Jordan Westburg 2023

[Bemorewins]

33 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

The lack of true sure fire starting pitching prospects after Grayson Rodriguez is an issue that Elias needs to either solve by trading the surplus of offensive talent or free agency. I doubt Angelos will ever give him a budget to do the real free agency or trade for an establish ace thing, so it's going to have to come from the talent.

Here in lies the rub though. While there are definitely some real good hitters in the system, they come with defensive warts for the most part. Joey Ortiz is about the only high level prospect that looks to have a plus bat and certainly plus defense. Cowser is struggling offensively, Westburg and Norby have defensive limitations on the dirt, Mayo will have a hard time unseating Henderson at 3B and probably will end up in RF or 1B. Kjerstad is new to 1B so the jury is out on his defensive abilities and the other are too far away to trade for enouh value (though obviously Holliday is a blue chip guy).

What team is going to give up a potential ace for any trade package that doesn't start with Holliday? Are the Orioles willing to do that? 

The Orioles were unable or unwilling to part with surplus talent and now they have guys like Stowers, Norby, Westburg and Ortiz in AAA with holes in their major league bullpen and no true ace at the top of the rotation. 

At some point Elias has to pull the trigger and be willing to move guys who will be good major leaguers but who play a redundant position to talent on hand.

What I hear you saying is what I fear most. And that is ownership will always stand in the way as impediments to the Major league team’s success.

in your opinion is there any way we could package some of our high end redundant prospects (not named Holiday) for Woodruff or Burnes who are only signed until the end of this year?

They seem like the most likely ace types that can be had for a prospect package that does not include Holiday. I know both are free agents after this year. But again we are not paying anyone and have the 29 highest payroll. We could squeeze the 30 million it would take to resign one of them and still have a payroll south of 100 million.

IMO it would be organizational malpractice to waste another year next year, trying to “see what we have”/ explore/experiment/sneak into a wildcard and hope to get hot. We didn’t need to suffer the 5 years of agony in order to do that. That could have been achieved with a 3 year process, if that’s the highest that we are going to shoot for.

[Bemorewins]

55 minutes ago, btdart20 said:

What if I told you that the O's had more pitchers that we have drafted on our MLB roster than Tampa?  Not just sheer number but also be slot/draft capital as well. 

Baltimore:  1.11, 54th pick, 98th pick

Tampa:  1.31 and 139th pick.

If I was told that, I would consider it irrelevant. Because their pitching is and has been better than ours for the last 15 years. I’m not interested in where the players come from (heck they can come from Mars for all I care), I care more about how they perform. And they’re guys, as well as the Yankees, Guardians, Mariners, and Astros are better pitchers than what we have. 

We’re going to have to fix that in order to beat them when it counts.

[Tony-OH]

7 minutes ago, Bemorewins said:

What I hear you saying is what I fear most. And that is ownership will always stand in the way as impediments to the Major league team’s success.

in your opinion is there any way we could package some of our high end redundant prospects (not named Holiday) for Woodruff or Burnes who are only signed until the end of this year?

They seem like the most likely ace types that can be had for a prospect package that does not include Holiday. I know both are free agents after this year. But again we are not paying anyone and have the 29 highest payroll. We could squeeze the 30 million it would take to resign one of them and still have a payroll south of 100 million.

IMO it would be organizational malpractice to waste another year next year, trying to “see what we have”/ explore/experiment/sneak into a wildcard and hope to get hot. We didn’t need to suffer the 5 years of agony in order to do that. That could have been achieved with a 3 year process, if that’s the highest that we are going to shoot for.

I would not be surprised if Westburg is not a key guy in a trade since he value decreases in the outfield vs 3B/SS/2B and another team may be willing to live with the defense at 3B or 2B and give better value. The Orioles have never really acquired a TOR with a TOR price tag, so it's really just speculating whether they would make a trade for a one-year TOR. 

I do think at some point they will probably try that since it only comes with one year of risk/high salary. 

[Bemorewins]

2 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I would not be surprised if Westburg is not a key guy in a trade since he value decreases in the outfield vs 3B/SS/2B and another team may be willing to live with the defense at 3B or 2B and give better value. The Orioles have never really acquired a TOR with a TOR price tag, so it's really just speculating whether they would make a trade for a one-year TOR. 

I do think at some point they will probably try that since it only comes with one year of risk/high salary. 

If we don’t target one of the MIL guys, what do you think of Luzardo from MIA? He does have the back of the baseball card numbers/track record as the MIL guys. But again he’s a free agent after this year and MIA is going nowhere. 
 

I think Alcantara would cost too much given he is under a very reasonable contract through 26.

Btw, sorry I know this thread is about Westburg. But just wondering if we could use him as part of a non-Holiday, Grayson package to get the pitching that the big club needs. (Though I would strongly consider using Grayson to highlight a package for Alcantara.)

 

[Sports Guy]

I think you find that happy median between Burnes and Pablo Lopez.

My goal would be to find a guy on the cusp but maybe not there. Mentioned him a lot in the offseason but a guy like Edward Cabrera. (Boy is he off to a wild start..don’t think I have seen 13 walks in 6.2 Ip before!)

But someone with the talent that just needs to refine his game and could be really good..a recent example is someone along the lines of Dustin May. 

Can you find that pitching rich team that needs positional talent?  That’s the team we need to trade with. Even try the rare prospect for prospect trade.  

Edited April 11, 2023 by Sports Guy

[Bemorewins]

6 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I think you find that happy median between Burnes and Pablo Lopez.

My goal would be to find a guy on the cusp but maybe not there. Mentioned him a lot in the offseason but a guy like Edward Cabrera. (Boy is he off to a wild start..don’t think I have seen 13 walks in 6.2 Ip before!)

But someone with the talent that just needs to refine his game and could be really good..a recent example is someone along the lines of Dustin May. 

Can you find that pitching rich team that needs positional talent?  That’s the team we need to trade with. Even try the rare prospect for prospect trade.  

I understand the approach of hunting more potential than polish. And it would be wonderful to fall into a May type of guy. But that seems kind of unnecessarily risky to me.

What do you think about going the route I mentioned with one of the guys I mentioned? In terms of looking at guys who’s contracts up who this won’t come with as high as an acquisition cost.

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, Bemorewins said:

I understand the approach of hunting more potential than polish. And it would be wonderful to fall into a May type of guy. But that seems kind of unnecessarily risky to me.

What do you think about going the route I mentioned with one of the guys I mentioned? In terms of looking at guys who’s contracts up who this won’t come with as high as an acquisition cost.

Burnes isn’t a FA until after next year BTw.

I guess but it depends on the situation. Right now, I don’t have much desire to trade very good prospects for a rental. I would like 2+ years. 

[Bemorewins]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

Burnes isn’t a FA until after next year BTw.

I guess but it depends on the situation. Right now, I don’t have much desire to trade very good prospects for a rental. I would like 2+ years. 

Sorry about that I thought I saw ‘23 on baseballreference. But I hear either way we slice it, the front office is going to have to take a risk. Even if that means trading Grayson on Holiday for a big fish.

[Sports Guy]

Just now, Bemorewins said:

Sorry about that I thought I saw ‘23 on baseballreference. But I hear either way we slice it, the front office is going to have to take a risk. Even if that means trading Grayson on Holiday for a big fish.

Zero interest in trading either of those guys unless it’s a stud who has several years.

You don’t need an ace to win. It helps but you don’t need it. 
 

Put a package together with guys like Hall, Westburg, Ortiz, Stowers and maybe some of the other promising lower level MiLers and/or some ML guys and you will be able to get someone very good.  
 

There is a lot of talent to trade from to where you can keep your main pieces while also acquiring very good talent that helps now and long term.

[Bemorewins]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Zero interest in trading either of those guys unless it’s a stud who has several years.

You don’t need an ace to win. It helps but you don’t need it. 
 

Put a package together with guys like Hall, Westburg, Ortiz, Stowers and maybe some of the other promising lower level MiLers and/or some ML guys and you will be able to get someone very good.  
 

There is a lot of talent to trade from to where you can keep your main pieces while also acquiring very good talent that helps now and long term.

Oh I agree with you as it would be my preference to keep both Holiday and Grayson, especially Grayson to pair with another big time prove pitcher, and package other guys like Westburg.

But if we had to trade Holiday in a package that could land us the cost controlled stud Alcantara, Gunnar still profiles to be our long term shortstop and one of the prospects that we keep could still hold down the hot corner. 
 

I have to admit that if we could have Alcantara combined with Grayson that would appeal to me some though I would hate parting with Holiday. That 1/2 punch would give us a great chance (assuming Grayson is what would hope) against any team… Tampa, either NY teams, Hous, Cleve, Tor, LAD… whoever!

[Bemorewins]

Back to the topic at hand - Westburg.

What could we get for a package of day Westburg, Ortiz, Stowers, Hall, and throw in 5th lower level prospect?

Maybe not an Alcantara, but who?

[Frobby]

I do not think Westburg and Norby should be lumped together defensively.  Westburg is easily the better defender from every detailed analysis I’ve read.  

[Tony-OH]

BTW, let's stick to the subject of the thread. Thanks. I think some of this is covering a much larger issue and should be it's own thread on the mian board.

[sportsfan8703]

I’d like to see us just accept that the infielders we have now at the MLB level will be really hard to knock off because of their defense. Plus Ortiz and Holliday will be superior defenders to Norby and Westburg. We lack RH COF. There’s no reason not to get Norby and Westburg some looks out there. IMO, it doesn’t hurt their trade value. Each has significant time in AAA and enough of a scouting report if a team wanted to pry them away to play on the dirt. 
 

This is a very good problem to have btw. 

[emmett16]

Westburg has not been in the lineup the last two days.  Anyone heard any news as to why he isn’t in lineup?