FA starters available in the offseason

[HakunaSakata]

3 hours ago, e16bball said:

Gray and Stroman are both very interesting based on their track record — and the fact that the league seems to consistently undervalue them — but I think there’s some serious risk there with them because they’re both so small.

Gray is listed at 5’10 and Stroman is listed at 5’7. Among the subset of starters shorter than 6’0 (not a big group), aging has not traditionally been kind. 

Pedro Martinez is probably the best short pitcher of all time, but he was never *PEDRO* after his age 33 season. Tim Lincecum was dominant at a young age, but he hit the wall (hard) at age 28. Johnny Cueto was a massive albatross for the Giants after a great age 30 season, although he did somehow put together two solid seasons at age 35 and 36 after wandering the wilderness for 4 years. Wandy Rodriguez was pretty much done after a solid age 33 season. Mike Hampton was basically cooked after getting hurt at age 32. Kris Medlen burned out at age 27 after a couple great seasons. Juan Guzman had his final year at age 32, when he started the season with us and then was traded for BJ Ryan. Rheal Cormier and Tom “Flash” Gordon reinvented themselves out of the bullpen, but had their last starts at the age of 29. Travis Wood was an All-Star at age 26, but was only ever effective as a reliever thereafter. Elmer Dessens was moved to the bullpen after a 5+ ERA season at age 32. Mike Leake and Tyler Chatwood were both out of baseball by age 31.

And then there’s Bartolo Colon, who remained an effective starter well into his 40s. So the lesson here is that if we’re going to sign one of these guys, he’ll need to immediately put on 100 pounds of bad weight before being allowed to take the mound.

I thin you might want to take a peak at Gray and Stroman’s statcast pages. 

[e16bball]

4 minutes ago, HakunaSakata said:

I thin you might want to take a peak at Gray and Stroman’s statcast pages. 

Happy to. Can you give me some guidance as to what I’m looking for?

Do they have an xHeight metric or Years Below Actual Age adjustment that might distinguish them from all the other quality pitchers who were similarly short and didn’t age well?

[OriolesMagic83]

I would like to sign Stroman, Giolito, or Montgomery.   Ohtani is out of this team's financial range.  The Japanese pitcher sounds like he could be the best free agent to sign, but no way is Angelos giving an unproven pitcher (in mlb) $150-200 mill+.  I would aim for a dependable #2/3 type.  This can't afford to sign a Rodon type who might be better but will spend much of his contract on the IL.

[HakunaSakata]

3 hours ago, e16bball said:

Happy to. Can you give me some guidance as to what I’m looking for?

Do they have an xHeight metric or Years Below Actual Age adjustment that might distinguish them from all the other quality pitchers who were similarly short and didn’t age well?

I didn't read ALL of your other post. I wasn't endorsing signing either Gray or Stroman because they both have some serious red flags outside of their height. It would be silly to give either one of them a 3-4 year contract and honestly I'm surprised anyone would even suggest it. If we're willing to give out a long term contract it should be for Urias. 

[G54377]

We are not getting a TOR that we'd actually want to pay $$$ for unless we go out for a trade.

[banks703]

I read today that Seth Johnson is expecting to be pitching in games in August. Don’t sleep on Seth Johnson competing for a rotation spot next year. 
 

We know the org is very high on Cade Povich. I don’t know if we can discount him either.
 

All of that to suggest that current org starters could potentially be packaged for more established/more elite pitching. 
 

I’m of the opinion that whoever is acquired, they should be as close in age to the current core guys. I almost feel even Stroman might be a little older than I’d want to bring into this group. Urias, Montgomery, Flaherty stick out to me as potential signings but I think with the current roster, 24 could be the first of a couple “going for it” years. Go big to bring a ship home. It won’t happen but good grief Ohtani in Baltimore would be absurd. He might hit 70 homers getting to play 107 games at OPACY, Yankee Stadium and Fenway. 

Edited July 7, 2023 by banks703

[Dunk35]

8 hours ago, Just Regular said:

Chris Flexen is DFA right now like everyone wants Jorge Mateo to be.

Yeah id take a flyer on Flexen over the likes of the guys we have been throwing out there the last couple weeks in the arm barn. 

[e16bball]

2 hours ago, HakunaSakata said:

I didn't read ALL of your other post. I wasn't endorsing signing either Gray or Stroman because they both have some serious red flags outside of their height. It would be silly to give either one of them a 3-4 year contract and honestly I'm surprised anyone would even suggest it. If we're willing to give out a long term contract it should be for Urias. 

I understand, good deal. 

I wasn’t sure what I would find when I went down the “short pitcher” rabbit hole, but it was really pretty remarkable. Every single short starting pitcher over the last 25 years has run out of gas by about 32-33 years old. 

Except for Bartolo Colon. You can’t make this stuff up.

[Billy F-Face3]

14 hours ago, HakunaSakata said:

There's plenty of  other TOR starters on that list. 

Urias
Nola
Scherzer
Kershaw
Snell (potentially)

Don't forget about Sonny Gray. He's only in the middle of a Cy Young campaign...

[IPlayGM]

Was thinking about this this morning. Our rotation next year with no additions is:

Bradish/Wells/Means/GRod/Kremer

Still have Irvin, and then the Johnsons/Povichs of the world. I don’t think we are in terrible position there actually, albeit a little thin in depth. I wonder if the strategy will be to use trades to grab younger starter prospects to ultimately replace these guys a couple years down the line. Not saying I necessarily agree with that strategy, but that starting 5 doesn’t seem too shabby to me.

[Bemorewins]

16 hours ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

I would like to sign Stroman, Giolito, or Montgomery.   Ohtani is out of this team's financial range.  The Japanese pitcher sounds like he could be the best free agent to sign, but no way is Angelos giving an unproven pitcher (in mlb) $150-200 mill+.  I would aim for a dependable #2/3 type.  This can't afford to sign a Rodon type who might be better but will spend much of his contract on the IL.

The thing about Rodon is that he was almost always hurt/spending time in the IL. He carried a similar risk/reward proposition as deGrom. Sometimes those things work out and sometimes not. Even if Elias is/was allowed to wade in the deep end of FA, I don’t see  him ever being willing to take on that type of risk. I understand why the Yanks did it because they were looking at the upside for postseason and maybe Rodon might still help them in that regard? But unless we get a better owner much more willing to spend, I don’t see us ever having to worry about that kind of thing.

[Sports Guy]

10 minutes ago, IPlayGM said:

Was thinking about this this morning. Our rotation next year with no additions is:

Bradish/Wells/Means/GRod/Kremer

Still have Irvin, and then the Johnsons/Povichs of the world. I don’t think we are in terrible position there actually, albeit a little thin in depth. I wonder if the strategy will be to use trades to grab younger starter prospects to ultimately replace these guys a couple years down the line. Not saying I necessarily agree with that strategy, but that starting 5 doesn’t seem too shabby to me.

I think part of the strategy is that they just don’t value starters as much as we think they should and that they feel they can get enough out of the starters, especially with Walltimore, that spending a lot on starters isn’t worth it.

 

[sportsfan8703]

9 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I think part of the strategy is that they just don’t value starters as much as we think they should and that they feel they can get enough out of the starters, especially with Walltimore, that spending a lot on starters isn’t worth it.

 

 Walltimore is right. What is Jordan Montgomery going to get in this market. 4/80?  5/90?

I think we go the trade route. Is the Angelos family going to really sign off on $20 million for Jordan Montgomery that comes directly out of their pockets?  I don’t think so. 
 

Everyone on our team next year will be in Arb or pre-Arb. Mostly pre-Arb.

I don’t think we’ll ever spend on a FA SP. We’ll start the season with what we have in house or acquired via trade in the offseason, then if we need a hired gun we will get a rental and spend prospects to buy with only a half season of financial commitment. 
 

Elias has built the perfect cash cow business for the Angelo’s family. 

Edited July 7, 2023 by sportsfan8703

[Finisher]

Urias and Sonny Gray will get too much.

Some decent mid tier guys having nice bounceback seasons. Kyle Hendricks, James Paxton, Cobb. But even this level may be too expensive for us. Could see us going after Michael Lorenzen.

[25 Nuggets]

Acquire one rotational anchor via trade from the abundance of positional prospects and try to use any available contract money to extend the young players.  Done deal and seal.