Are We a Better Team Now?

[Just Regular]

I can't say it doesn't make me a little nervous that Dombrowski added Tanner Banks to compensate for subtracting Gregory Soto, but the Phillies pitching is enough stronger than the Orioles we should still benefit some from their leavings.

Whispers I've heard is PHI likes Estevez to close, and maybe another closer lurking wasn't a roster fit Dombrowski liked.     Kimbrel very shaky, Soto's closing experience maybe more useful here.

Writers will have it easy finding angles if we are lucky enough to get Gunnar v. Bryce.

Edited July 31 by Just Regular

[Uli2001]

4 hours ago, Nite said:

The playoff tournament is a crap shoot. Just a matter of the team getting hot right at the right time. Remember the A's have thrown up 20 and 19 runs in games this year. Bottle that up for 3 weeks and you win the series. Extreme example but basically the point is get into the playoffs and roll the dice from there. 

That's not how it works. You still need talent. But you need talent and getting some air in your sails so to speak.

[Uli2001]

The O's are better but what this trade deadline shows is that the organization needs to start developing some arms. Trades are too expensive or they are rentals. The team probably cannot compete for top FAs in the offseason, either.

Go to Tampa Bay and copy everything they are doing with their pitching prospects.

[StatusDC]

My main concern is whether Rogers is significantly better than Irving to justify giving up both Norby and Stowers. I understand they were blocked on the big league roster and might have created a tense environment with the major league players constantly looking over their shoulders. While it's clear that the major league roster improved after the deadline, I'm skeptical that we got the best end of the deal with the Marlins.

[Uli2001]

33 minutes ago, StatusDC said:

My main concern is whether Rogers is significantly better than Irving to justify giving up both Norby and Stowers. I understand they were blocked on the big league roster and might have created a tense environment with the major league players constantly looking over their shoulders. While it's clear that the major league roster improved after the deadline, I'm skeptical that we got the best end of the deal with the Marlins.

I think that you cannot hoard your prospects forever. Norby was #7 in the farm. That's what they traded for Rogers. Stowers was a throw-in.

[StatusDC]

10 minutes ago, Uli2001 said:

I think that you cannot hoard your prospects forever. Norby was #7 in the farm. That's what they traded for Rogers. Stowers was a throw-in.

It's impossible to call Stowers a "throw-in" with a straight face. He has been regarded as one of the top prospects and a potential future face of the Orioles for some time. He was ranked as high as #8 in the system, while Norby was ranked #5. Trading away both of them for someone like Rogers is certainly a significant giveaway.

[OnlyOneOriole]

1 hour ago, StatusDC said:

It's impossible to call Stowers a "throw-in" with a straight face. He has been regarded as one of the top prospects and a potential future face of the Orioles for some time. He was ranked as high as #8 in the system, while Norby was ranked #5. Trading away both of them for someone like Rogers is certainly a significant giveaway.

I would agree.  I really don't understand trading both of them for such an average pitcher.  Better off keeping them both and packaging them with another top prospect to get an elite pitcher.  Instead this just feels like giveaways of 2 talented guys. 

[StatusDC]

6 minutes ago, OnlyOneOriole said:

I would agree.  I really don't understand trading both of them for such an average pitcher.  Better off keeping them both and packaging them with another top prospect to get an elite pitcher.  Instead this just feels like giveaways of 2 talented guys. 

My thoughts exactly. We could have waited for a better package, either in the off-season or early next year. We could have still made the other trades and hoped Irving and Sanchez could carry the team. It seems like they're concerned about re-signing Burnes and the recovery of other starting pitchers, so they made the best deal they could to try to win it all this year.

[Safelykept]

3 hours ago, StatusDC said:

My main concern is whether Rogers is significantly better than Irving to justify giving up both Norby and Stowers. I understand they were blocked on the big league roster and might have created a tense environment with the major league players constantly looking over their shoulders. While it's clear that the major league roster improved after the deadline, I'm skeptical that we got the best end of the deal with the Marlins.

Im skeptical too. Miami won the sellers dead line, they had Pitching to sell and got paid, while dealing from the bottom of the deck. TS is a FA after the year and Rogers and Hoeing are expendable. they still have their 6 best coming back next year. I believe Rogers is better than Irvin or Povich, dont know about significantly though. Hes as controllable as Irvin but more roster flexibility ( Has Option/s left.)    

[RZNJ]

7 hours ago, Brooks The Great said:

The Hays and Eflin trades made this team much better, the Rogers and Eloy trades made the team worse today. I would have much rather kept Norby and allocated Stowers towards a bullpen arm.

There's just no way that Stowers couldn't have gotten us a solid reliever. Furthermore, there's nothing that can convince me that Elias couldn't have gotten a better return than Rogers for both Norby and Stowers. Elias made the trade with multiple hours left before the deadline. Case in point, the A's traded Erceg to the Royals for 3 crappy prospects later in the day. Not only could Stowers most likely have gotten us Erceg, but if he wasn't enough, we could have easily beaten Klein, Barnett, and Dickey with our far superior system. But Elias had already overpaid for Rogers earlier in the day. 

In aggregate, we might be better, but Elias completely failed to significantly improve the bullpen, and - especially with Hyde making decisions - it'll likely be this team's downfall in the playoffs. So even if the team is now better, it's not enough. This is the second consective season of Elias not doing enough at the deadline. 

If this Orioles team makes the World Series - and today actually hurt those chances compared to what Elias could have done - then there's a decent chance we'd face the Phillies. The Phillies just traded us 2 of their worst bullpen arms, and we're relying on them to be 2 of our best bullpen arms. That's a failure by Elias. And it's due in part to overpaying for Rogers. Again, Stowers should have been used to trade for a reliever. Norby also had value to this year's Orioles team as a LF/RF righty against lefties, and as depth if Holliday's arm flares up.

Perhaps fittingly, Elias signed the guy who single-handedly kept the Phillies out of the World Series last season and made him our closer over the offseason. The guys in the Phillies front office are certainly laughing at Elias right now.

The only problem I have with you and some others is that you’re putting way too much into Stowers value to other teams.   He’s a throw in.  Norby is the focus.  It looks like Stowers might get a good run in Miami the rest of the season.  Good for him.

Stowers wasn’t going to bring back an Erceg or even a good rental by himself.

[sportsfan8703]

Norby had no place to play. He was way buried. So was Stowers. Stowers was behind Cowser and Kjerstad for COF. 

Other than Moises Chace, and Baumeister, everyone else we traded was a “spare part” that was never going to crack our 26 man roster post this deadline. Norby, Stowers, Cook, Johnson, Horvath, and Etzel. All of their paths to playing time was extremely narrow. So why not trade them?  You can only have a 26 man roster. Elias does a good job acquiring depth for AAA.
 

We don’t need “prospect depth” like an Alabama defense. 

[RZNJ]

5 hours ago, StatusDC said:

It's impossible to call Stowers a "throw-in" with a straight face. He has been regarded as one of the top prospects and a potential future face of the Orioles for some time. He was ranked as high as #8 in the system, while Norby was ranked #5. Trading away both of them for someone like Rogers is certainly a significant giveaway.

I’m certainly not crazy about Trevor Roger’s but Norby was the focus of the trade.  Throw in might be too strong a description but Stowers was definitely a distant secondary piece.   Stowers is a lifetime .260 minor league hitter who was hitting .240 in AAA this year.   He never made a top 100 list.   His calling card is power but in his short ML career it hasn’t really shown and his plate discipline numbers are bad.

I almost feel like Elias convinced Miami to take Stowers over a lower level guy almost as a favor to Stowers.   It looks like Stowers will get a good run in Miami these last two months.  He may surprise me but I’m expecting a low 200’s average and not enough power to offset a sub .300 OBP.    That’s who he’s been.

[terpoh]

6 hours ago, StatusDC said:

It's impossible to call Stowers a "throw-in" with a straight face. He has been regarded as one of the top prospects and a potential future face of the Orioles for some time. He was ranked as high as #8 in the system, while Norby was ranked #5. Trading away both of them for someone like Rogers is certainly a significant giveaway.

Stowers was 100% a throw in, and was going to be a throw in for any trade he was a part of. Even BTV had him at a trade value of 0.1. Everyone here is biased about him because he’s likable and because we drafted him. At the end of the day he’s a 26 year old who is a career .260 hitter in the minors and hitting .240 this year in AAA. I like Stowers too, and I’m glad he’s going to finally get a shot to play every day, but he was never anything more than a throw in. Even if he goes and becomes an all star in Miami, that doesn’t change his current value in a trade at the 2024 deadline. 

[terpoh]

5 hours ago, OnlyOneOriole said:

I would agree.  I really don't understand trading both of them for such an average pitcher.  Better off keeping them both and packaging them with another top prospect to get an elite pitcher.  Instead this just feels like giveaways of 2 talented guys. 

Rogers has been worth 1.4 WAR this season which is tied with Grayson Rodriguez. While it was a few years back, he also has a season of 3.5 WAR on his resume.  He has more value than you give him credit for, and is far more valuable than Cole Irvin has been. Another example of over valuing Norby and Stowers trade value. Norby is still a prospect and has some value but he doesn’t come without a good amount of flaws. Stowers is a throw in. You’re not getting an “elite” pitcher with them two and another top prospect. The market was crazy this year for pitching. There are better pitchers than Trevor Rogers out there, sure, but it would’ve cost us big time. We got an MLB quality back end stater for our rotation which we needed dearly and did so using spare parts.

Ive seen people say we should’ve kept both and played both. But I am sure glad our team will not have Norby in AAA, and Stowers on the bench and 2 of: Cade Povich, Suarez, McDermott, Irvin in the rotation.

[Safelykept]

21 minutes ago, terpoh said:

Rogers has been worth 1.4 WAR this season which is tied with Grayson Rodriguez. While it was a few years back, he also has a season of 3.5 WAR on his resume.  He has more value than you give him credit for, and is far more valuable than Cole Irvin has been. Another example of over valuing Norby and Stowers trade value. Norby is still a prospect and has some value but he doesn’t come without a good amount of flaws. Stowers is a throw in. You’re not getting an “elite” pitcher with them two and another top prospect. The market was crazy this year for pitching. There are better pitchers than Trevor Rogers out there, sure, but it would’ve cost us big time. We got an MLB quality back end stater for our rotation which we needed dearly and did so using spare parts.

Ive seen people say we should’ve kept both and played both. But I am sure glad our team will not have Norby in AAA, and Stowers on the bench and 2 of: Cade Povich, Suarez, McDermott, Irvin in the rotation.

Yeah but its WAR. Hes not as good as Grayson. Many will reference other stats like FIP and stuff from his statcast page. Hes definitely better than Irvin or Povich (very low bar ). Saurez to the pen helps there. Wildcard to this (loss of Norby) will how JH plays second time up.