Re-drafting 2019 draft

[Jammer7]

5 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

As much as I think Adley is one of the best catchers in baseball, who here would take him over Gunnar right now? I think it's fairly close, but I'll take an impact shortstop who is three years younger who's offensive upside is higher. 

 

Gunnar will have the better numbers over Adley, as he is much younger, a great talent and he has a great work ethic. My only reasons for having him third, right now anyway, is that he has played only one season, and I have little doubt it will continue, but show me. Second, Adley has leadership intangibles that every good team needs, to go with his talents. Third, Witt has similar tools to Gunnar, except that he is a good bit faster runner. And he is a surer bet to stay at SS at this point. Though Witt is up and down at times.

A catcher does so many things to impact the game that are not easily quantified beyond wins/losses. If Gunnar would have come up when Adley did, instead of Adley, would he have had as significant a role in turning around the season for 2022? I don’t think it would have been even close to the same. The great catchers have a daily presence about them in how they manage the game and the clubhouse.

As I wrote before, we can put the top four in any order right now, although I have Carroll a clear fourth. An eye of the beholder thing. A few years from now, Gunnar could easily be seen as the best player out of this draft. But he had Adley to lean on in many ways as he matured in 2023. Adley is a mature confident winner, who makes the players on his team better. For the Orioles, Adley was the right  pick. Tough call, though.

[Frobby]

Just to add another happy thought — I don’t think either Adley or Gunnar has shown us their best yet.  The best is yet to come for both players IMO.  

[Jammer7]

I sure wish Elias was picking for us in 1999! I would love to see what he would have done with 7 picks in the top 50. Oh well, we got Syd Thrift instead. 

[Sports Guy]

33 minutes ago, Jammer7 said:

I sure wish Elias was picking for us in 1999! I would love to see what he would have done with 7 picks in the top 50. Oh well, we got Syd Thrift instead. 

I don’t think Elias would have been good picking in 1999. What was he, 12?  Although he probably still does better than Thrift.

[bpilktree]

I would take Gunnar 1st but the intangibles at catcher is something overlooked by people that look just at stats me included.  The best teams usually have the best catchers in today’s game.  Of The top 11 catchers in War last season 9 of them played on playoff teams, only Contreras and Raleigh were on teams that didn’t make the playoffs.  

[Satyr3206]

17 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I don’t think Elias would have been good picking in 1999. What was he, 12?  Although he probably still does better than Thrift.

Lmao

[Jammer7]

Somewhat related, but Riley Greene is our new neighbor. He bought a house in my neighborhood a few months ago, but we have not actually seen him yet. He’s about 10 houses down, and my little guy and I are looking forward to asking him if we can fish off his new dock. Maybe he’ll throw in a few hitting tips. 

[now]

For all his hype and well-deserved early fame, I feel Adley flies under the radar a bit when compared to this level of competition, since he doesn't dominate with a top hit tool or power tool. At least, I confess to undervaluing him somewhat for that reason. But this stat from MLB's latest feature is eye-opening:

Rutschman is the first catcher in MLB history with at least a 125 OPS+ in each of the first two seasons of his career (min. 400 plate appearances in each).

[Ridgway22]

5 minutes ago, now said:

For all his hype and well-deserved early fame, I feel Adley flies under the radar a bit when compared to this level of competition, since he doesn't dominate with a top hit tool or power tool. At least, I confess to undervaluing him somewhat for that reason. But this stat from MLB's latest feature is eye-opening:

Rutschman is the first catcher in MLB history with at least a 125 OPS+ in each of the first two seasons of his career (min. 400 plate appearances in each).

That is impressive.......

[Tony-OH]

21 hours ago, Jammer7 said:

Gunnar will have the better numbers over Adley, as he is much younger, a great talent and he has a great work ethic. My only reasons for having him third, right now anyway, is that he has played only one season, and I have little doubt it will continue, but show me. Second, Adley has leadership intangibles that every good team needs, to go with his talents. Third, Witt has similar tools to Gunnar, except that he is a good bit faster runner. And he is a surer bet to stay at SS at this point. Though Witt is up and down at times.

A catcher does so many things to impact the game that are not easily quantified beyond wins/losses. If Gunnar would have come up when Adley did, instead of Adley, would he have had as significant a role in turning around the season for 2022? I don’t think it would have been even close to the same. The great catchers have a daily presence about them in how they manage the game and the clubhouse.

As I wrote before, we can put the top four in any order right now, although I have Carroll a clear fourth. An eye of the beholder thing. A few years from now, Gunnar could easily be seen as the best player out of this draft. But he had Adley to lean on in many ways as he matured in 2023. Adley is a mature confident winner, who makes the players on his team better. For the Orioles, Adley was the right  pick. Tough call, though.

I agree that you can certainly build a case for Adley to be the best of the group and still should be the #1 overall due to all of the things you mentioned here. But, I'm just saying that if I could only have one of them right now, and thankfully we don't have to make this decision, I'm going to take Henderson because I think his upside is a little higher especially with Adley's offense leveling a bit (but still very good).

Adley absolutely has been a huge part of the organization's turn around and I would never want down grade his impact, but Henderson is three years younger and his ceiling is as high as anyone's in the system while playing a premium defensive position.

 

[Can_of_corn]

I don't think Adley is going to end up accumulating the most career value but we should be looking at the first six seasons and I think he's neck and neck with the other three in that context.

[Tony-OH]

19 hours ago, Jammer7 said:

I sure wish Elias was picking for us in 1999! I would love to see what he would have done with 7 picks in the top 50. Oh well, we got Syd Thrift instead. 

Actually we had Tony DeMacio making picks, not Thrift. While DeMacio and his scouts certainly whiffed way more than they hit with those picks (Brian Roberts the last of the 7 being the only hit), this was under a system that did not have slot bonus amounts and I was told DeMacio had to make several of the picks due to signability vs talent. 

Plus, the 1999 draft was not a strong one overall. Picks #3-#8 saw just two players make the major leagues and they put up a combined -1 WAR at the major league level.

DeMacio whiffed on Mike Paradis (#13), but when you look at the picks behind him for college pitchers, he really only missed on Jason Jennings (11.9 WAR) who was selected #16. Alex Rios (27.3 WAR, #19, who also signed for the least amount of money of anyone within the first 37 picks at $845K) was the biggest miss for him since he took both Paradis and Richard Stahl ahead of him. 

As for Stahl, I don't consider him a whiff per se, because he's an injury cause miss. Stahl had a mid-90s fastball and some good offspeed pitches, but back problems ended his career unfortunately for him and the Orioles.

Larry Bigbie looked like a pretty safe pick when he was selected and did put up a nice year in 2004 at the major league level before some injuries and lack of power limited his career. Keith Reed had upside tools, and was a bit of a lottery ticket that did not pay off. He may have become a better player in a better organization.

LHP Josh Cenate's career was ended by a torn labrum in his left shoulder after his first season so he's similar to Stahl. And then you have Scott Rice who was the youngest player drafted and did eventually make the major leagues as a situational lefty. 

We also have to remember that DeMacio and all of the other scouting directors did not have the luxury of having rapsodo and other technologies that they use now at showcases for high school players and with data they get from college games. 

They also bring players into pre draft camps and can run them through these systems giving them a leg up on identifying talent better than the old school way of having scouts put eyes on them only. 

I'm not taking anything away from Elias and his crew because they use the technologies to their advantage, just that it was much different back in 1999 when Demacio had all those picks.

 

 

[Jammer7]

51 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I agree that you can certainly build a case for Adley to be the best of the group and still should be the #1 overall due to all of the things you mentioned here. But, I'm just saying that if I could only have one of them right now, and thankfully we don't have to make this decision, I'm going to take Henderson because I think his upside is a little higher especially with Adley's offense leveling a bit (but still very good).

Adley absolutely has been a huge part of the organization's turn around and I would never want down grade his impact, but Henderson is three years younger and his ceiling is as high as anyone's in the system while playing a premium defensive position.

 

I understand, and it’s close for me. Catcher is a premium defensive position too, but three years younger is nice. If only we could have a shot to keep either or both here longer term. 

[Moose Milligan]

I think I'd take Gunnar #1 due to the age...but I also agree with @Can_of_corn, I think we're just going to be looking at these guys first six years and if you want to judge it that way, Adley is probably neck and neck with the rest of the group.  

Also, pesky leadership intangibles, etc.  I think Adley is the clear #1 there.

[Frobby]

7 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I think I'd take Gunnar #1 due to the age...but I also agree with @Can_of_corn, I think we're just going to be looking at these guys first six years and if you want to judge it that way, Adley is probably neck and neck with the rest of the group.  

Also, pesky leadership intangibles, etc.  I think Adley is the clear #1 there.

I think Gunnar has very good intangibles too.  He is intense and does not like to lose, and he holds himself to a very high standard.   I feel very fortunate to have these two as cornerstones of our team.