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

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, Ohfan67 said:

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.

lol

I'm just going to move on because you clearly are unable to comprehend my point and you keep getting everything all mixed up.

Enjoy the board.

Go O's

 

 

[Tony-OH]

51 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.

You hit all on the head here. Unfortunately some get upset if you question anything about Elias and some just will never get it and twist things around.

Absolutely drafting college bats in the first round has worked out incredibly for Elias. He clearly showed that he was able to identify collage bats in the 1st round, especially with a top 5 pick.

 

[Tony-OH]

48 minutes ago, wildcard said:

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.

 

 

 

Well, if 2024 is any indication, not really. While he did take a college arm in the 4th round, 5 of his first 6 picks (through round 5) were college hitters. That tells me 2023 was a a bit of a mirage.

The difference in his drafting this year is he was able to draft and sign 4 high school hitters including Layton in the 6th round. But besides that, he used 10 selections between the 7th and 20th round on college arms which is going back to the way they drafted in his 2019-2022 drafts.

It appears to me that he doubled down in his strategy this year of going college bat heavy with his high draft capital.

Hopefully it works, but it's going to be hard to sustain two-three prospects for one pitcher trades without hitting on some good young pitching. 

Maybe Forret or Morfe will be that guy next year. If Burnes does not resign with the Orioles, it's going to be tough for the Orioles to match up for impact pitcher trades without trading one of the big 3 and even then, teams will probably still want some pitching back.

 

[Ohfan67]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

lol

I'm just going to move on because you clearly are unable to comprehend my point and you keep getting everything all mixed up.

Enjoy the board.

Go O's

 

 

“Clearly you are unable to comprehend” is pretty typical of the insults you throw at posters who disagree with you, even those who respectfully disagree with you.  You’re  thin-skinned and can’t seem to handle a fact-based disagreement with your opinion even when people are respectfully disagreeing with you. 

[Ohfan67]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

Unfortunately some get upset if you question anything about Elias and some just will never get it and twist things around.

 

Who’s upset Tony? I don’t see anyone else in this thread disrespecting people’s opinion or in any way getting “upset”. Man up and look in the mirror every once in a while. 

[Explosivo]

5 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

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

My question to you is, when we win the World Series are you going to complain then too? Probably.

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, Explosivo said:

My question to you is, when we win the World Series are you going to complain then too? Probably.

Hey if you think getting swept out of the playoffs is things going perfectly I'm not sure what to tell you.

Pretty clearly things aren't going perfectly, did you watch tonight's game?

[LookitsPuck]

Trevor Rogers was drafted in the first round!

[Explosivo]

4 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Hey if you think getting swept out of the playoffs is things going perfectly I'm not sure what to tell you.

Pretty clearly things aren't going perfectly, did you watch tonight's game?

Cry more. We were a year early. Imagine thinking the way you do. Tough life.

[Ripken]

9 minutes ago, LookitsPuck said:

Trevor Rogers was drafted in the first round!

And we traded for him.

[Jammer7]

Question for the board. Is it a miss if the player you drafted was rated to go in the area you draft them, and they have extensive injuries that really hamper their development?

Wagner (2nd round), Haskin (2), Trimble (2), Lord (3) and Baumler (5) are all high picks with serious injury issues that have plagued them so far. Kjerstad can be added to that. Are those really misses? Two are pitchers, one college and one HS. Quick TJ’s. Hard to develop with that stuff happening. 

I have no problem calling Servideo, Rhodes, Donta Williams and Carlos Tavera misses, or busts. The bottom line is the bottom line. The guys who have missed significant time did not seem to have red flags for injury histories. I just think that these things happen in every system. No team hits on all of their top 5 picks each year.

One last thing. To point to a guy we should have taken after the fact as Monday morning QB’s is questionable. How do we know said player, such as a Bryce Miller, would have developed into the same pitcher in Baltimore? We don’t. We cannot just plug guys in and expect them to develop the same. Too many factors. 

[Can_of_corn]

11 minutes ago, Explosivo said:

Cry more. We were a year early. Imagine thinking the way you do. Tough life.

You can think they were a year early.  I expected a playoff appearance by year five.

 

[Jammer7]

6 minutes ago, Ripken said:

And we traded for him.

So, it’s like a football trade. We traded a 2nd round pick and a 3rd round pick for a first round pick. 

[survivedc]

6 hours ago, Ohfan67 said:

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. 

This is spot on, as I see it. Baumeister may be a ML starter, but most likely he is not. Take a guy like that and flip him for a guy that you KNOW is a ML starter.

I think one of your earlier posts acknowledged that the draft isn’t only about maximizing value but also probability of value. 

[sportsfan8703]

7 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

You can think they were a year early.  I expected a playoff appearance by year five.

 

The point you bring up about people always wanting 6.5 years of player control with every player sort of applies to the pitching acquisitions Elias has made on his buy side trades of selling the drafted bats for arms. 

Also, as an aside the control argument/service clock manipulation argument you make is a darn good one.  Did we really want an extra year of control for Hays?  

Do we really even want the control that Irvin and Rogers came with?  It sounded good. 

Rogers was Elias’ mistake at the deadline. You grow the bats to almost peak outcomes in Stowers, and Norby, then trade them for Rogers. This is why the grow the bats/buy the arms theory has flaws. 

Edited August 14 by sportsfan8703