What does a trade for a TOR arm look like?

[Greg Pappas]

1 hour ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

The O's need to hang onto every pitching prospect they can.  Povich might be the O's best starting pitching prospect now that Grayson has lost his prospect status. 

Povich is not close to the prospect that GRod is.

Edited July 8, 2023 by Greg Pappas

[bluedog]

22 minutes ago, Sanity Check said:

Elias didn't get into the deep end of the free agent starting pitcher pool last offseason with the insane numbers that pitchers were getting.  Do you see that changing this offseason?  I'm expecting more sticker shock, and acquiring pitchers some other way, such as the Lyles/Gibson types, and that's not going to make a lot of us happy.

Serious question. Who would you have liked the O's to have signed? Seems like Eovaldi has been the only slam dunk good signing that was a plausible target for the O's to land.

I think last year's FA class was pretty weak at SP except for four really elite guys (Kershaw, deGrom, Verlander, Rodon). Maybe Bassitt?

I am hopeful that next year's class is deeper and less top heavy (beyond Ohtani) so that the O's have some options for quality upgrades without breaking the bank.

[OriolesMagic83]

2 minutes ago, Greg Pappas said:

Povich is not close to the prospect that GRod is.

I said that now that Gray Rod is no longer officially a prospect, that Povich is probably the best starting pitching prospect the O's have.  Povich is probably a long shot to be an effective starter in the majors, but Gray Rod wasn't too impressive in his first go round.  Hoping for the best. 

[Greg Pappas]

2 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

I said that now that Gray Rod is no longer officially a prospect, that Povich is probably the best starting pitching prospect the O's have.  Povich is probably a long shot to be an effective starter in the majors, but Gray Rod wasn't too impressive in his first go round.  Hoping for the best. 

Gotcha.

[AnythingO's]

Just now, Sanity Check said:

I'm not going to go back and search for it, but I believe Elias pretty much said that the dollars being given out were not within what the Orioles were looking to pay, and I also believe he said something along the lines of the market being much higher than he had anticipated. I must be stupid too, because I didn't see Verlander, Rodon and DeGrom (among others) getting the contracts they got. 

I remember ME making those very comments as well so there's 2 of us in the stupid boat lol. I think what ME was willing to do was shorter term offers like 2-3 for the mid-level guys but both the years and $$ were a surprise. I don't  believe that JA will EVER sign on for a 4-5 year contract@ $20M+ no matter who it is. We can moan about it but that won't change reality. I think ME intends to draft college pitchers in later rounds to build power BP arms and to trade MLB assets for SP prospects like Povich and Seth Johnson to build the rotation. I like ERod as a rental because coming back from the finger injury his value (prospect cost) is down. If he llikes it here maybe we can sweeten the 3/$49M to 3/$54M ($18M AAV) which is the same as Gibson + Frazier. JA shouldn't complain.

[foxfield]

35 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

Mountcastle might have some value, but he's a platoon 1B.  How many teams can carry a platoon 1B w/ a sub .300 OBP.  How I would rate the O's 1B options:

1.  O'Hearn

2.  Santander (obviously as a part timer)

3.  Kjerstad (might be the best even now)

4.  Mountcastle

This is not even counting guys like Westburg who could probably play an above average 1B. 

I am not disputing that the Orioles may have better options.  But MC is good enough to get regular work for someone and I am not sure it wont be here.  He isn't performing well enough to keep his job presently...for the Orioles...but that doesn't mean that even here he has no future...and it certainly doesn't mean that he wouldn't be considered as at least a platoon elsewhere.

[Sanity Check]

8 minutes ago, bluedog said:

Serious question. Who would you have liked the O's to have signed? Seems like Eovaldi has been the only slam dunk good signing that was a plausible target for the O's to land.

I think last year's FA class was pretty weak at SP except for four really elite guys (Kershaw, deGrom, Verlander, Rodon). Maybe Bassitt?

I am hopeful that next year's class is deeper and less top heavy (beyond Ohtani) so that the O's have some options for quality upgrades without breaking the bank.

I would have liked several of them, but not at the contracts they got.  I actually started a thread about exactly that last year in December or January, asking which (if any) of those contracts would people have actually done.  I think the feedback was contracts like the one Bassitt got, or the one Zach Eflin signed with the Rays as being most reasonable.  Most people on the hangout agreed that the dollars being shoveled out were egregious and questionable.....almost desperate.

My point was only that I don't see Elias swimming with the big boys again this offseason with insane contracts for pitchers, so our best option may be to acquire one via trade.  We seem to have way more prospects than we have money that we want to spend.  I guess we'll see how it shakes out.

Does that help answer your question?

[bluedog]

52 minutes ago, Sanity Check said:

I would have liked several of them, but not at the contracts they got.  I actually started a thread about exactly that last year in December or January, asking which (if any) of those contracts would people have actually done.  I think the feedback was contracts like the one Bassitt got, or the one Zach Eflin signed with the Rays as being most reasonable.  Most people on the hangout agreed that the dollars being shoveled out were egregious and questionable.....almost desperate.

My point was only that I don't see Elias swimming with the big boys again this offseason with insane contracts for pitchers, so our best option may be to acquire one via trade.  We seem to have way more prospects than we have money that we want to spend.  I guess we'll see how it shakes out.

Does that help answer your question?

Yup.

I see it a bit differently. I feel like he handed out 1 year deals to Frazier, Gibson and Givens so that he'd have the cash free again to play in free agency next year. That's $23M being freed up and the the O's are already one of the most profitable teams in the game (last I read was they cleared $64M last year), so there should be cash to go get 1 or 2 quality starting pitchers.

Maybe Elias wasn't ready to commit to multi-year FA contracts this year because he needed more time to determine what he has with GRod, Means, Irvin, Bradish, Wells & Kremer and he wanted to keep his powder dry for next year's better FA class?

[Il BuonO]

1 hour ago, bluedog said:

Serious question. Who would you have liked the O's to have signed? Seems like Eovaldi has been the only slam dunk good signing that was a plausible target for the O's to land.

I think last year's FA class was pretty weak at SP except for four really elite guys (Kershaw, deGrom, Verlander, Rodon). Maybe Bassitt?

I am hopeful that next year's class is deeper and less top heavy (beyond Ohtani) so that the O's have some options for quality upgrades without breaking the bank.

To answer your question, yes to Eovaldi. He was a reasonable target for them. Pretty sure they didn’t make an offer.

[Il BuonO]

4 minutes ago, bluedog said:

Yup.

I see it a bit differently. I feel like he handed out 1 year deals to Frazier, Gibson and Givens so that he'd have the cash free again to play in free agency next year. That's $23M being freed up and the the O's are already one of the most profitable teams in the game (last I read was they cleared $64M last year), so there should be cash to go get 1 or 2 quality starting pitchers.

Maybe Elias wasn't ready to commit to multi-year FA contracts this year because he needed more time to determine what he has with GRod, Means, Irvin, Bradish, Wells & Kremer and he wanted to keep his powder dry for next year's better FA class?

I don’t disagree with any of this. All very plausible.

[Sports Guy]

2 hours ago, Sanity Check said:

The only thing that concerns me about your first sentence is that I don't see Elias paying any TOR guy the money they will command in the free agent market, so trading for a longer term, high upside guy might make more sense for us.  I don't want another offseason like last year when it seemed that the dollars were off the charts, or pitchers chose more attractive (maybe to them) destinations.  I still don't believe anyone will give Baltimore a discount my signing here.

Would you agree that if we don't trade for that kind of pitcher, we likely won't sign one either, or do you have more faith in us spending money?  (As a side note, in the Astros blueprint, they didn't sign TOR guys to big contracts).

You don’t have to have a TOR starter and you sure as hell shouldn’t buy one in FA and pay 5+ years of stupid money until to see it likely blow up in your face.

The Os have the third best record in baseball and don’t have a true TOR starter even if they have a few guys pitching like one at times.