This offseason will tell us a lot about Elias

[btdart20]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

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 shoulder 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.

I wonder if Elias views Kremer as the Lyles/Gibson innings guy at this point?  It can't be the guy just coming off TJ, right?  Elias seems to use model portfolio theory rules to risk management.  I.e. he's seeking Alpha of the best returns with the lowest risk.  He obviously values IP as a metric (Lyles, Gibson) to manage risk.

In other words, I agree with your Bradish, Grayson, and Kremer rotation.  Then probably Means as a prove it (like Wells was last year).

Which also leads to @Just Regular comment about the trade deadline option.  It's not just about who's #3 in April vs. October.  But also about who's healthy in October.  

[Moose Milligan]

3 minutes ago, interloper said:

The more I think about Cease, the more concerned I become about him just being Flaherty 2.0. Something caused that bad year - do we know what it was? I'm sure it's part of the sticking point in trade negotiations. The O's have to protect themsevles from giving up all these guys and Cease just being another Dean Kremer. Or worse, he's compensating for something and like you said, his arm explodes. 

It's why I don't think Elias is going to pull the trigger on a key rotation arm this offseason.  I don't think he's going to pull the trigger on a deal for good prospect talent if he's not sure on what he's getting back.  Like Tony said, it could be Cy Young Cease, it could also be 4.93 ERA Cease.  Cease's arm could explode in May, who knows. 

He'll also have a better idea of who buyers and sellers are at that time.  In January, almost everyone thinks they have a shot at a playoff berth.  

 

[SemperFi]

58 minutes ago, Frobby said:

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.  
 
 

The secondary unknown is injuries, we all know pitchers break and the Orioles were fortunate with their rotation last year.  I have great respect for Elias but am still perplexed by his statements regarding the wall in LF and his seemingly 180 on pursuing FA starters:

"And part of having a winning program is the ability to recruit free-agent pitchers, and that has been a historical challenge for this franchise. There’s just no way around that."

 

[Billy F-Face3]

Alot of his strategy also is dictated by unknown variables. Such as how healthy and productive will Dillon Tate be? I'm sure they don't want to have another Givens wasted contract, but they definitely need to improve the bullpen from what it was last season when we didn't have Tate.

A good idea would be to go out and get one more solid reliable reliever and plan on Irvin, Hall, and Wells battling for the final 5th starting spot in the rotation while the other 2 go to the bullpen.

I'd like to see an addition such as Neris in the bullpen if they are going to let the 5th starter be an internal competition. 

If there's one thing we know in baseball, it's that the 162 game season can cause alot of arm casualties over the course of a season.

[Just Regular]

40 minutes ago, interloper said:

Yeah. This is a smart group of people running things - the smartest and most cohesive group in the history of the franchise, basically.

I wouldn't go here yet.    From 1964-1983, the Orioles won 100 games more than the 2nd place Reds, and 155 games more than the AL's 2nd place Yankees.    I think by the end of Jackson Holliday's 6.5 seasons here the 2023-2030 numbers will look very good (sorry, Rafael Devers), but not that brilliant.

In the early 60's, Earl was a lieutenant in the player development machine, and Cal, Sr. was bouncing a toddler on his knee while writing Oriole Way manuals.

Elias and Sig may be a notably great Player Development tandem, but they still yet haven't done anything but fold-fold-fold in the big pots at the game's highest level.     Much of that is a byproduct of the market we're in, but time is not long before Adley will occupy a Gibson-Kimbrel salary level and Angelos might want to do a little more if he wants that player or another one like him to spend something like the entirety of their baseball life here.

[24fps]

1 hour 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 think choice A or choice B are necessary conditions.

Barring a truly stupid overpay, if a Cease trade had happened with any team at this point of the offseason, I think that would be a good argument that the White Sox GM isn't competent.  There's still a couple of weeks left before teams are going to look at the calendar and start deciding that they can no longer wait for the process to play out on a Cease trade and move on.  There's no reason for Getz to settle until that point.

[Just Regular]

30 minutes ago, btdart20 said:

I wonder if Elias views Kremer as the Lyles/Gibson innings guy at this point? 

I certainly do.     I hope after a 2-year program at Lyles-Gibson University, the Club in Graduate Kremer has provided for its needs in that area the next few years, or until he earns too much in Arb.

I'll cheer for Dean's sake if in 2025 Theo Epstein changes the rules to you get 8 pitchers for a 3-game fall series and then maybe he doesn't have to watch Jacob Webb or Shintaro Fujinami take turns scattering pills.

[Tony-OH]

40 minutes ago, SemperFi said:

The secondary unknown is injuries, we all know pitchers break and the Orioles were fortunate with their rotation last year.  I have great respect for Elias but am still perplexed by his statements regarding the wall in LF and his seemingly 180 on pursuing FA starters:

"And part of having a winning program is the ability to recruit free-agent pitchers, and that has been a historical challenge for this franchise. There’s just no way around that."

 

I think the wall did that though in getting both Lyles and to a better extent Gibson to sign here on relatively cheap one year deals. Neither probably sign here to rebuild their value if it's the bandbox that is was. 

Personally I think Elias is financially restrained from going after top free agent talent that require 3 or more years. In his comments to the press last year, John Angelos certainly not give any indication he was willing to open up the checking account to get premium free agent starting pitching. Heck, he was talking about raising ticket prices just to try ad keep our current young talent as they get more expensive.

 

[Tony-OH]

7 hours ago, interloper said:

I think it may tell us some things, but I just don't know how to parse whether or not we're learning about Elias or Angelos. Like, if Angelos isn't giving him a budget, Elias may feel the need to hang onto more prospects to make sure he's got good players over the next few years. And that might mean the difference between offering Westburg in a trade vs offering a slightly less valuable Ortiz (or Norby, whoever). And teams might only want Westburg, resultiing in no trade being consummated. So in that scenario, is that really telling us much about Elias? Maybe! But it might be telling us more about Angelos and his effect on Elias' decisions. It's hard to know. 

Anyway - I don't really see that happening ultimately. I think he does make a trade (or signing) for a quality ML SP. I continue to doubt it will be Cease because the White Sox clearly want the moon and we should not oblige for a guy who may or may not be any better than Dean Kremer if he doesn't return to form. 

Actually, I think this offseason will help answer that as well. If he thought he had the budget to do so, I would have imagined Elias would have been more aggressive with going Eduardo Rodriguez. 

I think Elias understand the budgetary limitations under the John Angelos-led ownership and that's why he is hesitant to move prospects. He knows he can't buy his way out of mistakes or injuries to key players so he needs depth. Which honestly, makes sense, but if there was mistake made, it was going after so many hitters in the first five rounds of the draft vice more pitchers over his first four drafts.

I agree with you that Cease is NOT the guy you give up a Basallo or Mayo for because there is no guarantee with him. Personally, I'd like to see him do something creative like perhaps move a Norby/Stowers/Baumann/Zimmerman type prospects/players for maybe a lower level pitching prospect with upside if they can't get a Cease-level starter.

[BRobinsonfan]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

 

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.  
 
 

This is where I'm at.  I hate the idea of seeing one of our highly regarded young (under control) prospects blossom into a superstar somewhere else.  I'm so conditioned about the veteran pitchers we acquire not working out that I'm reluctant to gamble.  I'm glad it's Elias' decision and not mine.  

[deward]

I said it last year and I still think it holds true - there will never be a better moment for Elias to take a big swing at a championship than the early part of this contending window. He might never be able to fully replicate this influx of young, cheap talent rising up from the minors all around the same time. This confluence of overflowing talent and low payroll might be a once in a generation opportunity, and he needs to capitalize on it. That isn't a call to be reckless, but I haven't seen him show yet that he can be aggressive, and calculated aggression should be the order of the day. He needs to channel his inner-Dave Dombrowski for a few months. It would be a crying shame if Elias misses out because he's too cautious to roll the dice (or too hamstrung by the owner).

[Can_of_corn]

46 minutes ago, 24fps said:

There's no reason for Getz to settle until that point.

Teams can pivot and go elsewhere.

[Malike]

Dodgers just payed a ton of money for a guy who never pitched more than 120 innings in his career and he's 30. I think if Wells can get his endurance up, he sure looked to me to have gained a lot of weight as the season went on, I'm hoping he can pitch 150+.

[24fps]

3 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Teams can pivot and go elsewhere.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, that's what I'm saying.  My point is that's exactly what teams will do when they start to feel like they can no longer wait for a specific player no matter how ideal he might be. 

[sportsfan8703]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

The other issue is we have ownership that is not fully committed to winning, so when you are in position to win, in spite of ownership, you have to take advantage of it.

Money.  It matters.  Why did we choose to trade for Flaherty over Montgomery at the deadline?  Was Conner Norby the holdup, or the extra $3.5 million Montgomery was owed post deadline?  

It's unfair to judge Elias when the budget is that tight.  We also cant just give into the CWS because Cease is cheap $ wise.  We're just going to have to roll with Wells/Irvin/Hall and see where we're at come trade deadline.