Donta Williams release and why Elias needs to adjust his draft philosophy

[Aristotelian]

2 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

You really have missed the point. It's ok, I realize it's not popular to question Elias to some around here.

Williams was a data point to continue comments I've made all over this board about Elias' inability to identify, draft and or develop major league pitching. Perhaps I should have been more clear that this was just one point, but I doubt it would have changed your response. 

Some folks will always have a canned excuse ready. 

I understood your point quite clearly. I could also cherry pick some other team's 1-4 round miss on a pitcher and it would also prove nothing. As I said, I agree at least to an extent with your overall narrative but I don't see Donta proving it one way or another.

[Tony-OH]

1 minute ago, Aristotelian said:

I understood your point quite clearly. I could also cherry pick some other team's 1-4 round miss on a pitcher and it would also prove nothing. As I said, I agree at least to an extent with your overall narrative but I don't see Donta proving it one way or another.

Williams was just ONE date point.  Of course one miss doesn't mean anything. I know you've read my thoughts on this in the past so you know I'm not basing this off Williams. You're just trying to play contrarian for whatever reason. 

I changed the OP to say that this is just one data point and my second post goes into more details. 

[Sports Guy]

How is this even something you can argue against?

[foxfield]

I take a slightly different take on this.  I think Tony's point is something that Elias would himself agree with.  I mean, Elias has done a great job.  But the weakness is that we dont have enough pitching.  How can that be argued.  

I also believe that there will be more pitching in our drafts going forwards.  But I admit I said the same thing before this summers draft.

[RZNJ]

 

Edited August 12 by RZNJ

[clapdiddy]

5 minutes ago, foxfield said:

I take a slightly different take on this.  I think Tony's point is something that Elias would himself agree with.  I mean, Elias has done a great job.  But the weakness is that we dont have enough pitching.  How can that be argued.  

I also believe that there will be more pitching in our drafts going forwards.  But I admit I said the same thing before this summers draft.

I would say the bolded is a bit problematic.   They should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.   Wouldn't hurt to sprinkle in some more arms earlier in the draft...especially since there is ALWAYS a competitive balance pick.

[Sports Guy]

I was very quickly dismissive of many of the picks they have made. I don’t love the strategy. That has always been my issue. It’s not as much as the lack of pitchers (that’s part of it) but it’s the lack of overslot guys, higher upside HS picks, etc…I also would have liked to have seen more reliever type picks than hoping for guys to turn into a 4th OFer with those later round picks.

[OriolesMagic83]

How is this even arguable.  The Elias era O's have literally developed no starting pitching.  I am willing to give them partial credit for Grayson, but he seems to get by on his huge natural talent and lack a true understanding of how to pitch.  The O's deserve a good amount of credit for Bradish although he was well along in his minor league career by the time the O's traded for him.  I'm thinking that Bradish is a lot like Bedard where he just figured things out on his own.  What the O's minor league staff has been able to produce with pitchers from the domestic draft leaves me little optimism that they will do much with pitchers from the international draft.  Remember before Elias got here, the O's drafted pitchers high in almost every draft, often in the first round.  And with all the pitchers drafted there was nothing but failure between Bedard and Mussina.  If the O's can't figure out a way to develop pitchers, they need to recruit/steal a top guy from Cleveland/LA/Tampa, etc to show us how it's done.

[HowAboutThat]

2 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

I'd like to see us draft more pitchers but one 4th round miss does nothing to disprove the strategy. 

Miller is by far the best of the 15 pitchers taken that round (McDermott is probably the second best). Maybe we take Miller, but the odds are high that we take another guy who is also a miss.

You rank McDermott above Bryce Miller, An above average MLB starter for the Mariners?

It remains unclear how far McDermott will go, but Miller is already a significant part of the Mariners’ staff.

[Tony-OH]

5 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

  If the O's can't figure out a way to develop pitchers, they need to recruit/steal a top guy from Cleveland/LA/Tampa, etc to show us how it's done.

Or, maybe they can just absolutely nuts on pitching like the Angels did in 2021, drafting 19 college pitchers and 1 high school overslot pitcher? That draft has already developed 3 major leaguers 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/index.fcgi?team_ID=ANA&year_ID=2021&draft_type=junreg&query_type=franch_year&from_type_unk=0&from_type_4y=0&from_type_jc=0&from_type_hs=0

I mean, that's pretty nuts, and obviously they have a lot of misses in there, and clearly I would not go all in on a draft like this, but if they feel like they have a good feel for college pitchers, give them a little more shots.

I'll be honest, after seeing Forret and Nestor German this year, they may want to scour those small schools more.  

[HowAboutThat]

1 hour ago, Aristotelian said:

I understood your point quite clearly. I could also cherry pick some other team's 1-4 round miss on a pitcher and it would also prove nothing. As I said, I agree at least to an extent with your overall narrative but I don't see Donta proving it one way or another.

The point that no one can argue is that Elias doesn’t draft pitching until the draft gets to Lottery territory. The question is why, and given that the theory of grow bats/buy arms doesn’t work even with the best farm in baseball, the cost to buy those arms is too much. We paid so much for the pitching we’ve acquired this season, we have almost nothing for any offseason trades.

I think Elias has some kind of personal aversion to drafting pitching. If his analytics team is really this good, they knew what virtues were available, but either completely misjudged several worthwhile arms, preferred a position player for the same money, or were just hoping one of the arms would fall to their next pick, which just indicates they misunderstood the value they were passing up.

The problem will get worse because Elias will miss on a higher percentage of picks(not a slam on Elias, just the way drafts go)because the Os will-hopefully-be drafting in the high 20s instead of the first five.

Whatever is causing the problem needs to be addressed, but certainly wasn’t this time.

Edited August 12 by HowAboutThat

[jabba72]

To their credit it looks like they tried hard to stock the minor leagues with arms in the 2023 draft. Its just many of them aren't really showing alot of promise yet. That may have cause Elias to shift strategies again and double down on the college bats strategy. After the first two picks last year they did go heavy with pitching.

[HowAboutThat]

5 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

 

I'll be honest, after seeing Forret and Nestor German this year, they may want to scour those small schools more.  

I know Forret’s name but nothing about him, and I’ve never heard of German. Are they close? Do you have an available report on them?

[LookitsPuck]

The 4th rounders from the 2021 draft:

• Owen Kellington (Pirates, unranked) - A ball, 4.80 ERA, 90 IP thrown across 2 minor league seasons
• Ian Moller (Rangers, unranked) - A+, 663 OPS
• Tyler Mattison (Tigers, unranked) - injured (TJS), was in AA, didn't play in 2024
• Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz (Red Sox, #20) - A+, 2.36 ERA across 3 seasons
• Donta Williams (Orioles) - cut, AAA, 678 OPS across 4 seasons
• Chad Patrick (Diamondbacks, unranked) - AAA, 4.18 ERA across 4 seasons, currently with a 2.83 ERA with Milwaukee
• Shane Panzini (Royals, unranked) - A+, 5.22 ERA across 3 seasons
• Hunter Goodman (Rockies) - in majors 2023-2024, batting 189 with a 618 OPS across 1.5 seasons
• Luke Murphy (Angels, unranked) - AA, 3.68 ERA across 4 seasons, currently with a 6.38 ERA in AA
• JT Schwartz (Mets, unranked) - AAA, 763 OPS across 4 seasons, currently batting 203 with a 577 OPS at AAA
• Dustin Saenz (Nationals, unranked) - AA, 4.21 ERA across 4 seasons, currently with a 21.60 ERA in AA (only 2 games)
• Bryce Miller (Mariners) - majors from 2023-2024, currently with a 3.46 ERA and a fixture in the Mariners rotation. Very good pick.
• Micah Ottenbreit (Phillies, unranked) - A, 5.42 ERA across 4 seasons, currently with a 5.14 ERA in A
• Eric Silva (Giants, unranked) - AA, 5.89 ERA across 4 seasons, currently with a 4.35 ERA in AA
• Logan Henderson (Brewers, #16) - AAA, moving up quickly, 2.86 ERA across 3 seasons, looking very promising
• Alex Ulloa (Astros) - didn't come to terms w/ the Astros
• Tanner Allen (Miami, unwranked) - AA, 229 average, 649 OPS across 4 seasons, currently batting 225 and a 664 OPS in AA
• Ruben Ibarra (Reds, unranked) - AA, 238 AVG, 757 OPS across 4 seasons, currently batting 227 with a 728 OPS in AA
• Cooper Bowman (Yankees -> A's #18) - now in the A's system, AAA, hit 251 and 763 OPS across 4 seasons, currently hitting 304 with a 720 OPS in 51 PA. 
• Christian Franklin (Cubs #24) - AA, 254 AVG, 785 OPS across 3 seasons, currently hitting 257 with a 751 OPS
• Brooks Gosswein (White Sox, unranked) - in independent ball, had a 5.09 ERA across 3 minor league seasons in prior years
• Ryan Webb (Guardians #30) - AAA, 3.18 ERA across 3 seasons, currently with a 1.69 ERA in 1 start, but had a 2.87 ERA in AA prior to the promotion, looks solid
• Cal Conley (Braves, unranked) - AA, 235 AVG, 647 OPS, currently hitting 246 in AA with a 632 OPS
• Denzel Clarke (A's #3) - AA, 261 AVG, 841 OPS, currently hitting 272 with an 812 OPS in AA
• Christian Encarnacion-Strand (Twins) - in the majors 2023-2024, really lackluster this year, but was very good last year. On the Reds now. 
• Jackson Wolf (Padres, unranked) - made to majors last year, cut by the Padres this year
• Dru Baker (Rays, unranked) - AA, 298 AVG, 792 OPS across 4 seasons, hitting 296 at AA with a paltry 674 OPS.
• Nick Nastrini (Dodgers -> White Sox #7) - now on White Sox, in majors this year withan 8.39 ERA and a 5.89 ERA prior in AAA. 

I look at the 4th round, and the clear winner was the Mariners with Bryce Miller. There are a few potential hits in this list, but so many misses by some typically well drafting teams. 

The 2021 draft class for the O's did have some winners - Colton Cowser, Connor Norby with some potential up and comers like Alex Pham. Billy Cook was a hit as he netted a decent prospect from the Pirates. Creed Willems is still only 21 and I've come around on that pick. 

But, yeah, they did miss with Donta Williams. 

[Explosivo]

22 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

How is this even arguable.  The Elias era O's have literally developed no starting pitching.  I am willing to give them partial credit for Grayson, but he seems to get by on his huge natural talent and lack a true understanding of how to pitch.  The O's deserve a good amount of credit for Bradish although he was well along in his minor league career by the time the O's traded for him.  I'm thinking that Bradish is a lot like Bedard where he just figured things out on his own.  What the O's minor league staff has been able to produce with pitchers from the domestic draft leaves me little optimism that they will do much with pitchers from the international draft.  Remember before Elias got here, the O's drafted pitchers high in almost every draft, often in the first round.  And with all the pitchers drafted there was nothing but failure between Bedard and Mussina.  If the O's can't figure out a way to develop pitchers, they need to recruit/steal a top guy from Cleveland/LA/Tampa, etc to show us how it's done.

I can’t wait to come back to this post when Rubes drops some dollars on free agent pitching.

 

what you guys don’t see to realize is greater importance on not missing on draft picks. It gives you leverage for trade, potential players on the MLB staff and above all, wins. It’s a crap shoot when it comes to pitching prospects, so why play that game when the greater importance is on drafting actual effective prospects?

this is a long game and Rubenstein will not miss his chance to sign big time pitching to bolster this amazing Elias crafted lineup. Y’all simply don’t understand it seems.