Duquette interview on WEEI

[Can_of_corn]

I'm going to be real intrigued to see how he can have a flat payroll and still field a competitive team next year...

You can't field a 75 win team and expect to increase your resources ticket sales wise. Fans need to actually want to watch the product.

He's going to need to field an 85-90 win team to increase attendance dramatically, which it sounds like that what he wants to do to generate more revenue.

And I highly doubt he'll have players that can put up the necessarily overachievements to do that without premium FAs or a major trade involving our top prospects.

It's interesting you haven't heard him say a thing about Machado or even Bundy...

Vlad 5/8 M

Lee 7.25 M

Scott 6.4 M

Gonzo 6M

Koji 3M

Izturis 1.5M

That is nearly 30 million right there.

That is the easy cuts. Hopefully they can arrange a buyout of Roberts, maybe with deferred payments to take the edge off his 10 million for next season. Trading Guts, Gregg or Nick would also free up room.

[Frobby]

Duquette has said he wants the team to be competitive next year. 75 wins is not competitive and neither is 81 really. Competitive is 85+

Progress doesn't sell tickets, winning does.

What is he going to say, that he doesn't want the team to be competitive next year? All 30 GM's would say this. And "competitive" is such a nice, ambiguous word.

I agree, "progress" (which I will call an improvement of 11 wins or less) won't sell many more tickets at all for 2012. I don't think that is Duquette's goal. His goal is to build a team that can win long-term. I don't know if he could have been more clear about the fact that he wants to build a team that can sustain winning, not go for a quick fix. But go ahead and believe otherwise. All will be clear by February.

[NCRaven]

This is a quirk of Duquette's that I've picked up from the start . May be just me being picky but,he never refers to the organization as "WE".

He's only been part of "WE" for a very short time. I think you are just being "picky." Once he's had an impact on the front office, player development, scouting, and the major league roster, he'll begin to think of himself and the team overall as a we. Since he hasn't drafted, developed, or traded for a single player on the roster, hired a single coach or manager in the minor league system or the major league team, it's really not his, yet.

[Mr Snuffleupagus]

Duquette has said he wants the team to be competitive next year. 75 wins is not competitive and neither is 81 really. Competitive is 85+

Progress doesn't sell tickets, winning does.

That's like saying I want my 1978 Pinto to go 200mph.

Under your current plan, you'd drop tons of money into the Pinto for the sake of making it fast, but at the end of the day, you still have a Pinto. Most of us want to save for a nicer car before we start dropping exorbitant amounts of money into it.

[Mr Snuffleupagus]

Vlad 5/8 M

Lee 7.25 M

Scott 6.4 M

Gonzo 6M

Koji 3M

Izturis 1.5M

That is nearly 30 million right there.

That is the easy cuts. Hopefully they can arrange a buyout of Roberts, maybe with deferred payments to take the edge off his 10 million for next season. Trading Guts, Gregg or Nick would also free up room.

So we can clearly afford to sign Fielder and bring back Koji. Just need to fill all the other roster spots for free.

[Sports Guy]

Duquette has said he wants the team to be competitive next year. 75 wins is not competitive and neither is 81 really. Competitive is 85+

Progress doesn't sell tickets, winning does.

I don't think Duq took this job with the intention of selling a lot more tickets for 2012.

Pretty obvious that he sees that this team blows, that the talent isn't good enough and that the MiL system sucks...He is much more worried about INTELLIGENTLY fixing these issues and then worrying about ticket sales.

[Can_of_corn]

So we can clearly afford to sign Fielder and bring back Koji. Just need to fill all the other roster spots for free.

Pretty much, Jones is the only one that looks to be getting a big bump in arbitration.

[Fan4Life]

Duquette has said he wants the team to be competitive next year. 75 wins is not competitive and neither is 81 really. Competitive is 85+

Progress doesn't sell tickets, winning does.

You'd need his definition of competitive to able to comment. His definition could be "having a chance to win every game" which could be a team that ends up 0-162 and lost all their games by scores of 3-2, 2-1, 4-3 and 5-4.

[tntoriole]

It seems DD was more than a little interested in keeping an open line with his Boston media buddies...it struck me in listening to his tone as a "God, can you believe I am with the Orioles" interview....his assessments were probably fairly accurate except for Nick, but stylistically, I would have liked to have seen a little more spunk... "You want to know what's next...well,what we are going to do in Baltimore, by God, is build a team that will drive a stake through the Red Sox heart EVERY day, not just on the last day of the season."

[NCRaven]

Lots of teams with salaries far below the Orioles won significantly more games. Of particular note, Tampa Bay Rays, 2nd lowest salary in baseball at $41.05 mil, 91 wins; Arizona Diamondbacks, $53.64 mil, 94 wins; Toronto Blue Jays at $62.57 mil, 81 wins.

Baltimore Orioles at $85.30 mil, 69 wins. More money helps. Spending it wisely would help more.

[.500_OR_BETTER]

Lots of teams with salaries far below the Orioles won significantly more games. Of particular note, Tampa Bay Rays, 2nd lowest salary in baseball at $41.05 mil, 91 wins; Arizona Diamondbacks, $53.64 mil, 94 wins; Toronto Blue Jays at $62.57 mil, 81 wins.

Baltimore Orioles at $85.30 mil, 69 wins. More money helps. Spending it wisely would help more.

Tampa's payroll should jump up quite a bit with Price now Arb ready and Upton on his third year of arb. [His salary will most likely double to around $8MM] -- Payroll could see $10-12MM jump right there that doesnt even include a few others.

[CA-ORIOLE]

You can't field a 75 win team and expect to increase your resources ticket sales wise. Fans need to actually want to watch the product.

Maybe they'll play up this Cartoon Bird stuff some more.

[Mr Snuffleupagus]

Tampa's payroll should jump up quite a bit with Price now Arb ready and Upton on his third year of arb. [His salary will most likely double to around $8MM] -- Payroll could see $10-12MM jump right there that doesnt even include a few others.

Yeah, but they don't need to pay Damon ($6M), Ramirez ($2M), or Shoppach ($3M). There is also the possibility they'll trade Shields to shave payroll, but I doubt it. If they did they'd just have to get by with the scrub Matt Moore. Poor, poor, Rays.

[SteveA]

I dont know how he is getting only 1 hit in 11 years of drafting in the top 10. Markakis and Wieters clearly aren't misses and Matusz is way too early to tell. Bundy and Machado are both top 10 or 15 prospects in baseball so that is just completely, flat out wrong. Now, should we have done better?? Sure but come on don't go as far as you went. I generally just didn;t like the tone of the interview. He seems very disconnected to this organization. Obviously, he has been out of baseball for awhile and I don't expect him to know our organization but I dont know I just don't sense passion or urgency to turn this thing around. I mean the better scouting, pitching program, int signings thats all obvious things that need to get better. We all knew that. I dont want to come off as too harsh. Im certainly open to what he plans to do but the first impression not so great.

I pretty much agree with him. A "hit" isn't someone who makes some top prospect list. A "hit" isn't someone who puts up the worst ERA in majorleague history. A "hit" is someone who becomes a star major league player. You know, the kind of star that Boston and New York and Tampa have 7 or 8 each of on their team, a guy who is either a top of the rotation pitcher or iis a guy who makes the All Star game more years than not, or is likely to be that guy based on what he has done at the major league level. Wieters looks like a hit. Markakis is borderline. So maybe he should have said two instead of one. That's it. Sure, Matusz could become a hit. But he isn't yet. Maybe Bundy and Machado will become hits, but they aren't yet. James Shields, David Price, Jeremy Hellickson, Jeff Niemann, Evan Longoria -- they are hits already. Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz -- they are hits already.

[SteveA]

Fair enough in regards to Nick, still way too early to make any conclusion at all about Matusz, Bundy, or Machado.

He didn't make any conclusion about Matusz, BUndy, or Machado.

Other than that they are NOT HITS, yet.

You can hardly argue this. Machado and Bundy have done nothing at the major league level, and Matusz had a good half season at the major league level and followed it by an awful year. Josh Towers has accomplished more as a major league player than Matusz. He is clearly not yet a "hit".