Tony-OH

We get, you're an Angelos guy, but I think you are short selling what he actually said. He's always allowed Elias to run things which is good, but he absolutely is a part of setting the budget. No owners gives a blank check to their GMs. Now, can Elias spend within that budget, sure.

If Angelos came up and kicked you in the nads, I bet you'd thank him for not cutting them off. If you really think owners allow GMs to decide their budgets then you are delusional.

Unfortunately you are talking apples and oranges when it comes to building a team in the pre free agency era and now.

I agree he has done things different than his father. That is the one thing that can not be argued because of his hiring of Elias and allowing him to run things as he sees fit, or at least within budget. I don't like much about the guy, but I don't need to like the owner to be a fan of the team. At the end of the day, if he provides the funds so Elias can add/keep the necessary pieces then he's doing his job. Then it will be on Elias to build a true World Series contender and stop bringing in players that need comebacks to get them there.

If they win and we see that he's added payroll then he will get as much credit as any owner. At the end of the day, the best thing he's done is hire Elias and let him do what he needed to do until this year when I think he gave Elias lower budget then he was expecting. Now that's my impression based off his "lift off" comment and then watching Elias have to walk back the comment. Now, it might be on Elias that they didn't spend much and of course I was not particularly happy with how he used his additional expenses this season by signing an unneeded (in my opinion) Frazier. I agree with people that Angelos wants a legacy and right now his legacy, and that of his father, is of privilege and failure as owners. If the Orioles win a World Series though, he gets the ownership credit for hiring Elias and ultimately providing the funds to make it happen. I don't see anyone could not give him credit if they do win the Wolrd Series under his ownership.

Tone deaf is what you become when you grow up rich with no reason to work hard or a need to be good at anything. He just walks around acting like he's some crowned prince of the Orioles and Baltimore, hobnobbing with his political elites who were installed by the peasants who voted for them because they think they will be given a loaf of bread and a roof over their heads. It's easy to disgustingly bark at a peasant reporter who makes his living most likely paycheck to paycheck for not adhering to whatever charade the prince wanted to be applauded for, then it would be to address the very clear issues being brought up. How dare the peasant reporter speak to the prince in such a way. No, no, no, that's not how this works. The prince will then turn to his recently hired propagandist to try and defend his words and actions which will allow certain peasants to be placated and thus, back to supporting their royalty. John Angelos is not going to sell until the sale of the Orioles will make him, and him alone a very, very rich Nashville man.

Actions speak louder than words. So far the only action John Angelos has done well is hire Elias. He now considers us to be a small market team which explains why the Orioles budget is so low when this was the first year they could have become a legitimate contender with real spending. Angelos says he could see a payroll that could approaches $100 million, which if this were 1996 again, would be a great payroll. But in today's market, that means we will need continual waves of young players to replace the Rutschman's and Henderson's who will only be here until they get expensive. As long as people understand that they should not get too attached to the players, this model could potentially make us into a Tampa-style team that wins decently during the season, but who has come up short in post season so far. Perhaps the Orioles will be able to get hot one year and sneak a World Series before going back to the wildcard fighting days. Saying all that, I agree with those who say this team will never be old until the Hesitance tax piece is settled and after that, as long as John Angelos feels he can make money off the Orioles, he's not going to sell. Now, I do think his healthy ego wants to be fed by seeing the Orioles successful, but he's doesn't have the money or capital to invest in the team beyond what the Orioles can spend. In other words, he's not pulling a San Diego or New York Mets to make the team good. We will have to see how this plays out.

I do think the budget affected Elias' winter, but he still spent over $25 million for Gibson, McCann and our favorite new player Frazier. So I think it's partly the budge and party on how Elias decided to use his resources when he had prospects ready to play positions he filled with questionable players. We'll see how it works out.

So wait, some people are excited over Reed Garrett because a reporter thinks his bullpen session looked good on the first day of camp? Really? Garrett is a 30-year old right-handed reliever with a Fastball, sinker, cutter, split-change mix. He's got a career 7.66 ERA and a 2.35 WHIP in 20 major league games the cover 24.2 IP. But hey, Cousin Eddie is like after a bullpen session. lol Honestly, there will be an opportunity with Tate out, but you have to believe Politte's chances of making team just went up if he looks decent. Maybe a guy like Garrett will suddenly find it, but I think there's a better chance of him going to Norfolk then making the team out of spring training.

Why would Elias even mention it if it's not an issue anymore? Either way, we'll see how they use him in spring games because we know the Orioles err on the side of extreme caution when it comes to tweaks and twinges.

Yes, and that's a big help for sure. The AL East if going to be brutal.

You "answered" the poll by telling me my heading and polls questions didn't match. They absolutely did. Reread what you wrote. That was an attack in the OP and if you plan to do that, at least give better criteria that you can actually use. I literally set a criteria (40% chance on Sept 1st) so people wouldn't just go off and use whatever criteria they wanted to decide if the Orioles were contenders. Instead of talking about the team, you decided to start your post basically saying my poll was dumb. So the answer to you latest question is you, you pissed in my cornflakes. Sorry if you don't like the response, but I don't like people telling my posts/polls are dumb. Saying all that, it's over let's move on. I don't hold grudges unless it becomes constant.

True. I did forget to mention Tampa but I agree, they are full of young talent as well and are ahead of the Orioles in many ways still. It's an uphill challenge for sure, so even if the Orioles are better then last year, their competition got much better by actually going out and getting impact talent (outside of Tampa).

Beat me to it. Forearm strains are never good. Let's hope it is something minor and he'll be back before May, but every time I hear "forearm strain" I think Tommy John.

This is my concern. I personally think the Orioles treaded water this offseason and need their young players to all take steps forward or repeat what they did last year and that's a lot to ask. It's not impossible that this team contends or plays as well as they did last year, but the Yankees, Blue Jays and Red Sox all improved this offseason while Elias choose to tread water. I'm personally on the fence with whether they can be a contender this year under my criteria. It's not out of the question that they could be battling for the last wildcard in September while needing another team or teams to collapse, but I don't think we can look at what Elias did this offseason and say he made them a true playoff contender. Even if his budget came under what he was expecting, the way he choose to spend his money on Gibson and Frazier vs say Bassitt and Westburg/Ortiz/Urias will be scrutinized if Bassitt is very good for the Blue Jays and say Gibson and Frazier are as advertised. I do see a road to contention and if the young guys do take those steps forward, the bullpen of "unknowns prior to last year" repeat their success, and the starting rotation pitches like they did in the 2nd half last year, then they will be a thick of a wildcard hunt. But that's a lot of ifs and I felt like this is the spring training we should have gone in thinking the Orioles were legitimate playoff contenders. Now it will be up to the players to prove Elias right.

The ball was coming out of his hand real good! lol

Did I call him any names? What rule did I break?

This is the kind of stuff irritates me to no end. Why, because it doesn't match whatever the heck is in your head as to what a contender means? It's a simple thread with a criteria that I clearly defined (so people could vote WITHIN the criteria) that was meant to spark conversation. It matches just fine. Just because it doesn't match whatever criteria you have in your head for whatever a contender means doesn't mean it doesn't match. You want to make Foxfield's version of what it means to be contender, have at it, but I don't appreciate you telling me my criteria and header doesn't match. Was this thread called, what do you think makes a team a contender? Was this thread called tell me why my header and questions don't match? Nope. Now you could have come in here and said "I have a different criteria that I use ...." and that would have been fine, but trying to squat on my criteria in my thread is great way to piss me off. Especially when your "criteria" not a criteria, but something you just made up that includes "improved pitching" "lack of regression" and "much stronger offensive performance." Please, tell us 'ol criteria master, how do you determined what improved pitching and "much" stronger offensive performances means? Your comments don't match your concern over my completely made up "40% chance" on September 1st. Yet, we can look at Fan Graphs playoff odds on September 1st and use my criteria now can't we? If you plan to come at me in my thread, at least come at me with better criteria. And before you say my heading and criteria doesn't match, make sure you understand the definition of the word of criteria.

She is a very good studio host for sure. That is her future niche and the one I hope the Orioles brass realize while she's here.

We seen the ZPS and the Fangraphs odds for the Orioles making the playoff and they go from questionable to doubtful. So here's a simple question, going into spring training right now, are the Orioles legitimate playoff contenders this season. Now I'm personally defining whether a team is a playoff contender or not as whether the team has a legitimate (40% or higher) chance of making the playoffs come September 1st. So did Elias do enough to make you think this team will be in playoff contention come September this year?

When did this become an option? I think Frobby got on high horse, made up an issue, and now it's being repeated. lol This is about the teams being cheap and keeping announcers home. We all agree that we'd be ok with more games televised in anyway, including your no announcer way, if it were possible. Heck, I'm not even sure how we took a left turn and started talking about announcers. Man, we need something real to talk about! soon! lol

That's not the issue at hand. Of course we would take remote broadcasting over nothing, but at the end of the day, it's embarrassing that these organizations can't broadcast more of these games with announcers there. What's it's cost for two announcers and a producer to spend a month in Florida? $40-$50K... These are multi-million companies. That's nothing. Hell, the Orioles are spending $9.4 million on O'hearn and Frazier. I think 50K isn't much to spend on their fans experience. And we know the Yankees are a bunch of money bags so they are even more embarrassing to cut pennies.

I think they will have to either play Henderson or Frazier against that tough lefty and neither are good at hitting lefties. Hopefully Henderson will improve.

That's embarrassing. No one likes remote broadcasts and it takes away from any telecast when the announcers are watching the TV screen. Can't believe the once 1st class Yankees would pull something like this. This sounds like something the Angelos led Orioles would do.

I'm afraid to comment since this could develop into the conversation we've had around here about 1000 times, but yeah, this is on point. Saying that, I have zero issues with Gunnar playing shortstop and third base this year since we have to find a way to get Urias on the field at 3B since he is a gold glover. Since we have to look forward with what the Elias gave Hyde, I think we will see these kinds of lineups: Normal RHP: Frazier - 2B Henderson - SS and Mateo at times Urias - 3B and Henderson when Mateo plays SS Normal LHP: Urias - 2B Mateo - SS Henderson - 3B Tough LHP: 2B - Frazier SS - Mateo 3B - Urias