The Ringer: Orioles Losers at Deadline

[tntoriole]

Media types love conflict .. so now there will be an echo chamber of “Orioles losers at deadline” rants. 
 

This guy is not even any good in the depth of his analysis.  He would be less so than many OH posters. 
 

The only metric really is winning and so that guy can ramble on about the wonderful Rangers etc but we shall see who wins come October . We whipped Verlander and Scherzer when they were almost a decade younger lol.   Justin and Max?  Meet Gunnar and Adley. 

[Greg Pappas]

1 hour ago, Gurgi said:

You have to think Elias did not make these moves unaware.  I bet he is getting updates from Means that are promising.  Also Grey Rod looks like he might be sharp now.   

Why give away any real prospects if you know Means is right around the corner?  

You cannot count on Means returning to prior form.  If that's your mindset, it's flawed IMHO.

[Billy F-Face3]

That's at least 3 or 4 publications I've seen saying this.

[Gurgi]

6 minutes ago, Greg Pappas said:

You cannot count on Means returning to prior form.  If that's your mindset, it's flawed IMHO.

I am predicting he is going to be a positive this year.  

[Morgan423]

There's a difference between "The Orioles were unable to move many of their top 25 prospects to acquire upgrades" and being bled dry by other GMs.

I know that buyers don't win deadline trades, but the general feel yesterday was that we were talking to these other teams, and they were legitimately asking too much.  And to some extent I get it, there was no absolute need to move Cease, or ERod, for example. 

But we were probably being asked to not just overpay...  but to ridiculously overpay.  I've got no proof, but it feels like we didn't get anything resembling a fair situational offer for most of these guys we were in on.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Morgan423

[Billy F-Face3]

And now I'm reading comments from Cardinals fans. They seem to be happy to get rid of him and say that Flaherty has a bad attitude.

Now we have to worry about him being a drag on clubhouse team chemistry.

[Greg Pappas]

6 minutes ago, Gurgi said:

I am predicting he is going to be a positive this year.  

That's cool, but I was referring to you saying that Elias may be getting updates, and "Why give away any real prospects if you know Means is right around the corner? "

It would be a flawed strategy by Elias to count Means in the equation of whether or not our bullpen needed more upgrades.  I feel we need to view Means as a longshot that could still be "a positive," but not one we're counting on.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Greg Pappas

[Tryptamine]

8 minutes ago, Billy F-Face3 said:

And now I'm reading comments from Cardinals fans. They seem to be happy to get rid of him and say that Flaherty has a bad attitude.

Now we have to worry about him being a drag on clubhouse team chemistry.

Ignore that. The fans have pretty openly hated him since he was in support of BLM.

[Explosivo]

1 hour ago, Pickles said:

I saw the Fangraphs thread and figured I might as well add this here.  Another national publication criticizing the O's deadline moves or lack thereof.

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2023/8/1/23816523/mlb-trade-deadline-2023-buyers-sellers-justin-verlander-max-scherzer

Loser: Baltimore Orioles

In: Jack Flaherty, Shintaro Fujinami, Logan Rinehart

Out: César Prieto, Drew Rom, Zack Showalter, Easton Lucas, Eduard Bazardo

The Orioles are like the Rangers—a surprising first-place team at the deadline. But they’re also not like the Rangers, because it’s unclear whether the Orioles actually realized they’re a first-place team at the deadline. Texas acted like it, strengthening its roster in an effort to both make the playoffs and maximize its opportunity once there.

Baltimore, though, acted with nowhere near that amount of aggression, even though the Orioles had more prospect depth to trade than any other contender. The Orioles have so many good young hitters that they can’t even play all of them together—yet they didn’t use any of their top 25 prospects, by FanGraphs’ reckoning, to upgrade at the deadline. There’s a large gap between not “set[ting] the minor league system on fire just because we’re in first place,” which GM Mike Elias warned against doing, and holding every notable prospect close.

It’s not as if Baltimore is devoid of holes, either. The bullpen is overly reliant on just two brilliant arms, Félix Bautista and Yennier Cano, and Cano has struggled of late, with a 4.91 ERA and 1.018 OPS allowed in his last 13 appearances. Yet the club’s only bullpen addition was Fujinami, a speculative acquisition with control problems who was terrible for the A’s this season.

The starting rotation is in even more dire straits, ranking 19th in the majors in WAR this season, and without a true ace who can helm a playoff rotation. How does some combination of Kyle Gibson, Kyle Bradish, Grayson Rodriguez, Dean Kremer, and Tyler Wells (recently demoted to Double-A after a slump) sound in October? The club has succeeded with such uninspired rotations before—remember when Joe Saunders beat Yu Darvish in a wild-card game, or when Chris Tillman, Wei-Yin Chen, and Bud Norris swept Verlander, Scherzer, and David Price?—but that doesn’t mean Baltimore’s bound to win in the same fashion again a decade later.

And all the team did in this regard was add Flaherty in the final minutes before the deadline. Flaherty’s a big name—but now he’s only an average pitcher, not the top-of-the-rotation type the Orioles need. While Flaherty was dominant for the Cardinals en route to the NLCS in 2019, he hasn’t posted an above-average FIP in any full-length season since then. His strikeouts have fallen, his walks have risen, and now he’s an impending free agent who’s largely indistinguishable from the Gibsons of the world.

Make no mistake, the Orioles are still flying high with the best record in the American League, and their fans should still be exuberant about the team’s overall direction. But their playoff potential would look a lot less precarious if they’d cashed in some of their prospect value to make a real run at the 2023 title.

Trade analysis like this is largely worthless. Remember the write ups after the Lopez trade? It’s impossible to know without time for display so write ups like this are entirely opinion based. 

[Malike]

They lost me at the Orioles didn't even use any of their top 25 prospects. We used 2 of them.

[btdart20]

2 hours ago, Pickles said:

The Orioles are like the Rangers—a surprising first-place team at the deadline.

Were the Rangers really a surprising first-place team?  Pretty much says all I need to know about how they read the room.  We're talking about a team that dumped a bunch of cash on Seager, Semien, deGrom, and a few other names to augment some young guys like Jung and Lowe.  That's a team with expectations.  The surprise would be a last-place team.  Like say (because I can't resist) the NYY!

[StottyByNature]

Grading like this is silly.  It’s easy to say that the Orioles had the capital to get a higher end starter, but short-sighted to simply state that it should have happened.  No one knows what the Orioles offered for Cease but it certainly seems that the Sox were asking for a kings ransom.  Sometimes winning a trade is by not making it.  Given how much teams gave up for starters, I am pleased Elias went the direction he did.  I do wish he had gone for one of the relievers. 

[lovetoaster]

1 hour ago, Billy F-Face3 said:

And now I'm reading comments from Cardinals fans. They seem to be happy to get rid of him and say that Flaherty has a bad attitude.

Now we have to worry about him being a drag on clubhouse team chemistry.

Oh come on. There are plenty of people that say the complete opposite. Like his teammates. Check out what Adam Wainwright had to say. I'll believe the guy that was actually in that clubhouse with him more than some nameless fans on a message board. 

[lovetoaster]

1 hour ago, Tryptamine said:

Ignore that. The fans have pretty openly hated him since he was in support of BLM.

*some fans

I saw plenty of positive messages and good wishes from Cards fans yesterday. Sprinkled with other...let's just say different...messages.

[baltfan]

1 hour ago, Billy F-Face3 said:

And now I'm reading comments from Cardinals fans. They seem to be happy to get rid of him and say that Flaherty has a bad attitude.

Now we have to worry about him being a drag on clubhouse team chemistry.

Be careful with that. Apparently a fair amout of them didn’t like him because he was a vocal supporter of left leaning causes.  I saw more than one fan complaining about that.