Ramon Urias 2024

[CaptainRedbeard]

33 minutes ago, Spy Fox said:

I think it's this and one other thing: value hoarding. Elias thinks that Urias, Mateo, and O'Hearn are decent MLB players and if he promotes several of those AAA guys, he loses a couple of those MLB guys to other organizations. With this approach he gets to hold onto more assets for a rainy day. 

Now as for the Tyler Nevin and Tony Kemp tier, that's service time plain and simple. 

This is the answer. Only for Holliday vs. Kemp is it strongly motivated by service time.

For O’Hearn vs. Stowers and Kjerstad, it’s stacking depth, and anticipating O’Hearn and Santander being free agents after this year. Stowers is also not a top tier prospect, and Kjerstad is but he has very little minor league experience so he’s probably not to the point yet where it’s a waste of his time in AAA. 

For Urias vs. Norby and Mayo, it’s a combination of depth and defensive question marks for Norby and Mayo. I do think we are going to see Urias moved eventually if the Orioles feel comfortable with Mayo at 3B (and/or potentially Norby at 2B), but especially while Holliday is being held in AAA Elias wasn’t ready to pull the trigger on that yet. And if Mayo is just a 1B, he’s in a similar situation as Kjerstad.

Mateo is hanging around because he can play SS and they like his speed and defense off the bench. He’ll probably stick around at least until they feel comfortable with Holliday as the backup SS, and potentially after that as the 26th man type. 

[Moose Milligan]

46 minutes ago, Spy Fox said:

I think it's this and one other thing: value hoarding. Elias thinks that Urias, Mateo, and O'Hearn are decent MLB players and if he promotes several of those AAA guys, he loses a couple of those MLB guys to other organizations. With this approach he gets to hold onto more assets for a rainy day. 

Now as for the Tyler Nevin and Tony Kemp tier, that's service time plain and simple. 

Totally agree, value hoarding is a big part of it, too.  

As to why he is, is anyone's guess...obvious reasons like trying to figure out who to keep vs. who to trade, of course...but it's nice to have options.

[TopGunnar]

22 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Well then I dunno what to tell you if you find yourself wanting to see Kjerstad and Stowers and Cowser on the same roster.  

I should also say that it goes without saying that I'd get rid of Tony Kemp, too.  

Nah you’re right, I have no idea what Elias is going to do. I’m not even sure what I would do. But It’s way too early to just give up on Hays and Mullins but these young kids are putting serious pressure on both some players and front office. 

[deward]

4 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Service.  Time.

That's it.  That's all that it is.  They want to be able to gain an extra year of control, trading a few weeks of the 2024 season for an extra year in 2030 or 2031 or whenever.

It's all service time, that's all it is.  No way they'll ever cop to that, but that's all it is.

And practically everyone here, ESPECIALLY the regular posters that have been here for years know it, too.  

I'm confident that we'll see Holliday, Mayo, Kjerstad up in Baltimore at some point this summer.  Might not be next week, but it'll happen.  

If I had my way, Hays would have been gone before ST started,  so would Mateo, and it'd break my heart but I think I'd have to get rid of Tony Taters, too.  I think Urias is a good guy to keep, but whatever, I get why people want him gone, too.

But I digress.

Service.  Time.  That's the front office's rationale behind not making any room for our logjam at AAA.

For Holliday and Mayo, sure, but I'm not as convinced about the others. I think a big factor is also that Elias is inherently very conservative about these decisions. He's made it pretty clear that he doesn't like having more than one rookie trying to get his feet under him in the big league lineup at once. I think he also likes the relatively safe, predictable outcomes that the vets give him in a year where he expects to contend. I can't recall an instance of Elias dumping or benching a productive vet to make room for anyone (unless you count Frazier as productive). Based on what we've seen, I expect him to let Santander/Hays/Mullins all play out their contracts, then replace them with the prospects one at a time. 

[sportsfan8703]

Urias is at his best on the road against RHP.

2023 - 272 PA .726 OPS

2022 - 317 PA .724 OPS

2021 - 164 PA .822 OPS

Sigbot type data

[TommyPickles]

1 hour ago, DirtyBird said:

You have to go back to "over the past two seasons" because he was not a good fielder last year. Fielding Bible had him as the #82 3B.

He has been sub .750 OPS vs RHP each of the past two seasons.

You are really stretching to find what he brings to the table.

In fairness, Fielding Bible also said he was our best defensive second baseman last season (better than Westburg). And a better first baseman than O'Hearn.

And the point about him having the second-highest OBP on the team last season still stands.

But I understand your point, and like I originally said, I understand this is a tough argument to make as things currently stand in Norfolk. I just still see Urias as a valuable bench piece.

 

Edited April 4 by TommyPickles

[foxfield]

We have a great situation.  But what we are seeing is essentially the pain of asset management.  Yes we have new owners with fat checkbooks.  We also have a GM who has been running an asset collection run to near perfection (Still need pitching).  

All of us were at least a little disappointed when Holliday, Norby, Stowers and Kjerstad and even Mayo all went down.  And all of us understand that some combination of these guys are likely better than the last 4 spots on the current 26.   And if they are not now, they would likely be in time.

Service time almost demands this action.  Almost.  And with Holliday there is risk involved of losing his fulll year anyway.  I think unless he is up quick enough to earn the pick if he is top two, he stays down the longest.  But this is what the CBA leads us to do.  It is simple math.  Holliday in 7 years is almost assuredly, if we accept anything near his ceiling, more valuable than Holliday today.  If I offered you 30 M or 40 M if you would wait until September, I feel pretty sure most would do it without hesitation.

This current situation is painful, but it is fantastic.  It's like sneaking into your parents closet at Thanksgiving and finding out that this Christmas all of you dreams are going to come true.  You know what you have, but you have to wait...every day is painful.

We also have several good players, who really don't want to go, have said they would like to extend and are probably not really in the long term plans.   In a perfect world, we could trade with Miami, or Pittsburgh, or Seattle or the Dodgers or someone.  We may yet do that.

We could also see an extension of one or more of these prospects that takes this service time issue away.  I know Boras....but it could happen.

In the meantime, we have a very good team, but maybe not the team we will have later in the year.  And as we start the '24 season, we have to wait for this transition.  The O's have started 4-2 and if you didn't know that, it would seem from reading here that they are 0-6.  

No one said, being in the mix for a WS with this group would be easy.  We still have pitching questions.  I think this roster is going to go through changes.  Maybe that is because players play themselves into or off of the roster, maybe that is from trades.  Maybe it is from a different direction from ownership.

No matter, we are in a pretty fantastic position and we are going to have to have a bit of patience.  But it aint easy when you know what is in that closet... 

[DirtyBird]

2 minutes ago, TommyPickles said:

And the point about him having the second-highest OBP on the team last season still stands.

And 8th in OPS. < 100 OPS+

OBP w/ no power and no speed doesn't provide that much value

 

[Bemorewins]

6 hours ago, spleen1015 said:

Because I'm assuming that whatever ME and Co. use to judge whether players are ready or not will say that Norby is more ready than Holliday. He has 627 AB at Norfolk.

Do you believe that Holliday needs or will even come close to getting 600 ABs at the AAA level?

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, foxfield said:

We have a great situation.  But what we are seeing is essentially the pain of asset management.  Yes we have new owners with fat checkbooks.  We also have a GM who has been running an asset collection run to near perfection (Still need pitching).  

 

Not every owner with money spends it.

We don't know if he will spend until he shows us.

[foxfield]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

Not every owner with money spends it.

We don't know if he will spend until he shows us.

Of course, I think many here simply assume the checkbook will be wide open.  I think the GM will be given more latitude than he was with Angelos, but I also do not assume that ME is going to embrace signing every prospect to a long term deal or jumping on say a 7 year contract for an ACE.  

We simply don't know yet how they are going to decide to work together.

But that doesn't change the fact that there is much more flexibility today than there was before the ownership change.

[NCRaven]

6 hours ago, Bemorewins said:

Neither is good enough to start on a team with World Series aspirations.

Todd Cruz, Leo Hernandez, Lenn Sakata, Benny Ayala…

1983 World Series Champions

[Three Run Homer]

1 hour ago, Moose Milligan said:

Service.  Time.

That's it.  That's all that it is.  They want to be able to gain an extra year of control, trading a few weeks of the 2024 season for an extra year in 2030 or 2031 or whenever.

It's all service time, that's all it is.  No way they'll ever cop to that, but that's all it is.

And practically everyone here, ESPECIALLY the regular posters that have been here for years know it, too.  

I'm confident that we'll see Holliday, Mayo, Kjerstad up in Baltimore at some point this summer.  Might not be next week, but it'll happen.  

If I had my way, Hays would have been gone before ST started,  so would Mateo, and it'd break my heart but I think I'd have to get rid of Tony Taters, too.  I think Urias is a good guy to keep, but whatever, I get why people want him gone, too.

But I digress.

Service.  Time.  That's the front office's rationale behind not making any room for our logjam at AAA.

If you're right, we'll know soon enough--the 172 day threshold will come in a couple of weeks so we should see lots of movement by the end of April.  

[Just Regular]

The push pull with value hoarding is value cannibalization.

Does Jackson Holliday get a big hit off Alec Marsh that Tony Kemp couldn't?    Will Kyle Stowers physical peak end before he has a decent amount of time to adjust to MLB?

What if Kyle Stowers, Jordan Westburg, Grayson Rodriguez and Gunnar Henderson were deployed more widely to help Adley's 2022 Orioles?    I doubt any of those guys think the '23 Diamondbacks were a better team....maybe it could have been them.

[forphase1]

18 minutes ago, Bemorewins said:

Do you believe that Holliday needs or will even come close to getting 600 ABs at the AAA level?

Need, no.  Come close to getting?  It's possible.  Now it SHOULDN'T be possible, IMO, but I think it is.