MLB article on what it would take to get Shohei Ohtani. Has Orioles trading 5 guys. Boston 1.

[forphase1]

Would I love to have Ohtani on the team?  Absolutely.  Would I be willing to trade for him?  Sure!  Would I make most of the proposed deals I've seen thrown around?  No way.  If I'm giving up a talent like Mayo, I want more than just a two month rental.  I MIGHT part with Ortiz, but only if he's pretty much all I give up.  Ortiz + other top talent is a hard no.  I know not everyone is as high on Ortiz as I happen to be, but I think he's going to be special, and I likely wouldn't trade him for anyone who is available as a rental other than Ohtani.  Otherwise I'm only trading him for an asset we will have longer than 2 months.  JMO.

[OnlyOneOriole]

Ohtani is special.  Obviously.  But let us keep things in perspective.   I still believe that as of today, the O's are not quite at the level talent wise as the Dodgers, Astro's, Braves, or even the Rays are.

 

I think they could be next year, but not today.  And even with the addition of Ohtani I still don't see it.  The starting pitching and the relief pitching as a whole is just not there.

 

I think if you could get Snell and Hader without giving up half the farm?  I would rather go that route.  But even then.....I think at this point you ride with basically what you have and then this coming off season you really go balls to the walls.  To me they are not quite good enough yet to warrant going all in this year. 

[DrungoHazewood]

14 hours ago, Camden Yards said:

I agree. Less than 1% it happens. But I would do it. I am not worried about Fangraphs percentages. The percentages have been off about the Orioles for the past year. 
Where do you see those five prospects impacting the Orioles in the next few years? Or do you think we trade some of them for other pieces?

Deep depth is a good thing. You consider trading from it, but be careful. I've seen time and time again where a team goes overnight from "this guy is blocked, why haven't we traded him" to "dear God, why are Ryan Flaherty and Caleb Joseph playing every day?!"

[Sports Guy]

It’s crazy to think the Os could give Ohtani a 60M deal and their payroll would still be in the bottom 5-7 in the league next year.

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Deep depth is a good thing. You consider trading from it, but be careful. I've seen time and time again where a team goes overnight from "this guy is blocked, why haven't we traded him" to "dear God, why are Ryan Flaherty and Caleb Joseph playing every day?!"

Or you keep that deep depth and those players never get a chance to show anything, get hurt, etc..and eventually they have zero value.

Its a balancing act for sure but you can’t and shouldn’t keep everyone. 

[Bemorewins]

8 hours ago, Alasdaire said:

Reasonable minds can disagree!

Agreed

[Bemorewins]

6 hours ago, OnlyOneOriole said:

Ohtani is special.  Obviously.  But let us keep things in perspective.   I still believe that as of today, the O's are not quite at the level talent wise as the Dodgers, Astro's, Braves, or even the Rays are.

 

I think they could be next year, but not today.  And even with the addition of Ohtani I still don't see it.  The starting pitching and the relief pitching as a whole is just not there.

 

I think if you could get Snell and Hader without giving up half the farm?  I would rather go that route.  But even then.....I think at this point you ride with basically what you have and then this coming off season you really go balls to the walls.  To me they are not quite good enough yet to warrant going all in this year. 

I would be fine with Snell, Rodriguez, or Stroman. IMO, they are all significant upgrades to what we have now and won’t require longer term commitments (with opts, player options, or end of contract). Therefore you are not betting on any of them to have repeat seasons next year and you are able to keep your options open.

Of course, Ohtani would be the ultimate upgrade. IMO, if we were to add him and a good middle reliever he would catapult us past the Rays and Dodgers. The Braves are by far in a class of their own (though they’ve hit a little rough patch post all-star break). IMO, many posters here are overrating the Dodgers because they took 2 of 3 from us but this is the worse team that they’ve had in a long while. Their pitching is not that good (especially with the injuries). But more than likely we will not have to worry about them.

I don’t know if the Angels will eventually pull the trigger on an Ohtani trade or if they could get fair compensation for him given how truly unique of a two-way player that he is. I don’t think a team has ever traded away, the best hitter and one of the best pitcher’s in the game at the same time.

Now while I have concerns about the compensation package that we would have to surrender. I don’t think it’s wise to pretend like he’s like every other player. And not be honest about how much he will improve any team that he goes to. He is chasing Judge’s home run record just as a hitter with an OPS over 1.000. He’s been a 4.5 WAR player this season  just on offense! It is true that he is having a down season thus far as a pitcher, nowhere near his incredible campaign last year. But he still would be better than any pitcher that we have (there may be an argument for Bradish this year).

I want the O’s to hold on to our foundational prospects who IMO are Holliday, Kjerstad, and Mayo along with Cowser. But if we had to part with some of the rest to acquire the supernova that Ohtani is, I would be okay with that. 

This is not to mention the increased ticket sales, jersey sales, merch and revenue that he will generate. From a business perspective it would bring a big boost.

If the O’s acquired Ohtani and predictably went far in the postseason, imagine the increase of tix sales and season tix commitments next year even as they don’t resign him. Because the message to the fans and the sport in general would be different as it relates to winning and competing for titles.

[Bemorewins]

57 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Deep depth is a good thing. You consider trading from it, but be careful. I've seen time and time again where a team goes overnight from "this guy is blocked, why haven't we traded him" to "dear God, why are Ryan Flaherty and Caleb Joseph playing every day?!"

Injuries can happen no doubt. But the issue with the Orioles this year and into the forecastable future is we were built with an unbalanced approach. The drafting and development went almost exclusively to the positional player side and we neglected an attempt to acquire any high end pitching talent. 

Now that the position players have begun arriving in droves and the team is very good, we have the very predictable hole that we should have all known that we would have all along. 

I don’t think any objective observer can reasonably project us to win a championship until we make improvements to our pitching. We simply don’t have enough.

Sure it would be great to keep all/most of the prospects if we had  an owner who would spend meaningful money acquiring the pitching talent that we need, but we don’t.

If not through trade how else are we going to close the pitching talent gap with the Rays, Rangers, and Braves? This season or any other in the near future?

[Number5]

2 hours ago, Bemorewins said:

If not through trade how else are we going to close the pitching talent gap with the Rays, Rangers, and Braves? This season or any other in the near future?

Robo-umps.  

[Bemorewins]

Just now, Number5 said:

Robo-umps.  

That would have helped yesterday for sure. But on the average day we all have to admit that what those teams have is better.

We could/can beat teams like the Marlins and Twins who pitch better than us because they have very putrid offenses. But when we face teams who have offensive firepower comparable and in the case of the Rangers, Brave, and probably the Rays too that is better than ours (though I don't believe that they are who they were for the first 2 months of the season offensively), you can't also be at a serious talent disadvantage when it comes to pitching as well.

[DrungoHazewood]

6 hours ago, Bemorewins said:

Injuries can happen no doubt. But the issue with the Orioles this year and into the forecastable future is we were built with an unbalanced approach. The drafting and development went almost exclusively to the positional player side and we neglected an attempt to acquire any high end pitching talent. 

Now that the position players have begun arriving in droves and the team is very good, we have the very predictable hole that we should have all known that we would have all along. 

I don’t think any objective observer can reasonably project us to win a championship until we make improvements to our pitching. We simply don’t have enough.

Sure it would be great to keep all/most of the prospects if we had  an owner who would spend meaningful money acquiring the pitching talent that we need, but we don’t.

If not through trade how else are we going to close the pitching talent gap with the Rays, Rangers, and Braves? This season or any other in the near future?

I think they will make some trades, probably for starting pitching. But they need to be cautious. Which they will be. Elias isn't some guy on Twitter ready to trade five top 100 prospects for the first starter who's available.

[Bemorewins]

4 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I think they will make some trades, probably for starting pitching. But they need to be cautious. Which they will be. Elias isn't some guy on Twitter ready to trade five top 100 prospects for the first starter who's available.

Trading 5 top 100 prospects wouldn’t be a sensible trade to me or most reasonable O’s fans IMO. We don’t have to trade 5 but if we can move a couple for 1 or 2 guys who can upgrade our roster in a significant way, I’m on board with that. 

What I don’t want us to do is stand pat and then wonder why we didn’t succeed in the Fall.