One possible reason Elias has not made a big trade...

[Tony-OH]

1 minute ago, wildbillhiccup said:

Agreed. There's definitely been a shift it's just unfortunate that our crop of young pitchers are on a different timeline then our first crop of young hitters. Elias has done a bang up job so far, but now he's really going to have to get creative to try and maximize those Rutschman, Henderson, Holliday, etc. years. I think most teams also probably know that pivoting to a marquee FA signing isn't a realistic move for us so they're in a better position to play hardball when it comes to trade negotiations. 

No doubt understanding the limitations of the team you are dealing with is crucial. I think that's partly why you hard rumblings of Elias saying they may consider Hall as a rotation piece again. He's signaling that while he's not going to be a player for a major free agent pitcher, he does have internal options.

Honestly, if Getz won't come off Basallo/Mayo (assuming that is the hold up) as the headliner, Elias very well may need to start signaling that he's comfortable going into 2024 with what he has or start floating rumors he's close to moving for another option out there like Luzardo. 

This is a big offseason for Elias as he's in unchartered territory for this stage of being a GM. With his financial restraints, he's going to have to do it differently than how the Astros did it when they got to this point.

[Number5]

10 hours ago, 24fps said:

Time marches on whether or not the next tier of bats are ready.  Around 100 games will be in the books by the next deadline.  All our untraded but currently MLB-ready minor league players will be that much older and in many cases that much less attractive.  The time for Elias to make at least a couple of decisive moves is before the next 8 weeks or so are up.

It is a certainty that all players will be older in 6 months than they are today.  It is also true that all players carry the risk of poor performance or injury.  It is silly, though, to pretend that our prospects carry a higher risk of these misfortunes than other team's pitchers.  The White Sox, for example, run a much higher risk that Cease suffers injury or lesser performance than for every single one of our prospects that are being discussed to suffer the same fate.  Remember, if one or two of our prospects are down for some reason at the deadline, we will almost surely have some that are performing as well as expected or better.  Time is not the enemy of the Orioles in this instance, IMO.  Is it possible that Cease becomes Cy Young the first half of the season and our entire farm implodes and performs poorly?  Well, yes, but the odds are very much against it.  Your concern seems unfounded to me.

[emmett16]

5 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Gotcha. Defense is one of the hardest thing to scout without data (statcast) or seeing a player often. A lot of national publications don't have the time or data to really judge defense so they go off a scouting contact that may or may not have seen the player all that much. So they regurgitate previous reports and run with it.

I'll be honest, defense is the one area where I end up trying to do a lot of video work on players I really want to evaluate, but even then it's time consuming. There is no way to easily find defensive plays of minor league players so if I didn't see them a ton defensively while watching games, I usually end up going back and pulling up games in which he made errors. That typically at least let's me see what he struggles with.

I wish MILB TV would add a search capability for defense.

There’s got to be an easy way, but doubt there is a market for it outside of FO’s.  The GameChanger app that most youth teams use these Days can slice and dice all plays (assuming data was entered correctly) every player makes both on offense and defense.  

[emmett16]

14 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

The Astros got a little lucky with the Verlander and Cole trades. Sticky stuff helped both. Verlander was in big trouble and the as actually an August waiver trade.

Cease would be similar to what Cole was before he was traded. But no sticky stuff to make him magically better and we don’t have a Micheal Feliz and Joe Musgrave to trade. 

The deadline might be a better time to make a trade when our next tier of bats like Horvath and Wagner become more well known.  Plus, Povich, DeLeon, and Baumeister, might be rated higher nationally. 

Do we really think MLB FO’s take into consideration 3rd party ranking systems when making trades?  

[btdart20]

5 minutes ago, emmett16 said:

There’s got to be an easy way, but doubt there is a market for it outside of FO’s.  The GameChanger app that most youth teams use these Days can slice and dice all plays (assuming data was entered correctly) every player makes both on offense and defense.  

I'm tainted with my experience of GameChanger and the mom's that usually run it!    Of course, my boys aren't playing at the same level your son is!

Seriously, it's an impressive tool.  But limited by the data collection.  This rec coach likes using it to show my pitchers how important strike one is.  And for setting my batting order as the season moves along.

[emmett16]

1 minute ago, btdart20 said:

I'm tainted with my experience of GameChanger and the mom's that usually run it!    Of course, my boys aren't playing at the same level your son is!

Seriously, it's an impressive tool.  But limited by the data collection.  This rec coach likes using it to show my pitchers how important strike one is.  And for setting my batting order as the season moves along.

No doubt.  My point was the tech is out there.  It’s just a matter of a market for it and, of course, the data entry.   It would be pretty awesome if you could click on a MLb player and get a 10 sec video of every single play they were involved in.  Just doesn’t seem, to me, there’d be a market for it outside of baseball pros and baseball nerds like us.