This is the kind of thing that drives me crazy

[Ripken]

SSS for sure but the O's lack of pitcher development is still really frustrating.  I have never agreed with the lack of pitcher drafting, lower pitch counts, refusal to transition some prospects to the pen or the obsession with making a guy try to master 6 different pitches.  Other orgs (certainly TB) appear to be much better at those things.  

[RZNJ]

This wasn't really intended as why did we give these guys up.  More like why didn't we get them to perform like this?

You have to give something to get something.  No problem. 

[spiritof66]

49 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

First Elias is accused of hoarding prospects.  Now people are upset that he traded prospects to get players to help win now. 

Sometimes guys don’t work within your system. Sometimes a player can be in one system and be a failure and other times, you are the team that turns them around.

Being upset over a SSS of outings as if it’s proof or evidence of anything is absurd and short sighted.

 

I have been critical of Elias for not making trades. But I have done so based on my understanding that the Orioles' general strategy was (and as far as I know still is) to use the draft (and international signings) primarily to obtain, and amass, talented positional players, some of whom as they neared or entered the major leagues could be traded for pitchers who had demonstrated some  ML success. One result of that strategy, which Elias must have understood from the outset, has been a severe lack of pitching depth in the minor league system, exposing the team to problems if the rotation or the best relievers became injured or performed poorly. 

I have no problem with trading away redundant positional talent (Ortiz, Norby, Stowers) to obtain that needed pitching., and I thought some of those trades should have been made sooner. But I was surprised that Elias also traded pitching prospects because there were so few of them in the system, and I'm guessing he did that because he had no choice. In doing so he in effect doubled down on the decision to limit the Orioles' ability to develop and promote in their MiL system pitchers who can improve the starting rotation or become valuable relievers. 

[LookitsPuck]

1 minute ago, RZNJ said:

This wasn't really intended as why did we give these guys up.  More like why didn't we get them to perform like this?

You have to give something to get something.  No problem. 

Chace is still TBD. 

In his 5 outings with the Phils org, he allowed 8 walks in 24 1/3 IP (2.96 BB/9). The last 5 outings for the O's org, 6 walks in 15 IP (3.6 BB/9) with a similar strikeout rate. Improving a half tick in B isn't materially that different. The main difference is that the Phils view him strictly as a starter so far. The O's leveraged him at the beginning of games and in the middle/late games, albeit on a schedule. 

Baumeister is the bigger concern to me if he's both able to be more efficient *and* walk less (usually go hand in hand) in such short order. That would speak volumes. 

[Aristotelian]

Baumeister had 1 BB in each of his last two starts with the O's. If you are going to extrapolate from small samples at least be consistent about it. Looks like we unlocked something just prior to the trade. Our pitching dev guys must be geniuses.

[ChosenOne21]

I mean, Tampa is one of, if not the best organizations at developing pitching. Should no one ever trade them a pitcher then?

[interloper]

25 minutes ago, LookitsPuck said:

We've turned around major league ready/already major leaguers re: the bullpen. But we haven't showed any ability to draft and develop starters (or relievers, for that matter) and have them be effective in the majors, yet. 

There's only *1* pitcher that Elias drafted that made it to the majors, and that's Connor Gillispie....with the Guardians in only 3 games. And now he's back to the minors.

No argument on your point re: draft/develop. 

Some guys like Povich we'll never really know how he might have turned out for the Twins. But we've made him a speculative MLer at least. Same for McDermott. They exist in that realm of "we didn't draft them, but we basically did the bulk of the development to get them to reach MLB." 

Personally, my opinion is that we are about to see a relative deluge of pitchers that we drafted and developed start to trickle up over the next 2 years. Brandon Young (while technically not drafted), is really the first guy who was "drafted" by Elias and will see the big leagues. Looking forward to that. 

 

[dystopia]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

To me the best part is that Elias admits they don't have evidence that their approach reduces injury.

Judging by this year, it may do more harm than good. 

[Moose Milligan]

Lauding the developments and turnarounds of guys like Bautista, Cano, Bradish, Suarez, Perez, Coulombe and others I'm probably forgetting are apparently forgotten once entering this thread.

I said it before, I'll say it again here...I don't think Elias cares where he gets pitching from as long as he gets it.  I agree that it would be nice to draft a pitcher in the first round, have them skyrocket through the system, be on Baseball America's Top 10 list, have Tony sing that guy's praises and then have that guy debut like and dominate like Skenes.  Yeah, that's exciting and that's what we all want.  Of course we all want that.

But it's not like we haven't had some successes here with finding pitchers and making them better.  Is the scrap heap sexy?  No it is not.  Does it work?  Sometimes.  Did we win over 100 games last year and the division last year?  Yes.  Are we in a position to win the division and make the playoffs this year despite losing almost the entire rotation?  Also yes.

It might be a little messy, it might not be always ideal.  But it's also hard to argue with the results.  

[RZNJ]

45 minutes ago, LookitsPuck said:

Chace is still TBD. 

In his 5 outings with the Phils org, he allowed 8 walks in 24 1/3 IP (2.96 BB/9). The last 5 outings for the O's org, 6 walks in 15 IP (3.6 BB/9) with a similar strikeout rate. Improving a half tick in B isn't materially that different. The main difference is that the Phils view him strictly as a starter so far. The O's leveraged him at the beginning of games and in the middle/late games, albeit on a schedule. 

Baumeister is the bigger concern to me if he's both able to be more efficient *and* walk less (usually go hand in hand) in such short order. That would speak volumes. 

Chace was promoted to AA and by far had his best performance ever.   The combination of the two is interesting to say the least.

[interloper]

Just to add to @RZNJ's frustration here (lol, sorry)... Patrick Reilly has worse numbers across the board since coming over here and being promoted to AA. 

That said, he is going up a level and it's his first taste of AA.

THAT said, the same is true for Chace.  

[LookitsPuck]

6 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Chace was promoted to AA and by far had his best performance ever.   The combination of the two is interesting to say the least.

Yeah, a 6 IP and 13 SO day is pretty damn amazing. He's definitely has this in him. Hell, his first appearance this year with the Ironbirds he went 4 innings and struck out 9, 3 hits, 1 walk, no runs. 

I just don't think I've seen any evidence of a "turnaround" with Chace. It looks like the typical progression of a solid pitcher. And they're clearly treating him like a starter, his 81-89 pitches (back to back starts w/ the Phils org) are the most pitches by far this year. Most he ever threw in a game previously w/ the O's was 77 and that was back in April. They've kept him sub 60 pitches since late May. 

[e16bball]

1 hour ago, LookitsPuck said:

We've turned around major league ready/already major leaguers re: the bullpen. But we haven't showed any ability to draft and develop starters (or relievers, for that matter) and have them be effective in the majors, yet. 

There's only *1* pitcher that Elias drafted that made it to the majors, and that's Connor Gillispie....with the Guardians in only 3 games. And now he's back to the minors.

I guess my question is whether this is indicative of an issue with development — or just another way of saying they don’t draft pitchers.

From 2019-2022, they drafted 3 pitchers in the top 5 rounds, and all of them were 5th rounders (Baumler, Tavera, Bright). They’ve taken another 5 pitchers during that span from rounds 6-10. 

What’s the league-wide success rate on pitching picks in that range? Is it demonstrably poor draft/development performance to have only gotten one fringy ML reliever (Gillispie) from 8 picks between rounds 5 and 10 by now?

Or is it moreso just an issue of taking so few pitchers? I don’t know the answer to this, just posing the question I think has to be answered to refine the concern.

[RZNJ]

4 minutes ago, LookitsPuck said:

Yeah, a 6 IP and 13 SO day is pretty damn amazing. He's definitely has this in him. Hell, his first appearance this year with the Ironbirds he went 4 innings and struck out 9, 3 hits, 1 walk, no runs. 

I just don't think I've seen any evidence of a "turnaround" with Chace. It looks like the typical progression of a solid pitcher. And they're clearly treating him like a starter, his 81-89 pitches (back to back starts w/ the Phils org) are the most pitches by far this year. Most he ever threw in a game previously w/ the O's was 77 and that was back in April. They've kept him sub 60 pitches since late May. 

I don’t know.   53 walks in 68 IP last year.   30 BB in 52 IP with Aberdeen this year.   8 walks in 25.1 IP after the trade including the AA 6 inning gem with just 1 walk in 6 innings.   The seasons almost over but if the his walk rate settles at 3 per 9 or lower at one level higher I’d call that a turnaround, assuming a larger sample size.

[LookitsPuck]

1 minute ago, e16bball said:

I guess my question is whether this is indicative of an issue with development — or just another way of saying they don’t draft pitchers.

From 2019-2022, they drafted 3 pitchers in the top 5 rounds, and all of them were 5th rounders (Baumler, Tavera, Bright). They’ve taken another 5 pitchers during that span from rounds 6-10. 

What’s the league-wide success rate on pitching picks in that range? Is it demonstrably poor draft/development performance to have only gotten one fringy ML reliever (Gillispie) from 8 picks between rounds 5 and 10 by now?

Or is it moreso just an issue of taking so few pitchers? I don’t know the answer to this, just posing the question I think has to be answered to refine the concern.

I'm actually in agreement w/ Mouse. I think Elias prefers to put the risk on other orgs and then he can just trade for them as well as pull folks in from the international market. The Astros hit gold with like, what, 4-5 starters over the last half decade? It's pretty nuts. But I do think without the FA market (and I think the blame falls more on Angelos than Elias) that it isn't sustainable. 

I posted this in the Elias thread the other day (https://forum.orioleshangout.com/topic/54625-should-rubenstein-relieve-mike-elias-of-his-duties/page/11/#comment-3241237)

I do think it's fair to ask if you buy into this strategy:

1. Commit higher draft pick capital to position players over pitchers
2. Try and find profiles that they like in the mid/late rounds of the drafts in pitchers
3. Use position player capital (and drafted, traded for prospect pitchers) for MLB ready (or soon to be ready) pitchers once there's more predictive data/injuries out of the way via trade
4. Use free agency (remains to be seen under Rubenstein, certainly didn't happen much under Angelos)
5. Focus on international scouting and free agency

I think right now we are still waiting on whether #2 will be fruitful. 

#4 I'm not going to hold against Elias because he did have a history under Luhnow of being able to spend on multi-year contracts. I think if that is unlocked, it'll be a boon for the strategy.

#5 may start paying dividends as early as next year. 

My main criticism about the above is largely about the lack of spending in non-Latin markets for international free agency. Rubenstein really needs to break out that checkbook. We are at a disadvantage here, and it's an unfair one. There's no reason why we can't spend on an Imanaga type, for example. 

I think the strategy can work. But #4 has to unlock because you can't keep trading guys like Baumeister (who I really liked), Zach Showalter (who I really liked and still really like), etc.

#1, #3 have worked. #2 is still TBD, as they've traded some of the arms, but aside from Connor Gillespie, no Elias drafted arms have made the majors. And #5 looks promising, but still early because these kids are young and it took years to get infrastructure and teams in place as well as to get Angelos to open the pocketbook. Duquette really didn't do much here both because he was awkward and didn't have a strategy and also because Peter sucked when it came to international markets.