Frobby

No he won’t, and he shouldn’t. No chance were giving up Kjerstad, Westburg and a pitcher for Cease now. That would have been a stretch before we traded Ortiz and Hall. Now it would be robbing Peter to pay Paul. And just to review, before the Burnes trade I said I thought Kjerstad/Cowser + Ortiz/Norby and maybe a third piece was fair. I probably would have considered Kjerstad + Westburg without a third piece. But with Hall and Ortiz already traded, we’d feel a Westburg trade a lot more than before, and giving up another pitcher would be more difficult too. So, I just don’t see it happening.

I’m still checking in, but I can’t imagine the O’s are still interested in Cease, so no point in commenting on possible trades here. Elias is downplaying these injuries: “I do want to be clear that we’re expecting both of those guys back, so I don’t want to go crazy ringing the alarm bells there. “ I see that Joey Ortiz was ranked no. 45 by Fangraphs today. The Brewers will be happy with what they got for Burnes.

They are not very similar players. Ortiz has way more defensive value and significantly better power. Madrigal probably has the better hit tool. Like I said before, I’m not saying Ortiz is certain to turn out better than Madrigal has, but they’re really not analogous at all in terms of skill set. And honestly, I just thought the whole snarky “Nicky Ortiz” thing was juvenile. The tone bothered me more than the substance. Elias said in his press conference today that Milwaukee strongly desired Ortiz and that he had many inquiries about him over the offseason from other teams. And just to say it one more time, I never thought Ortiz would be the feature piece of a Cease trade. I just think you guys were too dismissive of him as the second piece in a deal, though there certainly were other ways to go in a potential trade with the O’s.

Just stopping in to thank Sox fans here for the good discussions of the possibility of an O’s deal for Cease over the last two months. A few parting thoughts: 1. I think the O’s probably would have been willing to pay more for two years of Cease than they did for one year of Burnes. But at the same time, Burnes is a much better bet to be a true ace starter in 2024 than Cease would be for either of 2024-25. So, I’m very happy getting Burnes. He’s far less risky performance-wise. 2. I wouldn’t necessarily say that Ortiz was the lead piece of this deal Hall has long been a top 100 prospect (still is, under BA’s criteria of who qualifies as a prospect). He still has a very high ceiling (Snell/Hader) and at this point, a good high leverage reliever floor. 3. That said, you guys have always been too dismissive of Ortiz. The Madrigal comp was very stupid. Ortiz is an excellent defensive SS and Madrigal’s a decent 2B/3B. Ortiz has a .150 ISO in the minors compared to Madrigal’s .099. I am not saying that Ortiz will turn out to be a better overall player than Madrigal (though at this point, I think it’s likely), but they’re really not the same type of player, so the snarky “Nicky Ortiz” comments were never warranted. I think he could have been an excellent addition for your team as the second piece of a trade and you would have enjoyed watching him play. We’ll see how that goes in Milwaukee. 4. From my very first post, I said Cease wasn’t the O’s only option, the O’s weren’t the Sox’s only option, and I doubted anything would happen until the second half of January or later. I was right on all three counts! Good luck to you in finding a good return for Cease. For your sake I hope he has a good year if he’s still in Chicago so that you can get a nice return at the deadline and enjoy watching him pitch until then. Meanwhile, I’ll be enjoying watching Burnes pitch for the O’s. Ciao.

I’m not a huge fan of fWAR, to be honest, for reasons relating to ludicrous overvaluations they gave to Sidney Ponson and Ubaldo Jimenez back in the days when they were Orioles. And I think with Statcast derived stats like xERA, FIP (on which fWAR is based) is kind of outdated. But I do look at and consider fWAR, I’m just not overly reliant on it. Anyway, ZiPS has its own version of WAR, zWAR. Its median projection for Cease is 3.0 zWAR, with the 80th percentile projection at 4.1 and the 20th percentile at 1.3. I think your point that Cease probably eoukd fare better with the Orioles’ defense and catchers is well-taken. On the other hand, making 4-5 extra starts against AL East opponents instead of AL Central opponents will cut the other way.

Hi Sox fans - I haven’t poked my head in here for a few weeks, and said I wouldn’t unless and until there was a solid rumor or an actual deal involving Cease. But I decided to make a brief exception today to mention the ZiPS projection for Cease that came out today. Briefly, the median projection is for 166 innings at a 3.90 ERA, 111 ERA+. There’s also an 80th percentile projection at a 3.32 ERA, and a 20th percentile projection at 4.81 ERA. The gap between the 80th and 20th percentile projections is really wide. For example, here are the 80/20 projections for the Orioles’ four incumbent starters: Bradish 3.16/4.29 Rodriguez 3.40/4.41 Kremer 3.49/4,69 Means 3.78/4.83 The 80/20 “risk band” on those four ranges from 1.01 - 1.20 runs per game, whereas Cease’s is 1.49. So, for whatever reason, ZiPS sees Cease as a guy whose performance could fluctuate a lot more than some other pitchers, at least with respect to ERA. Overall, that portrait of Cease is pretty much consistent with how I see him. But if anything, the 80th percentile scenario is probably not as strong as I would have guessed. I will leave this for you guys to consider and discuss.

The reason we happen to be on this board is that @Chicago White Sox came onto our board first and posted his thoughts about a Cease trade for a week or two. Nobody from Miami, Cleveland and Milwaukee has done that. I might add that we had quite a good conversation going with @Chicago White Sox over there. I am sorry that the conversation over here has taken some bad turns over the last week or so. I am bowing out of this discussion for now, though I might return if concrete reports of a pending trade appear from a credible source. I wish the Sox all the best in their efforts to get a good return for Cease.

He absolutely never said that. From just after the November GM meetings: “Yeah, we’re keeping it relatively open because we have to see what opportunities present themselves in this market," he said. "We’ve got two guys in (Kyle) Bradish and (Grayson) Rodriguez that basically pitched like front-end starters all year, most of the year, and they are coming back. But there is pressure on them and it would be nice to bring them some help. If we are able to import a clear upgrade to one of our rotation spots that’s going to radiate out into the rest of the rotation. We’ll see what the best opportunity is, who the best person is for the job. Whether we are able to get our hands on this guy. It is hard to narrow yourself too much going into an offseason. There are not that many people (as starters) available." https://www.masnsports.com/blog/o-s-mike-elias-on-groundwork-laid

Miniscule sample size, really. So, it’s very hard to tell what he’ll do, except assume a standard translation from AAA to the majors.

Don’t worry, I am not easily offended. I agree that those sites you listed are all ones I look at. Also Baseball Prospectus at times. Just Baseball is one I came across this summer when their principal, Adam Leighton, was being interviewed about the Orioles’ most recent draft. They have a weekly podcast that I’ve now listened to a couple of times and it’s pretty good. Here’s a late-season article from them about the White Sox farm system. https://www.justbaseball.com/prospects/where-the-chicago-white-sox-farm-system-stands/

I do care what Tony has to say. There are some other Orioles-related sites that rank their prospects where I really don’t care much what they say, because they’re too biased towards the O’s prospects. Tony has a pretty good track record of being somewhat objective. Nobody gets these things right every time anyway.

Well, your position has moved quite a bit over the last few weeks based on your perception of a “hot market.” But I’m not sure, when the currency is prospects rather than cash, that the market really changes much, if at all. You are still weighing your evaluation of the players on each side of trade, the service time they have remaining, and the risks involved. I personally would never trade Mayo, Kjerstad and McDermott for two years of Cease. Would Elias? I doubt it, but I don’t know. Not do I know if these other teams might bite at your suggestions. I guess we’ll see.

I have not accused anyone on this site of being biased. But I did just give you a credible (IMO) postseason list that had Ortiz over Schultz. I fully recognize that other lists, and maybe the majority of them, will put Schultz higher. Anyway, as you are well aware, I’ve never proposed Ortiz as the headline piece for Cease, only the second piece, with Norby as an alternative choice. I’ve asked for explanations of why fans don’t want Ortiz, and have given some details of why I think he’d help the Sox. But if the Sox don’t think Ortiz fits their plan, fine. I’ve certainly done and said nothing to try to “shove Ortiz down your throats.”

You are referring to the mlb.com list, I assume? Well, it was published August 5. Schultz pitched 7 innings after that. I don’t know how recently the mlb.com guys had checked in on Schultz before that list came out. Yes I’d guess he’s more likely to move up than down. I think most of these sites that rate prospects do a significant reevaluation over the winter, which is why most of those lists come out in February and not September and October. So, we’ll see. I don’t know much about Schultz, is there a reason the WS limited him to 27 innings last year?

Well, that does support the view that Ortiz > Schultz, though there’s not a big difference between 50 and 61: It’s kind of an apples and oranges comparison anyway and if WS fans would rather have Schultz than Ortiz I’m not going to argue with them, given the needs of the franchise. The statement a few pages back that all 30 GMs would take Schultz over Ortiz is highly debatable though. A site I like, justbaseball.com, has Ortiz 45 and Schultz 49 (Montgomery is 14 BTW). https://www.justbaseball.com/prospects/mlb-top-100-prospects-2023/ That’s a postseason list.