Pickles

I think if they sign someone it will be a BP arm.

If it isn't dead, it is dying.

While this is all true, I'm just pointing out that the Angelos family is dependent upon the revenue of the O's in a way that the Lerners aren't in DC, or that Bisciotti isn't with the Ravens.

Agreed. As I said, it's very unfortunate for us as fans. But does he not have a right to operate his business in such a way that allows him to maintain ownership of it?

I'm talking about an income stream outside of the baseball team. The only way the family has to make money is through the team. That isn't the case for many (most?) franchise owners who are independently wealthy and/or own successful businesses. The source of the Angelos' family wealth is the law firm; apparently, the firm is dead. They need to operate the team to turn a profit annually. Most teams don't operate like that.

I don't know if it "makes sense," but I will say we fans are very unlucky that the ownership group of our team relies on that team to generate an income stream. That's very unfortunate for us.

Very clearly looks like he's give them X to spend but they get to determine how to spend X. Which is exactly what we've been asking them to do for decades now.

It sounds to me like he sets a budget for Baseball Ops, and the baseball people decide how to spend it, thus they are ultimately determining the major league payroll. If true, that's even better news.

Ok, by that standard every single owner of every franchise is meddling when they set a budget.

Actually, I think it's good. He's not going to involve himself in the baseball decision-making. We should all be thrilled.

You know, I suspect it is possible some of your past co-workers might not have only positive things to say about you! But of course that is not an entire indictment of your life.

I think criticism of the Angelos family, and specific Angeloses, in the context of being terrible owners of the Baltimore Orioles is well-deserved. The personal stuff is not; nobody here is in a position to really say anything about that. When I was a kid I had a personal vitriol for Peter Angelos because he was such a terrible owner. But then you grow up and the world becomes a little more complex. If you grow up. Being a bad baseball owner doesn't neccessarily make you a bad person. The fact is, Peter Angelos has done a lot of charitable good work for the city and people of Baltimore.

I mean it's such a laughable propisition. If you can trust the other guy to make a "fair" offer, then what's the point in even negotiating. Just accept whatever is offerered. Surely nobody would try to profit at your expense. Nobody in human history has ever tried to profit at the expense of others. Never happens.

Sure, your moronic take- which you don't even believe yourself and are only stating because it so happens to support your larger point- is really proof of your moral superiority and my moral failings. LOL. Every GM is trying to win every single transaction they make or they'll be out of a job real quick. You know how you best improve your team? You trade less valuable things for more valuable things.

I got to chime in here. Do you honestly think GMs aren't trying to actively "win" trades by receiving more value than they give up? You're just saying that because it happens to support whatever point you're trying to make, right? Because if not, and I hate to go all Sports Guy here, but that's really f-in stupid to think.

Well any criticism of the ownership group imo is well-founded.

IMO the board should be far more pro-FO than it is. But I think that is largely a product of the psychology of social media. People like to spend a lot more time criticizing than they do praising.

The strawmen that they are constantly arguing with who goes around claiming Elias is Jesus Christ ressurected.

This might seem counterintuitive, but I actually think our WS odds are higher than our division odds. I think we have a much better chance against the NYY in a 7 game series than a 162 game season.

Well his days of catching 162 games a year are probably behind him.

I don't see how it can be argued they aren't. They're better than they were last year, and they were legitimate contenders last year- at least by the metric used here. Now, that doesn't mean that that will happen. But as of right now, there's little to suggest it won't.

Well, you're talking process vs. results, and yeah, I agree. You want to judge the process and not the results. My question to Frobby was a little different though. I think it's fair to judge this offseason a C or even D. But what I'm asking is: What if it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things all that much? So yeah, if the team regresses then people who have taken your stance on the off-season will look to have been fairly correct, in that the team needed to upgrade and bolster the improvements seen last year through external means. But what if this team wins 90 games and makes the playoffs? Then is it still fair to call the offseason a C or D? And if their success is almost entirely due to guys not acquired in the offseason, does it even matter? Because while we can evaluate the process, we are not privy to massive amounts of information that go into that process, and ultimately, at the end of the day, this is a results buisness.

It doesn't look like Mateo is going to be an every day player in that case. And it would also mean Gunnar is going to move around too.

Results of their offseason moves have little to do with evaluating their offseason moves?

If the Orioles win 90 games this season, but it's largely not because of anything they did this offseason, have the O's proven the assessments wrong? And were they wrong?