Baseball America 2023 Top 100

[Sydnor]

9 minutes ago, ThisIsBirdland said:

In the last year, the team has improved it's win total by 31 games, graduated multiple high end prospects who saw early success, significantly added to it's well stocked farm system, and saw basically all of its most important prospects progress throughout the system.

Such good progress for a rebuild, and by page 5 of the thread about BA publishing this, it's literally just a full page of posts from people complaining that we signed a veteran 2B to a 1 year deal and/or we didn't win a bidding war for a good but potentially flawed #2-#3 SP. So much fixation on the negatives when it just seems like they're so far outweighed by the positives with where this org is in terms of entering a long-term winning window; it just blows my mind 

If you want to get really negative, you could say that the long-term window is 3 years until they have to trade Adley because the organization won’t pay him the market rate, and that they’re punting year one of that window by doing nothing significant this off-season. You could also say they love to put this news out there to distract from that. I’m not saying I subscribe to that view, but that’s the really negative view.

Regarding the 8 players, I will say that I think Ortiz will out perform all of the players except Gunnar, Grayson, and Holliday (and probably be wrong). I’m very happy to see that he received the recognition from BA.

[owknows]

mumbles something about Two Old guy muppets grousing in the balcony.

[ThisIsBirdland]

1 minute ago, owknows said:

mumbles something about Two Old guy muppets grousing in the balcony.

At least they were funny

[ThisIsBirdland]

13 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Well you joined in November of 2022 so you are probably missing some context. 

How so? Not trying to argue or anything, but interested in what context I may be missing.

[TopGunnar]

This is awesome to see. Prospects don’t always work out but I have a really good feeling about just about all these guys. Mayo will be a top guy once he tears it up in 2023.

Future is very bright and we deserve it 

[TopGunnar]

Also one more thing. It absolutely blows my mind that there are negative Orioles fans right now. We’ve been the worst team in baseball for decades and we’re now on the cusp of possible greatness and there’s people that have the guts to be negative. Go root for the yankees

[Sports Guy]

6 minutes ago, TopGunnar said:

Also one more thing. It absolutely blows my mind that there are negative Orioles fans right now. We’ve been the worst team in baseball for decades and we’re now on the cusp of possible greatness and there’s people that have the guts to be negative. Go root for the yankees

Yes we are..and yet ownership wants to hold us back until the team starts making them more money and the GM has blocked some of his prize prospects with bad players and isn’t making the necessary room for them.

And this after a season in which Elias deemed we were still too far away and didn’t try to get into the playoffs. 
 

Oh and of course we have been a garbage org for the better part of the last 25 years and people are ready for them to win and to actually care about winning right now.

[ThisIsBirdland]

Most rookies seem to acclimate slowly when they reach the majors. I don't think it's that controversial to have a veteran in place for one year while you wait for guys to force their way up, especially when you're hoping to contend for a wild card. Managers will always want veterans in those critical moments, fans will always want promising rookies.

Still, seven guys in the top 100 who have reached AAA means we're close! Just a little patience, this rebuild is going to have been worth the wait. So glad they quickly built the team this way as opposed to the haphazard nonsense between 1998 and the eventual rebuild for the 2012 playoff team.

[Sports Guy]

23 minutes ago, ThisIsBirdland said:

Most rookies seem to acclimate slowly when they reach the majors. I don't think it's that controversial to have a veteran in place for one year while you wait for guys to force their way up, especially when you're hoping to contend for a wild card. Managers will always want veterans in those critical moments, fans will always want promising rookies.

Still, seven guys in the top 100 who have reached AAA means we're close! Just a little patience, this rebuild is going to have been worth the wait. So glad they quickly built the team this way as opposed to the haphazard nonsense between 1998 and the eventual rebuild for the 2012 playoff team.

They have forced their way up.

[ThisIsBirdland]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

They have forced their way up.

Respectfully disagree. Westburg has 91 AAA games, Ortiz has 26, Norby has 9.

Is Westburg close? I think so! Maybe even close enough to break camp. But placing it all on his shoulders going into ST, or not supplementing Urias/Mateo/Gunnar with a veteran LH bat instead of Vavra, ultimately wasn't how the front office wanted to go into the season. I don't know if it's the right call, but it's definitely not as controversial or as big of a deal as fans on here treat it.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, ThisIsBirdland said:

Respectfully disagree. Westburg has 91 AAA games, Ortiz has 26, Norby has 9.

Is Westburg close? I think so! Maybe even close enough to break camp. But placing it all on his shoulders going into ST, or not supplementing Urias/Mateo/Gunnar with a veteran LH bat instead of Vavra, ultimately wasn't how the front office wanted to go into the season. I don't know if it's the right call, but it's definitely not as controversial or as big of a deal as fans on here treat it.

Someone should tell the Braves to send all their young talent back down for more seasoning, some of them haven't even been to AAA yet!

 

Different players should have different timelines.

[Sports Guy]

6 minutes ago, ThisIsBirdland said:

Respectfully disagree. Westburg has 91 AAA games, Ortiz has 26, Norby has 9.

Is Westburg close? I think so! Maybe even close enough to break camp. But placing it all on his shoulders going into ST, or not supplementing Urias/Mateo/Gunnar with a veteran LH bat instead of Vavra, ultimately wasn't how the front office wanted to go into the season. I don't know if it's the right call, but it's definitely not as controversial or as big of a deal as fans on here treat it.

He’s guaranteed at least 450 at bats if he’s healthy.  Keeping Mateo or Urias is your insurance.  As of now, you have 3 policies.  You only needed one plus whatever other MiL FAs you acquired that could make the team if needed.  You don’t need to spend 8M for that and essentially guarantee that playing time while taking it away from the young players.

[ThisIsBirdland]

4 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Someone should tell the Braves to send all their young talent back down for more seasoning, some of them haven't even been to AAA yet!

 

Different players should have different timelines.

That's a great point! I wasn't aware how successful their top guys were last year after basically skipping AAA.

I don't know that the three guys I brought up belong in such an accelerated tier, but it's definitely a valid counter argument. Either way, I'm not as worried as others are that they'll be blocked if they over perform or Frazier under performs. 

[Can_of_corn]

2 hours ago, ThisIsBirdland said:

How so? Not trying to argue or anything, but interested in what context I may be missing.

I really don't want to sound like someone gatekeeping so I'd rather not go into specifics.

I'm glad we have new posters on the board.

I don't think anyone here should be questioning how anyone else expresses their fandom.  (That includes me when I do it)

[ThisIsBirdland]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I really don't want to sound like someone gatekeeping so I'd rather not go into specifics.

I'm glad we have new posters on the board.

I don't think anyone here should be questioning how anyone else expresses their fandom.  (That includes me when I do it)

I think I understand. If it helps, I've followed the board for years. Been an O's fan since I was a kid in the mid 90's. Not up to speed enough to know that the Braves have been skipping AAA for their top guys, but I hope I've stayed relatively informed over the years.

I do remember fans losing their minds over the O's trading players like Jose Iglesias over the years and saying that such moves were massive affronts to the fan base. I think there's a tendency to lose the forest from the trees over moves like that (or the Frazier move IMO) in terms of how they effect the overall direction of the franchise. Completely agree on not questioning anyone's individual expression of fandom though, a fine line to be sure on message boards.