I'd like to move away from MacPhail and head back to Chris's article. If anyone wants to continue the MacPhail discussion, let's find a different place to do it (Phillies, PM, new, other).
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Initial considerations
1) So I agree with everything Chris includes at the beginning in terms of the 2021 setup. I think it's the most reasonable view of where the Orioles are going into the 2021 season. I'd guess there could still be some changes (trade Severino, Armstrong), but that's fine for now.
Internal options
2) I'm not as high on Diaz. Chris would seem to be at the high end of the Diaz perspective. If he was a league average guy, IMO, that would be good for him. I don't need to create space for him, but whatever.
3) I don't really agree with the alignment of the MiL IFers. Sure it will sort itself out at different levels, but you still have to start somewhere. I think Westburg is the least likely of the candidates to stay at SS. I think this all really starts with Henderson and whether you believe he can stick at SS. If he's not the SS, Servideo certainly seems like the next most likely guy to stick there, based purely on defense and offensive upside. Westburg would seem most likely to get pushed over to 2B or 3B and he could likely move faster at either one of those positions (also, he's much more likely to be a top10 2B than a top10 SS).
4) Promoting guys in the 2020 draft class for 2022 is like promoting guys from the 2019 class this year. Does anyone think Joey Ortiz should compete for the SS or 2B job by mid-year? He's sort of similar to Servideo (I like Servideo better, whatever)...both 4th rd picks, similar college numbers. If you think guys are ready, OK, and under the right contract conditions I'm OK allowing a guy to learn at the ML level, but that's an approach that should have some fairly buffered expectations.
5) There's lot of places to put this comment, but there's any number of people out there suggesting guys like Rutschman, Hall and Rodriguez could be ready sooner than later. I don't think you see any of those top guys (they held back Mountcastle as long as they could) until the Orioles have the #1 MiL system. That likely means you need to hold their Rookie status going into the 2023 season....so SEP '22 would be the earliest we add them to the ML lineup.
Questions.
6) All of these questions are fine, but there's nothing unique about the answers from 2021 for 2022. You had questions in 2019, 2020, you'll have them for 2021 and 2022 and 2023 too. There is nothing unique about what you learn in 2021. There's 4 boxes and you could be in any one of them and those answers could like different 12 months later. Sometimes you'll be right, sometimes you'll be wrong, sometimes it rains.
It's just the same thing I keep saying....you're going to have to make choices. Waiting to know something in 2021 doesn't make your choices better. For example, Chris likes Diaz. He's been promoting him for a while. What's the metric where he doesn't get a chance in 2022 if he follows the schedule in this article? If you like a guy and want to project him, as long as he's ~1SP, you keep him in there.
You have the same questions for 2022. You never have to wait to do something for answers because you NEVER really have answers. Unless you're Mike Trout. Is he available?
You do whatever you think is the best you can do (whatever your plan is) could be 1-year, 3-year, 5-year, whatever....you do it and then you go throw down.
FAs before 2022.
7) It always has felt like this is where Chris wanted to go but he hasn't really been willing to say this is the thing. As we discussed in the Correa thread and another one, if you wanted Correa and Bryant now, you could basically put together the team you're looking for in place now and wait on Rutschman, Hall and Rodriguez.
2022
My guess would be that the Orioles continue to work backwards in payroll for the 2022 season. Cobb will be gone. If the COVID outlook improves there's no reasons for Davis to be here. I'd suggest ARB players like Mancini and Santander get traded. They'll likely have pretty close to the minimum salary profile you can have (+Davis 17M).
John and Lou have 2 things they likely need/want to accomplish
Elias still has his biggest thing to accomplish.
We'll see where 2022 leaves the team.
I think the outlook in 2023 can be reasonably good.
I don't think it's a 95 win team, but it could be a pretty good team looking to compete.
It is basically the same opportunity in 2023 regardless of what you wanted to do in 2019, 2020, 2021 or 2022.