Elias' 2023 Offseason acquisitions grades

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, Otter said:

Great compilation and hard to argue with any of the grades.  The only one I'd change is the C for Frazier to a D.  Frazier has been very clutch at times, but I still feel we would have gotten more value out of a full year of Westburg and/or Ortiz at a fraction of the cost.

I certainly understand that train of thought and honestly, maybe that hit in the 9th against Tampa that keyed that comeback has jaded me a bit toward the better grade. But I do think he's had some value this year even if it came at the cost of Ortiz spending most of the year in AAA and Westburg only getting part of the year in the majors. 

Again, late in game against a hard throwing right-handed strikeout pitcher with less than two out and and a runner ins scoring position, I have hard time thinking I'd rather have Westburg or Ortiz up vs Frazier. 

But, overall for the whole season? I'd still would have preferred Westburg as the everyday 2B all year vs Frazier.

[Sports Guy]

Gibson would be a C or even C- for me.

Frazier would probably be a C- for me but it’s close.

I would probably bump DC to an A.

McCann would be a B-/C+. His OPS was pretty awful for the first 4 months of the season. He has served his role but he was largely a zero with the bat for most of the season. I would ding him some more for that.

The Irvin trade was a solid B+. The Irvin production has been a C- but I’m glad we have him and I feel we need to get him back up here and ready for the playoffs.

OHearn and DC were the clear best moves and no other move is particularly close.

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, Gunnar said:

I would move Gibson up to a B, McCann up to an A, and Coulombe to an A+ (he has really amped things up in the bullpen), otherwise can't argue (maybe downgrade Frazier like Otter said).

McCann has been good, but not great. Was he a better option than anyone else the Orioles had in the system, absolutely, but not sure he was an A move. 

[Tony-OH]

40 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Pretty much agree with the individual grades, but I don't think that is really a great way of looking at it. This is because the contributions of O'Hearn and Coulombe have been so much higher than any cost of the minor moves not working out. All the minor league free agents and waiver pickups had zero downside so I basically wouldn't weight them at all.

Viewed collectively, given $23M, is Frazier, Gibson, Coulombe, and O'Hearn a pretty good outcome? I'd say yes, maybe could have done better, but that's a solid haul at the price. There's maybe 5 WAR there in that group.

As far as the individual grades, I would be inclined to go a little higher than C on Gibson and Frazier. They have been useful and performed as expected. Perhaps the only negative is the opportunity cost of potentially getting someone better.

 

Where did I weigh any of these and give a final grade based off that? I just gave a grade for each individual move and how it worked out for the Orioles in 2023. I rated the free agent and waiver claims respectively for expectation. 

[Aristotelian]

Just now, Tony-OH said:

Where did I weigh any of these and give a final grade based off that? I just gave a grade for each individual move and how it worked out for the Orioles in 2023. I rated the free agent and waiver claims respectively for expectation. 

Sure. I was offering a different way of looking at the offseason and making the point (as others did) that the impacts of each of the moves are not equal if we want to assess the offseason as a whole. 

[Moose Milligan]

I actually forgot about Givens.  What a terrible pickup that was.

I agree with Tony's grades, I think that's about what I'd give those guys.

[btdart20]

Givens:  Can it get lower than an F?  Egads!

I think all of those "incomplete" grades were C grades because they met expectations.  Meaning, who else could have been DFA'd or picked up as depth?  They've met expectations for what they were here or elsewhere.

The only real difference I'd have is with Frazier.  Life is all about the moments and Frazier provided some top-shelf quality moments this year!  The rest of his body of work wasn't Odor-less, but it wasn't wretched either.  It's a B- for me.

[Tony-OH]

42 minutes ago, Otter said:

You do make some good points.  But I think Westburg would have been consistently better offensively, defensively, and on the base paths for the entire year and thus far outweighed the nice clutch moments Frazier has had.  Also, Ortiz and Westburg are not super young prospects but in their mid twenties and were MLB ready at the beginning of the year.  Being blocked by Frazier stole a year of their ML development time.  The Frazier signing didn't make sense short term or long term.  But in Elias' defense, my guess is he was surprised Westburg and Ortiz were ML ready at the start of the season and thus saw Frazier as a means to give them more AAA development time (even though they didn't need it).

I would have made this argument during most of this season, but let's just say the Orioles win it all this year or get into the World Series. An argument can be made that Elias was able to have great success at the major league level and still retain an extra year of control of Ortiz while keeping his value high for trade. 

Saying that, I do still believe a full year of Westburg would be more valuable than Frazier, even with his clutch hits, but how much more I don't know. I don't know how we can really quantify Frazier's value besides through WAR which significantly is different between rWAR and fWAR.

The one thing we can take from this year is that sometimes, the sum of the parts can out value the individual players when added individually. Does that make sense.

It's hard for me to nitpick too hard on the Frazier move when he's had several really big moments this year, and the Orioles may be on their way to their best record since 1979. 

I mean, the last time the Orioles won a World Series in 1983, they had Todd Cruz as their starting 3B. Grant it Cruz was a plus defensive 3B with a rocket arm, but he couldn't hit water falling out of a boat. 

[Tony-OH]

40 minutes ago, Ripken said:

You throw a bunch of guys out there and hope someone has success.  ROH is certainly doing that.  A great addition.  I'm down on Gibson, though I know he's done what he was signed for.  I really, really wanted Bassitt instead and he's been a lot better.  Oh, well.  The team is rolling so ME gets an A from me and that goes to A+ if they win the division.

Bassitt was my guy as well this offseason, but interestingly, despite his much better ERA than Gibson, his 4.49 FIP was actually worse than Gibson's 4.23 this year. 

Gibson's ERA was really hurt but some truly awful outings. 

As for Elias' overall grade, that was not what this "exercise" was for. It was for grading his individual moves and how they worked out for 2023.

Obviously if you rate his offseason based off results this season, he gets an A+ for this year, and no one should argue that. 

Saying that, he may have "lucked" a bit into his two best acquisitions in O'Hearn and Coulombe, still overpaid for Frazier when he had a better option in Westburg, and struck out totally on Givens. 

So from a pure offseason moves perspective, when he spent money he got maybe two C's (Gibson and Frazier) and an F (Givens). If you add in the two A's and let's give the McCann trade a B, and the Irvin trade a C we get to a 2.42 (Solid C) grade point average for the offseason.

But again, the sum of the parts have equaled success at levels we haven't seen in 40+ years.  

 

[Tony-OH]

17 minutes ago, btdart20 said:

Givens:  Can it get lower than an F?  Egads!

I think all of those "incomplete" grades were C grades because they met expectations.  Meaning, who else could have been DFA'd or picked up as depth?  They've met expectations for what they were here or elsewhere.

The only real difference I'd have is with Frazier.  Life is all about the moments and Frazier provided some top-shelf quality moments this year!  The rest of his body of work wasn't Odor-less, but it wasn't wretched either.  It's a B- for me.

I just went with Incompletes as a sort or no grade since they had low expectations and never amounted to anything positive or negative for the team this year.

[Tony-OH]

23 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Sure. I was offering a different way of looking at the offseason and making the point (as others did) that the impacts of each of the moves are not equal if we want to assess the offseason as a whole. 

But you literally said this was not the way to look a it, when I never said I was looking at that way. I never made any assessment in that post about an offseason grade for Elias. It was just a fun post to look at each move individually.

 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

22 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I actually forgot about Givens.  What a terrible pickup that was.

I agree with Tony's grades, I think that's about what I'd give those guys.

Did the Orioles notice Givens was overweight when they signed him? With Givens' sidearm delivery it was pretty much a given that extra girth would negatively effect his performance.

[Aristotelian]

5 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

But you literally said this was not the way to look a it, when I never said I was looking at that way. I never made any assessment in that post about an offseason grade for Elias. It was just a fun post to look at each move individually.

 

Right, you also didn't say that you weren't looking at it that way. I was not arguing with you per se but offering an alternative to a possible interpretation of what you said. 

[Too Tall]

Nice recap - even the Frazier part. Wouldn't change a grade. Admittedly the whole year of The Book of Frazier has been fun - a great follow, In all honesty however, I understand. It's just that it made me root harder for the guy and he sure has had his moments and I hope he isn't done. Comparatively, I like Westburg and it isn't close. I do think Elias has this thing though of sprinkling in some veterans to guide the flow and if he and Sig are going to part with any of their "jewels" it will be for percieved equal or better return.

This just shows what kind of crap shoot off season acquisitions can be. Fortunately, there is no big/long term fiscal loss there. Hitting A on two is pretty damn good. 

[Tony-OH]

2 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Right, you also didn't say that you weren't looking at it that way. I was not arguing with you per se but offering an alternative to a possible interpretation of what you said. 

Lol, you really are too much sometimes. You literally said, "but I don't think that is really a great way of looking at it." I NEVER MADE THAT POINT IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!! I never placed a grade. I never said all the moves would be added up and then given a grade. Clearly some moves were meaningless or small moves and don't get the same "weight" as the others. 

Instead of just admitting you were wrong, you keep doubling and tripling down.