I sort of don't get Elias's plan

[owknows]

1 minute ago, gtman55 said:

I never said it's becoming unglued. Reading is fundamental.

I said if we don't make moves I could see things unraveling.

Not to be a stickler... but you specifically did say "unglued"

 

[Sports Guy]

12 minutes ago, gtman55 said:

You have to admit this is kind of nuts. These are the top pitching prospects in baseball. How many Orioles do you see?

1   Paul Skenes    RHP    PIT  
9    Yoshinobu Yamamoto    RHP    LAD  
21    Cade Horton    RHP    CHC   
23    Andrew Painter    RHP    PHI 
31    Jackson Jobe    RHP    DET   
39    Jacob Misiorowski    RHP    MIL   
55    Chase Hampton    RHP    NYY   
56    Mason Miller    RHP    OAK  
59    AJ Smith-Shawver    RHP   ATL
60    Drew Thorpe    RHP    SD  
64    Hurston Waldrep    RHP    ATL
65    Tink Hence    RHP    STL   
67    Dylan Lesko    RHP    SD    
68    Brock Porter    RHP    TEX   
70    Rhett Lowder    RHP    CIN   
75    Mick Abel    RHP    PHI  
83    Noble Meyer    RHP    MIA
84    Jared Jones    RHP    PIT    
87    Chase Petty    RHP    CIN   
94    Cade Cavalli    RHP    WAS    
103    Jack Leiter    RHP    TEX    
113    Daniel Espino    RHP    CLE   
123    Ben Joyce    RHP    LAA   
129    Gavin Stone    RHP    LAD    
132    Connor Phillips    RHP    CIN   
133    River Ryan    RHP    LAD    
136    Christian Scott    RHP    NYM  
141    Tekoah Roby    RHP    STL   
145    Blade Tidwell    RHP    NYM  
147    Wilmer Flores    RHP    DET  
148    Orion Kerkering    RHP    PHI   
150    Nick Frasso    RHP    LAD 
152    Bubba Chandler    RHP    PIT  
161    Chase Dollander    RHP    COL   
164    Landen Maroudis    RHP    TOR    
165    Ty Madden    RHP    DET    
166    Ben Brown    RHP    CHC   
172    Emerson Hancock    RHP    SEA    
176    Will Warren    RHP    NYY  
177    Owen Murphy    RHP    ATL    
181    Carlos F. Rodriguez    RHP    MIL  
183    Nick Nastrini    RHP    CHW  
186    Spencer Arrighetti    RHP    HOU   
189    Luis Morales    RHP    OAK    

To me, champions have great pitching and defense. Our pitching is a mess right now.

Why do we have to admit this is nuts?  An arbitrary list that may or may not have validity to it?

As we speak, we have 2 home grown pitchers in the rotation and one about to come back that is largely home grown and that is with Bradish and means out, who were also home grown.

McDermott is knocking on the door.

The Orioles, for their rebuild, prioritized hitting because that’s the smart and correct thing to do. They then used some of that to go get Burnes.

They need to do more of that and now that they have the hitting, they have to prioritize pitching more.

[foxfield]

1 hour ago, gtman55 said:

First of all, I'm talking about his plan for the Orioles moving forward. I get what the front office was doing early on. Turning around a very bad team by drafting high, picking high upside college hitters the might quickly improve the club. And he's done a helluva job drafting positional talent. But I never understood his reluctance to draft top end college pitching talent.

So what we have is a minor league system system of super talented hitters who are blocked from making the bigs because there's literally too many of them. On the flip side there's little to no major league quality pitching talent at all.

Fast forward to this off-season. Elias knew damn well the odds of Means and Bradish missing significant time was pretty much 100%. We already had lost Felix for the upcoming season and Wells has a long injury history.  He also had to know Cano wasn't the heir apparent at closer or even a high leverage guy.

So what does he do? He brings in an aging Kimbrel to close. And we get Burnes. And believe me, I like Burnes but that wasn't nearly enough for a team with World Series aspirations.

And now in late June, it's coming unglued. The pitching injuries are mounting. Guys like Irvin and Suarez are showing they just don't have what it takes. We choose our best minor league arm and it's Cade Povich. I like the kid but he's a fifth starter at best.

I guess my main question in this is whether or not Elias realizes how mediocre the pitching staff currently is. And he needs to make moves ASAP because I can see things unraveling. We have the biggest surplus of trade bait in the MLB. At a minimum we need a top end starter and a top notch reliever. Time is ticking 

 

 

 

 

11 minutes ago, gtman55 said:

I never said it's becoming unglued. Reading is fundamental.

I said if we don't make moves I could see things unraveling.

You don't get Elias' plan?  You don't even get your own post.  

[Aristotelian]

12 minutes ago, gtman55 said:

I never said it's becoming unglued. Reading is fundamental.

I said if we don't make moves I could see things unraveling.

So we will make moves. Chill. We are in great position to make the playoffs. So all that matters is the team composition in October 

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, gtman55 said:

 

And now in late June, it's coming unglued. 

 

 

 

Quoted for accuracy 

[Bemorewins]

1 hour ago, gtman55 said:

First of all, I'm talking about his plan for the Orioles moving forward. I get what the front office was doing early on. Turning around a very bad team by drafting high, picking high upside college hitters the might quickly improve the club. And he's done a helluva job drafting positional talent. But I never understood his reluctance to draft top end college pitching talent.

So what we have is a minor league system system of super talented hitters who are blocked from making the bigs because there's literally too many of them. On the flip side there's little to no major league quality pitching talent at all.

Fast forward to this off-season. Elias knew damn well the odds of Means and Bradish missing significant time was pretty much 100%. We already had lost Felix for the upcoming season and Wells has a long injury history.  He also had to know Cano wasn't the heir apparent at closer or even a high leverage guy.

So what does he do? He brings in an aging Kimbrel to close. And we get Burnes. And believe me, I like Burnes but that wasn't nearly enough for a team with World Series aspirations.

And now in late June, it's coming unglued. The pitching injuries are mounting. Guys like Irvin and Suarez are showing they just don't have what it takes. We choose our best minor league arm and it's Cade Povich. I like the kid but he's a fifth starter at best.

I guess my main question in this is whether or not Elias realizes how mediocre the pitching staff currently is. And he needs to make moves ASAP because I can see things unraveling. We have the biggest surplus of trade bait in the MLB. At a minimum we need a top end starter and a top notch reliever. Time is ticking 

 

 

 

My reaction...

1) I'm not sure how often that you visit this board, but this kind of post is surely not to be received well. So whatever responses you get shouting you down, I hope you sort of expected it.

2) Elias' hands were tied in a MAJOR way by the awful Angelos. He did not have a lot of room to spend/sign players. And we already know that he has been very apprehensive to trade.

3) We are good as is to make a Wild Card. We are still 19 games over .500. However, if the goal is to make a a deep October run (hopefully it is), then we HAVE to make significant improvements to the pitching talent on the team.

4) The good news is that we have the prospect ammo (and hopefully the will) to make trades to change the talent inequity problem on the team.

5) The sucky part is that we all have to wait to see what happens.

[wildcard]

No one is talking about Kremer.   

The pitching held together pretty well with a 6 man rotation.   But then Bradish went down and they had to go to a 5 man rotation.   With 30 games in 31 days that has made everyone tired.

If Kremer can come back and pitch well along with 7 days off in July this could all straight out pretty well.  They may even be able to move Suarez to the pen.

I am not say it fixes the need for a #3 starter for the playoffs.

But if Kremer can't come back to his normal form that could cause problems.

[Rbiggs2525]

The top 3 prospects are 20, 19 and 22 years of age. All of our top 4 prospects have a spot on the roster next year if needed. Holliday 2b, Basallo back up catcher, Mayo 3B, Kjerstad RF/LF. Elias plan is to turn this into a winner for a long period. We are starting to see big success in lower minors especially DSL. That will be the next wave of players to keep the window open. When you lose your number 2, 4, 5 starting pitchers early in a season it’s hard to fix. I am sure Elias is working hard on it but it takes two to tango. Call me a prospect hoarder but I am not trading the top 3 guys in any scenario. Pitching injuries are too rampant. 

[Too Tall]

I also think - long range speaking - our new international presence will be a good potential source of pitching. The draft is not the only way. 

[Sports Guy]

9 minutes ago, wildcard said:

No one is talking about Kremer.   

The pitching held together pretty well with a 6 man rotation.   But then Bradish went down and they had to go to a 5 man rotation.   With 30 games in 31 days that has made everyone tired.

If Kremer can come back and pitch well along with 7 days off in July this could all straight out pretty well.  They may even be able to move Suarez to the pen.

I am not say it fixes the need for a #3 starter for the playoffs.

But if Kremer can't come back to his normal form that could cause problems.

Kremer is fine but he doesn’t solve the weaknesses of this team. He is someone that can force Suarez into the pen though and that helps somewhat, although we have no idea if we can really trust him there as of yet.

[webbrick2010]

I think the possible miscalculation in the Elias plan is that after stockpiling positional talent there would be little or no pitching talent to trade them for. Probably can't be fixed this year because there are way too many playoff teams chasing way too few quality arms.

[emmett16]

I was expecting a ridiculous thread when I logged on today. 
 

Well done, sir.  Thanks for not letting me down.

Sigh. 

[baltfan]

He was expecting that at least Means would be healthy since he just came off TJ.  If they had Means, things would look different now.  If we had Bradish, which he couldn’t count on, they would be the best team in baseball.  

[mrbig1]

I just hope that Elias doesn't freak out and give up some real talent. GM should never listen to fans. I know we need pitching but at what cost?

[milbest77]

I think we have to remember that Johnny Angelos hired Elias and the purpose was to cut payroll. Any halfway competent GM could hit on the Adley pick (or Witt if he went that route). I do give him props for the Gunnar and Westy picks, too. But, go back and watch Elias’ introductory press conference. He said the goal was to build an elite pipeline of talent. At no point were the words “win a World Series” ever uttered. Probably no correlation there, but interesting non-choice of words nonetheless.

Elias won my admiration forever by getting rid of Chris Davis. Obviously, we still have to pay him, but just getting him out of the building was gigantic IMO. 

I also can’t help but wonder if new ownership wants their own guy. I know Rubenstein has publicly said Elias is the guy, but we don’t know what is going on behind the scenes. Not sure if that is good or bad, but there’s the old saying “a new broom sweeps clean.”