Outfield Surplus?

[wildcard]

12 minutes ago, btdart20 said:

COF has a 2:1 ratio just like the IF (2B/SS/3B).  4 COFers for 2 spots vs. 6 IFers for 3 spots (non-1B).

The RIP-pending IFers (Westburg/Ortiz/Holliday) have a fairly low bar (Mateo/Urias) to huddle.  The bar is higher for the RIP-pending OFers but the market value for the top of the deck is higher here.

RIP?  Rest in Peace?

[btdart20]

9 minutes ago, wildcard said:

RIP?  Rest in Peace?

Rookie Integration Plan

[maybenxtyr]

20 minutes ago, wildcard said:

The O's want to win the WS next year.   That is the target.  Plan to beat Texas.

Maybe it will be Texas, maybe it won't.   But the plan should be to beat Texas.

You keep saying that about winning the WS next year, but you argue to basically return the same team as this season. The pythag from this season was 94 wins, which is still a really great season, but I don't think it's repeatable without some significant upgrades. Hopefully a good portion of the upgrades could come from in-house options.

[forphase1]

36 minutes ago, maybenxtyr said:

You keep saying that about winning the WS next year, but you argue to basically return the same team as this season. The pythag from this season was 94 wins, which is still a really great season, but I don't think it's repeatable without some significant upgrades. Hopefully a good portion of the upgrades could come from in-house options.

Exactly.   We can point to 101 wins,  yet still recognize we had some real holes and room to improve by giving fewer at bats to the Mateos/Urias/Fraziers on the team,  and even 2nd half Hays/Mullins.  While I'm concerned with how a rookie replaces those players,  I'm equally concerned with how those vets looked down the stretch.  

[maybenxtyr]

4 minutes ago, forphase1 said:

Exactly.   We can point to 101 wins,  yet still recognize we had some real holes and room to improve by giving fewer at bats to the Mateos/Urias/Fraziers on the team,  and even 2nd half Hays/Mullins.  While I'm concerned with how a rookie replaces those players,  I'm equally concerned with how those vets looked down the stretch.  

There were a lot of things that went really well this season... Mateo still has a .900 OPS on May 8th. He was instrumental in the early season success. Bautista is gone. O'Hearn is still an unknown. It's just not as easy as pencilling 23 or so of the same guys in and calling it a day.

[RZNJ]

1 hour ago, wildcard said:

The O's want to win the WS next year.   That is the target.  Plan to beat Texas.

Maybe it will be Texas, maybe it won't.   But the plan should be to beat Texas.

It doesn’t make much sense to me.  We could face 3-4 teams in the playoffs and might not even face Texas.   The plan should be to build the best team they can regardless of who they might face next year.

Now, back to reality.   Elias will build the best team he can under the 2024 budget and do so without hurting the teams chances in 2025, 26, etc.

[oriole]

There’s a crazy amount of variables with this. Some of the OF prospect depth could be traded this off season, one of our current OF could be traded this off season. Will Mayo or Norby be considered for an OF position? How quickly does Bradfield move up? 
 

I don’t think Elias will be doing any major trades. He doesn’t seem like the type to want to get burned by trading away cheap talent. JA is obviously very money motivated so more bang for your buck is the bottom line in Baltimore. That means cheap prospects.

I could see both Santander and Hays traded this offseason to make room for Cowser and Kjerstad. Personally, I’d probably trade one of Cowser or Kjerstad for an established SP with some control, but that’s not a money first move. 

[HakunaSakata]

This thread/topic is weird. How are we supposed to predict the future? I will say this, if the trade someone like Cowser or Kjerstad I want a youngish arm (like Bibee, maybe Keller, etc.). If they trade Santander I'm fine with getting an older solid SP. 

[24fps]

8 minutes ago, oriole said:

There’s a crazy amount of variables with this. Some of the OF prospect depth could be traded this off season, one of our current OF could be traded this off season. Will Mayo or Norby be considered for an OF position? How quickly does Bradfield move up? 
 

I don’t think Elias will be doing any major trades. He doesn’t seem like the type to want to get burned by trading away cheap talent. JA is obviously very money motivated so more bang for your buck is the bottom line in Baltimore. That means cheap prospects.

I could see both Santander and Hays traded this offseason to make room for Cowser and Kjerstad. Personally, I’d probably trade one of Cowser or Kjerstad for an established SP with some control, but that’s not a money first move. 

No major trades?  If Elias is afraid of losing a trade every now and then, then he doesn't have any business being a GM.  The more important variable to me is how many prospects turn into Actual Major League Baseball Players - a number we all know is well below 100%.  101 wins means the rebuild is over and the competitive window is open, so the job now is improving the team for 2024.  To me that means cashing in a few prospects regardless of the risks.

It also means spending more money whether John Angelos wants to or not.  It doesn't need to be top-half, but if the budget for 2024 remains in the lowest quartile then we will all have our answer as to what aspirations JA has for the Orioles.  After last season, I'm not going to assume the O's are going to remain bottom feeders, but I don't expect a huge, all-in strategy either.  My guess is around a $20 million bump in OD payroll.

I agree with trading one of Santander or Hays for SP.  My preference is Hays.  I don't care which of Cowser or Kjerstad is the one kept.  I would love to see Mayo switched to RF at AAA as Santander's long-term replacement beginning in 2025.

[oriole]

16 minutes ago, 24fps said:

No major trades?  If Elias is afraid of losing a trade every now and then, then he doesn't have any business being a GM.  The more important variable to me is how many prospects turn into Actual Major League Baseball Players - a number we all know is well below 100%.  101 wins means the rebuild is over and the competitive window is open, so the job now is improving the team for 2024.  To me that means cashing in a few prospects regardless of the risks.

It also means spending more money whether John Angelos wants to or not.  It doesn't need to be top-half, but if the budget for 2024 remains in the lowest quartile then we will all have our answer as to what aspirations JA has for the Orioles.  After last season, I'm not going to assume the O's are going to remain bottom feeders, but I don't expect a huge, all-in strategy either.  My guess is around a $20 million bump in OD payroll.

I agree with trading one of Santander or Hays for SP.  My preference is Hays.  I don't care which of Cowser or Kjerstad is the one kept.  I would love to see Mayo switched to RF at AAA as Santander's long-term replacement beginning in 2025.

Elias has yet to swing a trade or sign a free agent that moves the needle. Everything that has made this team a contender has been through left overs from Duquette, good drafting/developing, and solid use of the waiver wire. Until Elias shows me that he can make a major move, I can’t reasonably expect to see it done.

I agree with everything you said btw. I think payroll should be increased and that prospects that don’t have a path to playing time should be utilized in trade. It’s just not what I expect to actually be done.

[connja]

55 minutes ago, 24fps said:

No major trades?  If Elias is afraid of losing a trade every now and then, then he doesn't have any business being a GM.  The more important variable to me is how many prospects turn into Actual Major League Baseball Players - a number we all know is well below 100%.  101 wins means the rebuild is over and the competitive window is open, so the job now is improving the team for 2024.  To me that means cashing in a few prospects regardless of the risks.

It also means spending more money whether John Angelos wants to or not.  It doesn't need to be top-half, but if the budget for 2024 remains in the lowest quartile then we will all have our answer as to what aspirations JA has for the Orioles.  After last season, I'm not going to assume the O's are going to remain bottom feeders, but I don't expect a huge, all-in strategy either.  My guess is around a $20 million bump in OD payroll.

I agree with trading one of Santander or Hays for SP.  My preference is Hays.  I don't care which of Cowser or Kjerstad is the one kept.  I would love to see Mayo switched to RF at AAA as Santander's long-term replacement beginning in 2025.

Agree with this.  With that in mind doesn't that imply our chances of winning next year are better with Hays, Mullins, Santander in the outfield than Cowser/Kjerstad?  The former have proven themselves, and at least one of the latter may never get to those levels.

[forphase1]

53 minutes ago, connja said:

Agree with this.  With that in mind doesn't that imply our chances of winning next year are better with Hays, Mullins, Santander in the outfield than Cowser/Kjerstad?  The former have proven themselves, and at least one of the latter may never get to those levels.

But proven what?  That they are decent, but not great,  MLB players?  One good thing with our OF vets is we pretty much know what we've got.   And one bad thing is we pretty much know what we've got.   I like all three,  but none of them are so good that we shouldn't try to improve or be afraid of replacing them.   I know there is no guarantee that the rookies could out perform the vets, but it's also true that none of them are so good that it would be impossible either, other than Mullins on defense,  as we don't have a good replacement for him there.   

Hays is a career .750 OPS hitter.  That's a bit better than the league average of .734, but it's not great either.   Plus he disappeared in the second half to a .667 OPS. 

Santander is a career .776 OPS hitter, has only been over .800 once,  but was close to that this year,  .797.  That's harder to replace than Hays bat,  though Hays brings more with a better defense.   

I'm not going to dive into Mullins as I don't see moving on from him as we have no other real CF option as of now. 

Point is simply I think we over rate Santander and Hays around here at times.   Both are solid,  decent MLB players,  but neither are great or elite.  We shouldn't give either away,  but nor is either so valuable that replacing them with Cowser/Kjerstad shouldn't be considered.

[wildcard]

11 hours ago, maybenxtyr said:

You keep saying that about winning the WS next year, but you argue to basically return the same team as this season. The pythag from this season was 94 wins, which is still a really great season, but I don't think it's repeatable without some significant upgrades. Hopefully a good portion of the upgrades could come from in-house options.

This team does not need to add  much to improve.

A full year of an ACE in GRod

A full year of John Means.

Westburg/Holliday instead of Frazier

Ortiz/Westburg/Mayo instead of Urias

More depth in the outfield/DH with Cowser/Kjerstad.

Then add a 4th starter and a reliever through FA or trade.  They spent over 20m last year on Gibson, Frazier and Givens.  They can do that again and still be near the bottom in payroll.

Elias/Sig/Holt know how to add players they can improve the team on the cheap like they did with O'Hearn, Hicks, Cano, Coulombe, etc,

Trade Norby, Stowers and Urias for pitching depth.

Elias is already adding depth at AAA like he did last off season.  He brought 4 cheap 1B to camp and ended up in O'Hearn.  I would not be surprised to see 4 cheap CF in camp next spring to back up Mullins.

Edited November 3, 2023 by wildcard

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, wildcard said:

This team does not need to add  much for improve.

A full year of an ACE in GRod

A full year of John Means.

Westburg/Holliday instead of Frazier

Ortiz/Westburg/Mayo instead of Urias

More depth in the outfield/DH with Cowser/Kjerstad.

Then add a 4th starter and a reliever through FA or trade.  They spent over 20m last year on Gibson, Frazier and Givens.  They can do that again and still be near the bottom in payroll.

Elias/Sig/Holt know how to add players they can improve the tea, on the cheap like they did with O'Hearn, Hicks, Cano, Coulombe, etc,

Trade Norby, Stower and Urias for pitching depth.

Elias is already adding depth at AAA like he did last off season.  He brought 4 cheap 1B to camp and ended up in O'Hearn.  I would not be surprised to see 4 cheap CF in camp next spring to back up Mullins.

You were paying attention when it was discussed how the team both outperformed their pythagorean by a significant margin and had their runs scored boosted by an outlier year of clutch hitting?

This wasn't a 100 win true talent team.

They need to get more talented to stay where they are.

[wildcard]

7 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

You were paying attention when it was discussed how the team both outperformed their pythagorean by a significant margin and had their runs scored boosted by an outlier year of clutch hitting?

This wasn't a 100 win true talent team.

They need to get more talented to stay where they are.

Wow. No use to talk to you about it if you just ignore everything I said about improvement.   I think we're done discussing this.  There is no point.

Edited November 3, 2023 by wildcard