Grow the Bats? Grow the Arms? Both? Neither?

[now]

18 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Both.  From Fangraphs yesterday:

“A problem contending teams often have to solve in order to be sustainably great is how to keep the pitching flowing while their position player core is in place. The Orioles aren’t going to have that problem. There are so many interesting pitchers in this system that it was tough to include them all. There’s an org we’re aware of whose scouts need to write a full report on a player if he touches 95 in front of them. If you’re a scout from that team covering Baltimore, you’ve had to write up more than 80 pitchers based on their peak velo alone. The retaining wall of arms is strong in the upper levels, giving the Orioles the pitching depth to contend amid injuries.”

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/baltimore-orioles-top-45-prospects-2024/

Meanwhile, our major league pitching staff has the third best ERA in MLB.   

I’m honestly pretty tired of people saying we haven’t paid enough attention to the pitching.   
 

I find this news pretty shocking, given our board "consensus" about the lack of pitching. Thx for the heads up.

Granted, most of those SP are still at high A or below, and the RP are only rated 35 or less FV, but given the impressive quantity of arms, some should pop above that in time. And the top 10 feature 3 SP in Povich, McDermott and Young.

Edited Monday at 23:59 by now

[Aristotelian]

Draft the best player available and go from there. If you end up with a surplus of position players, trade then for pitching, and vice versa.

[Moose Milligan]

If you look at what they've done, the answers to what the strategy is could be completely obvious.

First, when it comes to drafting...it's just easier to scout, draft and develop hitters.  You've got a greater chance of getting an impact player with a bat instead of an arm.  Now I know some are going to nitpick that and say "Well Moose, what's your criteria for that?  What do you mean by that?"

I'm not going to do the research because I'm lazy, but here's what I know:  We drafted Adley AND Gunnar in the same draft.  And Stowers.  And Joey Ortiz.  

I challenge anyone here to find a team that drafted that much value in pitching talent in one draft in the past 20 years.  Adley and Gunnar, if they stay healthy and play long enough, are Hall of Fame level talents.  Stowers has been a good prospect that has been blocked.  Ortiz has an .824 OPS in Milwaukee and was considered by some to be the headline of the Burnes trade.  He was blocked here.

I'm not going to say that the Orioles don't value pitching because that would be silly.  I just think they have some newer ideas on the value of pitching and what it means in the modern game.  All of what I'm about to unfurl here is just a hypothesis but in my mind, it makes sense.

The days of having big time frontline aces are almost over.  There are some very good pitchers out there but the amount of innings these guys throw are way down and they've gone down significantly very quickly.  If you go back to 2010, the innings pitched leaders in the MLB were Roy Halladay (250.2), Felix Hernandez, (249.2) and CC Sabathia (237.2).  You have to go all the way down to 46th place to find a pitcher that didn't throw over 200 innings (Rowdy Rodrigo Lopez threw 200 innings on the dot, then Barry Zito was 46th at 199.1)

By 2015, your innings pitched leaders were Kershaw (232.2) Keuchel, (232.0) and Arrieta (229).  28 pitchers threw over 200 innings.

Last year it was Logan Webb (216), Gallen (210) and Cole (209).  There were only 5 total that threw 200 or higher, the other two were Miles Mikolas and Chris Bassitt.  Framber came in at 198.  I'm not sure if we can agree on who the true aces here are, but I know one is Cole.  Gallen and Webb are very good.

But of course their salaries are increasing.  And here's a look at who the highest paid starting pitchers are for 2024:

https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/mlb/2024/03/12/mlb-highest-paid-starting-pitchers-2024-season-salary-rankings/72949843007/

Quote

• 1. Los Angeles Dodgers RHP Shohei Ohtani: $70 million
• 2. Texas Rangers RHP Max Scherzer: $43.3 million
• 2. Houston Astros RHP Justin Verlander: $43.3 million
• 4. Texas Rangers RHP Jacob deGrom: $40 million
• 5. New York Yankees RHP Gerrit Cole: $36 million
• 6. Washington Nationals LHP Patrick Corbin: $35.4 million
• 7. Washington Nationals RHP Stephen Strasburg: $35 million
• 8. New York Yankees LHP Carlos Rodon: $27.8 million
• 9. Philadelphia Phillies RHP Aaron Nola: $24.5 million
• 10. Seattle Mariners RHP Luis Castillo: $24.2 million

Ohtani isn't throwing this year and a ton of his value comes from his bat.  

I don't know if any of these guys are worth their contracts outside of Cole.  I'm pretty sure deGrom probably would be, but he's always hurt.  Cole, Castillo (3.34 ERA) Nola (4.46 ERA) were the only three to finish in the top 10 of innings pitched last year.  Corbin threw 180 innings of 5.20 ERA.  

And while I love Corbin Burnes, I'm afraid that he'd join this list next year...a list of guys that, quite frankly, aren't worth the hefty contracts they're getting paid.  Maybe Burnes is the exception to the rule here, but it's quite a gamble to find out.

Of course, the Tommy John Experience has been running rampant through the Majors this year and in the preceding years, too.  And teams are expected to spend this type of money for a guy who's inevitably going to have to miss 12-18 months for that? 

Elias knows this.  Sig knows this.  Hell, YOU know this.  

So I think what we're seeing from the Orioles side of things is a change on how they value pitching.  Not that they don't value it, they're just not going to be caught at any time giving out big contracts to guys that are supposed frontline aces.  Why would they?

They're going to continue to draft bats first and they'll get pitching where they can and the answers might not always be the sexiest.  @Frobby posted that excerpt from Fangraphs which was interesting, I'm assuming that maybe it's a little slower to develop pitching, too...and that's why we haven't seen as much in our prospect ranking as we've seen with the bats.

But if you look at what they did in the offseason, they traded Ortiz and Hall for Burnes.  I wouldn't be surprised if you see another trade similar to that this upcoming offseason, trading some of our 5th-10th ranked prospects for a frontline starter that has a year or two of control remaining.  If Elias can find a deal like that at the deadline this year, he'll pull the trigger then, too.  But don't be upset if he doesn't.

Doing so allows the Orioles to win in a lot of areas:  We retain our top flight talent, we also get a pitcher that can lead the rotation and we're not tied to a guy for a big contract.  We're also avoiding big bucks spent on potential Tommy John cases as best as we can.

So the answer is to grow the bats and buy some of the arms for not a whole lot of time.  There's risk in everything that you do as an MLB GM but I do believe that in this day and age a lot of what the Orioles are going to do is risk aversion when it comes to pitching...both drafting it at the high rounds and spending for it in free agency.  

[Can_of_corn]

Can you find me another draft class in the last 20 years with position players that match those four?  Or a mixture of position players and pitchers?

I'm guessing you can't.

[Moose Milligan]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

Can you find me another draft class in the last 20 years with position players that match those four?  Or a mixture of position players and pitchers?

I'm guessing you can't.

Nope, but all I need is one.

Your move, hotshot.  

[24fps]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

Both.  From Fangraphs yesterday:

“A problem contending teams often have to solve in order to be sustainably great is how to keep the pitching flowing while their position player core is in place. The Orioles aren’t going to have that problem. There are so many interesting pitchers in this system that it was tough to include them all. There’s an org we’re aware of whose scouts need to write a full report on a player if he touches 95 in front of them. If you’re a scout from that team covering Baltimore, you’ve had to write up more than 80 pitchers based on their peak velo alone. The retaining wall of arms is strong in the upper levels, giving the Orioles the pitching depth to contend amid injuries.”

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/baltimore-orioles-top-45-prospects-2024/

Meanwhile, our major league pitching staff has the third best ERA in MLB.   

I’m honestly pretty tired of people saying we haven’t paid enough attention to the pitching.   
 

 

 

It looks like this ranking was published 2-3 days ago.  Interesting to say the least.  You might say it raises more questions than it answers.  One thing is clear and  that is nobody is within a season of contributing at the ML level except for Povich, McDermott, and Young and none of them are rated more than FV 45+.  So I don't understand a comment like "The retaining wall of arms is strong in the upper levels, giving the Orioles the pitching depth to contend amid injuries".  This is especially brought into focus when Elias is willing to bring on guys like Suarez* before tapping into his "retaining wall".

*I'm happy with what Suarez has been able to bring to the table, but that's not the point.

[Can_of_corn]

5 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Nope, but all I need is one.

Your move, hotshot.  

The best draft of the last 20 years was full of position players so that's the best way to draft!

 

 

 

My move is going to bed.

[Moose Milligan]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

The best draft of the last 20 years was full of position players so that's the best way to draft!

 

 

 

My move is going to bed.

Way to address the rest of the post.  

Thought you'd have been in bed hours ago, boomer.  

[Il BuonO]

5 hours ago, EddeeEddee said:

I think it was Andy MacPhail who said grow the arms and buy the bats. 

But I'm thinking they never took the strategy to its potential when they chose not to target and develop players from the Caribbean countries -- pitchers or position players.  Not to say that strategy definitely would have worked out if they had a greater presence in the Caribbean then, but they must have missed out on many promising arms.

That was the meddling owner’s decision. 

[Il BuonO]

9 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Way to address the rest of the post.  

Thought you'd have been in bed hours ago, boomer.  

I’m pretty sure older than him and I’m still up!

[24fps]

1 minute ago, Il BuonO said:

I’m pretty sure older than him and I’m still up!

I'm probably older than you both.  I'm definitely a boomer and I'm still up.

[Il BuonO]

46 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

If you look at what they've done, the answers to what the strategy is could be completely obvious.

First, when it comes to drafting...it's just easier to scout, draft and develop hitters.  You've got a greater chance of getting an impact player with a bat instead of an arm.  Now I know some are going to nitpick that and say "Well Moose, what's your criteria for that?  What do you mean by that?"

I'm not going to do the research because I'm lazy, but here's what I know:  We drafted Adley AND Gunnar in the same draft.  And Stowers.  And Joey Ortiz.  

I challenge anyone here to find a team that drafted that much value in pitching talent in one draft in the past 20 years.  Adley and Gunnar, if they stay healthy and play long enough, are Hall of Fame level talents.  Stowers has been a good prospect that has been blocked.  Ortiz has an .824 OPS in Milwaukee and was considered by some to be the headline of the Burnes trade.  He was blocked here.

I'm not going to say that the Orioles don't value pitching because that would be silly.  I just think they have some newer ideas on the value of pitching and what it means in the modern game.  All of what I'm about to unfurl here is just a hypothesis but in my mind, it makes sense.

The days of having big time frontline aces are almost over.  There are some very good pitchers out there but the amount of innings these guys throw are way down and they've gone down significantly very quickly.  If you go back to 2010, the innings pitched leaders in the MLB were Roy Halladay (250.2), Felix Hernandez, (249.2) and CC Sabathia (237.2).  You have to go all the way down to 46th place to find a pitcher that didn't throw over 200 innings (Rowdy Rodrigo Lopez threw 200 innings on the dot, then Barry Zito was 46th at 199.1)

By 2015, your innings pitched leaders were Kershaw (232.2) Keuchel, (232.0) and Arrieta (229).  28 pitchers threw over 200 innings.

Last year it was Logan Webb (216), Gallen (210) and Cole (209).  There were only 5 total that threw 200 or higher, the other two were Miles Mikolas and Chris Bassitt.  Framber came in at 198.  I'm not sure if we can agree on who the true aces here are, but I know one is Cole.  Gallen and Webb are very good.

But of course their salaries are increasing.  And here's a look at who the highest paid starting pitchers are for 2024:

https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/mlb/2024/03/12/mlb-highest-paid-starting-pitchers-2024-season-salary-rankings/72949843007/

Ohtani isn't throwing this year and a ton of his value comes from his bat.  

I don't know if any of these guys are worth their contracts outside of Cole.  I'm pretty sure deGrom probably would be, but he's always hurt.  Cole, Castillo (3.34 ERA) Nola (4.46 ERA) were the only three to finish in the top 10 of innings pitched last year.  Corbin threw 180 innings of 5.20 ERA.  

And while I love Corbin Burnes, I'm afraid that he'd join this list next year...a list of guys that, quite frankly, aren't worth the hefty contracts they're getting paid.  Maybe Burnes is the exception to the rule here, but it's quite a gamble to find out.

Of course, the Tommy John Experience has been running rampant through the Majors this year and in the preceding years, too.  And teams are expected to spend this type of money for a guy who's inevitably going to have to miss 12-18 months for that? 

Elias knows this.  Sig knows this.  Hell, YOU know this.  

So I think what we're seeing from the Orioles side of things is a change on how they value pitching.  Not that they don't value it, they're just not going to be caught at any time giving out big contracts to guys that are supposed frontline aces.  Why would they?

They're going to continue to draft bats first and they'll get pitching where they can and the answers might not always be the sexiest.  @Frobby posted that excerpt from Fangraphs which was interesting, I'm assuming that maybe it's a little slower to develop pitching, too...and that's why we haven't seen as much in our prospect ranking as we've seen with the bats.

But if you look at what they did in the offseason, they traded Ortiz and Hall for Burnes.  I wouldn't be surprised if you see another trade similar to that this upcoming offseason, trading some of our 5th-10th ranked prospects for a frontline starter that has a year or two of control remaining.  If Elias can find a deal like that at the deadline this year, he'll pull the trigger then, too.  But don't be upset if he doesn't.

Doing so allows the Orioles to win in a lot of areas:  We retain our top flight talent, we also get a pitcher that can lead the rotation and we're not tied to a guy for a big contract.  We're also avoiding big bucks spent on potential Tommy John cases as best as we can.

So the answer is to grow the bats and buy some of the arms for not a whole lot of time.  There's risk in everything that you do as an MLB GM but I do believe that in this day and age a lot of what the Orioles are going to do is risk aversion when it comes to pitching...both drafting it at the high rounds and spending for it in free agency.  

Excellent post.

[Moose Milligan]

6 hours ago, Il BuonO said:

I’m pretty sure older than him and I’m still up!

You’re not as grumpy

[baltfan]

7 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Can you find me another draft class in the last 20 years with position players that match those four?  Or a mixture of position players and pitchers?

I'm guessing you can't.

Huh, 2010. - Harper or Machado and Realmuto. 

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, baltfan said:

Huh, 2010. - Harper or Machado and Realmuto. 

We are talking selections teams make.

Harper and Machado were both top 5 picks, no team could have picked both of them.

If the Phillies had picked Realmuto you might be on to something but that was the Marlins.