John Angelos is Right About Emulating the Rays

[baltfan]

As much as people want to think this team can afford to spend money on big free agents, it cannot.  The damage done by a miss is too much to stomach.  The Rays repeatedly have found quality players through player development even without high draft picks, trades, and scouring the rosters of others.  

Look at their current roster of pitchers.  McClanahan is home grown.  Efflin was a modest free agent signing.  Glasnow and Civale were acquired in trades.  Littel was claimed off waivers.  None of these guys was particularly established when acquired.  For those of you thinking that's not true, Civale and Glasnow were established.  Neither of them had had a season like Cease, Burnes, or Woodward who are often talked about for the Orioles and would be more expensive to acquire.

Similarly, the position players are a hodgepodge of guys that weren't particularly well thought of when acquired--Ramirez, Arozarena, Paredes, and Diaz.  They have been developed.

The team needs to pour money into development and scouting which are much cheaper than players. 

We should be cheering JA on when he says he wants to emulate the Rays.

[Can_of_corn]

THEY AREN'T EMULATING THE RAYS!

The Rays have shown a willingness to extend young players.

[tntoriole]

So why did we not sign Eflin?  

[eddie83]

You can try to accomplish their development success and still spend on certain players. The Orioles also have pitchers from other organizations that have flourished here like Bradish, Cano, and some of the relievers. 
 

You don’t see people on here saying to go after $300/400M players. Wanting to see the Orioles extend young talent beyond their FA years is not a crazy ask. Wanting to add a legit SP is not either.  

[tntoriole]

Why did we trade for Flaherty and not Civale? 

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, tntoriole said:

So why did we not sign Eflin?  

Because it's easier to be the Rays when you don't have the actual Rays doing Rays things.

[tntoriole]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Because it's easier to be the Rays when you don't have the actual Rays doing Rays things.

And the main Rays thing is not being owned by the Angelos clan 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

The problem is I think John Angelos wants to take the half assed approach to being the Rays. Is he willing to spent some money on pitching this offseason as that is a big need.

 

[Finisher]

38 minutes ago, tntoriole said:

Why did we trade for Flaherty and not Civale? 

Yeah, Tampa got a guy pitching like an Ace and we got an arsonist who has been mostly lousy the past two seasons. That swing right there could easily be the difference.

[Can_of_corn]

12 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

The problem is I think John Angelos wants to take the half assed approach to being the Rays. Is he willing to spent some money on pitching this offseason as that is a big need.

 

I think John is pretty happy the team is doing well but mostly he's concerned about keeping payroll as low as he can get away with.

[Moose Milligan]

This thread is hysterical 

[jabba72]

The Rays sign modest Free Agents and try to extend young players. Two things O's fans would love to see John emulate.

I agree the O's aren't the Yankees or Red Sox. 

[AnythingO's]

Hell will freeze before I cheer on JA for anything other than selling the team. I could cheer ME for trying to emulate the Rays but I refuse to believe JA will let him. JA has already gone on record saying that increased spending depends on increased revenue. To me that says his baseline is current salary levels which allowed him to bank $150 M in profit the last 2 years. This year should be even better but I doubt ME gets another $30 M to spend.

[Aristotelian]

OP, you are going to get tons of down votes and crap from the peanut gallery in starting this thread. I don't think either side is wrong. What they are reacting to is not the Tampa model itself (the success of which cannot be denied), but rather what Angelos and Co. mean when they refer to Tampa. That should mean focusing on development, smart team friendly contract extensions to franchise players (Longoria, Wander), and occasional FA signings. From what we have seen, what Angelos means is simply keeping payroll low. We have done the cost cutting and development. The question is whether we will extend the stats and spend that extra $30-40M to truly compete. 

[Can_of_corn]

5 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

OP, you are going to get tons of down votes and crap from the peanut gallery in starting this thread. I don't think either side is wrong. What they are reacting to is not the Tampa model itself (the success of which cannot be denied), but rather what Angelos and Co. mean when they refer to Tampa. That should mean focusing on development, smart team friendly contract extensions to franchise players (Longoria, Wander), and occasional FA signings. From what we have seen, what Angelos means is simply keeping payroll low. We have done the cost cutting and development. The question is whether we will extend the stats and spend that extra $30-40M to truly compete. 

Also the current Rays team is not built off of a hard tank.

The Rays have only picked in the top 10 once since their 2007-2008 back to back #1 picks.