Kostka: Os need to follow a different path

[Sports Guy]

41 minutes ago, Pickles said:

That's the nature of the waiver wire.  Doesn't change the fact: The Orioles have done extremely well on the waiver wire under Elias.  And again, I ask: Who is even in the same category?

Which, again is weird, because I read right here he was really bad at it.

Up until last year, he had been bad at it (Urias was an exception) but you are too disingenuous to actually put that caveat in. Every one praised him for succeeding at that in 2022 but again, you won’t actually acknowledge that. 

And we don’t know that the waiver wire guys will be good in 2023. If they fall on their faces, will he still be good at it?

Edited January 6, 2023 by Sports Guy

[Pickles]

7 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Up until last year, he had been bad at it (Urias was an exception) but you are too disingenuous to actually put that caveat in. Every one praised him for succeeding at that in 2022 but again, you won’t actually acknowledge that. 

And we don’t know that the waiver wire guys will be good in 2023. If they fall on their faces, will he still be good at it?

Well, you tell me.  You knew he was bad at it last year, and now you're saying he's good at it.  What will you be saying next year?

This is a good thread idea though.  If I can get over my terminal laziness I think I'd like to make a comparison between what we've gotten off the waiver wire the last few years, versus what teams in comparable situtionans- Det, KC,- have gotten.

[Pickles]

22 minutes ago, owknows said:

I'm less worried about the season than I am the pileup of middle-infield boxcars happening in slow motion as we watch.... these are some talented guys.... the ones we have... and the ones who are coming... players whose value is being diminished by the sheer number of them, and our inability to get them all playing time...

So in the end.. when we finally do trade them... it will be under duress.... because we must. A situation other GM's will feast on. And instead of acting to make that situation better (playing the emerging talent, and trading in the short term)... we've acted to make the situation worse (adding a FA middle infielder and not getting the necessary AB's for the emerging talent).

This is a foreseeable and addressable problem.

And it is where I find fault with Elias.

A lot of the disagreements on this board, despite giving the appearance of being cavernous, are often just disagreements about timing/scheduling.

I don't agree that anyone is in danger of being devalued because they're not going to get the chance to play.  Between 3b, SS, 2b, COF, and DH there are plenty of at bats for Urias, Mateo, Henderson, and Frazier.  I concede that Westburg's major league career will be delayed, but short of performing poorly in AAA, that won't hurt his value.

Additionaly, I would say it is a common misconception to look at the players as stocks and bonds, and look to sell high.  It is not the GM's duty to get the max value for every player he can in a trade; it is his duty to maximize his value to the organization.  Now, yes, sometimes that is exactly by trading him for the most value he can return, but even more often it is getting the player to produce value on the field for the Baltimore Orioles.

An extreme example is Adley Rutschman.  His peak trade value is now.  It's only going down as he gets more expensive and closer to FA.  Does Elias need to strike while the iron is hot and extract the most he can for Rutschman right now?  Or do we let Adley Rutschman contribute to winning games in Baltimore and extract value that way?

I think we would all agree it is the latter.

Urias and Mateo are less extreme examples but it is the same rationale.  

[Sports Guy]

9 minutes ago, Pickles said:

Well, you tell me.  You knew he was bad at it last year, and now you're saying he's good at it.  What will you be saying next year?

This is a good thread idea though.  If I can get over my terminal laziness I think I'd like to make a comparison between what we've gotten off the waiver wire the last few years, versus what teams in comparable situtionans- Det, KC,- have gotten.

I’m saying his first several years here, outside of Urias, he basically failed at bringing in waiver wire talent that actually did something productive and provided value.

In 2022, that got better. Mateo, who was still a failure at the plate, provided better defense than anticipated and gave us a lot of value on the bases. Perez was excellent. He gave us better value which was great.  But continually relying on low level pick ups and thinking they are going to save you is wrong.

It’s perfectly fine to pick those guys up. Zero people have ever said otherwise. What is wrong is basically only picking those guys up.  
 

I think people on here have been so desensitized to winning that they forget what it takes to do it and are fine with “small wins”.

They needed to add legit talent to this roster. He has failed at doing that. Patting him on the back because he found diamonds in the rough for one season is kind of absurd.

 

[owknows]

1 minute ago, Pickles said:

A lot of the disagreements on this board, despite giving the appearance of being cavernous, are often just disagreements about timing/scheduling.I don't agree that anyone is in danger of being devalued because they're not going to get the chance to play.  Between 3b, SS, 2b, COF, and DH there are plenty of at bats for Urias, Mateo, Henderson, and Frazier. I concede that Westburg's major league career will be delayed, but short of performing poorly in AAA, that won't hurt his value.

But we were talking about Urias, Mateo, Henderson, Frazier, Vavra, Westburg, and Ortiz. You've conceded to impeding Westburg's progress. But haven't recoginized the impediment of Vavra and Ortiz. That's 3 guys whose career you've delayed by adding Frazier. And each guy you delay at AAA is going to have a ripple effect into the next class. Holliday is not far away.

 

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Additionaly, I would say it is a common misconception to look at the players as stocks and bonds, and look to sell high.  It is not the GM's duty to get the max value for every player he can in a trade; it is his duty to maximize his value to the organization.  Now, yes, sometimes that is exactly by trading him for the most value he can return, but even more often it is getting the player to produce value on the field for the Baltimore Orioles.

I'm not making a case for "sell high". I'm making the case that you created a logjam.

 

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An extreme example is Adley Rutschman.  His peak trade value is now.  It's only going down as he gets more expensive and closer to FA.  Does Elias need to strike while the iron is hot and extract the most he can for Rutschman right now?  Or do we let Adley Rutschman contribute to winning games in Baltimore and extract value that way?

I think we would all agree it is the latter.

I'm not sure what you think Adley has to do with my point. Are there 5 premium catchers in AAA and on the big club that will be vying for his job in the next year?

[Pickles]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I’m saying his first several years here, outside of Urias, he basically failed at bringing in waiver wire talent that actually did something productive and provided value.

In 2022, that got better. Mateo, who was still a failure at the plate, provided better defense than anticipated and gave us a lot of value on the bases. Perez was excellent. He gave us better value which was great.  But continually relying on low level pick ups and thinking they are going to save you is wrong.

It’s perfectly fine to pick those guys up. Zero people have ever said otherwise. What is wrong is basically only picking those guys up.  
 

I think people on here have been so desensitized to winning that they forget what it takes to do it and are fine with “small wins”.

They needed to add legit talent to this roster. He has failed at doing that. Patting him on the back because he found diamonds in the rough for one season is kind of absurd.

 

A healthy organization acquires talent from every avenue possible.  The only market that some successful clubs avoid is the top of the free agent market.

Since Elias has arrived this club has drafted well; it's developed well; it's turned other's trash into gold well; it's traded solidly; even the FA signings- beyond the league minimum guys- have been fairly decent.  We have yet to see a return from the International markets, but that should be of no surprise.  If that's the case in 3 more years, we might have a problem there.

All of those things are going to have more of an impact on winning and losing than one or two free agent contracts.  It's really just that simple.

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, Pickles said:

A healthy organization acquires talent from every avenue possible.  The only market that some successful clubs avoid is the top of the free agent market.

Since Elias has arrived this club has drafted well; it's developed well; it's turned other's trash into gold well; it's traded solidly; even the FA signings- beyond the league minimum guys- have been fairly decent.  We have yet to see a return from the International markets, but that should be of no surprise.  If that's the case in 3 more years, we might have a problem there.

All of those things are going to have more of an impact on winning and losing than one or two free agent contracts.  It's really just that simple.

Supplementing your roster with better FA absolutely is the difference between winning and losing. It all is. It’s naive to think differently.

You have to do all of it, especially when you are in playing in the best division in the sport..by far.

You have to get that extra wins. 
 

I think many people here are just as satisfied with high MiL rankings as they would be winning.

[Pickles]

1 minute ago, owknows said:

But we were talking about Urias, Mateo, Henderson, Frazier, Vavra, Westburg, and Ortiz. You've conceded to impeding Westburg's progress. But haven't recoginized the impediment of Vavra and Ortiz. That's 3 guys whose career you've delayed by adding Frazier. And each guy you delay at AAA is going to have a ripple effect into the next class. Holliday is not far away.

 

I'm not making a case for "sell high". I'm making the case that you created a logjam.

 

I'm not sure what you think Adley has to do with my point. Are there 5 premium catchers in AAA and on the big club that will be vying for his job in the next year?

I don't care about Vavra.  His future is a utility guy.  And that's the role I expect him to be in on OD.

Ortiz isn't being impeded yet.  He has 120 AAA PAs.  This is not a Don Baylor situation at all.  I'd also like to see him hit the ball for more than three months before I handed him a major league job.

Frazier isn't delaying three guys.  He's one man and one roster spot.  He's delaying Westburg.  

I wouldn't have done it personally.  But Elias is supposed to create logjams, also known as depth.  That's the sign of a healthy organization.

Was HOU creating a logjam when Carlos Correa was putting up a 7 WAR season and Jeremy Pena was OPS 950 in AAA?

Why yes, yes they were.  Was it a good thing for them?  Why yes, yes it was.

I think he's looking to make his trade this summer, and I think he's going to use the first three months of the season to evaluate what he's got.  Despite a common misconception, those three months could reveal a lot of things.

[Pickles]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Supplementing your roster with better FA absolutely is the difference between winning and losing. It all is. It’s naive to think differently.

You have to do all of it, especially when you are in playing in the best division in the sport..by far.

You have to get that extra wins. 
 

I think many people here are just as satisfied with high MiL rankings as they would be winning.

To your last point, not for long.

They supplemented their roster in FA this year.  You might not like the moves, and I'm not gungho about any of them, but they didn't ignore FA.  They just did somehting differently than you would have.

And the nature of that difference is being blown wildly out of proportion.

We talked about it in the thread yesterday.  Gibson/Frazier are projected to be worth 1.4 WAR less than Bassit/Abreu.  That's viturally nothing in the grand scheme of things.

[Sports Guy]

Just now, Pickles said:

To your last point, not for long.

They supplemented their roster in FA this year.  You might not like the moves, and I'm not gungho about any of them, but they didn't ignore FA.  They just did somehting differently than you would have.

And the nature of that difference is being blown wildly out of proportion.

We talked about it in the thread yesterday.  Gibson/Frazier are projected to be worth 1.4 WAR less than Bassit/Abreu.  That's viturally nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Projections don’t really mean anything.

Zero people would take those 2 over the other 2 and really, any projection that has them really close is incredibly flawed.

[Pickles]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Projections don’t really mean anything.

Zero people would take those 2 over the other 2 and really, any projection that has them really close is incredibly flawed.

Oh, I think plenty of franchises, and apparently our own, would prefer 1/18 for Gibson/Frazier vs. 3/120 for Bassit/Abreu.

I mean, if we aren't going to use projections to make our cases we don't really have anything to talk about until July.

[owknows]

Just now, Pickles said:

I don't care about Vavra.  His future is a utility guy.  And that's the role I expect him to be in on OD.

Vavra had one of the top 3 OBP numbers on the club in limited AB's. Gotta think that's something we could really use. Maybe we should care about him a little more.

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Ortiz isn't being impeded yet.  He has 120 AAA PAs.  This is not a Don Baylor situation at all.  I'd also like to see him hit the ball for more than three months before I handed him a major league job.

No. He'll be impeded at some point in 2023. That was my point. And yes of course. You'd like to see him back it up before he moves to the big club. The point is that if he does.. and earns a promotion... there will be no place for him.

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Frazier isn't delaying three guys.  He's one man and one roster spot.  He's delaying Westburg.  

He isn't delaying anyone yet.  But when the season starts he's an 8 million dollar FA. On this club that passes for actual money. They're gonna give him a full season's worth of AB's. Those are AB's that can and should be distributed to multiple players.

And it isn't just Frazier that's the problem. THERE ARE TOO MANY MIDDLE INFIELDERS.

Urias, Mateo, Henderson, Frazier, Vavra, Westburg, and Ortiz.

That's 7 guys for 3 positions. Arguably they needed to trade one or two players BEFORE they added Frazier.

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  But Elias is supposed to create logjams, also known as depth.  That's the sign of a healthy organization.

A procession of players with redundancy is depth.

7 potential starters that can't find AB's for 3 positions is a logjam.

Adding mediocre FA's to a logjam is not helpful.

Seems like an obvious enough point.

You seem unwilling to concede it. I think we've reached an impasse

[sevastras]

“It’s never been done this way.” Until it has. I’m tired of people who work for a company and have never owned a business saying things should be done this way or that way because that is how everyone else has always done it. I personally wish that things were done differently, but I am going to question the end result and not what I don’t fully understand of the beginning. If what we find at the end of the year isn’t what we had hoped for and can see in hindsight that the moves made this off-season were garbage, then we can say your strategy and thinking isn’t correct and didn’t work. But until then, writers and armchair GMs can sit in the comfort of their living rooms and never admit they were wrong if things do turn out right. 

[Frobby]

35 minutes ago, owknows said:

Vavra had one of the top 3 OBP numbers on the club in limited AB's. Gotta think that's something we could really use. Maybe we should care about him a little more.

I care about Vavra, because he’s young and can keep improving.   But I don’t like any analysis that focuses on OBP in a vacuum.  Vavra was worth 0.1 rWAR, 0.0 fWAR and if I thought that’s what he would be in the future I wouldn’t care about him at all no matter what his OBP was.   

[owknows]

7 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I care about Vavra, because he’s young and can keep improving.   But I don’t like any analysis that focuses on OBP in a vacuum.  Vavra was worth 0.1 rWAR, 0.0 fWAR and if I thought that’s what he would be in the future I wouldn’t care about him at all no matter what his OBP was.   

Why do we like him.... Peter?  finger snap... point....

Cuz he gets on base.

Of course you don't evaluate a player in a vacuum... but you really can't make a run with a bunch of guys that get on base in the .270's