Bowden claims Os have been aggressive

[maybenxtyr]

 

Whether the moves work out or not Texas was aggressive. 

 

The Orioles off season has been lazy.

[RarityFlaherty]

I’m not sure why everyone thinks this is BS. We’ve heard that they were pursuing guys all off-season. It’s definitely possible that we lost out on players, even if we matched the highest offer. Unfortunately, Baltimore just isn’t a very appealing destination for some players. It might take us making the playoffs for free agents to start taking notice, but even then, some players still won’t want to come here.

[btdart20]

Elias (and others) have said the best year of a FA signing is the first year or two.  I don't know the stats behind that comment or whether or not it's true.  But that sounds like the paradigm Elias is working within.  And how he's limiting the risk of dead money on the books.  

Boras shared about 'birds of prey' or something like that.  So maybe they did make some aggressive AAV 1-year offers toward players who wanted a longer term/more guaranteed money.  

1 minute ago, RarityFlaherty said:

I’m not sure why everyone thinks this is BS. We’ve heard that they were pursuing guys all off-season. It’s definitely possible that we lost out on players, even if we matched the highest offer. Unfortunately, Baltimore just isn’t a very appealing destination for some players. It might take us making the playoffs for free agents to start taking notice, but even then, some players still won’t want to come here.

It's BS when fan expectations were a TOR arm and a MOO bat and reality proved otherwise.  

[Frobby]

19 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Eovaldi got 2 years. An aggressive offer for him would have been 3/50 or so. 

I agree there.  There are some other pitchers where an “aggressive” offer couid have been made, but was beaten by an “insane” offer.  But whatever.  Elias didn’t get it done.   It will be interesting to see how this group of pitchers performs going forward and how many contracts pay off or flop.   It’s definitely possible that the flop rate will be high given the number of pitchers with durability issues in this year’s class.   

[RarityFlaherty]

3 minutes ago, btdart20 said:

It's BS when fan expectations were a TOR arm and a MOO bat and reality proved otherwise.  

I get that fans wanted more out of this off-season, but ya’ll are acting like there aren’t 29 other teams out there vying for all of these free agents too. Unfortunately, there are a lot of other options that may be more attractive to free agents right now. Why would a player want to come to Baltimore when they are also being courted by teams in better places to live and in much bigger markets? We probably need to make the playoffs first before most free agents take notice. 

 I think everyone needs to start getting used to this team not making a ton of noise in free agency. It feels like this team will be mostly built through the farm system. And I’m fine with that. For the sake of everyone’s health, ya’ll should start being fine with it too. 

[Yardball85]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

This I agree with 100%. The core of the best prospects is here and ready to go. It was time to surround them with top tier major league talent. So far, Elias has failed to do so.

This.  Especially with how low the payroll currently is, with Gunnar/Adley/GrayRod making pennies.  It amazes me that people defend the Orioles not adding better players this offseason. 

[Yardball85]

23 minutes ago, maybenxtyr said:

 

Whether the moves work out or not Texas was aggressive. 

 

The Orioles off season has been lazy.

Yup.  Lazy/cheap/too risk averse.

The Orioles should have beaten their offer for Eovaldi.  The Orioles should have beaten/matched the Jays' offer for Bassitt.  Time will tell. 

[Sports Guy]

19 minutes ago, RarityFlaherty said:

I’m not sure why everyone thinks this is BS. We’ve heard that they were pursuing guys all off-season. It’s definitely possible that we lost out on players, even if we matched the highest offer. Unfortunately, Baltimore just isn’t a very appealing destination for some players. It might take us making the playoffs for free agents to start taking notice, but even then, some players still won’t want to come here.

At the deadline last year, Elias said they tried to make trades but couldn’t come to an agreement on anything. 
 

We heard that they had multi year deals out to pitchers this year and again, they failed to get a deal done.

So, if you are saying that Elias is trying his best than I would say his best isn’t good enough. 

No matter how you slice it, the team failed. 
 

Their plan was, supposedly, to bring in better bats and at least 1 pitcher that was a real upgrade over Lyles. We know they wanted to do this because they could have just kept Lyles and Elias essentially said they wanted more.

But they have failed.

 

[HakunaSakata]

10 minutes ago, RarityFlaherty said:

I get that fans wanted more out of this off-season, but ya’ll are acting like there aren’t 29 other teams out there vying for all of these free agents too. Unfortunately, there are a lot of other options that may be more attractive to free agents right now. Why would a player want to come to Baltimore when they are also being courted by teams in better places to live and in much bigger markets? We probably need to make the playoffs first before most free agents take notice. 

 I think everyone needs to start getting used to this team not making a ton of noise in free agency. It feels like this team will be mostly built through the farm system. And I’m fine with that. For the sake of everyone’s health, ya’ll should start being fine with it too. 

This such a cop out excuse and I'm so sick of hearing it. This is a young exciting team on the upswing and Baltimore is still considered a great baseball town. (i.e., it's not Siberia). And the bottom line is money talks (if you actually offer it). 

[Daddy-O's]

The Orioles window to mediocrity is wide open and they are doing their best to keep it that way.  It should draw fans, without costing a lot of money.

[RarityFlaherty]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

At the deadline last year, Elias said they tried to make trades but couldn’t come to an agreement on anything. 
 

We heard that they had multi year deals out to pitchers this year and again, they failed to get a deal done.

So, if you are saying that Elias is trying his best than I would say his best isn’t good enough. 

No matter how you slice it, the team failed. 
 

Their plan was, supposedly, to bring in better bats and at least 1 pitcher that was a real upgrade over Lyles. We know they wanted to do this because they could have just kept Lyles and Elias essentially said they wanted more.

But they have failed.

 

They could have been aggressive and still failed.
 

Do you think Elias isn’t trying his best? He’s just phoning it in and doesn’t care anymore? Because that’s how it feels from a lot of the posts here. As much as it sucks, Baltimore isn’t a place people want to live. I’m from Baltimore and love the city  and it’s teams with all my heart, but even I don’t live there anymore. If you want to forever be disappointed, be my guest, but I don’t think we should be expecting them to make any big splash in free agency until we at least make the playoffs. 

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, RarityFlaherty said:

They could have been aggressive and still failed.
 

Do you think Elias isn’t trying his best? He’s just phoning it in and doesn’t care anymore? Because that’s how it feels from a lot of the posts here. As much as it sucks, Baltimore isn’t a place people want to live. I’m from Baltimore and love the city  and it’s teams with all my heart, but even I don’t live there anymore. If you want to forever be disappointed, be my guest, but I don’t think we should be expecting them to make any big splash in free agency until we at least make the playoffs. 

I think Elias is hamstrung by ownership and has completely misread the market. 

Your last sentence makes no sense.

Edited January 5, 2023 by Sports Guy

[btdart20]

10 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

At the deadline last year, Elias said they tried to make trades but couldn’t come to an agreement on anything. 
 

We heard that they had multi year deals out to pitchers this year and again, they failed to get a deal done.

So, if you are saying that Elias is trying his best than I would say his best isn’t good enough. 

No matter how you slice it, the team failed. 
 

Their plan was, supposedly, to bring in better bats and at least 1 pitcher that was a real upgrade over Lyles. We know they wanted to do this because they could have just kept Lyles and Elias essentially said they wanted more.

But they have failed.

 

The team failed per your expectations.  He failed fan expectations.  Elias seems to be a man of conviction.

Anybody who lives their lives without convictions and purpose is heavily influenced by their emotions when making decisions.  It's simply the nature of the human brain.  Guardrails are needed.  Elias seems to trust his guardrails.

[btdart20]

18 minutes ago, RarityFlaherty said:

I get that fans wanted more out of this off-season, but ya’ll are acting like there aren’t 29 other teams out there vying for all of these free agents too. Unfortunately, there are a lot of other options that may be more attractive to free agents right now. Why would a player want to come to Baltimore when they are also being courted by teams in better places to live and in much bigger markets? We probably need to make the playoffs first before most free agents take notice. 

 I think everyone needs to start getting used to this team not making a ton of noise in free agency. It feels like this team will be mostly built through the farm system. And I’m fine with that. For the sake of everyone’s health, ya’ll should start being fine with it too. 

And that's the biggest angst that I have.  My expectations this offseason with what seemed like payroll flexibility and FO willingness ('liftoff') was a true TOR at least and an upgraded LHH (like a Brantley or an Abreu).  We got neither.  I can't speak for "people" but I'm stuck wondering why.  

[RarityFlaherty]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

I think Elias is hamstrung by ownership and has completely misread the market. 

Your last sentence makes no sense.

I’m just saying, you are going to keep being disappointed if you expect big things in free agency. That’s not how this team will be built. We aren’t the Yankees. Once we make the playoffs, we will start to be a more attractive team for free agents and then maybe we will be able to make a decent signing or two. But I doubt we’ll ever seriously be in the running for any of the top talent in free agency because those guys mostly just want to go to the bigger market teams.