monkeytargets39

Well with JV we knew our competitive window was closing and a rebuild would be imminent. JV also had some injury issues and had a year or two of declined performance (by his standards). Even at the time I was underwhelmed with the return. None of it was major league ready. With Skubal, this is a guy who is young, cost controlled for years, still improving, and we are (hopefully) at the beginning part of a competitive window. So the value of Skubal to us and the stakes of not getting a gigantic return for him are especially high.

I don’t think trying to get a close or even trade value through a computer model is the goal here. Skubal is a known quantity and value right now. Everyone else is a projected value. I want more in return of projected value than what Skubal is physically giving right now. All it takes is for one of those prospects to get hurt badly or flame out for it to be a massive W for the Orioles. We have to get a good sized perceived value advantage in order to do the deal.

Do you think Boston would trade the rights to Rabbit Warstler for Joey Wentz?

The obvious play here is to start McKinstry and his 1.000 whip and only 4.5 BB/9. Better peripherals than Maeda.

I haven’t done the research myself, but I’ve seen it on other baseball websites that Baez’ current OPS is the lowest in modern history by a qualified player. Even if he was among the best defensive SS ever to play the game, that offensive production isn’t worth it. Give me Deivi Cruz all day over that.

Baez fell off the cliff a few years ago. At this point it’s like that scene from The Simpsons where they pull Homer out of the bottom of the gorge and load him into the ambulance and then immediately crash the ambulance into a tree and he rolls out of the back and falls down the gorge again…

100%. I’d argue that surprise team is more the Royals this year than us.

I agree 100% If Harris & Co. trade Skubal to the O’s or Dodgers and doesn’t strip their farm system of three of their top 5 guys minimally, I’d want them fired. This is not a scenario where you move Skubal for a package that is comfortable for the other team. It needs to hurt.

I just think we are too far back at this point to gear decisions around our future around the unlikelihood of us making a magical run this year. Id put Skubal/Flaherty/Olson up against most any other team, but we’ve also had those guys all year and we’ve consistently not converted their all-star level performances into even a .500 team heading into August. There’s a lot of issues with this bullpen, offense and defense that are going to be amplified if we stand pat and make the playoffs., and it’ll be harder to make a big trade in our favor during the offseason when key teams aren’t desperate. For every time an average team with a few good SPs makes an unlikely run to the WS, there’s a team with a Verlander/Scherzer/Sanchez/Fister/Porcello rotation that stalls out and doesn’t get it done. Your point is valid though. The last few weeks have been fun, but I’d prefer we try to set ourselves up to make multiple runs at the division and WS in the coming years.

Kjersted is great and all, but are we in the market for an LH outfielder? Not sure why that would be the headliner in a Skubal deal where we can aggressively go after exactly what we need or stand pat with the best pitcher in baseball until next deadline. That would all but leave one of Meadows/Carpenter/Perez expendable especially by the time Clark is knocking on the door. The trade would get us a great young player in Kjersted, but we’d end up shipping at least one of our current young core out later anyway…so it minimizes the overall return. We need Carps power upside, and Perez is a definite plus being a switch hitter and playing all 3 OF positions and being competent all around on offense. I guess you’d move on from Meadows but dealing him likely doesn’t get us much of a return unless he comes back blazing hot. Give me either Holliday/Mayo/Povich, Basalo/Mayo/Povich or go screw. Either of those acquisitions immediately fills in the roster now and for the future without us needing to make corresponding decisions on young players. Acquiring Skubal for your World Series runs the next 3 seasons should absolutely hurt the other teams minor league system, not be convenient for them.

Agreed. Despite that it would be clearly throwing in the towel this year (especially with what our Frankenstein rotation would be), I’ll take significantly adding upside to our young contending core over trying to weasel into the wildcard this year with a team not capable of making a serious run beyond that. it’ll be disappointing for two months this season but super exciting beyond that. Especially if we can address pitching in the offseason.

Depends on the timeline for Mize and Olson to return. Sounds like Mize could be back at some point after this road trip if reports are to be believed. but yeah the current injury issues really complicate what could be a very opportunistic deadline

Can Tork learn SS?

At this point I trust Skubal to put together a better AB than what Baez will give us

I’m gonna be really frustrated if we trade one of our two top pitchers and don’t address SS with the return.

Oh I don’t feel bad. I’m sure they’ll pull some other goofy named white kid out of their system who will inexplicably be dominant like they always do.

Not that I like seeing anyone hurt, but if Bibee goes on the DL that really helps our quest to make up ground on them in the division.

I’m sure there are scouts from all over the league here representing the robust trade market for Mark Canha

Demoting Torkelson certainly helps with this stat….

I’d be curious to hear what the trade market would be for Torkelson and Manning. Obviously they’re not at high value, but still young with potential. Maybe swapping them for players in a similar boat within their organizations that we identify a high ceiling for could be a shrewd move. Otherwise do we just let them stall out and fade away?

Sure, but he just went April through the last week of July with only 11 starts and 41 innings. So it could very easily go either way.

Very true, however he’s sitting just over 40 innings pitched and we are almost to August. He had something like 66 innings last year. He’s also had injuries pop up each of the last two years that has cost him some time. Getting him up to the 90-100 innings range for the rest of the year sounds great, but let’s get him there first.

To clarify my actual point here: I’m not trying to say Jobe isn’t allowed to be promoted to Detroit or that him getting innings there is a problem. Im saying that going into 2025, it would be reckless to expect Jobe to be a full fledged member of the rotation and for him to be expected to compete at a high level for a full season while needing to make a huge jump in workload. If we are talking about having him work out of the pen or as a spot starter, that’s an entirely different situation. I think we all agree that if we can have a successful trade deadline and further address needs in the offseason that we should be able to further compete for a playoff spot next year. Assuming the loss of Flaherty, we are looking at a most likely scenario of Skubal/Olson/Mize, and then the internal options of Manning/Maeda/Montero/Jobe/Gipson-Long. It’s pretty apparent that Maeda is cooked, and the org seems to have soured quite a bit on Manning being a viable option. If anyone here sees Keider Montero as a viable 4 or 5 starter on a playoff caliber team, please elaborate on why. So you have the two wild cards with Jobe and SGL. SGL has good peripherals and would be a good choice for a spot pending his health. Jobe, while clearly capable from an ability standpoint, is still very young and hasn’t gone through the workload increase to suggest that he’s going to be able to go a full season as a starter without having periods where we limit innings, skip him in the rotation, or shut him down for a time period. If we start him in the rotation and he does really well but runs out of gas midway through the year and we have to take measures to work around that—is it really beneficial to the team? All of those extra innings and starts are going to be picked up by our garbage heap of Faedo/Wentz/Manning/Maeda/etc. Would it not make more sense to get Jobe his innings across multiple levels and deploy him strategically in Detroit rather than go into the year relying on him to provide something that he may not physically be capable of? My argument for next years rotation is not that Jobe doesn’t have the ability, it’s that if we are trying to position ourselves to contend, we need to bring in at least one starter who has a strong track record of being reliable and competitive and if that means that we don’t unleash Jobe fully until 2026, then so be it. But heading into the year expecting Jobe to be a major part of the team is short-sighted. For all I care he can get innings at whatever level the organization wants to get him innings at. Just temper the expectations of him taking on a full workload at the major league level next year.

The point isn’t that he can’t get big league hitters out. It’s that you can’t take Jobes workload and jump it up 100+ innings from what he has been previously done and expect him to maintain effectiveness and health. For all I care he could come up and take Wentz spot in the bullpen right now. You just can’t at this point go into 2025 thinking he’s gonna give you 33 starts or 200 innings without running into problems all along the way that would require adequate roster strategy in place as a contingency. Id rather us go get an established and capable arm for that potential rotation spot than get 3 months of Jobe at full strength and then have to revert to Manning or Maeda if Jobe fatigues during a hypothetical playoff run.

Agree. And SGL is older and has the workload history