I'm starting to lose my optimism on the 'prospects'

[McLovin]

I totally agree with this post. I know its not what folks want to hear especially given what's happening with the Orioles but teams really rise to the top when they have a core of stars. Maybe those guys are already on the Orioles (Matsuz, Weiters, Jones) but when I look at our system, I see a lot of marginal prospects and not much else. I'd rather have a weak system with one or two 5 star talents than ten 3 star guys.

All is not lost. We have a stack of guys who could ramp up (Bell, Tillman, Hobgood -- i guess) but we need to strike oil on a non top 5 draft pick every once in a while. Aside from Bedard -- who had maybe one 5 star season -- i can't remember the last time we hit the jackpot.

Agreed. And maybe they could nail a free agent for the first time since, oh, Palmeiro. I think they need more impact players, and it's becoming clear to me that it's probably not coming from the minor leagues.

Again, I'm just personally saying that my expectations for the system were probably too high - I'm not used to seeing potential Major Leaguers in the minors! You are probably spot on about having one or two 5 star talents over ten 3 star guys. Although I'd say Britton is a 5 star guy from what I've read.

[Slappy]

Agreed. And maybe they could nail a free agent for the first time since, oh, Palmeiro. I think they need more impact players, and it's becoming clear to me that it's probably not coming from the minor leagues.

Again, I'm just personally saying that my expectations for the system were probably too high - I'm not used to seeing potential Major Leaguers in the minors! You are probably spot on about having one or two 5 star talents over ten 3 star guys. Although I'd say Britton is a 5 star guy from what I've read.

The guys that came up last year are top notch prospects, just what this club needed to start clawing back to respectability. You don't need classes like that every year, you just need to replenish what you lose through FA.

Britton, Bell, and Tillman all project as upper-tier major leaguers.

Snyder could have a Wally Joyner type career if everything pans out.

Don't forget about Waring. A good AA year from him and he may even push Bell/Snyder to reach the bigs first.

[Stotle]

I think the hype machine on this board works against a lot of prospects. At the end of last year I was thrilled because it looked like Britton took the step (in my eyes, I know others were already super high on him) to where I thought he had a good chance to be a solid ML starter and perhaps a #3. I get the feeling that a ton of people here would be disappointed if Britton doesn't turn into one of the top 15 pitchers in the AL.

Same issue with Jones this year. If you talk to people in the baseball industry when BAL traded for Jones, most would probably have told you 1) good speed and defense, 2) arm strength, 3) power potential, 4) probably not going to hit for great average. After a nice start last year many were slapping the "one of the top OF in baseball" tags on him.

One characteristic I look for in young ball players is the ability to keep low highs and high lows. I think this works counter to how most fans view the game (which is understandable), but moving a little in that direction with respect to viewing prospects would probably save a lot of people a lot of frustration.

[psk3170]

It may not be stocked with future hall of famers but you name a time when we could reach down to the minors at any position and pull up the following solid players (NOT older AAAA types) from AAA/AA:

C-Joseph

1B-Snyder, Widlansky

2B-Turner

SS-Florimon

3B-Bell,Waring

OF-Montanez, Angle (When Healthy)

SP-Arrietta, Tillman, ERBE, Patton, Johnson, Britton, Spoone

RP-Mickilio, Perez, Thall, Gamboa, Lebron,Erbe, Arrietta

These players are real depth that make me confident for the first time in 12 years that we will not flop in the second half because for once we have real player options when Brian Roberts gets hurt, or our bullpen implodes during the first half of the year. Also, this thread assumes that a guy like david hernandez,and Jason berken will never get better and are not valuable because they do not have the right tool set like a MAtusz, or Wieters(once in a generation prospects). Guys can improve like Hernandez and berken seems to be doing because they seem to have that something extra that drives them to overcome the odds of being a 17th rounder and make the majors while other first round picks given all the advantages chose to fail miserably. They may never be a #1 starter but last I checked their were about 12 of those in all the majors. I share your concerns about the amount of upper echelon talent but I also am much more optimistic than in the past because we have many more options (depth) when one of the studs falters. We are no longer relying on 1 or 2 guys to save us. One last point, no team could have graduated the talent we did last year (Wieters, Berkens, Hernandez, Tillman, MAtusz, Reimold) and look this deep the next year. I am quite optimistic about this group.

[DrungoHazewood]

I think the hype machine on this board works against a lot of prospects. At the end of last year I was thrilled because it looked like Britton took the step (in my eyes, I know others were already super high on him) to where I thought he had a good chance to be a solid ML starter and perhaps a #3. I get the feeling that a ton of people here would be disappointed if Britton doesn't turn into one of the top 15 pitchers in the AL.

Same issue with Jones this year. If you talk to people in the baseball industry when BAL traded for Jones, most would probably have told you 1) good speed and defense, 2) arm strength, 3) power potential, 4) probably not going to hit for great average. After a nice start last year many were slapping the "one of the top OF in baseball" tags on him.

One characteristic I look for in young ball players is the ability to keep low highs and high lows. I think this works counter to how most fans view the game (which is understandable), but moving a little in that direction with respect to viewing prospects would probably save a lot of people a lot of frustration.

And this leads, kind of paradoxically, to valuable players being written off or treated as failures because they end up being "only" average MLB players. When in reality a substantial part of even the best rosters is average or worse players.

[hoosiers]

Outside of a half dozen or so prospects like Britton, Bell, Tillman, Arrieta, Snyder, most of the higher quality prospects are at DelMarva. There's a gap in our system partially because Wieters and Matusz moved so fast.

IMO, there is plenty of talent in our system. Not sure if there are too many near-all star talents below AA on the hitting side, but several everyday candidates. And the sun has not set on guys like Widlansky, Waring, Adams, Avery, Hoes, Welty, etc.

Frankly, IMO, our minor league system is off to a better start than I expected. Too many strikeouts from Snyder and Bell to start the year, but overall - acknowledging the very, very small sample sizes, our minor league system is just fine, IMO.

[berto]

I think the OP made a great point. I am having the seem feeling lately since we got off to our poor start. I am still optimistic about about our depth in minors, but just don't have as much as I once was.

[Singleton]

And this leads, kind of paradoxically, to valuable players being written off or treated as failures because they end up being "only" average MLB players. When in reality a substantial part of even the best rosters is average or worse players.

I don't think folks are writing anyone off but I think we're tying to have more realistic expectations. Average major leaguers are important to have on your team but if you're going to have a good team, you have to have a few well-above average players to push you up..

Lets look at a few AL East comps on high end, home-grown, talent:

TB = Crawford, Longoria, Price, Upton, Shields, Neiman might be there too. I've been impressed with what I've seen of R. Briegnac.

Bos = Pedroia, Youk, Papelbon, Lester, maybe Buckholtz -- probably not Ellsbury or Bard. Lets not forget they developed HRam!

NYY = Jeter, Rivera, Posada, Cano, Petitte, Nick Johnson is home grown though not a stud (but damn that OBP). They also developed Austim Jackson. Mike Lowell came up through their system.

Obviously, we don't have this at the major league level or we'd have a lot more wins but the scary thing is each team's minor league system probably has more star talent than ours as well.

We're definately making strides. I just don't feel as close as some others here do. Sorry to be a downer.

[atlantaoriole]

Hopefully this year's draft we don't screw up. I know we got to give Hobgood some chance to prove himself but with the #5 pick in the draft we should have taken a more legit high school starter or better yet a proven college arm. We passed on Leake, Shelby Miller, Aaron Crow among others who I believe will all have much better careers than Hobgood. With the #3 pick this season we better get a stud and not go cheap.

[McLovin]

I don't think folks are writing anyone off but I think we're tying to have more realistic expectations. Average major leaguers are important to have on your team but if you're going to have a good team, you have to have a few well-above average players to push you up..

Lets look at a few AL East comps on high end, home-grown, talent:

TB = Crawford, Longoria, Price, Upton, Shields, Neiman might be there too. I've been impressed with what I've seen of R. Briegnac.

Bos = Pedroia, Youk, Papelbon, Lester, maybe Buckholtz -- probably not Ellsbury or Bard. Lets not forget they developed HRam!

NYY = Jeter, Rivera, Posada, Cano, Petitte, Nick Johnson is home grown though not a stud (but damn that OBP). They also developed Austim Jackson. Mike Lowell came up through their system.

Obviously, we don't have this at the major league level or we'd have a lot more wins but the scary thing is each team's minor league system probably has more star talent than ours as well.

We're definately making strides. I just don't feel as close as some others here do. Sorry to be a downer.

I agree - and I think I've just been in la-la land and have been overly optimistic.

[DrungoHazewood]

I agree - and I think I've just been in la-la land and have been overly optimistic.

And eight days have opened your eyes? What has changed in your eyes about the long-term prospects of Markakis, Pie, Wieters, Matusz, Tillman, Bergesen, Arrieta, Britton, et al? Why are they now very unlikely to match the home grown cores of these other teams?

[McLovin]

And eight days have opened your eyes? What has changed in your eyes about the long-term prospects of Markakis, Pie, Wieters, Matusz, Tillman, Bergesen, Arrieta, Britton, et al? Why are they now very unlikely to match the home grown cores of these other teams?

Well, I've already outlined my thoughts above. I didn't have an epiphany, I just have been thinking through things, and I realized I may have been too optimistic. It occurred to me that the ceilings of some of these guys might not be much better than the horrible product they are putting out right now. Unfortunately there is no metric to measure my optimism prior to this change in thought, vs. my current level of optimism.

At the same time I understand that what they have on the farm doesn't have to progress to the Majors. Hopefully they can take a bunch of these B-/C+ types and turn them into core pieces. I would agree that they do have assets.

[srock]

It may not be stocked with future hall of famers but you name a time when we could reach down to the minors at any position and pull up the following solid players (NOT older AAAA types) from AAA/AA:

C-Joseph

1B-Snyder, Widlansky

2B-Turner

SS-Florimon

3B-Bell,Waring

OF-Montanez, Angle (When Healthy)

SP-Arrietta, Tillman, ERBE, Patton, Johnson, Britton, Spoone

RP-Mickilio, Perez, Thall, Gamboa, Lebron,Erbe, Arrietta

That pitching staff may be better then some of the Orioles staffs circa 2006/2007.

I agree with NMW, the offensive side of our prospects does leave something to be desired. But, it is likely at least 1 of the guys we never talk about will blossom into a good major leaguer. It happens all the time. The overall level of talent in the system appears much stronger then in the past. So, while short of highly touted bats, I think we will be pleasantly surprised by who comes out of this minor league system.

Also, "Buy the bats"

[McLovin]

Also, "Buy the bats"

"Buy the bats" is great, but all they've done is "browse the bats".

[Mike B]

Well, I'd just assume a '#1 starter' would be able to drum up more than Chris Ray.

I think what you are pointing out is Millwood is not a number 1 starter and with that I agrre. He is however a very serviceable competent ML Starter. The reason we got him for Ray is $$$$$. That is the same reason the White Sox got Alex Rios for nothing. That is baseball today.

As for your view that our prospects are not all that well time will tell. If Bell/Snyder are found wanting then I think that is where the "financial clout" will be used. If that does not happen then we have a problem, and thee

problem is not AM but an old familiar one in PGA.

Frankly, I am excited about the young pitchers. Arrietta, Erbe, Tillman, Britton etc. are something to have hope over IMO.