Erceg vs Seranthony Dominguez

[Fiver6565]

8 minutes ago, Bemorewins said:

I believe that your comparison perfectly highlights a legitimate concern/question that I have: What is the bar/expectation that the organization/Elias has for this team? Are we trying to be good enough to be a playoff team? Or is the bar a World Series title and are we willing to do whatever it takes to pursue that goal?

The handling of the bullpen, the Rodgers acquisition, the Jiminez move when we needed a real RH bat to help us with our weakness against LHP, the Flaherty and Koji acquisitions from 23' all pointed to hedging type of moves that were very reticent to accept any kind of risk or make a serious commitment.

I would like to see Elias begin to flip a switch and move away from this approach. We should no longer be surfing the waiver wire or in the midst of a pennant race take on reclamation projects midseason. Those things are not congruent with the approach necessary for a serious championship contender.

IMO we are not going to cautiously tip-toe our way to a World Series by tripping over a very low bar. We are going to have to make real, serious, big boy moves.

You win the WS by being in the tournament year after year.  And Elias has been very clear about that as the goal.  Did AZ make 'big boy moves' to get there last year?  They made a 'big boy move' w/ Montgomery and EdRod this year, and missed the playoffs altogether.  What big boy moves has KC made, or Detroit?  Their WS chances are better than ours this morning.

The overarching strategy is fine.  We had the 6th best ERA in the league I think it was?  Good enough regardless of the actual ranking.  These dudes just need to HIT to their capability.  HIT HIT HIT.

[baltfan]

28 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Did you see the points I made at the end? 

In this game, the fact the Royals have Erceg hurt us because he came in and shut the door. 

But this thread is not about how things would have been different, but rather to show that one, Elias needs to start drafting pitchers higher, and two, he targeted the wrong kind of guy for the back of the bullpen. 

To me, this was Erceg vs. Soto.  We obviously wanted to move Hays.  The A's would not have been interested in him.  Dominguez was a good get for Hays.  So then it comes down to whether they had enough to get Erceg vs. Soto.  I agree with you that the general lack of pitching depth in the minors maybe made it virtually impossible to get Erceg because they would either be giving up too much - Povich or McDermott + or don't have enough to give up.  

[Aristotelian]

Seranthony absolutely makes me nervous and I would definitely prefer Erceg. The question is what the prospect cost would have been. The A's got two pitching prospects coming back which may have been a nonstarter for Elias, or at least made KC's organization a better fit. Also, we still would need to find a taker for Hays.

The Eflin trade was A+. I would give Seranthony and Soto more like B. They were upgrades but wish we had done better. Don't get us started again on Rogers! 

 

[Frobby]

Erceg has pitched significantly better for KC than he did for Oakland.  He’s a guy who wasn’t even in the majors until age 28, and has 7 blown saves vs. 14 saves in his career.  He had a 5.07 ERA as a minor leaguer.   He’s on a nice roll for KC, so good for him and for them.  We’ll see how he does in the long run.   I’m not saying he’ll revert back to mediocrity, I’m just saying I’m not convinced he’s all that.  

[HowAboutThat]

29 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Eflin was a great pickup, yet he had a miserable deadline, eh?

Anyway, would have been nice to have Erceg.

Aside from elfin. That was clear.

Eflin was great. 
he should have gotten other guys that were great.

[Sports Guy]

Just now, Frobby said:

Erceg has pitched significantly better for KC than he did for Oakland.  He’s a guy who wasn’t even in the majors until age 28, and has 7 blown saves vs. 14 saves in his career.  He had a 5.07 ERA as a minor leaguer.   He’s on a nice roll for KC, so good for him and for them.  We’ll see how he does in the long run.   I’m not saying he’ll revert back to mediocrity, I’m just saying I’m not convinced he’s all that.  

Disagree with the premise of this post.

He had very good statcast numbers in 2023. He didn’t give up homers last year and had a high K rate. His FIp was 3.3 last year, far lower than his ERA. His xERA was also over a run less.

The issue was the walk rate. Could he get that down?  If so, he could be a top end high leverage guy. There was a lot to work with and a lot of reason to expect improvement.

[Moose Milligan]

6 minutes ago, Bemorewins said:

Eflin was a wonderful addition. But I would argue that we needed more (especially given the state of the pen all season) AND we had the ammunition to do so.

Yes Elias got us an Eflin (which again was an amazing acquisition that really helped us). But then he turned around and brought in a bunch of nothings like Jimenez, Rodgers, Soto, Dominguez. And it's not like those guys flopped. They largely sucked before they arrived. 

IMO we need to be a little more humble as an org as we approach this offseason. We need to get away from this "smartest guys in the room" mentality in believing that we can fix everyone else's broken or spare parts and that our homegrown talent is the only meaningful talent that we need.

Lumping in Soto and Dominguez with Jimenez and Rogers really isn't being honest here.

Soto got off to a bad start but turned it around in a big way.  Dominguez had some lumps.  But if you factor in that adding Dominguez and Soto allowed us to cut Kimbrel, it's an overall positive.

[casadeozo]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

Around the trading deadline, the Royals went and got Lucas Erceg from the A's for P Mason Barnett (minors), Jared Dickey (minors) and P Will Klein. 

Looking at those three prospects, two were pitchers with Barrett being the best prospect of them all but was more on the 4th/5th starter level. 

Elias went cheap and went for Dominguez by trading away Hays.

Erceg immediate became the closer and pitched well:

Notice the no home runs allowed and all top it all he's never allowed a stolen base while on the mound. Only one guy even attempted it and was caught. Seems like the perfect match to be a closer, no home runs, he misses bats, throw 99 MPH, and you can't steal off him. 

Elias went out and got Seranthony Dominguez who was then made closer, then lost it. 

Dominguez, who has always had a homer problem, allowed 6 in just 22.2 innings, and base runners are 21 for 23 in their career running off him.  He did only blow one save opportunity but allowed two walk off home runs.

There are two points I'd like to make. One, it took pitching prospects to get a good relief pitcher and two, Erceg was the kind of reliever the Orioles should have been targeting at the trade deadline. 

 

Agree with the sentiment and if the overall point is we don’t have the pitching depth other teams covet to get someone like Erceg, that is 100% valid.

that said I do like the Dominguez trade as Hays had next to no value. Would love if in the post Mortum presser Elias does someone actually asks him about his draft philosophy. It seems like it gets discussed on here all the time but he is never asked about it. We’re now counting on Trevor Rogers to start for us next year or we traded away 2 of our better hitting prospects for nothing. 

[Warehouse]

I think if we combine what we gave up for Rodgers and Soto and add a little more, we would be in the neighborhood for Erceg.  Obviously, a lot depends on how we match up on valuation and need so it’s not always that easy.

However, I would have preferred giving up those packages plus a little more and getting Erceg instead of Rogers/Soto.  Erceg could even be a starter conversion candidate. 

[casadeozo]

2 minutes ago, Warehouse said:

I think if we combine what we gave up for Rodgers and Soto and add a little more, we would be in the neighborhood for Erceg.  Obviously, a lot depends on how we match up on valuation and need so it’s not always that easy.

However, I would have preferred giving up those packages plus a little more and getting Erceg instead of Rogers/Soto.  Erceg could even be a starter conversion candidate. 

Right but that would mean we don’t add Eflin and do we even make the playoffs without him? Who would be starting today?

[Warehouse]

17 minutes ago, Frobby said:

He’s a guy who wasn’t even in the majors until age 28, and has 7 blown saves vs. 14 saves in his career. 

He’s a guy who didn’t pitch until he was 26 and didn’t pitch full-time until he was 27, so I wouldn’t read negatively into the fact he didn’t make the majors until age 28.

[Warehouse]

2 minutes ago, casadeozo said:

Right but that would mean we don’t add Eflin and do we even make the playoffs without him? Who would be starting today?

No, we still get Eflin.  We just give up Connor Norby, Seth Johnson, Moises Chace, Kyle Stowers, and Luis De Leon/Juan Nunez for Erceg.

[LGOrioles]

38 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

In the offseason, Erceg was a player I targeted as someone to trade for. Hard to believe Oakland would trade him at the deadline but wouldn’t have entertained trading him in the offseason but maybe that’s the case.

I think you do the Hays/Dominguez deal 100 times out of 100 and I don’t think this is the right comp to make.

The Os should have traded for both…and Soto. 
 

The problem isn’t that they chose Dominguez over Erceg, it’s that Elias doesn’t put enough emphasis on the pen.

I agree with this. Would rather have Erceg than Dominguez but I think Dominguez is still good and would be a great 6th/7th/8th inning option next year. 

[vab]

I've been in the "In Elias I trust" camp for the last five years but I can't argue with this one. Everybody can improve - let's hope he's taking note. 

[waroriole]

6 minutes ago, Warehouse said:

No, we still get Eflin.  We just give up Connor Norby, Seth Johnson, Moises Chace, Kyle Stowers, and Luis De Leon/Juan Nunez for Erceg.

That’s more than enough for Erceg. Elias is really skating in this Rogers trade. All time terrible move and no justification offered.