"Defending the Status Quo?"

[DrungoHazewood]

Okay, so if that is the case, why is it that those who advocate spending on free agents are often told that it's going to destroy the team. Said discussions then devolve into conspiracy theories and personal attacks.

What are you talking about? You don't need a conspiracy theory to make the connection between a 75-, 80-win team spending 125% of their budget and serious problems down the road. It's pretty simple really: The O's have a fraction of the revenues of the Yanks and Sox, so they'll have to spend much more wisely and frugally than those teams to have any hope of competing. No conspiracy, just common sense.

If a 69-win team spends $200M on Prince Fielder all that does it give you a 75-win team that needs to be especially careful how it spends the other $60-70M of payroll.

[Lucky Jim]

self-aggrandizing

self-ag*gran*dize*ment (slf-grndz-mnt)

n.

The act or practice of enhancing or exaggerating one's own importance, power, or reputation.

Letters.

[BilboBaggins]

Hey Lucky Jim, looked in a mirror today?

[BilboBaggins]

What are you talking about? You don't need a conspiracy theory to make the connection between a 75-, 80-win team spending 125% of their budget and serious problems down the road. It's pretty simple really: The O's have a fraction of the revenues of the Yanks and Sox, so they'll have to spend much more wisely and frugally than those teams to have any hope of competing. No conspiracy, just common sense.

If a 69-win team spends $200M on Prince Fielder all that does it give you a 75-win team that needs to be especially careful how it spends the other $60-70M of payroll.

This would be common sense if there was a definitive statement from the Orioles announcing what their salary cap has to be in order to maintain the team and organization. To my recollection, there has never been a straightforward explanation or revelation of how much the Orioles make from MASN or how much spending room they really have.

For all intents and purposes, they've SAID we have limited resources and we've taken them at face value. The truth is obscured.

What you're saying makes a ton of sense, if the Orioles FO was being straight with the fan base and they haven't been.

[Lucky Jim]

Hey Lucky Jim, looked in a mirror today?

I'll leave for good if you do.

[BaltimoreTerp]

This would be common sense if there was a definitive statement from the Orioles announcing what their salary cap has to be in order to maintain the team and organization. To my recollection, there has never been a straightforward explanation or revelation of how much the Orioles make from MASN or how much spending room they really have.

For all intents and purposes, they've SAID we have limited resources and we've taken them at face value. The truth is obscured.

What you're saying makes a ton of sense, if the Orioles FO was being straight with the fan base and they haven't been.

That's your assumption, and it may be a correct one. There's no way of knowing that, though.

We have two things. What we have been told, which may be wrong. And random assumptions, which are probably wrong.

I'd rather go with what we have been told until we know otherwise.

[DrungoHazewood]

This would be common sense if there was a definitive statement from the Orioles announcing what their salary cap has to be in order to maintain the team and organization. To my recollection, there has never been a straightforward explanation or revelation of how much the Orioles make from MASN or how much spending room they really have.

For all intents and purposes, they've SAID we have limited resources and we've taken them at face value. The truth is obscured.

What you're saying makes a ton of sense, if the Orioles FO was being straight with the fan base and they haven't been.

No one has to say anything to be 99.999% sure a bad team playing in Baltimore is going to have far fewer resources than excellent teams playing in New York or Boston. I didn't even think it was open for debate.

[El Gordo]

Texas went to the WS on a budget that was 5M more than ours last year. It's not the money, it's how you spend it. People can survive and function well on heroin, if they can afford to keep buying it.

[BilboBaggins]

No one has to say anything to be 99.999% sure a bad team playing in Baltimore is going to have far fewer resources than excellent teams playing in New York or Boston. I didn't even think it was open for debate.

If you only look at market size alone, that much is obvious. But we have an ownership group that gets a large - but undisclosed - amount of money per year from its RSN with absolutely no oversight or explanation of where that money goes.

Could we spend $200 million per year? Doubtful.

Could we afford to sign one TOR FA SP and a guy like Fielder? Absolutely.

We haven't signed anyone who could add a few wins in the last few years. Why do some of you guys get so riled up over signing quality free agents?

This still comes down to assuming two things:

1) We are a market the size of Oakland or Kansas City.

2) The Orioles FO has been 100% transparent in regards of a spending cap.

What's the deal with pretending we don't have resources? Whenever this question comes up, some folks love to trot out the Yankees and Red Sox's lavish spending as an excuse to keep us in this backward limbo we've been in for years.

[EddieMurrayfan]

Texas went to the WS on a budget that was 5M more than ours last year. It's not the money, it's how you spend it. People can survive and function well on heroin, if they can afford to keep buying it.

Weren't they like 13th or 14th for payroll in all of MLB?

Its really a combo of a sharp FO, wise spending for the most part, and good fortune. We seem to be 0 for on all 3.

Things have to pan out or go well even if you are making good decisions as a franchise. Look at the Michael Young situation - they tried to trade him but couldn't make a decent deal. What a year he had. W/o him I think it is doubtful they get to the WS. That was good fortune.

[Sports Guy]

If you only look at market size alone, that much is obvious. But we have an ownership group that gets a large - but undisclosed - amount of money per year from its RSN with absolutely no oversight or explanation of where that money goes.

Could we spend $200 million per year? Doubtful.

Could we afford to sign one TOR FA SP and a guy like Fielder? Absolutely.

We haven't signed anyone who could add a few wins in the last few years. Why do some of you guys get so riled up over signing quality free agents?

This still comes down to assuming two things:

1) We are a market the size of Oakland or Kansas City.

2) The Orioles FO has been 100% transparent in regards of a spending cap.

What's the deal with pretending we don't have resources? Whenever this question comes up, some folks love to trot out the Yankees and Red Sox's lavish spending as an excuse to keep us in this backward limbo we've been in for years.

Realistically, the Orioles could probably afford, at most, a payroll of around 110 million at this time.

If they start winning and ticket sales go up and MASN becomes more and more profitable, the payroll can go up.

Your thoughts about building a winning team are off base...you don't know how to do it. Your plan is to piss away as much money as you can on players that you deem to be premium guys and just assume everything will fall into place.

Well, what if Fielder is a sub 4 WAR like he has been at times in his career? What if you sign a guy like EJack and he is a 4.3 ERA pitcher who is no better than Guthrie?

What have you added?

Again, I think we are all in agreement that Fielder makes sense to this team up to a certain price.

What you seem to not be able to grasp is how poor the rest of the team is, how much depth and talent the entire organization lacks and just how far behind we are from contention.

So, to spend 1/4 the payroll on one player and than another 1/10 of the payroll on another league average starter(for a total of 1/3 of the payroll), is pretty foolish.

That's why if you get Fielder, you really still have to trade Jones, Guthrie and Jim Johnson. Those guys will give you the young, cheap talent to build around Fielder and you hopefully can start winning soon and have Fielder be one of your centerpieces.

But to just add to what we have and hope for the best is just moronic.

[El Gordo]

Weren't they like 13th or 14th for payroll in all of MLB?

Its really a combo of a sharp FO, wise spending for the most part, and good fortune. We seem to be 0 for on all 3.

Things have to pan out or go well even if you are making good decisions as a franchise. Look at the Michael Young situation - they tried to trade him but couldn't make a decent deal. What a year he had. W/o him I think it is doubtful they get to the WS. That was good fortune.

What's your point. TEX was lucky?

[EddieMurrayfan]

Really? It seems to me that this thread is designed to do exactly that. Just read the thread title, or the opening post. It doesn't discuss why you like some move or another. It's expressly designed to criticize the posters who disagree with your position.

Criticize the posters or the views expressed by those posters?

Can a distinction be made? Funny how some say they are not criticizing the poster yet question reading comprehension, thinking skills, reasoning, etc. Yet when their view point is not agreed with they are being insulted, disrespected, misrepresented, etc.. BTW, not saying you do this just mentioning what happens on the board.

You can look at my post count and see I haven't posted all that much. I've read plenty here, but not posted much.

Interesting that I post based on my observations of "views" and a swarm of a group basically said I had no reading comprehension and didn't understand them, among other things. Because I can comprehend what people type I recognize the attack for what it is.

When people make claims such as were made about me and my posts I know it for what it is. I also know that my comments were accurate regardless of what the "defenders" claim. I've read the views of many posters. I felt no need to go into a detailed point by point description of their views to refute them. Whats the point? And why do some feel that posters are obligated to do such? I simply made comments that generally and accurately characterized two different viewpoints. And for those who got bent out of shape over my comments - too bad. I summed up a basic viewpoint and described it in a bottom line description. Arguing 50-100 smokescreen points doesn't change the bottom line.

Bottom line: if someone does not want to get better thru FA & trade acquisitions that strategy's bottom line is the status quo. Its what we have been doing. Yes I know building the farm system and improving the FO etc is mentioned as the plan. Bottom line is still the status quo. So, no matter how many points are raised. No matter how many pleas to comprehend and understand the plan, the bottom line is the same old same old, which equals the status quo. No amount of explanations or pleas changes that bottom line. Its not any kind of personal attack on any poster/posters, just reality. Some see it and some obviously don't see it.

[EddieMurrayfan]

What's your point. TEX was lucky?

No. They made good decisions. They spent wisely, at least it would seem they did. And they had good fortune to go with it. I think they had all 3 things working in their favor.

Isn't it good fortune that they weren't able to trade Michael Young? And then he had a career year.

Look at the SUX. They were many peoples favorite to win the AL. They had bad fortune. On the other hand the MFY had a lot of good fortune. Guys taken from the scrap heap way over performed and a team that was likely an 85 win team had the best record in the AL. Still the Skanks didn't win it all or even get to the WS.

I just think teams have to do the right things and have some good fortune along the way. Things have to work out even when you are good. Because even when you are good you dont always win as expected.

[wildcard]

If you only look at market size alone, that much is obvious. But we have an ownership group that gets a large - but undisclosed - amount of money per year from its RSN with absolutely no oversight or explanation of where that money goes.

Could we spend $200 million per year? Doubtful.

Could we afford to sign one TOR FA SP and a guy like Fielder? Absolutely.

We haven't signed anyone who could add a few wins in the last few years. Why do some of you guys get so riled up over signing quality free agents?

This still comes down to assuming two things:

1) We are a market the size of Oakland or Kansas City.

2) The Orioles FO has been 100% transparent in regards of a spending cap.

What's the deal with pretending we don't have resources? Whenever this question comes up, some folks love to trot out the Yankees and Red Sox's lavish spending as an excuse to keep us in this backward limbo we've been in for years.

By your definition I am a pretty big status quo guy.

Your argument seems to come down to two things IMO:

1) Free agents like Fielder would help the O's win more games. Duh. From a competitive stand point I agree. Whether it would make the O's into a team similar to the Rangers when ARod was there is debatable. ARod took up so much of the budget that it hurt the team. And remember Buck was the manager and helped to push to trade ARod. I doubt Buck will try to put the O's in that situation.

2) Angelos could spend more money on the major league team if he wanted to. Again Duh. I agree he could but history tells us he is not going to without revenues increasing first.

Some owners like Moreno of the Angels will spend big betting that it will make his team better and raise revenues. He is willing to take the risk of taking on debt. Angelos is not. Angelos seems to like the model of Tampa where the team does well first then the payroll is increased once revenue is there to support it.

To rile agains Hangout posters because they understand the reality of where the O's are under Angelos is really unfair. The fans can't change Angelos. That is the fact of the matter. Most of us understand the situation and try to think within the bounds of the way the O's franchise works. To do otherwise it not dealing with reality.

So I for one am fine with your argument that the O's would be better off spending more money and signing big free agents. Good luck in making that happen.