Cease vs everyone else

[Sports Guy]

Using Westburg, and keeping Cowser and Kjerstad, to headline a deal for Cease is the absolute best case scenario.

Westburg, Beavers and Povich is great for us. If you have to add in a guy like Wagner, who cares.  Being able to acquire a talent like Cease with his upside and not give up anything that “hurts us” is preferred.

Now that there aren’t good players in that deal but the Os have equal or better talents to them, so it’s just trading out of the depth at the end of the day.

 

[Can_of_corn]

9 minutes ago, owknows said:

Did you expect them to win 101 games last year?

Or did their success come earlier than you expected?

They made the playoffs.  That was a reasonable expectation for year five.

The fact that they won more regular season games than their underlying metrics indicated they should doesn't mean much to me.

 

[Just Regular]

I'll rank them ascending, as Friends episodes.

6. The One who was available in the Rule 5 draft

5. The One who said he was about 115 pounds entering college

4. The One with the lowest K/9 of 550 MLB arms throwing 20 innings last year

3. The One with Corbin Burnes' pedigree

2. The $1.5M high school arm with all his health intact 9.5 years later

1. The $4.3M high school arm with all his health intact 5.5 years later

Bonus guess: In the last 4 years, Dylan Cease is 12th in fWAR among all pitchers.    In the next 4 years, will Grayson Rodriguez achieve that?

[RZNJ]

9 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

They made the playoffs.  That was a reasonable expectation for year five.

The fact that they won more regular season games than their underlying metrics indicated they should doesn't mean much to me.

 

[owknows]

10 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

They made the playoffs.  That was a reasonable expectation for year five.

The fact that they won more regular season games than their underlying metrics indicated they should doesn't mean much to me.

 

The point was that they were tanking by intent in the years leading up to their recent success.

And that they achieved at a surprisingly high level and quickly once an effort to contend was made.

I wouldn't think this even modestly controversial a statement.

[RZNJ]

5 minutes ago, owknows said:

The point was that they were tanking by intent in the years leading up to their recent success.

And that they achieved at a surprisingly high level and quickly once an effort to contend was made.

I wouldn't think this even modestly controversial a statement.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, owknows said:

It's like you're totally unaware that the Orioles intentionally employed a strategy that sold off talent, tanked, and started from the ground up by building the best farm in baseball... which began only last year to attempt to field a legitimately contending team....  and was quite successful... quite early... in that attempt.

 

 

My whole post is about that strategy, and how because it was used, it’s not okay with me that they continue to play cheap and not make any splashes via trade or FA to fill obvious holes. 

[emmett16]

Man, thought for sure this was going to be a funny top ten list.  Caught hook, line, and sinker.  

[Sports Guy]

8 minutes ago, owknows said:

The point was that they were tanking by intent in the years leading up to their recent success.

And that they achieved at a surprisingly high level and quickly once an effort to contend was made.

I wouldn't think this even modestly controversial a statement.

What was the effort made to contend?  Signing Gibson and Frazier?

[Too Tall]

To get back on track? If you go back to SG's original post on 11/15/23, he asks (and I paraphrase) who out there would you reasonably go after/ try to acquire rather than Cease? So, I hesitantly ask on 1/13/24 after 234 pages and with deference to Can, are we at the point where it's Cease or cease looking? 

[Just Regular]

Reviewing Cease's 2014 draft year, I was just reminded the $1.5M he was "only" able to command was influenced by a March 2014 injury that required Tommy John.

The Cubs still bought him out of Vanderbilt.

https://www.mlb.com/news/cubs-prospect-dylan-cease-on-tommy-john-c219438510

I assume had he remained healthy spring-summer 2014, he essentially would have had Grayson Rodriguez's basic pedigree as America's best ~18 year old Arm that year.     Brady Aiken, Tyler Kolek, Kodi Medeiros, Touki Toussaint, Grant Holmes, Foster Griffin, Luis Ortiz, Justus Sheffield, Michael Kopech, Jack Flaherty and Scott Blewett were the High School Class of 2014 kids who 10 years later matched or exceeded Cease's bonus (or not, in one famous case) to give one snippet of Bust rates for high school arms.

A decade later, he's 5th in rWAR among pitchers born in 1995, lagging Alcantara, Bieber, Gallen and Marquez.    

Fun quote from the Callis link as Cease in 2017 reminisced on his 2014 draft experience:

Cease: When I got hurt, I didn't worry about where I was going to go in the Draft. I kind of focused on being in high school. I definitely thought I would have gone to Vanderbilt, but I was prepared to sign as well if someone met my amount. After the first day, I didn't really hear anything and didn't know much. The Cubs called me in the third round and told me they were going to take me in the sixth round. I didn't hear from a lot of teams -- the Astros maybe. I think the money was a concern with a lot of clubs.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, owknows said:

 

I'd like to see the team put their trade resources into acquiring a half-dozen strong mid-high minors pitchers than buying or trading for overpriced MLB arms..

You’re not getting this without selling off major league talent. Why that would be preferable to just signing someone I have no idea. 

[owknows]

5 minutes ago, brooooksy said:

You’re not getting this without selling off major league talent. Why that would be preferable to just signing someone I have no idea. 

We should be selling off major league talent. We have a surplus of emerging major league talent. Particularly at infield skill positions.

This is preferable to "just signing someone" because a trade would likely involve the acquisition of a player in or approaching their peak years, at a lower salary point, with remain years of team control in a cost controlled position.

Whereas signing a free agent confers a greater risk, as the cash and time outlay (and therefore the cost of failure) is greater.

[owknows]

19 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

What was the effort made to contend?  Signing Gibson and Frazier?

Graduating talent that had been working it's way through the MiLB system.

And reducing the number of stopgap vets.

(although you and I would probably agree that Frazier was unnecessary and potentially counterproductive)

[Guest]

Just now, owknows said:

We should be selling off major league talent. We have a surplus of emerging major league talent. Particularly at infield skill positions.

This is preferable to "just signing someone" because a trade would likely involve the acquisition of a player in or approaching their peak years, at a lower salary point, with remain years of team control in a cost controlled position.

Whereas signing a free agent confers a greater risk, as the cash and time outlay (and therefore the cost of failure) is greater.

We just won 101 games, why would we want to go field a prospect heavy team? 
 

some perspective on why anyone besides John Angelos should care about care about keeping the payroll low is needed