This offseason will tell us a lot about Elias

[Tony-OH]

We all know Elias has absolutely done a fantastic job in rebuilding this organization from the ground up. With the Orioles coming off a 101-win season but a sweep in the playoffs to a white hot Rangers team, Elias knows this team needs one more legitimate veteran starting pitcher. 

We also know that Elias now has a lot of depth in the upper minor leagues with major league ready prospects. They are literally backed up with Connor Norby (2B/LF), Colton Cowser (RF/LF/CF), Heston Kjerstad (RF/DH), Joey Ortiz (SS/2B/3B), Kyle Stowers (RF/DH) all with 330 or more AAA PAs with success. Coby Mayo (267 PAs, 3B/1B/RF) and Jackson Holliday (2B/SS) are also pretty close or ready despite less AAA PAs. 

So with this in mind, if Elias is unable or unwilling to part with his prospect depth for this needed starting pitcher, it will tell us how he wants to build teams. We've heard the stories of Sig Mejdal wanting to hoard prospects, and hoard them Elias has done so far trading only Darell Hernaiz (who was a #15-#20 level prospect in the org) out of his top 30 prospects. 

After winning 101 games last year, he may look at his current options and feel decent, especially after he won 101 games with them minus Kyle Gibson (who did win 15-games). Now he barely got anything from John Means last year so he may be thinking he's the Gibson replacement. That could be true, but Means made all of four starts last year before getting shut down for the season with left elbow pain after coming off Tommy John. Means will be 31-years old next year and it's unknown really what he will be able to provide.

So going into 2024, he can pencil in Kyle Bradish, Grayson Rodriguez, and Dean Kramer into his rotation. If you want to pencil in Means, then fine, that's 4 guys.

That leaves Tyler Wells (who has never pitched more than 119.1 innings in any professional season) and Cole Irvin in the battle for the 5th starter. Chayce McDermott and Cade Povich are the AAA depth starters that could weigh in at some point as well.

Maybe he believes that's enough depth if he can't get the right deal for a starter like Cease or Valdez. Maybe he's right, I don't know, but what we will know if he doesn't make any significant trades is that he values prospect depth more than he values trading for legitimate major league veteran players.

The Orioles did win 101 games last year after an offseason that seemed disappointing at the time. I have little doubt that Elias knows more about building his team than I do, so I'm not saying he's wrong or not, but I do think we will know more about how he plans to build his team each year after this offseason.

He has the prospects, he has his needs, and now we will see what he does to set up his 2024 squad to be a legitimate World Series contender.

[interloper]

Minor correction, it was elbow soreness that shelved Means, not shoulder. 

Regarding Elias - I think we'll see a trade or signing pretty much any day now. This week or next would be my guess. Elias rarely tells us things he doesn't make good on, and he's been telling us that acquiring a ML SP is his priority all off-season. Will it be someone like Cease? I highly doubt it. But he'll grab somebody. 

[ThisIsBirdland]

Good summary.

I think we see the backlog and try to fill slots on the 2025 - 2027 ML roster, and then we want Elias to move everyone else who is close to ML ready in exchange for 2024 improvements. This would entail moving Norby, Stowers, and maybe one of Ortiz/Westburg this off-season. Unfortunately, those pieces *probably* aren't enough to bring back the top-3 SP we're looking for.

The under-discussed point with all this is Elias may not view that tier of players so much as blocked, but as potential options in case our expected top prospects don't actually pan out. Maybe he thinks it's worth keeping them stashed while we see if Cowser/Kjerstad/Westburg can actually play well in the major leagues. Given the Orioles limitations, trading away the wrong minor league player could be the equivalent of giving out a bad major league contract.

[sportsfan8703]

We also can't judge Elias if the CWS are overvaluing Cease and/or expect us to pay an "orioles" tax.  "Orioles" tax meaning that we have a loaded farm system, and that we are desperate to make a move.  Therefore we should overpay for Cease rather than just pay regular value.  

Who doesn't think that Elias would prefer just to give Montgomery 5/125+?  Elias could do that and we'd all give him an A for the offseason.  I think the troubling thing is that we likely didn't overpay in prospects last July to get Montgomery because we chose Flaherty over Montgomery because of the money owed.  

Maybe that's why the CWS are playing hardball with us.  It's not only that Cease is available, but that he's also cheap, and they know our budgetary restraints.  It's two of the cheapest ownership groups in the sport.  Reinsdorf vs Angelos.  I'm not judging Elias negatively off of that.  

[ChosenOne21]

There's hoarding prospects and being a prospect hoarder (like the TV show/psychological condition). I'm really hoping he isn't the latter, but you're right. This offseason will tell us. He can't possibly use all those players. Some of them need to go.

[DanS]

@Tony-OH makes a great point about Means.  Injuries to pitchers often cause a subtle change to mechanics, which cause other injuries.  It's hard to know whether Means will be able to stay on the field and be effective.  I don't see a good reason to stack up position players in the minors.  Pitchers are more fragile.  Pitching depth is much more important than position player depth.

Separately, we should go all in for 2024.  It's been 40 years since we won a World Series.  When you have a shot, you need to take it.

[Yardball85]

8 minutes ago, ChosenOne21 said:

There's hoarding prospects and being a prospect hoarder (like the TV show/psychological condition). I'm really hoping he isn't the latter, but you're right. This offseason will tell us. He can't possibly use all those players. Some of them need to go.

Makes sense to all of us.  Let's see if Elias thinks the same way (obviously you have to account for teams like the White Sox, Mariners, and Marlins demanding too much, in which case Elias should hold onto the propsects). 

[sportsfan8703]

9 minutes ago, ChosenOne21 said:

There's hoarding prospects and being a prospect hoarder (like the TV show/psychological condition). I'm really hoping he isn't the latter, but you're right. This offseason will tell us. He can't possibly use all those players. Some of them need to go.

Teams aren't asking about our "hoarded" propsects though.  They want Mayo or Basallo.  We traded some of "hoarded" "depth" pieces at the trade deadline and for Cole Irvin last offseason.  Teams would take Ortiz, Stowers, and Norby, back in a trade for a SP as secondary pieces.  They just want Mayo or Basallo as the headliner.  

[Moose Milligan]

I still don't think he trades prospects until the deadline this summer.  He's going to wait to see how well this team as currently constructed is performing before pulling the trigger, IMO.  

I don't know what good that'll do.  I don't know what good it'll do to stash a guy like Ortiz in the minors again, keep Stowers down, etc.  Maybe he's thinking that if these guys have great seasons in the minors they'll beef up their trade value even more over the summer and he'll be able to nab that starter he's looking for at the deadline.

I think there might be some smaller moves on the horizon for the rest of the offseason but he addressed a big need with the Kimbrel 1 year stopgap move.  I still don't think he trades significant prospect capital until the deadline.

[Jim'sKid26]

So the biggest need is starting pitching and the current market for starting pitching is absolutely ridiculously overpriced. The Dodgers just spent nearly a Billion dollars on a pitcher who can't pitch in 2024 due to injury and a pitcher who has never thrown an MLB pitch. Now I am aware that Otani is a unicorn and Yamamoto is a very talented young pitcher, but those two contracts set the market. Yikes!

Top that off with an organizational philosophy in player acquisition that undervalued pitching in the draft and you have the current Orioles situation with regard to starting pitching. It's a game of chicken with Milwaukee, Chicago (maybe Miami) and Houston for the available veteran starting pitchers. Who will blink? I think we all know Ownership is very unlikely to pony up the resources to sign a quality FA SP. 

Let's see what Orioles leadership does this off season. I, personally feel that they have no excuses left. The need is obvious, the team just came off a 101 win season, and the farm system is stacked. Pull the fricking trigger!

Edited January 3 by Jim'sKid26

[Frobby]

Don’t forget Hall as an option for 5th starter.  I know many prefer him as a reliever, but he’d certainly be in the running if we don’t acquire anyone.  

The great unknown here is what teams are demanding for the starters who are of interest to the O’s.   Without that information, we won’t really know if Elias is being a very stingy “prospect hugger” or whether the other teams’ demands are just unreasonable.  We’ll only know if (1) the O’s make a deal, or (2) some other team makes a deal for a targeted pitcher that we can use as a point of comparison in terms of what it might have taken to beat it.  

I vacillate day to day on this.  I’d love to see us acquire an impact pitcher, but at the same time I don’t want the team to overpay or thin the herd too much.   I’ll hate it if someone we trade becomes a real star.  But, that’s the cost of doing business.  
 
 

[sportsfan8703]

11 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I still don't think he trades prospects until the deadline this summer.  He's going to wait to see how well this team as currently constructed is performing before pulling the trigger, IMO.  

I don't know what good that'll do.  I don't know what good it'll do to stash a guy like Ortiz in the minors again, keep Stowers down, etc.  Maybe he's thinking that if these guys have great seasons in the minors they'll beef up their trade value even more over the summer and he'll be able to nab that starter he's looking for at the deadline.

I think there might be some smaller moves on the horizon for the rest of the offseason but he addressed a big need with the Kimbrel 1 year stopgap move.  I still don't think he trades significant prospect capital until the deadline.

From what I can tell... Ortiz and Stowers are worth more to us as depth pieces to support a playoff team than what they would bring back in a trade.  

What would we rather have going forward?

A) One of Wells/Irvin in the rotation and keeping both Mayo and Basallo,

or...

B) One of Luzardo/Cease in the rotation with losing one of Mayo and Basallo?

We can't have it both ways.  If Cowser or Kjerstad were enough to headline a Cease trade, then that would've happened.  

Edited January 3 by sportsfan8703

[Aristotelian]

23 minutes ago, ChosenOne21 said:

There's hoarding prospects and being a prospect hoarder (like the TV show/psychological condition). I'm really hoping he isn't the latter, but you're right. This offseason will tell us. He can't possibly use all those players. Some of them need to go.

Has anyone had a look at Elias's garage? Might give us some insight.

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

 

Let's see what Orioles leadership does this off season. I, personally feel that they have no excuses left. The need is obvious, the team just came off a 101 win season, and the farm system is stacked. Pull the fricking trigger!

It’s not about “excuses.”  It’s about the professional judgment of the group that simultaneously built that 101 win team and the stacked farm system.  They’ll get every benefit of the doubt from me for the time being in determining whether the cost of upgrading the pitching is worth it.   

And by the way, I’m not particularly itchy yet.  There’s still 6 weeks left to get a deal done before spring training starts, and often the best deals are late deals.   Elias can take his time weighing his options so far as I’m concerned.  
 

[Moose Milligan]

4 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

From what I can tell... Ortiz and Stowers are worth more to us as depth pieces to support a playoff team than what they would bring back in a trade.  

What would we rather have going forward?

A) One of Wells/Irvin in the rotation and keeping both Mayo and Basallo,

or...

B) One of Luzardo/Cease in the rotation with losing one of Mayo and Basallo?

We can't have it both ways.  If Cowser or Kjerstad were enough to headline a Cease trade, then that would've happened.  

I don't know if the choices are that binary.  

In regards to Ortiz, I think he's worth what he's worth.  And I don't know if he's worth more to us as a depth piece or worth more to another team as a potential starting SS.  Same goes for Stowers.