What phase of Andy's plan are we in now?

[helloharv]

2008 - 68-93

2009 - 64-98

2010 - 66-96

2011 - 36-48

It was last year that Andy made the statement "wins actually matter" . Well,he sure is doing a poor job of putting together wins. He is on the verge of having one of the worst 4 year runs in team history.

At this moment ---In the AL ---We are 10th in runs scored and 13th in ERA. We are also dead last in runDiff.

Our Farm system is no better than when he arrived and He has been pathetic in signing free-agents.At the end of the year, several jobs will be up for grabs yet again.

How is this progress

[Moose Milligan]

The "tuck your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye" phase.

[Skeletor]

The plan failed. Time to start over.

[helloharv]

The "tuck your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye" phase.

Well as upset as I am right now---that made me chuckle

[LOUDOUN_BIRD]

2008 - 68-93

2009 - 64-98

2010 - 66-96

2011 - 36-48

It was last year that Andy made the statement "wins actually matter" . Well,he sure is doing a poor job of putting together wins. He is on the verge of having one of the worst 4 year runs in team history.

At this moment ---In the AL ---We are 10th in runs scored and 13th in ERA. We are also dead last in runDiff.

Our Farm system is no better than when he arrived and He has been pathetic in signing free-agents.At the end of the year, several jobs will be up for grabs yet again.

How is this progress

I like to refer to it as "Bags over heads" phase or "I need to study, heading to Camden Yards" phase.

Moose I honestly have no idea. They spun me a little bit this off-season with the way they ended up 2010, the FA signings, they way they came out of the gate. But man, they are a mess right now. All I can say with confidence is "Success or Failure of any organization starts at the top"

[Gurgi]

We are in the "I failed" phase.

Fork-done.

[Frobby]

Exactly how many times are you going to start the exact same thread? You used to have interesting things to say, now 99 percent of the time you just come on here whenever things are going poorly to bash MacPhail. It gets old.

[Meh_Orioles]

Our path to success is much like the Soviet Union's Five-Year Plan system.

[clapdiddy]

I just wish that this organization (excuse me...owner) would go out and turn this team over to a young, aggressive GM who has been part of a successful organization. Allow that guy to totally clean house and build this thing up from the ground.

I can't even watch this garbage any more. And...that's what it is...GARBAGE!

The farm teams are garbage, the major league club is garbage, and management/ownership is garbage.

[OFFNY]

.

Phase One, in which Doris gets her oats.

[JTrea81]

MacPhailure.

[Steve I]

The oh crap we blew it again phase. We've been here plenty of times before. PGA has to be taking gas or responsibility. He finally hired a real baseball GM, gave him control and he crapped the bed. More egg on the face of the owner. I almost feel bad for him, but then I recall Albert Bell.

[tOad]

The part where your eyes rise up from the $5 blackjack table, and you realize that there are no windows in this place, no clocks adorning the walls... And, maybe, just maybe, you spent the last 36 hours - or was it a few years? - playing against a stacked deck, with no real stakes (anyway), a few shadowy figures milling on the periphery...

[section18]

The last year with AM phase.

[Scrat1]

I hate to even open this can of worms, but I still think MacPhail is used far too often as an easy scapegoat for the lazy.

Lots and lots of things have happened to the Orioles that were in no way MacPhail's fault. He made a nice trade to get Pie, which was universally praised within the baseball community. Pie failed to develop. He made a nice trade to get Bell, which was also universally praised in the baseball community. Bell failed to develop. Wieters failed to develop offensively. Matusz lost velocity and got injured. Tillman lost velocity and failed to develop. Even if you thought Lee and Guerrero were bad acquisitions (and the majority of the board did not), no one could have rationally projected that they would both be putting up sub. 700 OPS seasons. Scott got injured. Markakis regressed from a great player to a merely solid one. Roberts has ongoing back problems and concussed himself with a bat. These are the reasons our team sucks and very few of them MacPhail had control over.

Had even half of these things turned out differently, the team would be in a very different situation and we would all be championing MacPhail because he made the trades that put us in the position to even be disappointed. Five years ago the team had no chance at all because there was absolutely no talent on the roster. Now we have loads of talent and all of it is failing to live up to expectations. The Tejada trade, the Bedard trade, the Sherrill trade, the Hardy trade, the Reynolds trade, the Pie trade, the Andino trade -- these are all good to great moves, some of which turned out better than others. He has never once made a trade where immediately you felt we had lost or that the pundits immediately came down in favor of the other party. Far more often than not, MacPhail came out ahead.

I'm not saying he's a perfect GM or even an above average one. MacPhail definitely shares a chunk of the blame. He's been totally non existent on the international signings front, keeps giving moronic deals to free agent relievers and, worst of all in my opinion, he's been tentative about choosing a path, not entirely committing to one way or the other. The latter, however, could be Angelos' influence. I'm not saying that things couldn't be better than they are - obviously they could - but to act like MacPhail has somehow driven us straight to this point is just lazy intellectual gerrymandering.

I know there are some very vocal people around the board that think MacPhail is a terrible GM because he failed to sign Teix or Holliday, despite the fact that the vast majority of the board felt the deals were too rich for the O's blood. And even if we had signed one of them, the team still wouldn't be competing right now.

Watching this board has made me understand why the country's political process is so messed up. The country has problems = the President's fault, despite a myriad of events and policy decisions made by both political parties over the course of decades that led us to this point. The Democrats blame Bush. The Republicans blame Obama. Rather than trying to think through any sort of complex gray area, just treat it like a sports franchise and root for the home team. Because it's easier, and self-righteous indignation is so much more fun than intellectual honesty.