moonslav59

Look at the Braves. They made some nice signings and also let some key players go. They made some key trades, too, involving prospects. Still, they saw way more than 1 guy come up from 2017 to 2022. '22 Elder, Harris II, Grissom '21 Strider '20 W Contreras, I Anderson '19 Riley '18 Acuna, K Wright, Soroka '17 Albies, Swanson, Milner & Fried That's 10 guys from '17-22 They also traded some good prospects for Sean Murphy and others. How many of the O's players were called up between mid '17 and mid '22? O's Ages 22 G Henderson 23 C Cowser 25 Rutschman 26 Mountcastle, Bradish 27 Kremer, Hays 28 Mullins, Santender, Mateo, T Wells, F Bautista 29 Urias, O'Hearn, Y Cano How many of these guys were added to the system within the last 3.5 years? How many came up between mid 2017 and mid 2022?

Of course they did, and it didn't take them "overnight" to build it up. It took longer than 3.5 years. They also added to the farm via trades.

You said “pitching” not starting pitching, but you never move goalposts, like we do.

Yes, you are right. The O’s totally rebuilt in one year. Sucking for a long time and being able to trade away all your best vets for prospects is something Bloom was allowed to do but chose not to. Thanks for pointing out my faults. It must be so nice being perfect, like you.

Some seem to, but 1 in 5 years has a staggering effect on the current and future rosters. Expecting 4-7 every 5 years might be the norm. Asking a GM to rebuild in the midldle of a drought like that adds some serious context, right? It does not excuse everything.

I see 2021 as an over performance and2022 as an underperformance, so it was basically a wash.

That is a valid point, but the effects of not having much of anything for 5 years carries over and over in a big way. Imagine this team had we called up 2 guys like Bello, Casa, Duran or Houck, every year since the Devers call up in 2017z the roster would have had 8-9 more solid low cost players that would have allowed for more targeted FA signings, instead of trying to fill 10 slots with $30-40M. This years influx shows what a difference it can make. Think of this X 5!

The pipeline should be improved in AAA, next year, whether there is room for them on the ML roster, or not. I can see Mayer pushing Story to 2B, but I can't see Yorke pushing him to LF. The other middle IF'ers are too far away to worry about moving Story to the OF. Plus, Story is an excellent defensive 2Bman. We don't have many everyday players going to free agency, this winter. 2024 Duvall: can be replaced by Refsnyder/Duran (OF: Yoshida, Dugo, Duran, Refsnyder and maybe Rafaela by mid 2024.) 2025 Dugo: Is an OF of Yoshida DH/LF, Refsnyder LF, Duran CF and Rafaela in RF good enough? (Abreu or Rosier in the mix?) Turner: Can Yorke be good enough to DH? Maybe EValdez? (Jordan/Kavadas/Meidroth/Dalbec?) That's not a lot of lost players for a 2 year period. It's the pitching that is so unknown, but we do seem to be seeing more promising young pitchers coming up and also waiting in the wings, than we have seen in 5-10 years. f

Do you really think any GM could have built a winner with the situation Bloom was handed? Not do a better job, but actually build a championship caliber team with this budget, lack of ML ready prospects, inured and declining carry over vets? I do think someone could have done better, but comparing Bloom's task to the O's is like apples to oranges. The O's were 83-79, last year and still sold off, at the deadline. If it was Bloom who kept us from selling off, last summer, I'd tend to agree with your point to some extent, but I'm not so sure it was his idea.

In terms of win-losses, yes, pretty much overnight, but their rebuild took many years. Sucking so badly also allowed them to draft highly. They also traded away top players, where Sox fans would not stand for even for one year- like the 2022 non sell off

I disagree. The fact that no young and cost-effective prospects helped the roster from Devers in mid 2017 to Bloom's take over after the 2019 season had a huge affect on the rebuilding timeline expectation. That was over 2 years of just about nothing. That led to Bloom being handed a roster nearly devoid of top young talent, beyond Devers. You don't think that matters? The 2019 roster's youngest players: 22 Devers & DHern 23 Chavis 24 Beni (3 arbs left) & Shawaryn 25 Shaw, Lakins, Lin Devers, Beni and Houck was it. The rest were older vets, some very near free agency or higher arb salaries. Many others saw their production levels decline, even while still within prime years, for some. I keep coming back to expectation levels by us posters back in 2020. I personally believe some had unrealistically high expectations. Some reasons may have been... 1. They equated the 2019 roster to the 2018 one, of thought they were nearly identical. 2. They did not realize the effect of the roster going 5 years between Devers and Bello with just about no help beyond Houck. 3. They assumed JH would continue spending like a top 3-5 team, or think Bloom had something to do with budget cuts or bargain basement roster construction strategies. 4. They don't look beyond W-L records. Context is the same as making excuses or "supporting" Bloom.

I don't think top brass believes we are an ace away from being top contenders for a ring. I don't either. I had hopes we might be that close before last winter's FA signing period, but all Hell broke loose on contract costs. I brought up the trade for 2 solid pitchers (Cease and Gilito) and listed out the effect on the roster and staff as a question to posters to see if we think we might be 2 solid pitchers away from top contention. You point is one I agree on: even if we are good enough to be just 2 pitchers from contending for a ring in 2023, it's not worth trading away much for the extended future for a 1 or 2 year window. Extending an added pitcher affects both the budget and the future farm infusion. It's not worth it. One can argue it's not worth it, even if we are one ace away.

I really like our draft, and the most recent drafts (and IFA signings) seem to look better and better as time goes by.

Gotta wait for the stock to rise, more. LOL

We should know by now, that what they say matters very little.

I'm not necessarily "for" trading top prospects, especially for rentals, even if you can extend them at a good rate. I don't think we are "close enough" to take the plunge, right now. I'm not a believer in the playoffs are a crapshoot, like many here are, but it does happen, sometimes. Having the pitcher on your roster and extending them can sometimes work well, as you often get a slightly better contract deal. If not, I agree, just wait and sign the guy. That was my big beef about the Kimbrell trade. The guy was making FA money, at the time, and we gave up several prospects for him. The price of top closers skyrocketed afterwards, so that ended up changing that dynamic of the grading, but still... The Pedro trade and extension worked. The Schilling trade worked- not the mini extension. The Beckett trade and extension worked. The Sale trade worked. The extension did not. The Porcello trade and extension worked out okay. Am I missing any pitcher trade & extends? Our record on these has been pretty good.

Good point. I guess one could call Dalbec a great AAAA player. Fitzy fits the bill, too. Goodrum, Alfaro and Greg Allen to some extent. Duran's call up hurt the AAA future pipeline, and Abreu and Rafaela seem like the only to everyday players that are close to helping the big club. Rosier, DHam and Scott may be long shots. On the pitching side, Walter & Murphy are on the big club, now, but will likely be back and forth all season. Drohan has more to prove before he gets a chance. Long shots might be Denlinger, Van Belle and R Fernandez. Kelly might have been a help, but the injury hurt that chance. SP's has these guys in AAA, next year: Mata & Bernardino (MLB) Drohan, Walter, Murphy, Liu, Van Belle, Kelly, Guerrero Mayer, Yorke, Rafaela, Abreu, EValdez, DHam, Rosier, Dalbec Those far away prospects are getting closer!

It's weird how short the signing period is, but some of these guys have to decide about college or not. Also, I wish they'd allow draft choice trades. It would really add excitement and intrigue to the draft.

Look at what a difference getting significant help from 3 farm hands can make- Bello, Duran & Casas, and Casas is not a big plus WAR guy, yet. Imagine if we had gotten 2-3 guys like them in 2020, 2021 and 2022, as well.

Bloom certainly has not worked wonders with the MLB rosters over his 3.5 years at the helm. I'm not sure a single poster thinks he has. The difficulties handed him, to me, are some pretty massive mitigating circumstances. It's very hard for any GM to rebuild a roster with virtually no farm help in 5 consecutive years- 2.5 of which started before you even took over. Part of the reason we have seen little farm help, until Bello & Casas were called up and Duran "matured" is because Bloom chose to draft nearly all HS kids in the early rounds. That's on him, but it's hard for me to hold that against any GM, as long as those kids remain very promising- like many still are. He did bring some farm infusion through Rule 5 and trades (Whitlock, Wink, Wong and some minor pieces,) but so far, we have not seen much of Bloom's farm making an impact at the MLB level. When you have just Houck helping from the farm in a 5 year period (from Devers to Bello/Casas), the only way you really have to rebuild the MLB roster is through signings, waiver wires and trades. In this area Bloom has done somewhere between s*****, a mixed bag or okay, depending on each poster's point of view and expectations going into each season. The mandated Betts with Price deal was a tough way for any GM to keep the MLB roster producing at a high level, oou of the gate. The injury issues to guys like Sake, ERod, Nate and a few other carry-over players and an almost total decline by every vet handed to Bloom, except Devers and a few others, only made his task of building a MLB winner ASAP much more difficult. (BTW, even Devers saw his best season in 2019, under DD- not Bloom.) That being said, Bloom made some horrible choices: the JBJ trade, Barnes extension, the Story (so far) Richards and Kluber signings, the Diekman, Marwin and several more lower level signings as well as some overall philosophical/directional spending that often missed the mark, like not enough on the pen in '22, and not enough on the rotation in '23. Signing injury-prone SP'ers mostly backfired, soo. He did, however, make a few very nice signings and additions. I still think he won the Dugo/Wong trade, and the Winckowski trade might prove to be better than we thought, at first. These were good deals: Wacha, Hill, Strahm, Renfroe, Schreiber, Refsnyder, Jansen, Martin, Yoshida (so far) and trades for Pivetta, Ottavino, the ones I mentioned and maybe more, once we find out what some prospects end up doing. Clearly, the overall grade here is neither an A or an F, considering the situation. Thirdly, the budget was a pretty big mess, when he took over, when you look at sunken costs and lessening production from almost all the higher paid players. The massive budget cut before 2020, then slow release of funds afterwards made rebuilding the MLB roster into a strong contender, virtually impossible, in my view. Yes, Bloom could have done better. He was supposed to be good at finding bargains. He largely swung and missed on bargain basement additions. Again, what should be expected from low level signings? Yes, Bloom could have chosen to sign more quality than quantity, but our roster depth was in shambles by 2020. I doubt we'd have won, had we signed a $16M/1 pitcher, instead or Richards and Perez, combined, or a $17M/1 pitcher instead of Kluber and Duvall. Last year, we heard so much about the pen being the main reason for our losing record. Bloom did a very good job fixing it, and it could have been even better had Whitlock, Houck and or Crawford been able to pitch from the pen, all year. Bloom seems to have done a pretty good job with the offense, and if Story was healthy, Turner at 1B and Yoshida at DH with Duvall in LF, our defense would actually no be bad. Having 4 SSs hurt at the same time is hard for any GM to overcome, but he did know about 2 of the injuries, beforehand. All-in-all, I do not think Bloom deserves a free pass. There were severe mitigating circumstances, but he mostly failed or did not do wonders dealing with any of them. Hopefully, his farm building will start making a difference, but even that may not be until 2025 or 2026, and he may be long gone, by then. (Kinda like Ben.)

The 1.3 years of control makes him a little different from others.

The idea would be to extend Bieber of Cease or Giolito. I'm not sure, if we are "close enough" to take a plunge like this, either.

True, but if Anthony has shown he is "better," then it should not show Bleis got worse by going down one slot.

Agreed. There is a big lack or talent at AAA. It's surprising they have won so many games. My point was that "part" of the "lack" is because guys like Duran were or are called up, already. It was still lacking with them in AAA.

17 games to the deadline with just 2.5 SP'ers in the rotation (Bello, Paxton & Crawford.) Can we make it that long, or do we try to spring an earlier deal?