Quote:
Originally Posted by Gooch
The most frustrating part of the Orioles is that their recent prospects were all ones we were considering but passed over and apparently they're doing much better than ours. Moskos over Wieters (Moskos isnt even with our team anymore), Taillon over Machado, Cole over Bundy. All of theirs have reached the majors and Machado has been a solid contributor. Another thing that irks me is that I was a big Chris Davis fan as someone I thought he Pirates couldve really targeted from the Rangers for a sack of baseballs. The Orioles got him and a dime a dozen pitcher for a reliever last year at the deadline.
That easily couldve been us with a different direction from management. I was a taillon fan so I cant get up in arms over that pick but I certainly wasnt sold on Cole and well the Wieters one is an obvious mistake. There seems to be a general problem with our player development as well. I don't think Machado would be anywhere near the majors if we drafted him yet the Orioles tried him out right away same with Bundy. In our efforts to try to force things like the fastball academy we run the risk of stagnating our prospects. I realize a lot of it has to do with our market size and management's desire to let the player develop in the minors before running off the MLB service clock but it's getting annoying.
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That's one of the biggest reasons I can't say Huntington has a done good job. The Orioles have picked almost directly behind the Pirates each of those years and their players are having an impact for a playoff team that plays in the hardest division in baseball. Bundy was a high school pick and made the majors a year later. Machado was a high school pick and is already starting for a playoff team. The O's were as a bad as franchise as the Pirates the last 15 years yet their new GM didn't need 5 years to only improve the depth of the system and make the team go from terrible to bad.
If you do things right, it shouldn't take 5 years to show moderate improvement.