Keith Law’s O’s top 20

[Spy Fox]

1 hour ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

Matusz was at one point the #4 prospect in baseball.  By the time of his debut, his star had dimmed some, but he would have been a top 100 prospect and easily in the O's top 10. 

And, at least in the top two 2009 prospect rankings on the google results, (MLB, Baseball Prospectus) Tillman was ranked 16th leaguewide in both. Arrieta was ranked 36th/52nd. 

These guys were good prospects. They didn't get the cavalry nickname for nothing.

[Frobby]

11 hours ago, Il BuonO said:

One other thing that hurt the team’s chances against those white hot Royals; the Orioles were without their big slugging first baseman because? Yup, that should have been enough to make sure he didn’t get any kind of contract from the Orioles let alone the monstrosity he did. 

There’s no way of knowing, of course, how he would have performed, but it was in the midst of a productive time for him.

Davis hit under .200 that year.   I’d say Manny missing the second half of that season was the bigger loss.  But personally, I’m not into making excuses.  The Royals gelled at the right time that year and it carried over the entire next season.  They played great defense against us and their bullpen was lights out.   

[Il BuonO]

5 hours ago, Frobby said:

Davis hit under .200 that year.   I’d say Manny missing the second half of that season was the bigger loss.  But personally, I’m not into making excuses.  The Royals gelled at the right time that year and it carried over the entire next season.  They played great defense against us and their bullpen was lights out.   

Yes, Manny was the bigger loss, but we all know that bad season numbers don’t always equate to a bad post season. It would have been nice to have either of them, Davis as at least a threat to go deep. 

The Royals were the best team at the right time.

[Frobby]

Connolly interviewed Law about the O’s system in The Athletic today.  Here’s a couple of tidbits:

- He has seen more of our top 20 guys in person than any other system because of the proximity of our affiliates to where he lives.

- He thinks our system is the best and deepest it’s been since he started rating farm systems.

- He thinks Westburg and Mayo are the most likely to be traded due to our IF surplus.

- in terms of low on the radar prospects, he’s interested to see how Aron Estrada does in the FCL.

https://theathletic.com/4200963/2023/02/16/orioles-prospects-list-keith-law/

[deward]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Connolly interviewed Law about the O’s system in The Athletic today.  Here’s a couple of tidbits:

- He has seen more of our top 20 guys in person than any other system because of the proximity of our affiliates to where he lives.

- He thinks our system is the best and deepest it’s been since he started rating farm systems.

- He thinks Westburg and Mayo are the most likely to be traded due to our IF surplus.

- in terms of low on the radar prospects, he’s interested to see how Aron Estrada does in the FCL.

https://theathletic.com/4200963/2023/02/16/orioles-prospects-list-keith-law/

Yet another person who thinks Westburg gets traded rather than get a shot on this team. I'm going to be seriously bummed if/when that happens.

[LookinUp]

On 2/14/2023 at 1:41 PM, Stotle said:

I think you can also argue player dev was not great with that group. 

As to Duquette, I feel like he was almost a non-factor as a GM. He had no authority. Consider:

Angelos/Buck were in win-now mode. Corresponding trades were made and Buck was great at playing for today to win games. Duq couldn't spend or build internationally. Duq couldn't replace a lot of the old-school holdovers in the scouting and player development departments.

I'd think any GM would love the free reign that Elias has been given to develop an org in his own image. Duquette didn't have that. 

If there's anything I do think he could have done though it's to try to build a unified, modern, player development system. Maybe he really had no power over minor league personnel, IDK, but it was a problem when he got here and it was an elephant in the room type of problem when he left.

 

[LTO's]

45 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

Angelos/Buck were in win-now mode.

DD was in win-now mode. Not sure how you could argue otherwise. Pretty much every move he made, even prior to the Blue Jays thing that everyone is still overreacting to, was at the expense of the farm system and long term org stability. 

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, LTO's said:

DD was in win-now mode. Not sure how you could argue otherwise. Pretty much every move he made, even prior to the Blue Jays thing that everyone is still overreacting to, was at the expense of the farm system and long term org stability. 

Well he didn’t sign anyone to horrendous, franchise crippling contracts and outside of ERod, he didn’t dump long term guys for a run (and that was a good trade).

But he did sign guys and lost picks. 
 

I blame Buck and PA more than Duq for what happened after the fact.

[LTO's]

13 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Well he didn’t sign anyone to horrendous, franchise crippling contracts and outside of ERod, he didn’t dump long term guys for a run (and that was a good trade).

But he did sign guys and lost picks. 
 

I blame Buck and PA more than Duq for what happened after the fact.

The Orioles aren't in the business of giving out any contracts that could even become franchise crippling outside of the famous one so that's not really relevant. However, the Hardy extension, Ubaldo, Gallardo, Trumbo and Cobb contracts were all bad. They clearly lost the Erod trade even though it wasn't horrible. It wasn't a good trade because they decided to let him walk that offseason in favor of giving O'day only 5 mil less over 4 years which clearly didn't work out. 

He was never really all that great, but they clearly could've used Davies on the 2016 and 2017 teams especially when the return they got for him was horrible. I don't care enough to assign a certain pct of blame on any of the three main players, but they were all very clearly in win-now mode. 

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, deward said:

Yet another person who thinks Westburg gets traded rather than get a shot on this team. I'm going to be seriously bummed if/when that happens.

Depends what they get for him.  

[CharmCityHokie]

39 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Well he didn’t sign anyone to horrendous, franchise crippling contracts and outside of ERod, he didn’t dump long term guys for a run (and that was a good trade).

But he did sign guys and lost picks. 
 

I blame Buck and PA more than Duq for what happened after the fact.

The Josh Hader trade was not great...I realize Bud Norris won a post season game and sopped up some innings in 2014 at decent rates, but that was one I'd like to have back.

I'll also add, to a lesser extent, then Zach Davies for Gerado Parra trade doesn't look great either. The Orioles could have really used a decent 4/5 starter who ate innings for several years.

Edited February 16, 2023 by CharmCityHokie

[Sports Guy]

31 minutes ago, CharmCityHokie said:

The Josh Hader trade was not great...I realize Bud Norris won a post season game and sopped up some innings in 2014 at decent rates, but that was one I'd like to have back.

I'll also add, to a lesser extent, then Zach Davies for Gerado Parra trade doesn't look great either. The Orioles could have really used a decent 4/5 starter who ate innings for several years.

Sure but Davies wasn’t changing the trajectory of the team long term and we don’t know if he would have worked out in OPACY facing the ALE.

No, the Norris trade wasn’t great. That’s an example of a deal I hated from day 1 And even though he had success here and helped us win, I still don’t agree with it. Again, the process matters to me.

 

[LookinUp]

4 hours ago, LTO's said:

DD was in win-now mode. Not sure how you could argue otherwise. 

Oh he was, but I feel like he was the dude just implementing PA and Buck's plan. I could be wrong. If I am, it reflects worse on him, IMO.

 

[Edit, because he wasn't also focusing on getting draft assets and improving player development (effectively, at least) in a way that would help us not to be totally screwed when the money turned off.]

Edited February 16, 2023 by LookinUp

[Brooks The Great]

9 hours ago, deward said:

Yet another person who thinks Westburg gets traded rather than get a shot on this team. I'm going to be seriously bummed if/when that happens.

I just don't see it happening with Mateo and Urias being so expendable. Either of those 2 guys can be traded, or they can just be benched. For me, the combination of Westburg's talent and intangibles make him an essential building block for the next several O's playoff teams. I want Adley, Gunnar, and Westburg leading the team. I'm hoping to see a Mountcastle/Westburg/Ortiz/Gunnar infield by September.

[deward]

21 hours ago, Frobby said:

Depends what they get for him.  

I'm a MSU alumnus, so I'm biased on Westburg. I watched him play there, I really, really want to see him in an O's uniform on a nightly basis. I'm not really approaching this on any type of objective team-building merits. There hasn't been a Bulldog playing regularly for the O's since Palmeiro's disastrous second stint, so I've been waiting for a while for this. I should probably be happier about the Frazier signing for this reason, but I just can't do it.