million salary to play in AAA for "depth". 

The only thing this move has for it that doesn't make it the most head scratching move of the offseason is the whole Anthony Bemboom move at the end of last year. Oh, and giving a 31-year old slow slap hitter a $8 million contract while blocking one of your top prospects after a full successful AAA season is a head scratcher too, but we've beaten that to death.

Now, is he a "step up" over Nevin? Sure, but that is a pretty low bar to get over and I'm betting they could of just signed O'hearn to a split minor league/major league contract once he passed through waivers (which he was, because we were the only organization that claimed since he went through the next time).

While Elias has done a great job building this franchise from a draft, development and use of analytics, this offseason has me questioning his ability to take a team to the next step. Not saying he can't do it, just saying these questionable decisions where he seems to be overly aggressive with players like Gibson, Frazier and O'Hearn, while getting beaten out on potential impact FAs like Bassitt and has yet to trade from his stable of prospects, does make me wonder. 

It appears to me that he plans on "hoping" this team over achieves once again while "hoping" all of his bounceback guys bounceback while "hoping" all his young players take step forwards. That's a lot of hope.

 

All fair points, I wanted Bassitt too.

With that said, as a fan I typically defer to the decision making of the organizations I follow just because I know how much time, energy and resources they invest in their process versus what I can glean as a fan. That's not to say I don't think organizations don't screw up, often through 4D chess or groupthink dynamics, and that fans input shouldn't be incorporated by organizations.

With Elias though, he really has done a pretty indisputably excellent job at each phase of the rebuild to this point. I don't think anyone could have expected it to have realistically both gone faster than it has, and to allow the team to be as deep with controllable young talent as it currently is. As has been said though, none of this involved the next level steps of signing marquee free agents and acquiring marquee players through trades. Whether this is from financial constraints or timidness on Elias' part, or whether it's intentional on Elias' part, is unknown. Given that he said he expected to acquire a top 1-3 starter, I think that strongly lends to the financial constraints or the timidness argument.

The one reason it *may* be intentional is if they really do view the window as still too early to make the type of major long-term investments this years FA's (or possible trade options) would have cost. Whether we like it or not, most teams have budgetary constraints, projected out over multiple seasons. If they're comfortable shelling out $20m to Gibson, Frazier and O'Hearn, knowing that it's tied just to 2023, they may be better prepared to invest in major additions when they feel their realistic world-series contending window is opening up, hopefully next off-season. Even though I wanted him, not having $42 million committed to Bassitt between 2024 and 2025 as a 35/36 year old may allow them to better invest elsewhere at that point. Is this naïve optimism? There's a good chance, but I could see it as a justifiable strategy if they're managing their budget conservatively though still with the intention of making future investments.

[emmett16]

3 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

No one is going to convince me it was a smart idea to claim a guy with a $1.4 million salary to play in AAA for "depth". 

The only thing this move has for it that doesn't make it the most head scratching move of the offseason is the whole Anthony Bemboom move at the end of last year. Oh, and giving a 31-year old slow slap hitter a $8 million contract while blocking one of your top prospects after a full successful AAA season is a head scratcher too, but we've beaten that to death.

Now, is he a "step up" over Nevin? Sure, but that is a pretty low bar to get over and I'm betting they could of just signed O'hearn to a split minor league/major league contract once he passed through waivers (which he was, because we were the only organization that claimed since he went through the next time).

While Elias has done a great job building this franchise from a draft, development and use of analytics, this offseason has me questioning his ability to take a team to the next step. Not saying he can't do it, just saying these questionable decisions where he seems to be overly aggressive with players like Gibson, Frazier and O'Hearn, while getting beaten out on potential impact FAs like Bassitt and has yet to trade from his stable of prospects, does make me wonder. 

It appears to me that he plans on "hoping" this team over achieves once again while "hoping" all of his bounceback guys bounceback while "hoping" all his young players take step forwards. That's a lot of hope.

 

As a pro player guy and a pro MLB guy, I think having guys with 1.4MM salaries in AAA is nothing but good for the sport.  

[RZNJ]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

I’m sticking with my theory that the O’s aren’t paying all of O’Hearn’s salary.  Consider this chronology:

Dec. 28: Braves DFA Diaz

Jan. 3: O’Hearn acquired from the Royals

Jan. 5: O’s claim of Diaz is announced

Now, the O’s must have known on the day they acquired O’Hearn that they had a claim in on Diaz and would need to DFA O’Hearn to make room for Diaz.  I just don’t think it’s logical that they would have taken on all of a $1.4 mm contract for a guy they already knew was likely to be DFA.  And I don’t think the O’s act that illogically.  

Here's the logic but you won't like it.  The Orioles were signing players like Jake Cave to split contracts with high minor league salaries.   The thinking was we'll DFA this guy and no one will claim him because of the high minor league salary and we'll create a AAAA taxi team at Norfolk.  Now, O'Hearn gets put on waivers and the Orioles say let's claim him and then send him down. No one will claim him.  If they do, no big loss but for 1.4M we'll have O'Hearn in case Montcastle has a season ending injury.   Would I do it?  No.  But it goes along with what they were doing with Cave and Bemboom.  Again, no money was announced coming from KC in that deal.  You don't want to believe it.

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, RZNJ said:

Here's the logic but you won't like it.  The Orioles were signing players like Jake Cave to split contracts with high minor league salaries.   The thinking was we'll DFA this guy and no one will claim him because of the high minor league salary and we'll create a AAAA taxi team at Norfolk.  Now, O'Hearn gets put on waivers and the Orioles say let's claim him and then send him down. No one will claim him.  If they do, no big loss but for 1.4M we'll have O'Hearn in case Montcastle has a season ending injury.   Would I do it?  No.  But it goes along with what they were doing with Cave and Bemboom.  Again, no money was announced coming from KC in that deal.  You don't want to believe it.

I fully admit I don’t like it or want to believe it.  O’Hearn simply isn’t worth it.  I don’t have any evidence that you’re wrong.  Yet.  

[Moose Milligan]

If he gets more than 50 at bats in Baltimore this year something is wrong. 

[eddie83]

6 hours ago, emmett16 said:

As a pro player guy and a pro MLB guy, I think having guys with 1.4MM salaries in AAA is nothing but good for the sport.  

I don’t see any reason why he won’t start in Baltimore. This was just a way to be able to carry an extra 40 man spot for awhile for free. 
 

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

I fully admit I don’t like it or want to believe it.  O’Hearn simply isn’t worth it.  I don’t have any evidence that you’re wrong.  Yet.  

If O’Hearn was making $700k and Adley $1.4M would you feel better? They invested an extra 700k to have a depth piece. 

[sportsfan8703]

6 hours ago, RZNJ said:

Here's the logic but you won't like it.  The Orioles were signing players like Jake Cave to split contracts with high minor league salaries.   The thinking was we'll DFA this guy and no one will claim him because of the high minor league salary and we'll create a AAAA taxi team at Norfolk.  Now, O'Hearn gets put on waivers and the Orioles say let's claim him and then send him down. No one will claim him.  If they do, no big loss but for 1.4M we'll have O'Hearn in case Montcastle has a season ending injury.   Would I do it?  No.  But it goes along with what they were doing with Cave and Bemboom.  Again, no money was announced coming from KC in that deal.  You don't want to believe it.

Bingo. The O’s already used this strategy in the very beginning of the offseason on Cave, Benboom, and Kolozvary. People just thought the moves were puzzling, but really they were manipulating/lengthening the 40 man roster by playing the waiver wire game. Also, I believe those guys only got 800k versus 1.4 million. So we’ve only lost Cave. 

[Yardball85]

Humorously enough, O'Hearn is now with the Orioles and Diaz is not.  Last week, it was Diaz with the Orioles and O'Hearn in DFA limbo.  Then before that, O'Hearn with the Orioles and Diaz was not.  Then, before that, Diaz was with the Orioles and O'Hearn was not.

What a weird offseason subplot. 

[Frobby]

11 minutes ago, Yardball85 said:

Humorously enough, O'Hearn is now with the Orioles and Diaz is not.  Last week, it was Diaz with the Orioles and O'Hearn in DFA limbo.  Then before that, O'Hearn with the Orioles and Diaz was not.  Then, before that, Diaz was with the Orioles and O'Hearn was not.

What a weird offseason subplot. 

Has Diaz been claimed by another team? I don’t think he’s out of the organization just yet.  

[Yardball85]

18 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Has Diaz been claimed by another team? I don’t think he’s out of the organization just yet.  

Good point. 

[interloper]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Has Diaz been claimed by another team? I don’t think he’s out of the organization just yet.  

Officially in AAA now.