Elias' mental shift

[Frobby]

4 hours ago, wildcard said:

JA would not have to fire anyone.  He could just say no deal.  

Bassitt signed for for 3/63m last off season.  The O's were reported in on the deal.  Bassitt made 33 S, 200 IP, 16-8, 3.60 ERA and a WHIP of 1.175.   He would have been a playoff pitcher for the O's.

But the O's didn't sign him after Elias worked hard of the pursuit.   Did JA not want to spend the money?

Totally different situation and we don’t know the answer.   Anyway, it’s not at all clear how hard we pursued Bassitt.  The guy signed on December 16.  I don’t remember the O’s being seriously linked to him, just the typical “O’s have expressed interest” tweets you might hear about a dozen pitchers every offseason.   It’s pretty clear here that the O’s pursued Burnes hard all winter, and a lot of the holdup was the Brewers’ desire internal ambivalence about trading him at all.  Even Burnes said he heard that.  

[RZNJ]

5 hours ago, wildcard said:

JA would not have to fire anyone.  He could just say no deal.  

Bassitt signed for for 3/63m last off season.  The O's were reported in on the deal.  Bassitt made 33 S, 200 IP, 16-8, 3.60 ERA and a WHIP of 1.175.   He would have been a playoff pitcher for the O's.

But the O's didn't sign him after Elias worked hard of the pursuit.   Did JA not want to spend the money?

Do you think Elias likes to waste his time and embarrass himself by pursuing players, especially ones when he knows exactly how much they’ll be making, to find out later it’s not in his budget?   Doesn’t it make more sense that Mr. Thorough, Mr. Meticulous, Mike Elias knows exactly what he can or can’t do before he does it?    He said that he and Angelos have been working on the trade together the whole time.   

[foxfield]

There. Has. Been. No. Mental. Shift. For Elias. 

[Sports Guy]

7 hours ago, wildcard said:

I don't think the deal with the White Sox ever got that far.  They could not agree on the players to  be traded.  The White Sox wanted players the O's would not trade from the reports I have read.

The conversation would have never gotten started if Elias couldn’t add the cease salary.

[Sports Guy]

7 hours ago, wildcard said:

I think its easy in hindsight for fans to say that the Burnes deal in one the O's had to make.   However with John Angelos involved its not a no brainer that he would trade two players making 740K each for the next 3 years that were ready to contribute to the 2024 O's for one year on a pitcher making 15m.   Trading away 12 years of control for one year of control may not have be approved by Angelos.

It would not be hard to think that Angelos would turn that deal down to save money.

Oh he absolutely could have said no to it…when it was first presented to him.

Elias isn’t going to spend a bunch of time on this without knowing if the contract would get picked up.   Not to mention, he’s not going to risk alienated another franchise because he wasted their time.

Edited February 5 by Sports Guy

[sportsfan8703]

Part of the mental shift of Elias knowing that he has a bit more payroll is that he theoretically doesn’t have to hold onto every possible prospect as deep depth. We can tap into our depth/spare parts. 

Baumann, Stowers, and Norby should all be available if we could snag a RH reliever. Preferably with options. 

[24fps]

6 hours ago, wildcard said:

JA would not have to fire anyone.  He could just say no deal.  

Bassitt signed for for 3/63m last off season.  The O's were reported in on the deal.  Bassitt made 33 S, 200 IP, 16-8, 3.60 ERA and a WHIP of 1.175.   He would have been a playoff pitcher for the O's.

But the O's didn't sign him after Elias worked hard of the pursuit.   Did JA not want to spend the money?

Why on Earth would JA kill the Burnes deal under the circumstances?  I doubt the additional $6 million is going to be his burden, and I don’t think the deal took place without his approval anyway.

Chris Bassitt is irrelevant to the Burnes acquisition. 

If the current exercise is spotting mental shifts from a distance, perhaps John Angelos is a more sporting proposition.  The impact of his pending exit is certainly is a more satisfying one to think about. 

[Matt Bennett]

“Elias has done something he’s never done before.”

Well, he’s never traded for Corbin Burnes before. But we have seen years of control traded for veteran pitchers. Irvin. Flaherty. Burnes is just better. Wildcard is just surprised how much better Burnes is than the other guys. 

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, Matt Bennett said:

“Elias has done something he’s never done before.”

Well, he’s never traded for Corbin Burnes before. But we have seen years of control traded for veteran pitchers. Irvin. Flaherty. Burnes is just better. Wildcard is just surprised how much better Burnes is than the other guys. 

Yep..he has been saying we should just get Lorenzen..a potential slight upgrade from Gibson. 
 

His surprise is more because he doesn’t agree with this move. He hasn’t agreed with it all offseason. He just isn’t saying it for some reason. Instead he’s twisting it into this idea that Elias has decided to change how he is doing things.

[wildcard]

18 minutes ago, Matt Bennett said:

“Elias has done something he’s never done before.”

Well, he’s never traded for Corbin Burnes before. But we have seen years of control traded for veteran pitchers. Irvin. Flaherty. Burnes is just better. Wildcard is just surprised how much better Burnes is than the other guys. 

Ortiz and Hall were both top prospects at some point.   Hernaiz was never more than 26th on the O's top 30 list.  Huge difference.

[Yardball85]

On 2/3/2024 at 8:31 AM, wildcard said:

I am pretty far away from thinking the Os are going to spend 250m to extend Burnes into his late 30s. I think he is more likely to extend young players like Gunnar and Holliday.

Love your "will be 26".   I will be 100 one day if I live that long.   Hall and Ortiz are both 25 and were projected to have spots on the 2024 26 man roster.   Who knows how the season would have progressed for them had they stayed.

I am not saying that Elias made the wrong move.   I am saying he has made a mental shift from collecting young talent and guarding all of them to focusing on what he needs to do win the World Series.

In the past Elias might have kept Hall and traded Ortiz if he was blocked for more young talent.   

 

I think if anything, the Flaherty deal evidenced this shift in thinking.  Or trading Hernaiz for Irvin.  I don't think the Burnes trade evidences anything except what we all knew Elias was doing/trying to do. 

[Matt Bennett]

21 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Ortiz and Hall were both top prospects at some point.   Hernaiz was never more than 26th on the O's top 30 list.  Huge difference.

Burnes is better than Irvin and Flaherty so the return must be better than Prieto, Hernaiz, Rom, Showalter. 

But the action has been done before. The scale changed.

You’ve backtracked from your OP. You said Elias has only hoarded prospects since 2018 and this trade was counter to everything he had done so far. How do you explain Irvin and Flaherty then? What exactly has Elias never done before? Your answer seems to be getting narrower and narrower. 

Also, it’s just silly to extrapolate any decision making and strategy from 2018-2022 into 2023+. Why would you think any transactions made during that tear down/rebuilding phase those are analogous data points?  

 

[RarityFlaherty]

22 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Ortiz and Hall were both top prospects at some point.   Hernaiz was never more than 26th on the O's top 30 list.  Huge difference.

And that’s why Hernaiz only gets you Irvin, while we were able to get Burnes with Ortiz and Hall.
 

In my opinion, I don’t think this trade itself is so much a mental shift for Elias, but, now that he was able to make the trade, it becomes a shift for him and the team to more of a win now mentality.  He’s been trying to make these types of trades most likely since last offseason, and definitely since the trade deadline last year. Now that we have our Ace, I wouldn’t be surprised to see another trade for a top reliever by the trade deadline.

So, to your point, I can see why you say there has been a shift, but I think the shift you are talking about happened sometime last season and Elias just wasn’t able to find a trade he liked so he settled for Flaherty. I think part of what seems like a mental shift is the constant shifting of value for players. Perhaps Elias wasn’t as willing to part with Ortiz last offseason, but now that he he’s seen how good Henderson can be at short Ortiz became more expendable. There are a lot of factors, but I don’t think he’s suddenly deciding to go all in now, it’s more just the value finally aligned correctly for this type of trade to happen.