Oriole players are upset WOW

[Dipper9]

"That perception that the team is lowering payroll, that's not accurate. That's not the case. The team has increased payroll in past years and is prepared to do that again this year when we give our arbitration eligible players raises and fill out the roster with Quad A depth you've never heard of."

I added the rest of the quote that you left out.

[Three Run Homer]

"That perception that the team is lowering payroll, that's not accurate. That's not the case. The team has increased payroll in past years and is prepared to do that again this year."

We'll see...

If you increase your payroll from $92M to $100M while your revenues from MLB have risen by $25M and the average team in MLB is likely to wind up increasing it's payroll by (I'm guessing) $15M, then guess what? You're not likely to be very competitive.

[weams]

Nope, it was the mistake of the guys who brought him up originally. I'm guessing Beattie but didn't bother to look. Same mistake with Markakis. Never let them start the season unless you're a play-off contender. Start them in June and get 4/6ths of an extra season out of them without going through an additional arbitration year. Tampa ALWAYS does it correctly.

Was Beattie a clown of Thrift proportions?

[weams]

I think it would be difficult for anyone to reach those proportions. Poor Syd was legitimately senile or some facsimile of it by his final years with us. Beattie's body of work is pretty discouraging though for sure.

Looking backwards it looks like he was not just asleep at the wheel, that he let poor Flanagan make all the mistakes and just took a pay check.

[DrungoHazewood]

I think it would be difficult for anyone to reach those proportions. Poor Syd was legitimately senile or some facsimile of it by his final years with us. Beattie's body of work is pretty discouraging though for sure.

It's hard to judge Beattie and Flanagan due to the position the were put in. Basically being asked to cut payroll (relative to the rest of the league), work with a poor MLB roster, stay out of international stuff, work with a totally disfunctional development system AND try to compete with the Yanks and Sox. They could have been pretty good and totally fail anyway.

[TonySoprano]

I think it would be difficult for anyone to reach those proportions. Poor Syd was legitimately senile or some facsimile of it by his final years with us. Beattie's body of work is pretty discouraging though for sure.

Looking backwards it looks like he was not just asleep at the wheel, that he let poor Flanagan make all the mistakes and just took a pay check.

I still remember during the Guerrero negotiations, when we were the only bidder for about a month. Flanagan had signed Palmeiro earlier in the day, and had to find out from the media that night that Guerrero signed with the Angels. Beattie was away on a family ski trip.

This is still my favorite Syd Thrift story, even better than Gary "BabaBooey" Dell'Abate.

No one was mocked more at the winter meetings than Thrift. There were so many stories circulating about Thrift that it was nearly impossible to separate fact from fiction.

One GM heard that Thrift asked Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi whether outfielder Shawn Green was available. He was traded two years ago.

Several executives heard that Thrift told his front-office staff after a meeting with the Blue Jays that he was confident they could acquire outfielder Shannon Stewart.

He was reminded that they were discussing Raul Mondesi.

source - USA Today, Dec 19, 2001

[scOtt]

It's hard to judge Beattie and Flanagan due to the position the were put in. Basically being asked to cut payroll (relative to the rest of the league), work with a poor MLB roster, stay out of international stuff, work with a totally dysfunctional development system AND try to compete with the Yanks and Sox. They could have been pretty good and totally fail anyway.

And Flanny never got this...

[Jonesy10]

They have a right to be. What happened to we'd spend more once we are competitive? This is the second offseason (although still early) and who is our biggest FA signing? Valencia? I mean, come on. There is being smart spending money, but it seems like we are just being dumb, and flat out refusing to spend to improve the team and it's extremely disappointing to see. Are you really going to tell me the Nats can afford McLouth as a 4th outfielder, but we can't even resign him to be our starter? Obviously if we sign someone better than McLouth it's ok but it really doesn't look that way.

[mcinww0]

They have a right to be. What happened to we'd spend more once we are competitive? This is the second offseason (although still early) and who is our biggest FA signing? Valencia? I mean, come on. There is being smart spending money, but it seems like we are just being dumb, and flat out refusing to spend to improve the team and it's extremely disappointing to see. Are you really going to tell me the Nats can afford McLouth as a 4th outfielder, but we can't even resign him to be our starter? Obviously if we sign someone better than McLouth it's ok but it really doesn't look that way.

Honestly I think we'll contend next year even if we don't sign a big name free agent the rest of the way. Duquette seems to have a knack for putting a lot of scraps together to make a good team. That being said, I'll still be pissed if your payroll doesn't expand significantly because I think the organization owes it to the city to put together as good a team as possible.

We could probably win 85 games again with a $90 million payroll, but if it takes $120 million to win 90 games I would hope that's a commitment the leadership is willing to make.

I'm not asking for much- Wouldn't want Ellsbury, Beltran or Cano at the prices they got, and I was fine with trading Johnson. But why didn't we trade for Fister considering the Nats gave up hardly anything for him, maybe giving them Johnson but paying half his contract? Why didn't we make an offer to McLouth and let him platoon with Pearce again? Are we in on Choo and his .400 OBP? I doubt it. Admittedly the starting pitcher market was thin, but Kazmir's deal would have made sense for us.

[baltfan]

I still remember during the Guerrero negotiations, when we were the only bidder for about a month. Flanagan had signed Palmeiro earlier in the day, and had to find out from the media that night that Guerrero signed with the Angels. Beattie was away on a family ski trip.

This is still my favorite Syd Thrift story, even better than Gary "BabaBooey" Dell'Abate.

source - USA Today, Dec 19, 2001

One thing I remember about Thrift is how high he was on Werth. He wasn't always wrong.

[Can_of_corn]

Nope, it was the mistake of the guys who brought him up originally. I'm guessing Beattie but didn't bother to look. Same mistake with Markakis. Never let them start the season unless you're a play-off contender. Start them in June and get 4/6ths of an extra season out of them without going through an additional arbitration year. Tampa ALWAYS does it correctly.

I don't think it was a mistake with Johnson. There was no reason to expect when he was called up that he would end up with back to back 50 wins seasons. You play the service time game with the players that you think are going to bring the big bucks. That is why they were "lucky" with Wieters and Jones.