GM meetings a success per AM

[Sports Guy]

Were the Tiger fans "realistic" when they went after Magglio and Pudge AND went younger ?

The Tigers made 2 very poor and risky signings that ended up being good.

It just isn't smart...We need sustained success...Not a wham bam thank you ma'am type thing.

[Mackus]

The Tigers got lucky as hell with Magglio, that was a terribly risky contract, and even in hindsight its easy to say it was a dumb risk. It paid off, but just because hitting on 19 sometimes gets you 21, doesn't mean its a good move.

Also, we don't have the young talent, especially the pitching, that the Tigers had. We've got some young pitching, but nobody has the upside of Verlander or Bonderman or Miller.

[Frobby]

The Tigers got lucky as hell with Magglio, that was a terribly risky contract, and even in hindsight its easy to say it was a dumb risk. It paid off, but just because hitting on 19 sometimes gets you 21, doesn't mean its a good move.

Also, we don't have the young talent, especially the pitching, that the Tigers had. We've got some young pitching, but nobody has the upside of Verlander or Bonderman or Miller.

I do not remember all the details, but the Pudge and Magglio contracts were very cleverly structured to put some of the risk back on the players if they continued having injury problems. Therefore, I did not think the contracts were "terribly" risky, just somewhat risky.

[davearm]

I do not remember all the details, but the Pudge and Magglio contracts were very cleverly structured to put some of the risk back on the players if they continued having injury problems. Therefore, I did not think the contracts were "terribly" risky, just somewhat risky.

It'd be interesting to know if the Tigers carry any sort of insurance on either of those guys.

I haven't thought much about Rodriguez, but I'm pretty unimpressed with the injury safeguard that the Tigers built into the Ordonez contract. All Ordonez had to do was stay off the DL for more than 25 days for the first year (and off the DL for anything related to his bad knee only), and he was home free for the last 4, @ $15M per.

[Mackus]

I do not remember all the details, but the Pudge and Magglio contracts were very cleverly structured to put some of the risk back on the players if they continued having injury problems. Therefore, I did not think the contracts were "terribly" risky, just somewhat risky.

Magg's contract was only voidable if he spent 25 or more days on the DL during only the first season of his contract due to a recurrence of the pre-existing injury to his knee. Had he gone on the DL, it would have been very interesting to see the battles between Boras' doctors saying it wasn't the knee and the Tigers doctors saying it was.

Pudge could have been bought out for $5M after '05 or $4M after '06 if he spent 35 or more days on the DL the previous season with a back injury.

They protected themselves fairly well with Pudge, but I don't think they would have been able to get out from Magg's contract very easily if he had gotten hurt.

[Sports Guy]

I don't this is entirely fair. I agree that we have no other impact players right now, but Loewen, Penn, Olson, Ray, Hoey, and Cabrera were intended to be impact players by now. They failed to become impact players to this point for a variety of different reasons. Obviously, young pitching is tough to predict, but I would say we've been pretty unlucky to get so little for our young pitching thus far. Add in that decent players like Ramon and Jay suddenly sucked and marginal players like Payton played terribly and we definitely rolled 7 quite a few times in the last two years.

This team wasn't terribly constructed if we got 500-600 good innings out of the six guys I listed previously. Unfortunately, we got about 60 decent innings, 180 crappy innings, and injuries out of them. There wasn't much other way to go with this team besides that prior to 2006. Our farm system was so freaking bad and we had so little young talent that it isn't surprising that our margin for error was very small.

We now have a lot more young talent at the ML and MiL levels so we should be able to make up ground more quickly. I don't think statements like the ones you've made properly consider just how bad a shape we were in circa 2002. We let a few guys walk for less than we should have gotten like BJ Ryan and Buddy Groom, but the gains made here would have been relatively minor compared to the big picture. We started the marathon in 2003 when the other teams were at the 10 mile mark. That made it pretty hard to look good.

However, regardless of how we got here, we're here. It is time to blow it up with the talent we've got that will be gone or old by 2010. We now have no excuse because we're middle of the pack in ML talent that isn't about to retire and MiL prospects. The time is now to catch and pass the other teams.

You don't know this.

[hoosiers]

I don't this is entirely fair. I agree that we have no other impact players right now, but Loewen, Penn, Olson, Ray, Hoey, and Cabrera were intended to be impact players by now.

I like our individual pitchers making up the staff as much as the next guy, but there are so many "impact" players a system is going to produce. And we just "produced" Bedard. I think it's a bit optimistic to expect two aces from the same organization so quickly. It might still happen as Loewen could emerge, but it does not happen frequently.

You can't say "darn the luck" when Loewen and DCab and Penn fail to produce as top of the rotation guys when you do have Bedard make that leap.

[Sports Guy]

I'm not saying we should be happy we missed these boats. Obviously, every little bit helps. However, when I can only point to three major guys in an 8year period (I'm stopping at 2005 since the guys we "should" trade now we still "can" trade now) that we could have traded for major value (Mussina, BJ Ryan, and Groom) prior to letting them walk, we didn't have a lot of value to trade for many of those years.

Lets say we parlayed those three guys into 7 good prospects over the 8 year period and that 4 of the prospects actually became something. We would have been better off now but it is highly unlikely that it would have made a huge difference. Also keep in mind that we got two picks for Mussina that we wouldn't have gotten had he been traded (though we virtually wasted them on Fontenot and Bass) and one for Ryan that we wouldn't have gotten (Beato).

I agree that it is possible that these three trades could have been parlayed into something much greater if a couple of the prospects became impact players or were re-traded for impact players later. I'm just saying that we didn't have a lot of value on the team or in the minors from 1998-2003 or so. It usually takes value to create more value. We didn't have much value to start the genesis.

http://www.orioleshangout.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54701

We could have also traded Ponson for Adrian Gonzalez.

Things could have been done.

[Mackus]

We could have also traded Ponson for Adrian Gonzalez.

Things could have been done.

I don't believe that trade was ever possible. I know it was rumored, but I'll never believe it was ever on the table.

[Sports Guy]

I don't believe that trade was ever possible. I know it was rumored, but I'll never believe it was ever on the table.

Then you choose to ignore all the press clippings that said it could be done.

We had to eat most or all of Sidney's salary to do it.

[Sports Guy]

They were offered Texas Rangers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez for the much-maligned Sydney Ponson. All the Orioles needed to do was also take problem outfielder Richard Hidalgo until the end of the season and pay a portion of Ponson's salary

http://www.pressboxonline.com/story.cfm?ID=529

[Mackus]

Then you choose to ignore all the press clippings that said it could be done.

We had to eat most or all of Sidney's salary to do it.

I don't choose to ignore the press clippings, I choose to not believe them. Not everything reported is fact, and I really doubt Texas would've given up a great young talent for a great fat drunk, even if we footed the majority of the bill.

[TonySoprano]

I don't choose to ignore the press clippings, I choose to not believe them. Not everything reported is fact, and I really doubt Texas would've given up a great young talent for a great fat drunk, even if we footed the majority of the bill.

Gonzalez was blocked by Teixeira and it's possible they wanted to unload Hidalgo regardless.

[Sports Guy]

Gonzalez was blocked by Teixeira and it's possible they wanted to unload Hidalgo regardless.

Yea...Its not like they traded Gonzalez for a good package anyway.

After seeing the YOung/Gonzo to SD trade and reading the press clippings, it amazes me to think someone would think the Rangers wouldn't have made this deal, as if it was all made up or something.

[Flosman]

SG I believe has this one right. Ponson was still thought to be a developing pitcher and many thought AG would not develop much power. I do think it was a big missed opportunity.