Schoenfeld gives Os offseason a D+

[oriole]

47 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

I put this more on John Angelos than Elias.  Does anyone think that Angelos wanted $50 million in free agent salary added next year, but Elias said, no I have to follow the Astros model.  (How about extending a core player like Houston did Altuve?)

100% Someone as calculated and tight lipped as Elias doesn’t just say “lift off” and not expect to make any real moves. Elias was rug pulled, no doubt about it. 
 

1 hour ago, tntoriole said:

God I hope Adam Frazier wins the flipping AL batting title just to shush the snark on this board.  

I hope he does too. I just think he was an unnecessary piece when you’ve already got Vavra and a plethora of outfield and infield options.

[Pickles]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

The English language is a living thing.  Oxford languages acknowledges stan as a viable English term, so hardly gibberish.

Shame you can't adjust.

I know what it means, and that's why I objected.  You misused it, because it's a strawman to justify your own beliefs.

Where do you see on this board "obsessive" or "overzealous" worship of Elias?

A show of hands here.  How many of ya'll have pictures of Elias on your wall?  Writing him feverish fan mail?  Waiting outside the Warehouse for an autograph?

So yeah, there aren't any "stans" here.  Only fans.  And again, what has he done here that he shouldn't be lavishly praised for?  Sure, individual moves can be debated, but the overall body of work is outstanding, almost astounding imo.

None of us are deluded, synchophantic, uncritical morons.  There is a vast middle ground between that and spilling 30,000 words in three months on how much we hate the Adam Frazier signing.

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, Pickles said:

I know what it means, and that's why I objected.  You misused it, because it's a strawman to justify your own beliefs.

Where do you see on this board "obsessive" or "overzealous" worship of Elias?

A show of hands here.  How many of ya'll have pictures of Elias on your wall?  Writing him feverish fan mail?  Waiting outside the Warehouse for an autograph?

So yeah, there aren't any "stans" here.  Only fans.  And again, what has he done here that he shouldn't be lavishly praised for?  Sure, individual moves can be debated, but the overall body of work is outstanding, almost astounding imo.

None of us are deluded, synchophantic, uncritical morons.  There is a vast middle ground between that and spilling 30,000 words in three months on how much we hate the Adam Frazier signing.

You, right here, right now asking why he shouldn't be lavishly praised for producing one winning team in four years(with a losing pythag).  Praised?  Sure, that's realistic, lavishly praised?  For what, a fourth place finish?  Using a tank at all cost strategy he learned from his old boss to build up a farm team?

He's done well, I've never stated otherwise but lavishly praised?

Just this offseason his stated goal was to bring in a #1-#3?  Has he done it?  Yet he still should be lavishly praised!

He brings in Odor and gives him a starter's workload, LAVISH PRAISE!

He trades away Yaz, LAVISH PRAISE!

He fumbles one of his overslots and ends up throwing money at a guy whose only carrying tool appears to be EV LAVISH PRAISE!

You'd think he'd actually managed to win something in Baltimore.

Yes, it's been more good than bad, yes I think some of the bad falls on ownership and not Elias but some folks go overboard.

[Sports Guy]

2 hours ago, tntoriole said:

God I hope Adam Frazier wins the flipping AL batting title just to shush the snark on this board.  

And if he does, it was still a dumb signing.

[Moose Milligan]

2 hours ago, tntoriole said:

God I hope Adam Frazier wins the flipping AL batting title just to shush the snark on this board.  

Yeah but he’s not gonna. 

[deward]

2 hours ago, Pickles said:

Why isn't this board full of Elias' fans?  He's executed a text-book rebuild basically as perfectly as could be asked for.

He's done a fine job so far, but he still needs to prove that he can close it out. This past off-season was the first one where he was (in theory) trying to build a winner at the big league level, and the results were underwhelming. I'm not saying it won't happen, but it's the part of the job he hasn't done before. 

[Pickles]

26 minutes ago, deward said:

He's done a fine job so far, but he still needs to prove that he can close it out. This past off-season was the first one where he was (in theory) trying to build a winner at the big league level, and the results were underwhelming. I'm not saying it won't happen, but it's the part of the job he hasn't done before. 

And that's a perfectly reasonable take.  And I agree.  There's work to be done.

[maybenxtyr]

All joking aside about Frazier, the grade seems reasonable. I'm ok with not signing a big bat, but I would have liked to have seen an upgrade at SP.  Perhaps trading for Irvin will at least fill the Gibson and Lyles type of signings in the future.

[JR Oriole]

I think the grade is very fair.  However, they do get an A+ this offseason for redefining the phrase "risk aversion," building fanbase apathy, and actually managing to convince people that their major league payroll is tied in some way to everyone's personal home budget. 

I do think Elias has done a very good job with the rebuild. But the "closing the deal" part brought up earlier in this thread is spot on, to the extent that ownership allows. This franchise has showed up in the playoffs exactly 3 times in 25 years. At some point, as one of the least spoiled fanbases in professional sports, I think we need to raise the bar a bit - don't we?  

[Just Regular]

Its been middlin.    Entering the offseason my biggest concern shared with many was Is Ownership so near insolvent the tool of $$$ simply is unavailable?

We got about $25mm in new player purchases (or ~+$19mm if you offset 2022 Lyles).     That's not what I hoped for, but also not nothing, at least on the tamped down expectations scale of asking Santander to defer Arb1 money.

That's just evaluating the tool of money's availability, without any comment on how Elias chose to use it, or if his lack of agility to conditions demonstrated around Winter Meetings time resulted in him failing to use all the financial resources available to him to win a bid.

The Irvin transaction is more on him.

<ME: Mr. Angelos, I propose to use 2% of the FARM's expected surplus value to acquire a minimum wage Lyles.

JA: Sounds great!    I'll put that other $15mm in some crypto!>

I continue to feel whatever mediocre schmoes are cycled through for the team's floor will play small in comparison to how the 10 best Orioles progress, an area where the Org's results the last few years seem generally very good.

[Frobby]

12 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

The English language is a living thing.  Oxford languages acknowledges stan as a viable English term, so hardly gibberish.

Shame you can't adjust.

My brother-in-law Stan isn’t going to like this.  

Karen, Roland, Stan — it’s getting to be impossible to have a name without being typecast.   
 

[Sports Guy]

The problem with the offseason is that they simply didn’t take advantage of the promising 2022 season and while the Astros did the same thing, I don’t really care.

Outside of a 5 year run in the mid 2010s, the organization has been a laughing stock for the last 25 years.

You have an owner who has said that they will spend more when more money comes in yet you don’t give the fans a reason to go out and buy season tickets, even though that’s where the large majority of your ticket sales come from.

The fan base is excited but only to a certain point and if you take a step back in 2023, you are mute some of that excitement.

I think the Irvin trade made this offseason a C- but I can see an argument for D or even F.

You blocked younger players, you didn’t do anything to alleviate the log jam you have in some spots, you didn’t upgrade the top end of the roster (which was the most glaring area to add to) and you spent money on guys that don’t move the needle.

It a lot of ways, it was a pointless offseason even though I did like a few of the moves.

[Can_of_corn]

14 minutes ago, Frobby said:

My brother-in-law Stan isn’t going to like this.  

Karen, Roland, Stan — it’s getting to be impossible to have a name without being typecast.   
 

Chad is fine with it.

[SpOkane]

47 minutes ago, Frobby said:

My brother-in-law Stan isn’t going to like this.  

Karen, Roland, Stan — it’s getting to be impossible to have a name without being typecast.   
 

I think the Johns are behind this.

[tntoriole]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

The problem with the offseason is that they simply didn’t take advantage of the promising 2022 season and while the Astros did the same thing, I don’t really care.

Outside of a 5 year run in the mid 2010s, the organization has been a laughing stock for the last 25 years.

You have an owner who has said that they will spend more when more money comes in yet you don’t give the fans a reason to go out and buy season tickets, even though that’s where the large majority of your ticket sales come from.

The fan base is excited but only to a certain point and if you take a step back in 2023, you are mute some of that excitement.

I think the Irvin trade made this offseason a C- but I can see an argument for D or even F.

You blocked younger players, you didn’t do anything to alleviate the log jam you have in some spots, you didn’t upgrade the top end of the roster (which was the most glaring area to add to) and you spent money on guys that don’t move the needle.

It a lot of ways, it was a pointless offseason even though I did like a few of the moves.

Doubt that Elias was thinking .. wonder how I can block our prospects!!  Some people have a hard time understanding how you end up making big trades from a deep system without having to totally deplete your system.  Houston got Verlander and Coles AFTER building up their prospects. 
We shall see.. but it would not be surprising to see the “logjam” be part of Elias plan to trade from strength.