In Hindsight What Would Have Been Your Perfect Orioles' Offseason?

[Big Al]

Get a backup catcher and a left handed hitter who can play 1B. Extend Adley, Gunnar and Cedric. 

Edited January 7, 2023 by Big Al

[Pickles]

1 hour ago, Big Al said:

Get a backup catcher and a left handed hitter who can play 1B. Extend Adley, Gunnar and Cedric. 

This.  I'd have been happier with extensions for Adley and Gunnar than with the signing of any free agent.  And I'd be fine with signing Cedric to a team friendly extension.

[forphase1]

3 hours ago, Big Al said:

Get a backup catcher and a left handed hitter who can play 1B. Extend Adley, Gunnar and Cedric. 

Would have loved to extend Gunnar and maybe Adley.  I'll pass on extending Cedric, unless it was very team friendly.

[Frobby]

My perfect Orioles offseason would have involved me disappearing to a foreign country for six months and not following what the Orioles did at all.

[SemperFi]

I'll echo extentions to at least Adley and hopefully Gunnar.  Forgetting everthing else it would show a clear investment from ownership in this franchises future.  Now whether it is in their best interest to sign and stay in Baltimore given the track record of the franchise is another story.  My greatest fear is that the Orioles pursue the Tampa model (likely with less success) trading off exciting home gown talent (Adley, Gunnar, Holliday) gambling on younger controlable assets.  Angelos has already hinted at this strategy, and the lack of spending this offseason supports it.

[Frobby]

5 minutes ago, SemperFi said:

I'll echo extentions to at least Adley and hopefully Gunnar.  Forgetting everthing else it would show a clear investment from ownership in this franchises future.  Now whether it is in their best interest to sign and stay in Baltimore given the track record of the franchise is another story.  My greatest fear is that the Orioles pursue the Tampa model (likely with less success) trading off exciting home gown talent (Adley, Gunnar, Holliday) gambling on younger controlable assets.  Angelos has already hinted at this strategy, and the lack of spending this offseason supports it.

As I said recently: Longoria was extended and played 10 years for Tampa.  Zobrist was extended and was traded in his 9th year with the team.  Kiermaier was extended and played 9 years for them.  Upton was extended and played 8 years for them.  Crawford was extended and played 9 years for them.   Shields was extended and played 7 years for them.  Price didn’t extend but they held on to him until the trade deadline of the year he was to become a free agent.  So the Tampa model is not as simplistic as some people like to portray it.  

[foxfield]

I think if the O's are unwilling to spend money, they needed to still invest whatever they could in pitching and commit to playing the young players.  

There is still time to make moves with trades.  I am not really opposed to anything that has been done, but collectively, it is without question underwhelming.

My ideal off season would still include another SP who slots at 3 or higher.  And a bat.  And a bobble head that sings Hello, Im Johnny Cash.

[Sports Guy]

Yea, Tampa has kept a lot of guys. 
 

People need to understand that most pro athletes aren’t worth a second contract..at least not a big one. For MLB, I’m defining that second contract as, post arbitration.

Tampa recognizes this.  Sure, some of it is them being cheap but most guys just aren’t worth extensions. Most players should be dealt as they start to get expensive. It’s players are guys whose production should and can easily be replicated by those making the league minimum.

You may look at that as cheap and you may say that it means you don’t keep a lot of fan favorites around but so what. The end of the day, what matters is winning and being efficient with your payroll and your roster helps big time when it comes to winning.  

Above all else, I root for the name on the front of the jersey, not the back of it.

 

[Sports Guy]

3 minutes ago, foxfield said:

I think if the O's are unwilling to spend money, they needed to still invest whatever they could in pitching and commit to playing the young players.  

There is still time to make moves with trades.  I am not really opposed to anything that has been done, but collectively, it is without question underwhelming.

My ideal off season would still include another SP who slots at 3 or higher.  And a bat.  And a bobble head that sings Hello, Im Johnny Cash.

The Frazier move is awful no matter how you look at it but other than that, I agree that when looking at any single move they have done, in a vacuum, that you don’t see any “bad” moves. 
 

It’s just that when you take them in totality, it looks bad.

[SemperFi]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Yea, Tampa has kept a lot of guys. 
 

People need to understand that most pro athletes aren’t worth a second contract..at least not a big one. For MLB, I’m defining that second contract as, post arbitration.

Tampa recognizes this.  Sure, some of it is them being cheap but most guys just aren’t worth extensions. Most players should be dealt as they start to get expensive. It’s players are guys whose production should and can easily be replicated by those making the league minimum.

You may look at that as cheap and you may say that it means you don’t keep a lot of fan favorites around but so what. The end of the day, what matters is winning and being efficient with your payroll and your roster helps big time when it comes to winning.  

Above all else, I root for the name on the front of the jersey, not the back of it.

 

Don't disagree but part of my point is that even though I like/support Elias I really don't have any faith in the ownership/management to execute that strategy well-certainly not as well as Tampa has.  Another point being that in citing the Tampa model Angelos seems to temper expectations on spending and proactively pursuing free agents-yes I am abundantly aware of his sending comment but I think it is a blatant cop out given the recent track record of ownership.

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, SemperFi said:

Don't disagree but part of my point is that even though I like/support Elias I really don't have any faith in the ownership/management to execute that strategy well-certainly not as well as Tampa has.  Another point being that in citing the Tampa model Angelos seems to temper expectations on spending and proactively pursuing free agents-yes I am abundantly aware of his sending comment but I think it is a blatant cop out given the recent track record of ownership.

Well look, part of any of these top teams plans is keeping their own and that is a concept that has its own issues.

But yes, the Os have to do that as well. That’s the type of thing that should be called out by the media.  Anytime any one of those guys mentions Tampa or Cle or whoever, they should say ok but then where are the long term contracts to secure your own players?

 

[sportsfan8703]

Hindsight - Not signing Frazier or Gibson. Signing Bassit and Brantley. I like the McCann and Givens moves. 
 

Going Forward - Sign Bauer. Bring Mancini back, if not Voit or Pham. 

[SemperFi]

19 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Yea, Tampa has kept a lot of guys. 
 

People need to understand that most pro athletes aren’t worth a second contract..at least not a big one. For MLB, I’m defining that second contract as, post arbitration.

Tampa recognizes this.  Sure, some of it is them being cheap but most guys just aren’t worth extensions. Most players should be dealt as they start to get expensive. It’s players are guys whose production should and can easily be replicated by those making the league minimum.

You may look at that as cheap and you may say that it means you don’t keep a lot of fan favorites around but so what. The end of the day, what matters is winning and being efficient with your payroll and your roster helps big time when it comes to winning.  

Above all else, I root for the name on the front of the jersey, not the back of it.

 

Certainly, thats why the long term (10 year) contracts are so scary-I don't think the Orioles can play in that arena.  Their margin of era is so much smaller than the truly big market teams.  That being said there is a difference in offering a guy in his prime vs specifically a college guy whose productivity will slide.  The most productive years in a guys career are generally the first few years but for whatever reason this seems to be changing

[theobird]

26 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Yea, Tampa has kept a lot of guys. 
 

People need to understand that most pro athletes aren’t worth a second contract..at least not a big one. For MLB, I’m defining that second contract as, post arbitration.

Tampa recognizes this.  Sure, some of it is them being cheap but most guys just aren’t worth extensions. Most players should be dealt as they start to get expensive. It’s players are guys whose production should and can easily be replicated by those making the league minimum.

You may look at that as cheap and you may say that it means you don’t keep a lot of fan favorites around but so what. The end of the day, what matters is winning and being efficient with your payroll and your roster helps big time when it comes to winning.  

Above all else, I root for the name on the front of the jersey, not the back of it.

 

I totally agree! Most pro athletes are not worth a second contract. So let’s not be the fools that reach out and sign these guys to free agent (second contracts) deals. Build deep depth, check. Don’t take stupid risks on veteran free agents, check. play the international player game, check. 

I think a lot of O’s fans just need to “Kwitcherbitchen”.

[Frobby]

43 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Yea, Tampa has kept a lot of guys. 
 

People need to understand that most pro athletes aren’t worth a second contract..at least not a big one. For MLB, I’m defining that second contract as, post arbitration.

Tampa recognizes this.  Sure, some of it is them being cheap but most guys just aren’t worth extensions. Most players should be dealt as they start to get expensive. It’s players are guys whose production should and can easily be replicated by those making the league minimum.

You may look at that as cheap and you may say that it means you don’t keep a lot of fan favorites around but so what. The end of the day, what matters is winning and being efficient with your payroll and your roster helps big time when it comes to winning.  

I think the key part of this is “guys whose production should and can easily be replicated by those making the league minimum.”

I’d say, sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it’s not.  Young unestablished players are hard to predict.  Sometimes they turn out to be as good or better than the more established veteran, sometimes they fall on their face.  The fields are littered with highly regarded prospects who never had any sustained success in the majors.  

So, whenever a team jettisons a decent veteran in favor of a prospect, it is taking a risk.   To me, one of the most critical attributes of a good organization is one that is both unafraid to bring in prospects to replace veterans, but is good at assessing which of its prospects can succeed.   Look at the Astros, having the guts to replace Correa with Peña.