Jump to content

Should Rubenstein relieve Mike Elias of his duties?


webbrick2010

Recommended Posts

44 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

We won't know until 2026 whether it was a bad trade. Plenty of time for Rogers to get fixed. The trade had very little to do with 2024.

Yes, Rogers was the first option to shore up the rotation but we had other options and it turned out we were OK without him. It's not like Suarez pitching well was a complete surprise. 

I think Suarez pitching well at this point of the season was a big surprise.  It looked like he was gassed at one point and had lost his mojo.   I think the trade absolutely had to do with 2024 but part of his attractiveness was the 2 years of service time.  The trade gets an F for the 2024 season.  Rogers can rehabilitate that rating upward over the next year or two.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, ChosenOne21 said:

Who's better that we can get to run the team?

Don't confuse. Don't you know, it's much easier to complain than come up with a solution. And complaining about one trade as a basis for anything is silly. Now of course if Syd was still alive, I'd vote some of you deserve that experience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

54 minutes ago, DrinkinWithFermi said:

Judging the Rogers trade right now is really, really, REALLY silly.

It's like judging a draft pick based on 15 games in Low A in his draft year.

Whether or not it was a good trade won't be known for awhile yet.

The final grade won’t be known for a while but our end of the deal has been a disaster for this year.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Perhaps not. But why not wait until the offseason to try and trade for him then? Why make moves at the trade deadline for a player that may not hep you this year too? In theory that players should still be available this offseason and the team would still have Norby and Stowers for depth for this year's run.

That's why I do think it was for this year and the fact that he was under contract for two more years made it that much better.

The problem Elias has is Peter Bendix out played him at the trade deadline just like Kim Ng did to him when she got Tanner Scott for ash and trash in her system. 

Eflin might end up his best trade deadline acquisition assuming he comes back healthy. Up until then, the Lopez trade was his best deadline trade.

Maybe they don’t wait because it’s a deal that was presented to them and they liked it. Maybe they didn’t want to risk injury to Norby or Stowers?

And sure, maybe they thought he could help them now but maybe there was more to changing him then they realized and decided to scrap that idea.

The Os didn’t need another starter at the time of the trade. That’s a fallacy.

They had plenty of starters. Guys just got hurt so it makes it look worse.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

44 minutes ago, dystopia said:

Most of his trades have been very solid to excellent. This one was bad. It does not mean he should be fired. The thread is ridiculous (I’m sure you agree)

This one has been bad...so far.  Like, the book isn't written on Stowers and Norby and Rogers.  

I certainly understand why people would jump to say this is a bad trade, Rogers was terrible and Norby has looked really good in Miami.  But that doesn't mean this is who these guys are moving forward.

And yes, this is a ridiculous thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Perhaps not. But why not wait until the offseason to try and trade for him then? Why make moves at the trade deadline for a player that may not hep you this year too? In theory that players should still be available this offseason and the team would still have Norby and Stowers for depth for this year's run.

That's why I do think it was for this year and the fact that he was under contract for two more years made it that much better.

The problem Elias has is Peter Bendix out played him at the trade deadline just like Kim Ng did to him when she got Tanner Scott for ash and trash in her system. 

Eflin might end up his best trade deadline acquisition assuming he comes back healthy. Up until then, the Lopez trade was his best deadline trade.

The Mancini trade was good too.

The Flaherty trade was fine..just didn’t work out but that doesn’t make it a bad trade, especially if judge the trade itself and not the results.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Too Tall said:

Don't confuse. Don't you know, it's much easier to complain than come up with a solution. And complaining about one trade as a basis for anything is silly. Now of course if Syd was still alive, I'd vote some of you deserve that experience.

You do realize that the person who wrote this is in the extreme minority and that not a single person in this thread is using the Rogers trade as a "basis' for anything besides that it has not been a good trade so far. Don't conflate the two. 

Clearly very, very few people think Elias should go, even if some of are critical of how parts of the organization are run.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, e16bball said:

I just want to say that I do think Elias is the greatest thing since whatever.

I don’t really know what “since whatever” means, but I was born in 1985 and can say that no individual who has joined this organization since then has made the kind of impact Elias has made. Not even close.

That doesn’t mean I’m saying he’s perfect or flawless, which is where the silly hyperbole part comes in. Just because I think Elias is great doesn’t mean I believe he never errs or is beyond questioning. There are moves that I don’t understand — I’m as puzzled as everyone about never taking pitchers in the draft, and I’m very concerned about the struggles we continue to have with the AAA kids coming up to the bigs and being terrible.

But then I lose the microscope and zoom out to see the big picture. In 2018, we won 47 games and the cupboard was very nearly bare. It’s 2024, we have a 100 win season under our belts and now we’re all pulling our hair out because we’re not running away with the “best record in baseball” crown. It’s September, we’re 20 games over .500, we’re like a game back of the Yankees for the division lead, we’ve got like 99% playoff odds — and everyone is MISERABLE about it. The standard is so different and the bar has been raised so much that it’s shocking. 

And it’s so much more even than the play on the MLB field. It’s about the total overhaul they’ve done in terms of drafting, development, analytics, creating an honest-to-God international presence. This franchise has gone from decades behind the times to being probably a consensus top 5 best-run organization in the sport. In 6 years. That’s wild. 

So while I appreciate your responses in this post and throughout this thread, Moose, I’m going to undercut you on this one. I do think Elias is the greatest thing since whatever, and I’m 100% willing to be flamed for that. I find it absolutely befuddling that a thread like this even exists. 

I was born in '81 so I've got maybe a few more memories than you.  

To your point, I agree that there's no one that's joined the franchise that's had the impact that he has...on the field or off it.  Camden Yards opening was a big, big deal when it happened, but that's about all I've got.  Ripken breaking the streak was a big thing, too...but I think that was more of a celebration about baseball and recovering from the '94 strike than it was about the Orioles and doing big things for the franchise.  So for me, it's Camden Yards and Elias as far as impacts on the franchise itself.

You're correct on all your points...going back to everything post '83 World Series, he probably is the single biggest thing and best thing that's happened to this franchise. 

Some fans here and fans I've seen in other places are acting like the fat chick in high school that lost 30 pounds and then got smoking hot and thought all her problems would go away.  Just cause you got hot doesn't mean you don't have problems, you just have a different set of problems.  And I'd trade these problems over the problems from 2017-2018 any day of the week. 

I find it befuddling that this thread exists, too...but here we are. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Maybe they don’t wait because it’s a deal that was presented to them and they liked it. Maybe they didn’t want to risk injury to Norby or Stowers?

And sure, maybe they thought he could help them now but maybe there was more to changing him then they realized and decided to scrap that idea.

The Os didn’t need another starter at the time of the trade. That’s a fallacy.

They had plenty of starters. Guys just got hurt so it makes it look worse.

They did need a starter at the time because Povich and McDermott had been tried and left the team wanting, Suarez and Irvin had struggled, and Kremer was 2-4 with a 4.97 ERA and 5.27 FIP over his last 6 starts. They basically felt good about Burnes, Eflin and Grayson, two of which went down shortly after the trades, proving the team needed more starting pitching depth.

Thankfully, both Suarez and Kremer have pitched better, but Rogers being a pumpkin has put the team in a bind because now both Povich and Irvin are in the rotation and Burnes has struggled.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

The Mancini trade was good too.

The Flaherty trade was fine..just didn’t work out but that doesn’t make it a bad trade, especially if judge the trade itself and not the results.

The Mancini trade has netted one start from McDermott and part of the trade that brought Soto. The good part of the Mancini was getting rid of Mancini, who was about to become a pumpkin (And I take no satisfaction in saying that because of Mancini's story).

You always eventually judge the trades by the results. It doesn't matter if the idea was sound, if you trade for a guy and he doesn't perform, that ends up a bad trade. 

That's like saying the Glenn Davis trade was sound because the team needed a power hitting first baseman. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Baseball fandom said:

The part that I really agree with Tony about was Elias was great for the rebuild but will he be the guy to get them over the top. Time will tell. 

There's no reason he can't be.

So many people want to ignore the fact that the playoffs are a crap shoot.  And I think when people hear that, they literally think it's a metaphor for literally rolling the dice and seeing what comes up.  

Winning it all isn't just about the front office moves, the moves made in the offseason and at the deadline and all of that....  yes, those things are a big part of it.... but it's also about how you finish the season, who do you have that's healthy, who isn't healthy, and are you getting hot at the right time.  Those things all play a part in who wins it all and people either can't grasp that or don't want to grasp that.  And then on TOP of those things is the randomness that is the playoffs itself.

It's been pointed out here ad nauseum but it bears repeating...the Rangers got hot at the exact right time last year.  They weren't world beaters through the regular season.  They're not that good this year.  But for a few weeks there they were on absolute fire and they were on fire when it mattered most.  I don't think anyone considered them at any point last year to be the best team in baseball but that didn't matter.

Same with the Nats in 2019, they caught fire for an extended stretch and then really heated up in the playoffs.  Same with that year the Cardinals won like 82 games but then ended up winning it all.

There's no reason Elias can't be the guy as long as he's building teams that get to the playoffs.  

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

After looking back at the Astros drafts from 2012 to 2017 it looks like he completely switched his draft strategy.  Which makes me wonder why. 

 Could it be with Angelos as the owner he knew we couldn't or wouldnt spend big money for pitching?

  Now with Rubenstein as the owner, could he be a little more willing to spend, so that could change his strategy going forward.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

The final grade won’t be known for a while but our end of the deal has been a disaster for this year.

Disaster is a huge overstatement. It hasn't worked out but Elias thankfully pulled the plug on the experiment quickly and used the option with a minimum of damage. We are 1-3 in his starts and one of those losses was on the bullpen. Suarez and Irvin stepped up. Hardly a disaster.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Moose Milligan said:

There's no reason he can't be.

So many people want to ignore the fact that the playoffs are a crap shoot.  And I think when people hear that, they literally think it's a metaphor for literally rolling the dice and seeing what comes up.  

Winning it all isn't just about the front office moves, the moves made in the offseason and at the deadline and all of that....  yes, those things are a big part of it.... but it's also about how you finish the season, who do you have that's healthy, who isn't healthy, and are you getting hot at the right time.  Those things all play a part in who wins it all and people either can't grasp that or don't want to grasp that.  And then on TOP of those things is the randomness that is the playoffs itself.

It's been pointed out here ad nauseum but it bears repeating...the Rangers got hot at the exact right time last year.  They weren't world beaters through the regular season.  They're not that good this year.  But for a few weeks there they were on absolute fire and they were on fire when it mattered most.  I don't think anyone considered them at any point last year to be the best team in baseball but that didn't matter.

Same with the Nats in 2019, they caught fire for an extended stretch and then really heated up in the playoffs.  Same with that year the Cardinals won like 82 games but then ended up winning it all.

There's no reason Elias can't be the guy as long as he's building teams that get to the playoffs.  

I believe that this first post-Angelos offseason will allow us to start looking at this more fairly.  None of us know what an Angelos, let alone Angelos trying to sell front office was like.  Plus, the injuries this team has had are the worst I can remember.  Burnes, Bradish, GRod, Means(?) would have made a nice staff... then add Efflin at the deadline. Yikes

Not a huge fan of the Rogers trade - and, from what I thought I read, it seemed like the trade was made with next year in mind... and hope they get lucky this year with a quick fix  Plus, Norby and Stowers most likely would not have had the opportunity to make a difference this year unfortunately

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Prodigyx said:

After looking back at the Astros drafts from 2012 to 2017 it looks like he completely switched his draft strategy.  Which makes me wonder why. 

 Could it be with Angelos as the owner he knew we couldn't or wouldnt spend big money for pitching?

  Now with Rubenstein as the owner, could he be a little more willing to spend, so that could change his strategy going forward.

I do think the Mark Appel-Brady Aiken 1-2 punch might have driven some SIGBOT knobs getting turned.

Quibbling over that ligament diameter or whatever it was got them to the Bregman-Tucker pair that now is perhaps nearing the end of its run.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.




  • Posts

    • dWAR is just the run value for defense added with the defensive adjustment.  Corner OF spots have a -7.5 run adjustment, while CF has a +2.5 adjustment over 150 games.    Since Cowser played both CF and the corners they pro-rate his time at each to calculate his defensive adjustment. 
    • Just to be clear, though, fWAR also includes a substantial adjustment for position, including a negative one for Cowser.  For a clearer example on that front, as the chart posted higher on this page indicates, Carlos Santana had a +14 OAA — which is the source data that fWAR’s defensive component is based on. That 14 outs above average equates to 11-12 (they use different values on this for some reason) runs better than the average 1B.  So does Santana have a 12.0 defensive value, per fWAR? He does not. That’s because they adjust his defensive value downward to reflect that he’s playing a less difficult/valuable position. In this case, that adjustment comes out to -11.0 runs, as you can see here:   So despite apparently having a bona fide Gold Glove season, Santana’s Fielding Runs value (FanGraphs’ equivalent to dWAR) is barely above average, at 1.1 runs.    Any good WAR calculation is going to adjust for position. Being a good 1B just isn’t worth as much as being an average SS or catcher. Just as being a good LF isn’t worth as much as being an average CF. Every outfielder can play LF — only the best outfielders can play CF.  Where the nuance/context shows up here is with Cowser’s unique situation. Playing LF in OPACY, with all that ground to cover, is not the same as playing LF at Fenway or Yankee Stadium. Treating Cowser’s “position” as equivalent to Tyler O’Neill’s, for example, is not fair. The degree of difficulty is much, much higher at OPACY’s LF, and so the adjustment seems out of whack for him. That’s the one place where I’d say the bWAR value is “unfair” to Cowser.
    • Wait a second here, the reason he's -0.1 in bb-ref dwar is because they're using drs to track his defensive run value.  He's worth 6.6 runs in defense according to fangraphs, which includes adjustments for position, which would give him a fangraphs defensive war of +0.7.
    • A little funny to have provided descriptions of the hits (“weak” single; “500 foot” HR). FIP doesn’t care about any of that either, so it’s kind of an odd thing to add in an effort to make ERA look bad.  Come in, strike out the first hitter, then give up three 108 MPH rocket doubles off the wall. FIP thinks you were absolutely outstanding, and it’s a shame your pathetic defense and/or sheer bad luck let you down. Next time you’ll (probably) get the outcomes you deserve. They’re both flawed. So is xFIP. So is SIERA. So is RA/9. So is WPA. So is xERA. None of them are perfect measures of how a pitcher’s actual performance was, because there’s way too much context and too many variables for any one metric to really encompass.  But when I’m thinking about awards, for me at least, it ends up having to be about the actual outcomes. I don’t really care what a hitter’s xWOBA is when I’m thinking about MVP, and the same is true for pitchers. Did you get the outs? Did the runs score? That’s the “value” that translates to the scoreboard and, ultimately, to the standings. So I think the B-R side of it is more sensible for awards.  I definitely take into account the types of factors that you (and other pitching fWAR advocates) reference as flaws. So if a guy plays in front of a particular bad defense or had a particularly high percentage of inherited runners score, I’d absolutely adjust my take to incorporate that info. And I also 100% go to Fangraphs first when I’m trying to figure out which pitchers we should acquire (i.e., for forward looking purposes).  But I just can’t bring myself say that my Cy Young is just whichever guy had the best ratio of Ks to BBs to HRs over a threshold number of innings. As @Frobby said, it just distills out too much of what actually happened.
    • We were all a lot younger in 2005.  No one wanted to believe Canseco cause he’s a smarmy guy. Like I said, he was the only one telling the truth. It wasn’t a leap of faith to see McGwire up there and Sosa up there and think “yeah, those guys were juicing” but then suddenly look at Raffy and think he was completely innocent.  It’s a sad story. The guy should be in Hall of Fame yet 500 homers and 3,000 hits are gone like a fart in the wind cause his legacy is wagging his finger and thinking he couldn’t get caught.  Don’t fly too close to the sun.  
    • I think if we get the fun sprinkler loving Gunnar that was in the dugout yesterday, I don’t think we have to worry about him pressing. He seemed loose and feeling good with the other guys he was with, like Kremer.
    • I was a lot younger back then, but that betrayal hit really hard because he had been painting himself as literally holier than thou, and shook his finger to a congressional committee and then barely 2 weeks later failed the test.
  • Popular Contributors

×
×
  • Create New...