92 replies to this topic

[dude]

5) I'll bet any amount of $ you'd like that without major health issues we see each of Rutschman, Rodriguez, and Hall before Sept. 2022.

 

OK.  I'd only caveat it with seeing them "before the Orioles have the #1 MiL Ranking."

 

Right now, you have about 17 of the top 50 MLB Prospects will lose their eligibility in 2021.  Solid+ seasons by Rutschman, Hall, Rodriguez and Herstad would likely give them 2 top 20 and 2 top 40 prospects.  Their 1-5 pick could be around 40-60.  If Henderson and Westburg have really good seasons they could replace Mountcastle (from today's perspective) in the top 100 (guys at the back end).  

 

So a very positive 2021 MiL season for those 6 guys (+the 1-5 pick) could put the Orioles with 7 guys in the top 100 and given graduations and random performance, that would be a pretty good expectation for having the #1 system heading into 2022.

 

I think if you give that group 2 years (2021 and 2022) and have more upper level performance, plus another top pick in 2022 (2021 record), then the best bet for having the #1 system is going into the 2023 season and that dictates service (rookie status) for those 3 guys.

 

Once Rutschman, Hall and GRod get promoted, the Orioles MiL system starts to (ranking-wise) go backwards and we've predictably seen numerous Orioles' beat writers promote Elias as a function of their MiL ranking recently.

 

The other day when Elias said that they "still had something they wanted to accomplish"....that's the #1 ranking.  They can't do it promoting AR, DLH and GR before they have it. 

 

Orioles are going to lose a handful of top 15 guys (Kremer, Akin, Mountcastle, maybe Diaz and another pitcher) this year but other systems will have similar graduations.

 

So anything you want and if the Orioles (edit: I should put Elias in here, not just the Orioles) have the #1 system prior to 2023 (mid-'21, '22. mid-'22) then the bet is off.

[BSLChrisStoner]

$500 that without significant injury they all debut by June 2022. 

[dude]

Drafting last every year sounds so good. And clearly its not wrong.

But it totally fails in any kind of even wish list unless you are one of a very few teams such as the Yankees and Dodgers.

Drafting last every years = spending huge every year. Period.

Steve, if you ever get Jury duty, just have them call me and I'll get you out of it.

Lawyer: dude, I was asked to call you as a Jury reference for Mr. Birrer
dude: Yes, Steve believes what he wants to believe regardless of the evidence.
Lawyer: OK, thanks

[russsnyder]

People be crazy.

I actually laughed out loud at this.

You go Dude!

[BSLSteveBirrer]

Steve, if you ever get Jury duty, just have them call me and I'll get you out of it.

Lawyer: dude, I was asked to call you as a Jury reference for Mr. Birrer
dude: Yes, Steve believes what he wants to believe regardless of the evidence.
Lawyer: OK, thanks

Name me one team that drafts in the bottom 3 every year that isn't in the top 3 in payroll every year.

 

Now on a lighter note here's my jury duty advice. If you ever actually have to serve on a jury do not use the restroom during your first break. You will be elected Jury Foreperson.....lol.

[dude]

Name me one team that drafts in the bottom 3 every year that isn't in the top 3 in payroll every year.

 

Let me answer your question directly.  None.  

 

...but the answer isn't none because you're right, it's none because you continue to ask the wrong questions.

 

This is still like the most important aspect to this discussion.  No matter how many years you rebuild, regardless of how good your 'elite talent pipeline' is, no matter your payroll flexibility or willingness to spend, Winning will depend on something besides those things.

 

Rarely does any team draft in the bottom 3 every year.  On the occasions something like that does happen for short periods of time there's usually some specific reasons (like other teams in the Division are intentionally accepting losing).

 

The question you should ask is "What is the correlation between Win and Payroll".  You can figure out that number.  Other sites have already done the math for you.  ....and you'll find there is a weak correlation in there and that includes the only correlated data (which is the bad data - ie rebuilders - that should be thrown out).

 

There's no evidence to support your earlier statement.

 

I'm not even saying it can be accomplished.  I'd say it can't (routinely staying with the best record)...and the reason is because Baseball is competitive and everyone gets to vote. 

My point is that I'm not trying to build a middling team to play up. 

I want to build a great team and go play great.

I want to be intentional, provide hope and include marketing because ultimately it's about the fans. 

I would give you a different plan for different teams because the operational environment for each is different.  The goals would be the same (still unrealistic for anyone) but would never stop me from being a good and interesting team. What I'd do for the Orioles, Cubs, Mets or Mariners would all be different.

Some years will suck, got it, competitive sports.  Things happen.

...but you have a plan to Win Now and Later and each year you go out there and throw down.

 

You see routine success from the Dodgers, Rays and Cards.  None of them have 'rebuilt' to get where they are and they come across the full disparity of Baseball's economic spectrum.  Give me a 20-year run and I want to improve on what the Cardinals do.

[BSLSteveBirrer]

Dude this is the problem with your line of thinking. You have a reasonable argument about not rebuilding and being more competitive all the time. We may disagree on the ease of getting the pieces you tend to suggest but the general suggestions are ok. But then you make statements like "draft last every year"  as if your approach would lend itself to that, which it doesn't. 

[BSLSteveBirrer]

Dodgers payroll rankings since 2010:

12, 12, 12, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 2.

[dude]

$500 that without significant injury they all debut by June 2022. 

 

I had accepted this privately, earlier, but was gone for the last couple of days.

 

Not sure what I can actually say...but got an interesting call oddly quickly when we did this on Friday and was encouraged to take the bet.  Apparently there are some that are rooting for me to be wrong and willing to back anything that lends pressure to be wrong, so I get X if I'm right and more than X if I'm wrong. Fun.  Still curious how I was contacted so quickly.

 

Was taking the bet regardless, but strange the way things go sometimes.

[Mackus]

You guys should bet bar tabs at a BSL get-together or something else of which I can lay into the cut.

[dude]

Again, been out the last 48, wanted to respond to this.

Dude this is the problem with your line of thinking. You have a reasonable argument about not rebuilding and being more competitive all the time. We may disagree on the ease of getting the pieces you tend to suggest but the general suggestions are ok. But then you make statements like "draft last every year" as if your approach would lend itself to that, which it doesn't.

So this is the entire point. Neither spending or rebuilding are the reason you have a great team.

The contention by Elias (Elite Talent Pipeline) and other (re: rebuilding to sustainable success) is that the Process of rebuilding is what allows you to be whatever you want to be in the future. That's wrong. rebuilding gives you a really limited number of good opportunities, literally everything else you do is just about building a credible organization.

Chris's contention (this article and every post on the subject) is that the Orioles are going to have some excellent playoff opportunity in 2023+.....but there's basically zero difference between whatever team he wants to put together for that year and the future that I could put together....because whatever he wants, I can get. We can disagree about what players comprise that level of quality (my point about consideration what that type of lineup looks like), but it's not going to be about 3 better guys added across those 3 years.

Same as the 2012-2016 timeframe. The Orioles did very little in rebuilding from 2007/8 to 2011 and Dan did basically a poor job of adding Now or Later players....and yet....the Orioles have the best W% in the AL over those years and the team that people like to project tomorrow (2022, 2023) is basically Dan's guys, even though he didn't do a significant job adding Talent.

Teams like the Dodgers, Rays and Cards sustain winning by being Organizations.

Winning is hard. It's hard because it's competitive and you aren't the only guy with a vote. This isn't golf or bowling where you're playing the course and only control how you perform. The guy across from you gets chance to break you down. That's the challenge you have to meet. If you meet that challenge better than the other guy, you got a better chance.

The Astros didn't Win in 2017 (2017-2019) because they 'rebuilt'. If you look at the lineups, rebuilding wasn't significant to those teams. People want to tell you it was because they want causality that doesn't exist. If they did what they were suggesting, they wouldn't have a middling MiL system considering what they're going to do in 2021+. You didn't need 2012-2014 to get to 2017-2019 and the outlook for 2021+ isn't good for them.

You can create short term opportunity (Win Now) in a lot of different ways (understanding the team you want to build) and whatever your downrange opportunity is (Win Later), is basically the same. You are viewing non-causal relationships (rebuilding, money) to be causal and they aren't. That's your disconnect.

If you think there's no way to get to a team that can draft last every year, OK, but then nobody, regardless of their approach can do it either, so let's just go compete always.

[dude]

Dodgers payroll rankings since 2010:

12, 12, 12, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 2.

 

...and again, you are making my point.  You look at payroll and think it's causal.  The Dodgers have actually NOT been leveraging their Money in a ridiculous way and have shed payroll in recent years.  They've worked more on building the Team they want rather than trying to find the best team they can buy.  They integrate young players into their teams every year.  They steal bargains from others and turn them into good+ players.  They draft towards the back, but still develop and maintain a top MiL system.  Money is a tool and they can use it how they want.  Bett's is a great add.  They have more options (Arendo, Lindor).

 

There was an article written about them and what's great about Baseball.  They are the best, smartest, deepest FO Talent, best resourced ($$$), best of everything....yet until last year, they had only been the bridesmaid.

 

One of the challenges of success in a big market is it often forces you into Checkbook Baseball....and that actually hasn't proven to be the key to success for anyone.  That's because it forces you away from the process that got you initial success.  It's one of the reasons I would love to FO the Orioles versus others (ok, I'll FO any of them) because you have a built in excuse to just do the things you want to do.  You have an ability to undercut a public narrative.  Cleveland is about to enter life without Lindor, let's see if they can figure it out.

[BSLSteveBirrer]

...and again, you are making my point.  You look at payroll and think it's causal.  The Dodgers have actually NOT been leveraging their Money in a ridiculous way and have shed payroll in recent years.  They've worked more on building the Team they want rather than trying to find the best team they can buy.  They integrate young players into their teams every year.  They steal bargains from others and turn them into good+ players.  They draft towards the back, but still develop and maintain a top MiL system.  Money is a tool and they can use it how they want.  Bett's is a great add.  They have more options (Arendo, Lindor).

 

There was an article written about them and what's great about Baseball.  They are the best, smartest, deepest FO Talent, best resourced ($$$), best of everything....yet until last year, they had only been the bridesmaid.

 

One of the challenges of success in a big market is it often forces you into Checkbook Baseball....and that actually hasn't proven to be the key to success for anyone.  That's because it forces you away from the process that got you initial success.  It's one of the reasons I would love to FO the Orioles versus others (ok, I'll FO any of them) because you have a built in excuse to just do the things you want to do.  You have an ability to undercut a public narrative.  Cleveland is about to enter life without Lindor, let's see if they can figure it out.

What a crock. The last 8 years they have spent in the top 5 in baseball and 6 of those they were 1st or 2nd. Its about spending wisely which they do. But to deny that spending isn't a major part of their success is nuts.

[dude]

What a crock. The last 8 years they have spent in the top 5 in baseball and 6 of those they were 1st or 2nd. Its about spending wisely which they do. But to deny that spending isn't a major part of their success is nuts.

 

Again, you seem to be looking at a number (although I'm not sure of your source, the first three links I checked on team payrolls didn't match up with yours, doesn't matter) and then associating that number with winning.

 

If you think the Dodgers are just about their payroll, then you just don't understand what the Dodgers have been doing.  They may be moving more to some checkbook baseball, but that's not been what they've done the last 7+ years.  In fact, their fans lament the fact that they've bargain shopped with the biggest bank account in the Game.

 

They've certainly leveraged their money and that's fine.  They were in a big hole from Frank McCourt and they've fought their way out of it by putting together a dynamic organization.

 

You want to look at one team's spending and draw a causal line, but the Dodgers have done a lot more than 'just spend' and other teams that are spending as much or more than the Dodgers aren't having the same levels of success.  That's part of the issue here.  You don't really know anything about other teams (I'll be nice and leave it at that).

 

What you should be doing, to support your argument, is draw the correlation between spending and winning.  You could use a spreadsheet for that.  It's not hard.  Others have already done it for you.  We've discussed it here in the past.  There isn't a strong correlation between spending and winning. 

 

Beyond that, the only data that really correlates is the bad data in the set.  This is important and I haven't seen anyone actually bother to do it.  The 'rebuilding' teams are intentionally shedding payroll and not trying to win (looking for early draft picks).  So even in a set of data that is only weakly to modestly correlated, you typically have 4-8 data points in the set that are in the low spending, low wins quadrant but that's intentional.  When you are trying to determine the relationship to wins, don't count the guys that don't care about winning....they have a different goal (intentionally and again, the purpose of rebuilding).

 

That data makes things even worse because the teams in a Division that are trying will clearly spend something more so the data, especially in a Division where you have 2 (or more) rebuilders and heavier Division play, will certainly skew towards your position because not only aren't they spending, they are also comfortable losing and you're losing to someone who is spending more.

 

How do you fix that?  Take all of the rebuilding teams out of the data.  You can't use wins anymore because some teams won't have the same number of games when you start throwing the intentionally loser teams out. 

So you have to go to W% versus payroll.  That's the correlation you want to give me to prove you're right.

[BSLSteveBirrer]

 How anybody can not think that money isn't a major part of the Dodgers success is simply mind boggling. If its not then why are they spending so much money.

 

And here is where I got my data, right or wrong.

 

http://www.stevetheu...om/Payrolls.htm

[dude]

 How anybody can not think that money isn't a major part of the Dodgers success is simply mind boggling. If its not then why are they spending so much money.

 

You are literally looking at one data point and trying to create all of the relationship between Payroll and Winning on that one data point, utterly out of context with EVERYTHING the Dodgers are doing and all of the rest of the data points in the League which don't support your position.

 

Nobody is saying money isn't a tool.  Money is not the most important tool.

[Mackus]

Money is probably the most important tool.  I'd imagine that payroll correlates more highly to winning than any other definable factor.

 

But the correlation is pretty low.  Money isn't an absolute requirement for winning nor is it a guarantee if you do spend it. 

 

It definitely makes things much easier.

[BSLChrisStoner]

Again, been out the last 48, wanted to respond to this.

So this is the entire point. Neither spending or rebuilding are the reason you have a great team.

The contention by Elias (Elite Talent Pipeline) and other (re: rebuilding to sustainable success) is that the Process of rebuilding is what allows you to be whatever you want to be in the future. That's wrong. rebuilding gives you a really limited number of good opportunities, literally everything else you do is just about building a credible organization.

Chris's contention (this article and every post on the subject) is that the Orioles are going to have some excellent playoff opportunity in 2023+.....but there's basically zero difference between whatever team he wants to put together for that year and the future that I could put together....because whatever he wants, I can get. We can disagree about what players comprise that level of quality (my point about consideration what that type of lineup looks like), but it's not going to be about 3 better guys added across those 3 years.

 

I've never seen you put together any hypothetical team that gave you some extended / sustained playoff opportunity. 

Every team I've ever seen you put together gives you a minimal chance at contention in one hypothetical season. 

Usually occurring by giving up assets / control tomorrow for some player that improves you (but not enough) today.

Maybe in 2021 you'll unveil your current plans on what you think the Orioles should be doing now.

[dude]

Money is probably the most important tool.  I'd imagine that payroll correlates more highly to winning than any other definable factor.

 

But the correlation is pretty low.  Money isn't an absolute requirement for winning nor is it a guarantee if you do spend it. 

 

It definitely makes things much easier.

 

What you said is probably true although not that relevant since all of the things I'd describe as more important aren't definable like "Payroll".

 

If the correlation is low (we already know it is, even with the bad data), then the point remains.

 

Money creates options.  Sometimes it creates problems.  That's true in Baseball and Life.

[dude]

I've never seen you put together any hypothetical team that gave you some extended / sustained playoff opportunity. 

Every team I've ever seen you put together gives you a minimal chance at contention in one hypothetical season. 

Usually occurring by giving up assets / control tomorrow for some player that improves you (but not enough) today.

Maybe in 2021 you'll unveil your current plans on what you think the Orioles should be doing now.

 

So this is interesting and the responses are too long.  Let me sum up.

 

I'd still contend the best I could reasonably do year over year is 35% chance to make the Playoffs.  Lot's of discussion on it, I won't rehash, but if we want to do it again, ok.

 

The Night Moves Plan was a 5 year plan in 2019.  You, Rob, others said it wasn't good enough.  I asked you what good enough looked liked (any year in the future) and you have taken a hard pass.  I'd argue that team is as good or better (less performance risk, less acquisition risk) than the "Next Playoff Team" that Matt described in his 3rd article.  It also has some of the players in it that described as options for the newly competitive, rebuilt Orioles.  Suddenly, Corey Seager is good enough.

 

The reason I ask those questions before is because we predictably wind up in this spot.  Of course, I could just take your approach here and say, "I have no idea what it's going to look like, but I KNOW we're going to be legit Playoff Team in 2023".

 

I'm happy to talk about "What I'd do" in any year, including this one.  The threads never really generate any discussion other than the continued parsing of why 'nothing can ever happen'.  Then you have the "Fantasy baseball" and "TLDR" comments, which are fine (I don't care), but there's really nothing else.  I look putting those thoughts together as an exercise on Orioles Baseball on an Orioles Baseball Message Board, but in the rebuilding environment you get the "that's not what we're doing right now" also.

 

I think we're at Night Moves 5 this offseason so... <<shrug>>  Haven't really had a reason to change my mind. More than one option though.