Elias out smarts O'Dowd and DeRosa

[Spakman]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

I tend to doubt it, but we’ll see.   If the new players perform well and the team returns to playing winning baseball, I doubt it will hurt team chemistry.  If they don’t, maybe it will.   Or, maybe people will say so, whether it actually does or not.  “Chemistry” is one of those terms that often gets thrown around to rationalize a result.   

Typically I wouldn’t buy into this team chemistry thing, but this is an unusual team. We have a lot of young players, a lot of rookies and a lot of veterans. Typically teams don’t have this many young players that grew up together in the  minors. And these players are coming for the vets jobs.  I could definitely see a riff between the old guard and the new blood. Does it matter that much I don’t really know. And then you added a ton of new players at the deadline. You got Rogers making excuses already. Ilike I said I don’t buy into  the team chemistry thing too much but this team definitely has a different make up than most teams going for a World Series. Typically you see this on losing teams.

[Rbiggs2525]

Chemistry stuff is overblown. Not that it doesn’t matter but it takes one conversation. Guys we love Hays but we needed to improve our pitching staff. We did right by Hays by sending him to second best odds to win WS. We love Irvin but he’s given up 42 runs in 42 innings. Thankful he was able to stay in the organization. We love Norby but we needed starting pitching. Did right by him by sending him to organizations with every day AB’s for him. 

[LookitsPuck]

Elias hasn't outsmarted anybody, yet.

I think the only take away so far is that there were clearly holes on this roster (2 starting pitchers, bullpen, maybe RHH bats), and he at least plugged those holes. The initial quality assessments were a mixed bag, but he definitely went from quantity over quality aside from, say, Eflin. The others are very situational/marginal players some with upside if leveraged correctly.

Also, not a fan of either of those MLBN guys, tbh. Don't care what they have to say. 

Edited August 6 by LookitsPuck

[StottyByNature]

13 minutes ago, Rbiggs2525 said:

Chemistry stuff is overblown. Not that it doesn’t matter but it takes one conversation. Guys we love Hays but we needed to improve our pitching staff. We did right by Hays by sending him to second best odds to win WS. We love Irvin but he’s given up 42 runs in 42 innings. Thankful he was able to stay in the organization. We love Norby but we needed starting pitching. Did right by him by sending him to organizations with every day AB’s for him. 

I don't think it is - the baseball season is a grind so enjoying being around your teammates is important.  

I don't think it was a "do right by Hays" move - it sounds like he was unhappy and that may have caused a rift in the locker room with the younger guys.  Now, Mullins is apparently very close to Hays so trading him may have had an effect on Mullins.  We'll see if that ever comes out.

I do think they tried to trade Stowers in a "do right by him" sort of way.

Either way, the deadline was more player movement than I had anticipated.

[24fps]

Psychoanalyzing someone from afar is always a questionable proposition.  Doing so for an entire team of people moreso I would think.

Great gig if you can get paid for doing it though.

[Rbiggs2525]

4 minutes ago, StottyByNature said:

I don't think it is - the baseball season is a grind so enjoying being around your teammates is important.  

I don't think it was a "do right by Hays" move - it sounds like he was unhappy and that may have caused a rift in the locker room with the younger guys.  Now, Mullins is apparently very close to Hays so trading him may have had an effect on Mullins.  We'll see if that ever comes out.

I do think they tried to trade Stowers in a "do right by him" sort of way.

Either way, the deadline was more player movement than I had anticipated.

Phillies had every day AB’s for Hays and we did not. It is doing right by him in every sense of the term. The way they said it was like we replaced 7 guys with 7 guys from the ML roster.  Efflin was Acquired for low level guys. Pache not on the team. Slater was for cash, Jiminez was for cash. Soto for prospects. The only ML guys affected were Hays, Akin, Irvin and Norby. Two of those players are questionable MLB contributors and Akin will be back up eventually.

[ChosenOne21]

If anyone ever talked about a bad team having good chemistry, I might be more inclined to take it seriously. But all you ever hear is how good teams have great chemistry, which suggests to me that chemistry is more a byproduct of winning than a cause.

[terpoh]

3 hours ago, wildcard said:

MLB Network did a post-mortem on the trade deadline and their conclusion about the O's was the Elias added too many players and it will mess with the team chemistry.   They think Mullins and O'Hearn will both take offense to the additions.   (See link below)

Going into the deadline the O's need starting, bullpen and right handed outfield help.   Everyone knew that.    O'Dowd agreed that the Elfin trade should help the O's.    It moves  Povich to AAA and the team as a whole is not unhappy about that.

Rogers moves Suarez to the pen.   Considering that Suarez had a 7.64 ERA in July it was time to take some workload off him.   I don't see the team being upset about that.

 Doimingeuz and Soto added two veterans to the pen.    Nittoli and Krook were DFA'd,  Baker and Akin were optioned.  And Irvin was DFA'd and ended up in AAA Norfolk. The only one that might have been pissed in Akin.  I am sure Elias told him with all the injuries that are occurring with pitchers this year his stay in AAA may be short.  Irvin should have expected it the way he was performing.

As far as Mullins and O'Hearn being upset because right handed  hitting Slater and Jimenez were acquired, neither of them play much against lefties anyway. Slater is a replacement for Hays with the added ability to play a decent CF.

Right now adding Jimenez looks like a stroke of genius.   The O's were 12-13 in July and look tired in the process.  They needed a spark and some rest.  Jimenez is a middle of the order bat that hit the ground running.  Adding him at DH allows:

1) Santander to rest instead of DH where he has a 648 OPS this year.

2) Adley to rest when he's not catching.  August is not fun in catching gear in Baltimore.

3) OHearn and Mountcastle can share 1B.   O'Hearn does not play vs lefties and Mountcastle is hitting for a 712 OPS vs righties.    

I am not saying that Jimenez plays all the time but whoever hits will.

I think Elias know what he is doing and the MLB Network doesn't know the O's.

Scroll to 6:00.

 

Why the hell would the team be upset that Povich is back in AAA?

[maybenxtyr]

1 hour ago, Rbiggs2525 said:

Phillies had every day AB’s for Hays and we did not. It is doing right by him in every sense of the term. The way they said it was like we replaced 7 guys with 7 guys from the ML roster.  Efflin was Acquired for low level guys. Pache not on the team. Slater was for cash, Jiminez was for cash. Soto for prospects. The only ML guys affected were Hays, Akin, Irvin and Norby. Two of those players are questionable MLB contributors and Akin will be back up eventually.

Eloy was not for cash. They traded a decent AAA relief pitcher for him and cash.

[LookinUp]

9 minutes ago, maybenxtyr said:

Eloy was not for cash. They traded a decent AAA relief pitcher for him and cash.

There's a big question over whether that pitcher will ever be able to have more than a cup of coffee in a ML bullpen.

They paid essentially nothing for Jimenez.

[LookinUp]

3 hours ago, cnmilton said:

If anything messed with the Os team chemistry with these trades,  it was the loss of Hays in the lockerroom

 

3 hours ago, dystopia said:

Which was likely a positive. 

Right. Hays was apparently pretty unhappy with his PT. 

[StottyByNature]

1 hour ago, Rbiggs2525 said:

Phillies had every day AB’s for Hays and we did not. It is doing right by him in every sense of the term. The way they said it was like we replaced 7 guys with 7 guys from the ML roster.  Efflin was Acquired for low level guys. Pache not on the team. Slater was for cash, Jiminez was for cash. Soto for prospects. The only ML guys affected were Hays, Akin, Irvin and Norby. Two of those players are questionable MLB contributors and Akin will be back up eventually.

I know it's semantics but "do right by him" means they were doing it for the benefit of the player.  There is no way the Orioles would trade a player to a potential World Series opponent simply to make the player happy.

We made this trade because Hays was unhappy and it sounds like that was causing an issue in the clubhouse.  The Orioles traded him for the benefit of the Orioles. 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, StottyByNature said:

I know it's semantics but "do right by him" means they were doing it for the benefit of the player.  There is no way the Orioles would trade a player to a potential World Series opponent simply to make the player happy.

We made this trade because Hays was unhappy and it sounds like that was causing an issue in the clubhouse.  The Orioles traded him for the benefit of the Orioles. 

Didn't they send a sidearm relief pitcher to a contender during their last run?

[SouthRider]

The real genius of Elias' deadline moves was making room for Holliday.  I have to think that was a priority for him given the mediocre return for Norby/Stowers. 

[maybenxtyr]

15 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

There's a big question over whether that pitcher will ever be able to have more than a cup of coffee in a ML bullpen.

They paid essentially nothing for Jimenez.

I wasn't trying to imply anything other than Eloy wasn't a cash swap.