Is it hypocritical to turn on MacPhail now?

[wildcard]

The O's are on a pace to win 66 games. These are dark days for the Orioles franchise. However, looking back to more hopeful times, there were high expectation for this team on Opening Day. The annual poll of the Hangout showed that 0% thought the O's would win 66 games or less. In fact only 27.7 % thought the O's would have a losing season. The other 72.3% thought this was a 81 win team or better. Here is the poll.

http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/poll.php?pollid=4502&do=showresults

By Opening Day MacPhail's work for the offseason was done. He had acquired who he was going to acquire. Spring Training had allowed us to see what the team he put together looked like. We had evaluated their chances, their depth, their likelihood for injuries, what help was available in the farm system and most of the 278 posters responding had decided that this team would win. We believed that MacPhail had done his job well enough to put a winner on field.

So now, that the injuries have hit hard and the non performance of several players has shown itself, is it hypocritical to call for MacPhail's head? I had to look up hypocrite to see its mean. " a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings". So if it was our feelings or beliefs that MacPhail had done his job in April, what did we expect him to do between April and now the makes him deserving our wrath?

Isn't it the players that have not performed? Or maybe Mark Connor who tried to fix things that did not need to be fixed? But MacPhail's job for the first half was done by April 1st when most of us supported him.

I don't have an answer to my question. Just a lot of questions? What are your thoughts? Were we wrong in April or are we wrong to want MacPhail's head now?

[Dipper9]

I hear what you're saying and its a strong argument. If we were happy then, how then can it be his fault?

My only answer is we are ALL O's fans on here. We had seen the team play great ball to finish 2010, and we were happy with the additions over those same positions last year. We were optimistic, and thus nobody voted for under 66 wins.

I don't see how an entire pitching staff suddenly goes to hell unless Connor really did something goofy.

[Stotle]

Entering the season this was a team with a chance to improve on their annual record, but that had added little to nothing so far as future team strength is concerned. I'd go so far as to say the future outlook could very well look worse exiting this season than it did exiting last season, with many of the same holes open and a number of the potential "future pieces" not stepping up and asserting themselves this year.

Were it my decision, I'd probably spend a year on a re-stock rather than trying to shoehorn this collection into a competitive team.

[Dipper9]

Entering the season this was a team with a chance to improve on their annual record, but that had added little to nothing so far as future team strength is concerned. I'd go so far as to say the future outlook could very well look worse exiting this season than it did exiting last season, with many of the same holes open and a number of the potential "future pieces" not stepping up and asserting themselves this year.

Were it my decision, I'd probably spend a year on a re-stock rather than trying to shoehorn this collection into a competitive team.

Maybe I'm being a blind homer, but I have a hard time turing on Matusz, Arrieta, Tillman, Bergy, Britton, etc and saying that after a bad half a year they are done. No, I can't do that. Maybe I'm sticking my head in the sand, but "something" went horribly wrong in the system (maybe Connor, I don't know) to cause all of these guys to take a step back together at the same time. I am gonna have some faith that things will get better with our pitching. Its not time to blow it up just yet.

[Sports Guy]

The problem is, the fears of some regarding the long term health of the team have shown up this year.

AM didn't do enough to address the long term and because he didn't do that, he was left to sign vets who could go in either direction. He also failed to acquire good depth.

I believe it was SrMeowMeow who said that if they played the season again, that he thinks the team would be better. I tend to believe that is true if we had good health but Matusz, BRob and Lee's health issues really hurt the team early on, when they could have been better than they were.

This year is frustrating because of the lack of power being shown by Wieters and Nick and the issues with the young pitching, especially BMat.

Now, is that AM's fault? The answer to that is..MAYBE. Why would that be his fault? Well, if he and his people were not on top of Bmat and his conditioning and didn't train him properly, that's on the team as well as Matusz. So, it just kind of depends on the whole system of things and, since AM is the head guy for all of that, the blame does fall on his shoulders(although, I am sure PA has a big part in that as well).

[NewMarketSean]

MacPhail made some OK moves this past offseason. It was his best outside of the offseason following 2007.

But he has failed in every other area, IMO. We either have not improved in a given area or there is not enough progress.

I don't see how an owner could look at what he's done and sign him for another 3-5 years.

[OsLuvrInKy]

Thread: Is it hypocritical to turn on MacPhail now?

YES!

[Stotle]

Maybe I'm being a blind homer, but I have a hard time turing on Matusz, Arrieta, Tillman, Bergy, Britton, etc and saying that after a bad half a year they are done. No, I can't do that. Maybe I'm sticking my head in the sand, but "something" went horribly wrong in the system (maybe Connor, I don't know) to cause all of these guys to take a step back together at the same time. I am gonna have some faith that things will get better with our pitching. Its not time to blow it up just yet.

I didn't say they were done. But assuming the season ended today, can you say you are as confident in each of those arms as you were at the end of last september?

[Sports Guy]

I didn't say they were done. But assuming the season ended today, can you say you are as confident in each of those arms as you were at the end of last september?

Right...And, on top of that, as we have seen more of a sample size with everything, it seems like the whole development system may be even worse than we thought it was.

[flashjordnk]

I didn't say they were done. But assuming the season ended today, can you say you are as confident in each of those arms as you were at the end of last september?

Luckily or not we get the rest of the season to find out. Hopefully BMat ends the year up on the upswing. Britton obviously I'll have a ton of confidence in going forward. It also depends on what our roster looks like once we make some trades. If our system get some AA to AAA talent during this deadline, it won't feel as bad as it does right now. I think a big part of the problem is any of our real talent is just getting to AA now. That makes them a full year or more away from even thinking about calling them up.

I still think BMat/Britton/Arrieta can be meaningful parts of a rotation in Baltimore. And honestly, Matusz just turned 24 and Britton turns 24 in December. These guys are still young. A good training off season and some more seasoning and growth are all it's going to take to see big strides. Those three, I'm not willing to give up on for one bad year.

[El Gordo]

The problem this season is the decline in the arms . AM is repsonsible to some degree to provide enough depth to cover that decline, but to what degree. It would have been nice to have two more Britton's in AAA on OD. He isn't the reason the arms declined in the first place, IMO.

[SilentJames]

Five different GM concepts in 14 years.

I've been through this.

No team in the Majors has had that kind of turnover. Keep AM for at least Buck's three years.

[mcneck]

Right...And, on top of that, as we have seen more of a sample size with everything, it seems like the whole development system may be even worse than we thought it was.

Yep and considering we were in a rebuilding phase that is a huge failure on his part and you cant have a successful rebuild if you cant develop the young talent you aquire. He needs to go along although PA is still the root of the problem. Nothing changes until he leaves.

[Stotle]

The problem this season is the decline in the arms . AM is repsonsible to some degree to provide enough depth to cover that decline, but to what degree. It would have been nice to have two more Britton's in AAA on OD. He isn't the reason the arms declined in the first place, IMO.

I think this is exactly right, and part of the reason that Tampa has been able to maintain at least the semblence of a bright future. They have been able to keep a stream of arms flowing to their big club, and it starts with amateur acquisition and focused devlopment at the lower levels.

[DrungoHazewood]

I think it's absolutely fair to turn on him now. We knew going into this year that they'd put together a strategy based largely on getting over .500 in 2011 and using that momentum and hopefully revenues and future ticket sales to attract new players to Baltimore for 2012. That's utterly collapsed. So we're left with a bad team, with no reasonable hope of fixing it for 2012 besides the annual call for Angelos to spend obscene amounts of cash on free agents who're very unlikely to see Baltimore as a destination, and a farm system that's several years from producing anyone with impact talent.

MacPhail's rebuild brought maybe half the talent necessary to compete and didn't fix the systemic problems with talent acquisition and development, and his post-rebuild strategy of respectability leading to revenues leading to better talent has cratered. Angelos and MacPhail have responsibility for this.