Here’s a roundup of reactions to the Orioles’ somewhat puzzling weekend acquisition of Jeremy Hellickson and cash from the Phillies for Hyun Soo Kim, minor-league pitcher Garrett Cleavinger and the rights to international bonus spending.
- From the Orioles’ perspective, the Hellickson deal feels like part of a broader plan the team hasn’t yet made clear, Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun writes. The move signals that the Orioles could be ready to part ways with someone from their struggling current starting rotation (Chris Tillman, Kevin Gausman, Dylan Bundy, Wade Miley and Ubaldo Jimenez), but Hellickson’s own numbers (he has a 4.73 ERA, and his 5.21 K/9, 2.4 BB/9 and 35.1% ground-ball rate are even less encouraging) don’t suggest he can be much better.
- Orioles exec Dan Duquette says the team made the deal because it sought a reliable starting pitcher, MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko writes. “We’d like to be competitive,” says Duquette. “Nobody’s running away with the American League. We’ve got our bullpen back. If we can get some stability to our starting pitching, the rest of our team is intact. Hellickson has been a consistent performer and very competitive.” Duquette further explains that Trey Mancini’s emergence made Kim expendable. Mancini is batting .297/.343/.516 in a surprising rookie season. “The on-base capability that (Kim) showed last year and the ability to hit velocity, he probably didn’t have enough at-bats to sustain that with the way Mancini played as an everyday player,” he says.
- The Phillies had little leverage in trading Hellickson, who was performing poorly and would have been a free agent at the end of the season, Corey Seidman of CSN Philly writes. Kim is also a free agent at the end of the season, and Garrett Cleavinger, the minor-leaguer the Phillies received, has unimpressive statistics as a Double-A reliever and might end up being “just a guy.”
Wish the Red Sox would grab more pitching.
Hellickson is no better than Fister in the AL and Fister isn’t as good as Brian Johnson or Valazquez who for some reason Dombrowski won’t call back up from AA because they think they will lose Fister is they DFA him..
Fister is worthless at this point, just like Hellickson, only Philly paid Hellickson 17m his season.
And everyone commented on what a bad move it was to not even call Fister up and just release him.
What a bad move for the Angels. Sorry.
everyone’s reaction to the hellickson trade: W T F
“They had little leverage”
Yeah, but more than a Kim rental and a nothing minor league rp!
The international signing money is significant. That was the centerpiece.
They’ll probably trade the int. Money for the minor leaguer they give Philly. Cruz Baltimore hates inter atonal signinfs
I think he’s looking at it from the O’s perspective. Makes no sense for a team out of the race to acquire a rental.
everyone’s reaction to the hellickson trade: what the &@$#
i guess orioles could always try to flip him before the deadline or in august if some team becomes desperate.
they didnt give up anything and we’rent going to use the interational money; apparently the phils will.
Which leads to the question: why don’t the Orioles use their international money? We keep giving it away as if it didn’t matter, but it does.
Look at how many good international players there are in baseball. Even the O’s have a good one in Schoop.
I don’t get it. But nothing dumb from this management team surprises me anymore.
I’ll guess I’ll just start rooting for the Nats (I was a part-time Senators fan anyway when I was a kid) until Angelos is dead and Duquette has moved on.
Gotta think its mostly Angelos and not Duquette. Looking as a fan from the outside (Rays fan) I think Duquette has done a pretty amazing job considering who he has to deal with above.
“Nobody’s running away with the American League. ”
I realize he means the wild card but this is funny
He means the division, and he’s correct.
Pretty uninspiring comments from the Orioles exec. This Hellickson signing signifies that Orioles are content to simply tread water. Their strategy of coupling above average hitting with mediocre innings eaters obviously hasn’t worked. They need an ace to anchor that staff.
But they’ll never get an ace because their organizational pitching philosophy is atrocious. They want everyone using the same mechanics and they ban certain pitches. I guarantee Gausman will leave and become a TOR pitcher.
Amazing. Does this go for relief pitchers too? Because it seems to work well for their relief pitchers, but not their starters.
Umm… no. That was the case for a few years under Rick Peterson, but he is no longer with the organization. Peterson was a great pitching coach in MLB, but was also a big proponent of biomechanics in developing pitchers. As a result of his input, pitchers were not allowed to throw cutters (primarily due to injury concerns) and many pitchers had their mechanics messed with to try and make their deliveries more efficient. Although his theories are sound, when put into practice they were less successful.
So you see, @justinept, you are woefully uneducated about the current state of the Orioles organization. As for your guarantee about Gausman, if last night’s performance against Texas (and his performances over the last month, giving up 0 or 1 run in five of his last seven starts) is any indication, he won’t be going to Toronto any time… ever.
Everyone needs an ace to anchor their staff, just not that many to go around.
But the Orioles thought they had aces in training. Gauseman was supposed to take a major step forward, he hasn’t. Bundy got off to a great start, but he’s tiring and they’re putting him on a pitch/innings limit. Their nominal ace, Tillman, was hurt to start the season and has been regressing. So, with those three guys living up to no where near expectations, the Orioles had to jury rig something. They’ve given several pitchers a chance, but no one has stepped forward to grab a spot. Wilson, Wright, Ynoa, Edwin Jackson, Asher, and others have all failed
We all know that the best that can be expected out of Miley and Jimenez is inconsistency. So, unless the Orioles wanted to trade some of the better prospects, and they do have some, don’t let anyone tell you different, this is about the best that they can do.
There’s one thing interesting about Jimenez (I know from having played in fantasy baseball leagues): he’s good in September. You can look it up.
Every year for the past six, including last year, he’s been good in September.
I used to joke that maybe the O’s should mark every month as Sept. on their calendars.
Oriole’s are confusing, they seem to trade away most of their international spending allotment every year. But their farm system seems to be lacking in talent, they remind me of the phillies, where they may get stuck in mediocrity with ageing vets with big contracts. When do they decide to do a tear down. Also what about Manny everyone knows he going to test free agency, and won’t receive as much for him as a rental next year. Stuck in a bind.
Love that display name! Short answer: Angelos and Duquette!
From this distant observer’s perspective, it seems that almost every move the Orioles make is inevitably the wrong move. O’s fans deserve better.
We do. Some of us—like me—have been following them for fifty years.
We can cut this an infinite number of ways and still come to the same conclusion – it makes no sense at all.
Hellickson is more useful to the orioles than Kim whether it’s for this season or longer but it’s just stupid. I guess it’s an audition for next years rotation to see if angelos wants to spend any money on resigning hellickson since we’ll have 3 open slots.
A fly-ball pitcher in Camden Yards? Smooth move, Duquette.
Unless the Orioles sign Arrieta, Darvish, Tanaka or Cueto (if the latter 2 opt out) or trade for an ace they should blow it up and get what they can for Machado before they receive nothing. Almost nobody will give the Orioles top prospects at July for a 2 month rental, but if you shop him at the Winter Meetings they could probably get something useful.
This trade made no sense from either team’s perspective. The Orioles get a useless pitcher and the Phillies get a useless minor leaguer. I understand the bonus money slot was significant for the Phillies—same as was in the trade with Washington—but what’s the point in getting that money if they don’t spend it? The Phillies have a long and sad history of international free agents; while there have been countless players to target in recent years, and with many big-market teams unable to spend, the Phillies sat on their hands. Will they attempt to spend now that they know other teams are barred from blowing them out of the water? Will it be less embarrassing to negotiate?
Actually, the Phillies have done reasonably well in the Latin American market. Some examples are Carlos Ruiz, Carlos carrasco, Freddy Galvis, maikal Franco, and many guys in their minor league system, Tocci, Sixto Sanchez, Franklyn Kilome, Adonis Medina, Ranger Suarez, Jailyn Ortiz, and many others.
The trade itself is not bad. A Double AA reliever type and an expiring contract for an innings eater. That’s fair. The fact that the O’s think they are buyer and somehow in this thing is what makes me say what the ****. We should not be buying but selling. Angelos is probably freaking out and pushing DD to buy because the window in closing with Machado and Jones both FA’s in 2018. DD should be fired on the spot for thinking we’re in a spot to contend.
IMO it’s Old Man’s Syndrome. It seems like a lot of old owners ignore the future for one last shot at the playoffs—except Lerner in D.C.
Old man Steinbrenner was that way too before he died. Now that he’s gone, Cashman is holding on to his prospects and not giving in to the temptation for short term gain.
Anyway, I agree with everything you just said.
What DD wanted to say – “That delusional old geezer Angelos made me do it”
Egggggggggggggzactly!
I think its a good pick up for Baltimore.He might not be an ace, but he’s no lower than a 2 in their rotation.and theyre giving up an of who wasnt getting enough abs, and a struggling aa reliever. 6.5 back with 60 games left isnt an impossible margin to make up.and if they dont make up ground in a couple of weeks,they can still try to trade him in august.
Even from the Phillies perspective, i see this as a good trade.our lh relievers in the majors are Adam Morgan and Hoby Milner.that shows we dont have very good lh relief depth.we get a guy who did good in rookie and low-a ball,but has struggled in high and double a ball. Maybe a change in scenery and different coaches in his ear can help him get back to what he did in the lower minors.
And even though the Phils have a couple ofs getting closer to the bigs in Quinn and Cozens, they still only had 4 ofs at every level between mlb and Lakewood.so they werent exactly in a position to call anyone up.Kim gives us an extra of at the ml level, and he might even help us sell a few tickets to the korean community in philly.
My only complaint about this article is that it assumes that the Orioles have a plan. Based solely on this trade, I’m not at all sure that they do.
There was probably little or no interest in Hellickson so Klentak (who was stuck with Hellickson last year) felt compelled to move him to the first team to take a peek. Klentak is clearly in over his head and MacFail is letting him sway in the wind.
Plain and simple: Hellickson”s first 4 letters in his last name say it all. As for the consistency the O’s think they are getting-4.5+era doesn’t seem like any part any future plan. Maybe they thought get something for Kim rather than nothing. Too much other talent out there coming up that could have been traded for. How does anyone compete in this division with the attitude it’s acceptable to let 4 or more runs cross the plate? Nonsense. Simply ridiculous nonsense.
Lol what a joke. Phillies should have traded him about 365 days ago and picked up a top 100 prospect. After all this rebuilding the best team in the AL has a better farm system (according to Keith Law) at #4 than the Phillies at #7.
Considering they were near the bottom when it began,being up to 7 is an accomplishment