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

[OriolesMagic83]

I looked at the Tampa Bay pitching staff last night.  They only had one pitcher who was picked in the first round.  Obviously, you are almost precluded from getting a Skenes or Verlander if you aren't picking pitching in the first round, but not picking pitching early does not mean you can't be successful with pitching in your organization.  I just feel like we need better pitching "minds" instructing these young pitchers.  The O's have guys looking great in A ball, striking out 7 in 4 IP w/ an ERA under 2, and then a year later, they are struggling w/ an ERA around 5 in AA.  Doesn't seem our young arms are progressing.  Anyone have the same feeling?

[Tony-OH]

17 minutes ago, Ohfan67 said:

You are picking particular players that the O's did not draft to use in some specific comparisons, but those comparisons could be used to critique every draft strategy.

I think the Elias approach definitely produces some oddities and it makes me nervous at times and there will definitely be a number of draftees who bust, but I think there's a good chance that the O's strategy produces the highest likelihood of drafting WAR (either directly as players that the O's draft, develop, and deploy or indirectly as the O's draft and then trade prospects). Time will tell, but so far so good. 

I picked one person to start the conversation, not one guy to prove a point. I've made that abundantly clear in the many posts that I've made in this thread and in others on the board.

Of course most players will be busts, that's the way all of this works. What I've shown is that "strategy" is not sustainable, and it still took pitching to get impact starting pitching back. 

The whole point is that you have to mix it up more and not just pick college hitter after college hitter, especially when the upside or ceiling was low, like it was with Williams. I'm sure the Orioles did a study that suggests college hitters have the best chance to produce WAR, but that should not stop the team from taking more chances on pitching. 

This team is ready to compete with positions players at the major league level for 4-6 years, but the pitching side is going to need more guys to pop out of the Latin American market or they are going to use more draft capital to draft pitchers with high upsides. 

[Can_of_corn]

2 hours ago, Explosivo said:

They don’t have a better approach which is why we are in first. Our continual run on rookies of the year will also ensure two first round picks. That’s how you keep the cupboard full, that and trading folks you know you won’t be able to sign. This is playing out perfectly y’all.

I think "perfectly" would indicate a title, not getting swept in the playoffs.

[Ohfan67]

24 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

What I've shown is that "strategy" is not sustainable, and it still took pitching to get impact starting pitching back. 

 

You have not shown that the strategy is not sustainable. You don't think that it is sustainable, but you have not shown that and a few years of one team's drafts doesn't produce the data to test the strategy. The strategy could be working incredibly well and the O's minor league system could still be bereft of pitching. Frobby has done a couple of analyses over the years showing how many good ML players a system needs to produce to be competitive. Many other analyses are sprinkled across the internet. Just change number of players to WAR. A minor league system needs to produce X amount of WAR per year to be competitive/productive. It doesn't really matter if the WAR is generated by pitchers or by position players and it doesn't matter if the WAR is generated by the players the team drafted or the players that they acquired via trading players they drafted. A team just needs to maximize the average WAR produced by the system. The rest of the WAR has to be purchased or in some cases with Elias basically scavenged from other systems. As the ML team gets better and the probability of drafting a lot of WAR decreases, then the ratio of how much WAR is directly and indirectly generated by the draft to how much WAR is purchased will decrease, but that's literally the price of winning as MLB is currently constructed. 

 

P.s. I'm not trying to defend all of Elias' picks or anything like that and I wouldn't bet my house that this strategy will work. But I certainly don't think there's any proof that it is not going to work or that it is not sustainable at this point. Not enough data yet and there doesn't seem to be another team who've tried this. 

Edited August 13 by Ohfan67

[Just Regular]

I'll be interested this winter to see if Haskin makes it into 2025 with the org.    If not, he'll be the first ~$2M bust.

Above $2M, the next guys up are Beavers 2.2, Almeyda 2.3, Gunnar 2.3, Westburg 2.3655, O'Ferrall 2.6975.

I don't see anyone in 3's yet, as EBJ and Honeycutt commanded 4 barely.

[Moose Milligan]

36 minutes ago, Ohfan67 said:

I meant by "bust" a player that does not directly or indirectly generate WAR. I'm not saying it was a bad pick at all. But if you have a probabilistic-based drafting strategy, then you will have runs of draft picks that don't generate WAR just by random chance (they get hurt or whatever). You have to be able to deal with the emotions/stress of those "bad runs" to ultimately get the highest WAR yield from your strategy. Hope that makes sense. 

Sort of. I‘m more saying it’s impressive if anyone after the 4th or 5th round (pitcher or hitter) generates any kind of war. 

[Aristotelian]

2 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

I'll be interested this winter to see if Haskin makes it into 2025 with the org.    If not, he'll be the first ~$2M bust.

Above $2M, the next guys up are Beavers 2.2, Almeyda 2.3, Gunnar 2.3, Westburg 2.3655, O'Ferrall 2.6975.

I don't see anyone in 3's yet, as EBJ and Honeycutt commanded 4 barely.

Gunnar and Westburg turned out OK 

[Tony-OH]

Just now, Ohfan67 said:

Just change number of players to WAR. A minor league system needs to produce X amount of WAR per year to be competitive/productive. It doesn't really matter if the WAR is generated by pitchers or by position players and it doesn't matter if the WAR is generated by the players the team drafted or the players that they acquired via trading players they drafted. A team just needs to maximize the average WAR produced by the system. The rest of the WAR has to be purchased or in some cases with Elias basically scavenged from other systems. As the ML team gets better and the probability of drafting a lot of WAR decreases, then the ratio of how much WAR is directly and indirectly generated by the draft to how much WAR is purchased will decrease, but that's literally the price of winning as MLB is currently constructed. 

This makes no sense to me. How are position players supposed to generate the WAR if they play the same positions? If there is no pitching coming up, he'll need to trade for it and I've shown, whether you want to agree or not, that his selections of college hitters after the 1st round is not spectacular and if you are going to put all your eggs in one basket, you better be extraordinary at drafting them.

It's not as cut and dry and simple as you make it sound. Every impact pitcher acquired needed pitching to be included. Burnes included DL Hall (Rajsich drafted) and Eflin required Baumeister (Last year's 2nd round pick). Literally the addition of Baumeister proves my point. You have draft pitchers in there to get impact pitching back. If Elias continues to ignore college arms until the 4th round or later, he's missing out those impact arms that could potentially get the impact major league pitching they will need.

[Ohfan67]

1 minute ago, Moose Milligan said:

Sort of. I‘m more saying it’s impressive if anyone after the 4th or 5th round (pitcher or hitter) generates any kind of war. 

I definitely agree with you. I used the word bust, but that's a loaded term and I wasn't using it in the same way that it's typically used. I should have used another term. 

[Just Regular]

Sustainability will be interesting to watch play out.

Every time Cowser wins RoY, or Santander declines a QO, or Mayo wins RoY, or Eflin declines a QO, it is about another Westburg-Norby-O'Ferrall type for the organization.

Even Honeycutt is perhaps locked out of the lineup if we give EBJ the veteranosity edge: Adley, Mayo, Holliday, Gunnar, Westburg, Cowser, EBJ, Kjerstad, Basallo are the '27 Orioles aimed shot at a Big Orange Machine.    Bonus if Honeycutt is much stronger than EBJ.

Ryans can't play for them, Fabian is short, Beavers is short, O'Ferrall is short, Almeyda is short.    We'll hear a zillion cliches about versatility between here and there.    Santander's better in '25 than some of those guys, but '26??

[Baseball fandom]

On 8/12/2024 at 12:54 PM, Tony-OH said:

The Orioles released Donta Williams most likely to make playing time for Bradfield and Josenberger. While the 25-year old Williams was certainly a miss as a 4th round pick back in 2021, his release came after him putting up one of his best weeks of his career offensively slashing .450/.577/.550/1.127 in his last 7 days. I'm a little surprised they didn't just send him to AAA as outfielder depth since he's a pretty good defensive outfielder.

(Edit: Before I get started, I have a more detailed response below to this issue. This is not based solely on the miss of Donta Williams and the oversite of a few pitching misses in this round).

A low ceiling college outfielder, Williams was selected and paid an under slot $400K. Seven picks later the Mariners took Texas A&M right-hander Bryce Miller and paid him an under slot 400K. Three more picks later the Brewers selected Logan Henderson ($495K) who just made his AAA debut and has put up good minor league numbers. With the last pick of the draft, the Astros selected a guy named Chayce McDermott and signed him for $375k. 

At the end of the day, every college pitcher that signed for under $500K that were selected in the 4th round after Williams were much better pros with several already pitching in the majors. The money saved from Cowser as well as Williams was put into over slot guys like John Rhodes (another bust) and Creed Williams (to early to call). Let's not even mentioned that Mason Miller was selected 21 picks AFTER Rhodes and only signed for $599k.

Yes, I know you can do this with a lot of drafts, but at the end of the day, that 2021 draft looks like a whole lot of nothing after Cowser and Norby.

The upper level of the minors do not have a single drafted and developed pitcher ready to make a contribution to this 2024 team. If Elias is going to continue to take college bats over pitchers, like he did once again in 2024, he's going to need to start hitting on more of them after the 2nd round. 

 

 

 

I'm still pissed that he took O'Farrel over Brecht. No offense to the kid but good grief Brecht is the pitching version of Honeycutt and if they were willing to roll the dice on Honeycutt's high upside then why not Brecht!?. I've giving up into thinking Elias will ever draft pitching high in the draft after another draft of this stuff 

Edited August 13 by Baseball fandom

[Ohfan67]

Just now, Tony-OH said:

This makes no sense to me. How are position players supposed to generate the WAR if they play the same positions? If there is no pitching coming up, he'll need to trade for it and I've shown, whether you want to agree or not, that his selections of college hitters after the 1st round is not spectacular and if you are going to put all your eggs in one basket, you better be extraordinary at drafting them.

It's not as cut and dry and simple as you make it sound. Every impact pitcher acquired needed pitching to be included. Burnes included DL Hall (Rajsich drafted) and Eflin required Baumeister (Last year's 2nd round pick). Literally the addition of Baumeister proves my point. You have draft pitchers in there to get impact pitching back. If Elias continues to ignore college arms until the 4th round or later, he's missing out those impact arms that could potentially get the impact major league pitching they will need.

Baumeister proves that you are wrong when you say that Elias is ignoring college arms until after the 4th round or later, but he doesn't prove that Elias' strategy is wrong. I mean he was drafted by Elias and then traded to obtain what the team needs in the near term. That's what all prospect for veteran trades do. The O's clearly could have packaged some of their elite hitting prospects to get a good veteran pitcher. I'm sure the Rays would have gladly taken Coby Mayo for Eflin, for example. But the O's didn't have to give up their primo prospects for Eflin and that includes Baumeister. 

 

A couple of recent studies suggest that winning teams need to generate about 47 WAR on average. All general managers have to acquire WAR outside of their organization via free agency, trades, etc.  For some teams, maybe even a lot of teams, the majority of their WAR comes from outside the organization. Some teams currently have rosters where very little pitching WAR is coming from players they drafted. Some other teams currently have rosters where very little hitting WAR is coming from players they drafted. There are probably very few teams where most of their pitching AND hitting WAR are coming from within the organization. In the end it does not matter if the pitching or hitting WAR comes from within the organization, it just matters that a healthy chunk of the WAR comes from within the organization (unless you want to have the Mets payroll). 

 

Regarding sustainability, I assume that Elias is going to trade some of the studs before they hit free agency. That's where I expect them to acquire additional high-value prospects and some of those could be high-end pitching prospects. If you can't or won't sign Gunnar to a long-term contract, then you trade him before he's a free agent and recoup a bunch of WAR potential. I also expect that the O's will spend more money and that eventually the O's current competitive window may close and they have to rebuild. Nothing lasts forever, especially for teams not named the Yankees and the Dodgers. 

[RZNJ]

The strategy of not spending 1st round picks on pitchers has been a huge success.    The 2019 and 2020 drafts were ++.    They had a good top of the draft in 2021 and hit a home run by selecting Holliday over Druw Jones in 2022.     The 2021 and 2022 drafts don’t appear to be deep at this point.   That hurts.   It’s fair to say, if you’re going to miss on that many position players then why not gamble on some arms in those rounds.

Obviously, the plan wasn’t to miss but why draft Overn over top pitcher on the board this year in the 3rd round?   It’s a fair question.   They need to hit on some of those picks in order not to be questioned on it.

[wildcard]

Tony, You make a good case for drafting pitchers on the 2-5 rounds and even more volume of pitchers in the draft.  But do you think Elias will do it?

He has been successful in 2022-2024 in the standings.   He probably feels pretty good about his approach.  His approach has been mostly drafting hitters in the high rounds.

 He seem to feel he can find relievers on the waiver wire, small purchases and trades.    Except for a closer.   Cano was not the big name in the Lopez trade it was Povich.  Dominguez and Soto cost him Hays and Johnson.

He has shown he will spend on pitching i.e 13m Kimbrel,  15m Burnes, 18m Eflin.  No long term contracts but he will spend short term.

He will trade veterans when he has a replacement.  Hays. 

You say his strategy will not work going forward.   Do you think he believes that.

 

 

 

Edited August 13 by wildcard

[Can_of_corn]

11 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

The strategy of not spending 1st round picks on pitchers has been a huge success.    The 2019 and 2020 drafts were ++.    They had a good top of the draft in 2021 and hit a home run by selecting Holliday over Druw Jones in 2022.     The 2021 and 2022 drafts don’t appear to be deep at this point.   That hurts.   It’s fair to say, if you’re going to miss on that many position players then why not gamble on some arms in those rounds.

Obviously, the plan wasn’t to miss but why draft Overn over top pitcher on the board this year in the 3rd round?   It’s a fair question.   They need to hit on some of those picks in order not to be questioned on it.

I wouldn't consider 2020 ++, not yet at any rate.

Westburg yes, I'm still waiting on Kjerstad at 1-2 and Mayo to find defensive homes and spots in the ML lineup.  Haskins and Servideo don't do a lot for me.

It might get there, hopefully it does but I need one of the big two to be a bonified hit to go along with Westburg.

Edited August 13 by Can_of_corn