Our Best "Touchable" Trade Bait is.........

[Jagwar]

14 minutes ago, 25 Nuggets said:

I floated Mayo's name as a trade candidate and was met with negativity.  But he is a guy that can get you a controllable TOR/Cy Young candidate pitcher.  I guess he would be my highest "touchable" then.  He's probably a top 25 prospect in next year's rankings.

Yes, happened to me as well. I suggested that Mayo be one of the prospects no longer in the O's system after the trade deadline. Got shot down pretty quickly. 

He's on fire, he's young, and some team might just give the O's the needle mover they need for the playoffs. 

[Aristotelian]

2 minutes ago, DocJJ said:

 

I'd also put Basallo in as Untouchable: good young catcher who can hit.  That's proving incredibly difficult to find these days....

We've got Adley and also Creed Willems is looking pretty good. I would put Basallo in your "borderline untouchable" category. 

[deward]

18 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

You tell me where Norby and Ortiz fit in behind Holliday, Henderson, Westburg, and Mayo.  I'd rather trade those two and get back some pitching and keep the rest.  

 

I'm completely on board with this. Norby and Ortiz are good, valuable prospects who happen to be victims of the numbers game in this particular org. I guess I was getting confused because you seemed to be suggesting that other clubs would scoff at being offered those two. 

No one is literally "untouchable", but there are several guys with obvious roles in the current and near future plans that I don't see why it would make sense to give up unless you were getting something exceptional in return. For everyone else, I want the O's to play things like the Dodgers do; build up a ridiculous farm and then make all your trades from your second-level guys, that would be first-level guys in a bunch of other orgs. 

 

[Say O!]

4 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Let’s assume that our rotation after the ASB will be Wells, Bradish, Kremer, Gibson, Rodriguez. Who is coming out of the rotation for a Giolito or Montgomery? Is Giolito or Montgomery an upgrade enough to justify a trade?  
 

What if went with 6 man rotation in second half of the year to manage innings/workload?  Aside from Gibson, the rest of those guys will be far exceeding career highs IP. 

[Fiver6565]

25 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Honestly, Cowser and Gunnar played all of one game together in the minors.  By the time Cowser got to Delmarva, Gunnar was at Aberdeen.   By the time he got to Aberdeen, Gunnar was at Bowie.  By the time Cowser was at Bowie, Gunnar was at Norfolk.   Cowser and Gunnar played together one game after Cowser reached Norfolk, and then Gunnar was promoted to the majors.   

Cowser also didn’t play with Westburg until last August 30 when he reached Norfolk.   They played together for a month last September and then three months this season. Not a ton of time.  

The two who did play together a lot in the minors were Gunnar and Westburg.  They played together at all four levels of the minors in 2021-22, though Westburg was promoted ahead of Gunnar twice in 2021 by a few weeks, and then Gunnar was in the majors in September 2022 abd three months this year without Westburg. 

So, these aren’t exactly lifelong friendships we’re talking about.  


 

Henderson referred to Westburg as ‘one of his best friends’ in an interview last night. I’m going by the words coming out of these kids mouths, not stats of how many games they played together. We all are aware how long they’ve been in the org, and that they didn’t know each other prior to that. 
 

But I’m done arguing the point. You think I’m overestimating this, I think it’s being underestimated. Whatever. 

[LookinUp]

We can take on salary. We can trade volume. We have assets. Given that, I think it's silly to think that we can't get a good, albeit not necessarily great, return for a trade involving some of...

Norby, Stowers, Seth Johnson, Povich, Prieto, Irvin, Willems, Wagner, Beavers, Haskin, McDermott, Tavera(s), Bright, Showalter, Comp picks, younger international guys...

And that's not even getting into the Mountcastle, Hays, Hall, Ortiz, Westburg, Urias, Mateo, Frazier, and existing bullpen guys.

We could trade some of these guys for prospects used to then acquire other guys. There's plenty we could do. I doubt we will get massive headliners, but there are a thousand options.

[gretzkyscores]

I would consider trading Cano for 2 quality middle relievers if possible. Use the all-star status to bring return

I expect to get flamed for this suggestion ....

[Bemorewins]

54 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

We can take on salary. We can trade volume. We have assets. Given that, I think it's silly to think that we can't get a good, albeit not necessarily great, return for a trade involving some of...

Norby, Stowers, Seth Johnson, Povich, Prieto, Irvin, Willems, Wagner, Beavers, Haskin, McDermott, Tavera(s), Bright, Showalter, Comp picks, younger international guys...

And that's not even getting into the Mountcastle, Hays, Hall, Ortiz, Westburg, Urias, Mateo, Frazier, and existing bullpen guys.

We could trade some of these guys for prospects used to then acquire other guys. There's plenty we could do. I doubt we will get massive headliners, but there are a thousand options.

I don't see how one can deduce that Cole Irvin has ANY trade value. He's not very good IMO. Even in the starts that he does decently it's more about luck than him being good. He gives up a ton of baserunners in pretty much ALL of his starts. Heck, I wish that we could get him off of our team.

The same applies for Mateo and Frazier and Hall to some degree IMO.

Mateo can't hit, people/posters keep arguing that he can be a pinch runner/defensive replacement. But here's the thing - Rarely do teams ever replace their starting SS for a defensive replacement because the SS is usually the best defender on the team. When we have started Gunnar at SS, not one time have we needed to take him off of SS late in the game to replace him with Mateo. Even if somehow a team envisioned him in that role, that would not be a player to trade for. You would typically try to pick up that type of player on waivers. He simply doesn't have any kind of/enough value to draw trade interest.

Adam Frazier is overpaid and his production/capabilities do not match his salary. Also, he has not upside, so again, why would another team want him? 

And then when it comes to DL Hall, he has lost MAJOR velo this year, has never dominated AAA, will be 25 this September, still has control issues/walking way too many batters, cannot get deep into games at the Minor League level, has been sent down to the Rookie level to figure things out, AND ON TOP OF ALL OF THAT, he is off of most top 100 lists. I think if I know these things about him and am able to identify all of these red flags, other teams with professionals in their front office can do the same. I don't know why anyone would want him and even if they did you would literally be giving him away and selling at his absolute lowest value. (Which is little to none right now.)

[Billy F-Face3]

Colton Cowser (thanks to Kjerstad)

Joey Ortiz

Connor Norby

Coby Mayo

Ramon Urias

Etc. Etc. Etc.

[FlipTheBird]

7 hours ago, Jagwar said:

Yes, happened to me as well. I suggested that Mayo be one of the prospects no longer in the O's system after the trade deadline. Got shot down pretty quickly. 

He's on fire, he's young, and some team might just give the O's the needle mover they need for the playoffs. 

There are a lot of folks here who only want to trade guys that, due to the organization’s current depth, are sometimes viewed as “second-tier.” It’s an emotional decision, I get it. But I agree with you - to land top line talent they’ll have trade more than “second-tier” young players.

There’s a lot of attachment to prospects, despite the fact that many won’t develop into more than league average players, if that. Still a gamble. Who’d have thought that, among the *position players* in the team’s system circa 10 years ago… the guy performing at the highest level right now would be Christian Walker?

[now]

22 minutes ago, FlipTheBird said:

There are a lot of folks here who only want to trade guys that, due to the organization’s current depth, are sometimes viewed as “second-tier.” It’s an emotional decision, I get it. But I agree with you - to land top line talent they’ll have trade more than “second-tier” young players.

I disagree, when you consider for example what the Dodgers (as @dewardnoted above) did to us with Manny. Along with everyone else "second-tier" we netted in the purge of 2018... or the earlier-generation fire sale of 2000, for that matter.

Edited July 8, 2023 by now

[deward]

7 hours ago, Jagwar said:

Yes, happened to me as well. I suggested that Mayo be one of the prospects no longer in the O's system after the trade deadline. Got shot down pretty quickly. 

He's on fire, he's young, and some team might just give the O's the needle mover they need for the playoffs. 

If you move Mayo, then it needs to be for someone who is going to be around for a while. They can't be gone in a year or two. It would have to be a stud in his first 2-3 years, or someone the O's would be willing to extend. If you can find that, then sure, it makes sense to put Mayo on the table (pun mostly unintended). I don't see that scenario out there. Trading Mayo for anything less than that is a bad use of resources. He can be a long-term solution for a future need (1B). Trading him for anything less than a long-term solution elsewhere is hurting the club.

[FlipTheBird]

9 minutes ago, now said:

I disagree, when you consider for example what the Dodgers (as @dewardnoted above) did to us with Manny. Along with everyone else "second-tier" we netted in the purge of 2017... or the earlier-generation fire sale of 2000, for that matter.

The purge of 2018 was an abysmal failure in large part because the people orchestrating it on the Orioles side had conflicting objectives (cutting salary became too important), and because they waited too long on some guys (Machado) which drove prices down.

The earlier stuff? Just poor organizational management. It’s how they wound up stinking for a decade and a half.

Mike Elias will certainly try to get the best deal possible, but you don’t get controllable top-tier talent for spare parts. And rentals can come at increased cost now, too, simply because the expanded playoffs create more buyers.

[FlipTheBird]

8 minutes ago, deward said:

If you move Mayo, then it needs to be for someone who is going to be around for a while. They can't be gone in a year or two. It would have to be a stud in his first 2-3 years, or someone the O's would be willing to extend. If you can find that, then sure, it makes sense to put Mayo on the table (pun mostly unintended). I don't see that scenario out there. Trading Mayo for anything less than that is a bad use of resources. He can be a long-term solution for a future need (1B). Trading him for anything less than a long-term solution elsewhere is hurting the club.

I would agree that Mayo’s stock has risen to the point where you’d ideally only include him if we were getting a controllable piece in return. Thus far the only name I’ve read about in most of these trade threads that would qualify there is Dylan Cease, and I don’t even think there’s been much word that he’s actually available. More just speculation seeing as the White Sox are a bit of a quagmire right now.

[deward]

13 minutes ago, FlipTheBird said:

There are a lot of folks here who only want to trade guys that, due to the organization’s current depth, are sometimes viewed as “second-tier.” It’s an emotional decision, I get it. But I agree with you - to land top line talent they’ll have trade more than “second-tier” young players.

There’s a lot of attachment to prospects, despite the fact that many won’t develop into more than league average players, if that. Still a gamble. Who’d have thought that, among the *position players* in the team’s system circa 10 years ago… the guy performing at the highest level right now would be Christian Walker?

The old Bill James rule of thumb was that if a hitter, who is age appropriate for the level, shows success at AA and above, then he's got a good chance to translating that to the major leagues. Most of the O's top prospects are guys who have already passed that test, with flying colors in most cases. Nothing is guaranteed, someone in this group will probably disappoint, but these guys aren't huge gambles at this point.