Ben Clemens of Fangraphs: Orioles-losers at the trade deadline

[Hallas]

40 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

Here's what I thought was the interesting line:

Projecting what players might become in three years leads to systematic mis-evaluations of how important the present is at any given time. Concentrating value into windows of contention by adding at some deadlines and restocking at others is the way that teams with good process convert their farm systems into titles. The Orioles will figure it out, but I don’t think they’ve gotten the math right just yet.

The value of the present can be tough to pin - its kind of a Rohrschach if you think enough of the stars will stay.     I will say that I wonder if Mayo-Basallo developing so nicely and Gunnar-Holliday being closer to them than Adley in age means the demographic center of gravity has shifted.      The Peak Holliday teams might go higher than the Peak Adley teams.

I thought Clemens reverence for the AL East powers was too much.    Some of his argument came from the take "this might never happen again" but I think he's underestimating this nucleus' chance to have the Best AL Record in a 5-year period.

The biggest thing I worry about next year's team not having that this year's team does is a healthy Felix Bautista.    

I think it's a little over the top?  But not a lot.  The flappy teams (rays, jays, O's) all have reasonably bright to extremely bright futures.   But with the Red Sox and Yankees, they can flip a switch and become relevant almost at will with the amount of money they have... if the Yankees ever get their heads out their butts, they can turn it around in a hurry.  Cohen just bought a top-10 farm system by selling 3 pitchers on the wrong side of 35.  Both the Yankees and Red Sox are capable of that.  You just never know what you're going to get if you're dogfighting in the division with 4 other teams that could at any given season win a world series.

[e16bball]

15 minutes ago, Hallas said:

I think that Montgomery or Scherzer or Verlander are (more or less) 1 win better than Flaherty, and that win has a high likelihood of being significant when it comes to us being a division winner or not.  If we win the division then it basically doubles our chances of winning the WS by virtue of having one less series to play.

One win better over the rest of the regular season?

We’re talking about 1/3 of a season…so you think they’re (more or less) 3 wins better over the course of a full year? 

That’s a pretty wide gulf. I don’t see that in their respective numbers.

[Going Underground]

1 minute ago, Hallas said:

I think it's a little over the top?  But not a lot.  The flappy teams (rays, jays, O's) all have reasonably bright to extremely bright futures.   But with the Red Sox and Yankees, they can flip a switch and become relevant almost at will with the amount of money they have... if the Yankees ever get their heads out their butts, they can turn it around in a hurry.  Cohen just bought a top-10 farm system by selling 3 pitchers on the wrong side of 35.  Both the Yankees and Red Sox are capable of that.  You just never know what you're going to get if you're dogfighting in the division with 4 other teams that could at any given season win a world series.

I don't think the Yankees would ever do a sale like the Mets did. 

[Hallas]

4 minutes ago, e16bball said:

One win better over the rest of the regular season?

We’re talking about 1/3 of a season…so you think they’re (more or less) 3 wins better over the course of a full year? 

That’s a pretty wide gulf. I don’t see that in their respective numbers.

I'd say 2-2.5-ish wins over a full year?  I think those guys are 4-5 win pitchers right now, and Flaherty is closer to a 2 win pitcher.   Close to a win.  The difference is basically a rounding error to me.  The O's have a little more than 1/3 their season left too, so that might make up some of the difference.

 

I think what would change my mind on this is if they unlock 2019 Flaherty somehow.  Or even part of 2019 Flaherty.  The O's have had a lot of luck fixing people, so we can't discount that.   Flaherty is definitely talented and I think the present-day O's love tinkering with talented guys and unlocking them, so if they do that then I take back everything and I'll just say that I'm an idiot for disliking the deadline moves.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Hallas

[Sanity Check]

1 minute ago, Hallas said:

I think it's a little over the top?  But not a lot.  The flappy teams (rays, jays, O's) all have reasonably bright to extremely bright futures.   But with the Red Sox and Yankees, they can flip a switch and become relevant almost at will with the amount of money they have... if the Yankees ever get their heads out their butts, they can turn it around in a hurry.  Cohen just bought a top-10 farm system by selling 3 pitchers on the wrong side of 35.  Both the Yankees and Red Sox are capable of that.  You just never know what you're going to get if you're dogfighting in the division with 4 other teams that could at any given season win a world series.

I also think there's something to be said in building winning teams at the minor league level, and a winning CULTURE.  That translates, and it's what the Orioles did in the 1970's in developing their young talent.  I'm glad we're getting back to that, at least in Norfolk.  IN time, I think the rest of our minor league teams will dominate as well.

Also, it provides us the opportunity to see which ones will pan out while on our roster, and not on another team.  I'm pretty sure we'll figure that out.

[tntoriole]

7 minutes ago, Hallas said:

I think it's a little over the top?  But not a lot.  The flappy teams (rays, jays, O's) all have reasonably bright to extremely bright futures.   But with the Red Sox and Yankees, they can flip a switch and become relevant almost at will with the amount of money they have... if the Yankees ever get their heads out their butts, they can turn it around in a hurry.  Cohen just bought a top-10 farm system by selling 3 pitchers on the wrong side of 35.  Both the Yankees and Red Sox are capable of that.  You just never know what you're going to get if you're dogfighting in the division with 4 other teams that could at any given season win a world series.

Yankees need a new GM

[Alasdaire]

It's just a boring and lazy critique. Do you really think the front office isn't aware that the goal is to win and not to be "constantly dreaming about what players might become?"

And for a site as statistically oriented as Fangraphs, if you're going to make the claim that "concentrating value into windows of contention by adding at some deadlines and restocking at others is the way that teams with good process convert their farm systems into titles," then show your work and prove it.

There are far more thoughtful reflections on this message board than in that blurb.

[Hallas]

1 minute ago, tntoriole said:

Yankees need a new GM

No kidding.

 

Cashman suddenly realizing that the job is hard because he can't buy the best draft picks, the best free agents, and the best international players every year.

[O's84]

31 minutes ago, PeteCanes said:

Your 2 cents are worth less than a plug nickel, when you put it that way

I actually wasn't trying to be rude.  I apologize if that was how it was taken.  I take pain medicine for my many health problems and it's effects can cause me to not catch my tone occasionally, as well as memory and a host of other things.  I won't go on any further about it because I don't want to turn this into a pity for me post.

[waroriole]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

If you want to bash the team for a non move, it’s Chapman.

If you want to bash them for the state of the rotation, you go back to the offseason(and not just this past one)

But the Flaherty deal was a good one.

I’m not gonna bash the team for not trading for a domestic abuser who quit on his team last year. 

[banks703]

2 hours ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

"The Orioles are run by a sharp group of people; you’ll get no objection from me on that score. They’re surely aware of the perils of constantly looking to the future; it’s not a deep secret. But subconsciously, I think they might be struggling to change mental models. Constantly dreaming about what players might become in three years leads to systematic mis-evaluations of how important the present is at any given time. Concentrating value into windows of contention by adding at some deadlines and restocking at others is the way that teams with good process convert their farm systems into titles. The Orioles will figure it out, but I don’t think they’ve gotten the math right just yet."

He has an interesting point, however I don't agree with him. I think mortgaging the future on a starter that may or may not change your chances of a long playoff run is not smart. But this quote does have merit. Especially the bolded part.

2023 Trade Deadline Winners and Losers | FanGraphs Baseball

I agree wholeheartedly with what he wrote. They've done a brilliant job at (re)building the pipeline. Perhaps that endeavor is the best that the league has ever seen - to go from second worst farm to number 1 in just a handful of years is pretty astonishing. I don't think that any other team in the history of the sport can make such a claim. That's just one part of running a major league team and organization.

There have been some recent articles on Sig's obsession with prospects and how he is aggressively against trading them. There's a balance between building a farm system and using the prospect capital to improve the current club. Really, this is year 1 of their window and I agree that they could (should) have done more, especially considering some of the deals that were made for sexier pitching. I think it's fair to make the claim that they have a lot to prove as far as the trading talent to improve the big club's chances of contending goes when considering how important that piece is to running a baseball operations for a major league team. 

I gave them an A in the poll that @Frobby posted but at least half of the reason for that is because I genuinely expected them to do nothing. The other half of my reason is because I like Flaherty as an add but when we look at the deals that were made around the league, specifically at the Mets deals and considering how much the Mets paid for the Rangers and Stros to take on Scherzer and Verlander, I'm disappointed that the O's came away from the deadline with neither pitcher. I wasn't outwardly advocating for either and I truthfully don't think that I wanted either of them but both guys may have been better options than Flaherty and probably would have cost the O's about the same in terms of prospects. Maybe neither wanted to come to Baltimore. I don't think that we know that so unless that is communicated to the public, we all probably assume that they traded for a guy who, while he does improve their rotation for this season, is not committed any money after this season, which reeks of penny pinching.

They're set up to win for a long time but damn if life doesn't happen. Look at the Marlins about eight years back with Jose Fernandez. His passing derailed their organization and set them back years. Tomorrow is never guaranteed. While I agree that they shouldn't have mortgaged the future for rentals, they could have done more to give the 2023 Orioles a real shot at winning the World Series this year. 

[banks703]

2 hours ago, PeteCanes said:

I think Flaherty will be a better pitcher than the HOFers from here to the end of the season 

The peripherals certainly suggest improvement over the last five or so weeks. It's hard to account for big game experience. Both Scherzer and Verlander could turn it on at any given moment and run off eight or ten HOF starts as they've done so many times in their careers. 

[banks703]

2 hours ago, Gurgi said:

People should go back and rewatch the video of Elias when he was hired for the job.  He states plain that the Orioles are going to be a draft and develop team.  No real mention of going on the free agency route and certainly no mention of buying at the deadline and over paying for diminishing talent.  The Orioles are way ahead of time and under no pressure to win now.  

Elias said he wanted to be the Tampa Bay Rays.  This should give you an idea of how he plans to approach things.  

And we can get back more talent in the offseason for players that might be blocked now.  

I wouldn't consider five years into something being ahead of time. I think that's a bold statement. They should have made moves last year to compete for a playoff spot but chose to stick to the plan because they were a year ahead of their schedule. I think that's kind of the tone that the writer was attempting to communicate - they're kind of stuck in their ways and while it's been successful, their approach needs to evolve so that they can take the next step.. and I agree with that sentiment. 

[banks703]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

If you want to bash the team for a non move, it’s Chapman.

If you want to bash them for the state of the rotation, you go back to the offseason(and not just this past one)

But the Flaherty deal was a good one.

Agreed. When I floated the idea of Chapman a month or so back, there were a bunch of folks who immediately stated how toxic he is and that they didn't want him in the clubhouse, yadda yadda. Can you imagine a backend of Fuji, Cano, Chapman and Felix? That's how the Royals won their World Series. 

[banks703]

18 minutes ago, tntoriole said:

Yankees need a new GM

No. I love the one they have now. Don't jinx it and ruin it for us for the next ten years.