Jump to content

Camden Depot's Shepherd: Failed Physicals and Testing the Orioles' Success


Tony-OH

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 259
  • Created
  • Last Reply
No doubt it's a good track record. It's unfortunately also a track record of bad PR. They have to figure out a way to nix these deals before they are like 99% done.

In terms of Balfour, we'll just wait and see. There's certainly some weird stuff with those two doctors, but who is going to give the O's the benefit of the doubt in this situation? Not many people, and certainly not agents.

So even if the O's end up right on this, some damage has been done because it could have been handled better. So it goes.

I am going to wait and see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sure. In the meantime, though, the bad PR is real and tangible and potentially carrying lasting effects.

It's a pretty unprecedented thing, with the doctors coming out in defense and the player calling the GM to ream him out. It's a mess.

Regardless of who is right and who is wrong, this is a real PR nightmare, season ticket prices have been raised and the fans aren't seeing results in putting a better product on the field, after knocking on the door last year.

The perception is, the team doesn't like long term contracts, and Angelos is back to meddling.

So it's getting back to a few years ago, and nobody wants to play in B-More.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No doubt it's a good track record. It's unfortunately also a track record of bad PR. They have to figure out a way to nix these deals before they are like 99% done.

In terms of Balfour, we'll just wait and see. There's certainly some weird stuff with those two doctors, but who is going to give the O's the benefit of the doubt in this situation? Not many people, and certainly not agents.

So even if the O's end up right on this, some damage has been done because it could have been handled better. So it goes.

Good luck with "nixing" these deals in the age of twitter. Major league deals are usually 100 % done after the physicals.

Balfour and his team of agents and doctors have put the Orioles in this "tough spot." Because of HIPA, the Orioles are unable to defend their deccision with specifics. I would hope that this fact would give the Orioles the benefit of the doubt in some circles.

I don't think the Orioles have handled this situation "badly." They did come back to Balfour with a counter offer. The worst way to handle this would be for them to override the Doctor reports based on the psossibilty of bad PR and public rants of a disgruntled free agent and his cronies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No doubt it's a good track record. It's unfortunately also a track record of bad PR. They have to figure out a way to nix these deals before they are like 99% done.

In terms of Balfour, we'll just wait and see. There's certainly some weird stuff with those two doctors, but who is going to give the O's the benefit of the doubt in this situation? Not many people, and certainly not agents.

So even if the O's end up right on this, some damage has been done because it could have been handled better. So it goes.

Honestly, I'm not sure how they could have handled it differently. I don't enjoy the bad PR, but I think that largely derived from Balfour encouraging the two doctors to speak out on his behalf and the Orioles not being able to give details of their reasons for backing away from the contract, due to medical privacy laws.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Right. There's a good chance Balfour simply failed the physical and the O's made the right call. That doesn't change the fact that it was handled poorly and has resulted in the worst PR debacle since 2005. That's just a fact. And it has real effects on how the Orioles will be doing business going forward because of the public perception.

So everyone taking the Orioles' side here on the medicals, that's fine. But then there's the PR side, which they have utterly dropped the ball on.

I'm sorry, but how was it handled poorly? The doctors recommended that the Orioles not guaranty a second year, and that they instead give a vesting option for that second year. The Orioles did just that. What else, exactly, are you saying they should have done? Balfour is the one that has handled the situation poorly, if you ask me. Ignoring their doctors' advice and just going ahead and signing Balfour anyway would have been foolish. This has been blown out of proportion by Balfour and a few ambulance-chasing journalists like Rosenthal, not by the Orioles.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Agree to disagree I guess. It was a public ****show, and now every agent on the planet has a giant red flag next to the Orioles. Back on the blacklist. After so much progress in the department.

I guess we will. I still don't see what the Orioles did that was so "wrong." IMO, they negotiated with the guy in good faith, and made him a counter offer after their team Dr.'s expressed concern. Balfour had the option of signing the one year deal with the vesting option and turned it down. This seems like business a s usual in the baseball business. After all, didn't the Red Sox sign Napoli to a shorter deal after his physical?

Please tell me where the Orioles handled this situation badly.

Finally, The Orioles have been well known for their due diligence when it come to phyicals when they relate to free agents or long term contracts.

I'm sure if the money is flashed, these agents will put the so-called "blacklist in the shredder.

Tell me where the Oriole

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Agree to disagree I guess. It was a public ****show, and now every agent on the planet has a giant red flag next to the Orioles. Back on the blacklist. After so much progress in the department.

Do you honestly think business is done this way?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I still go back to - What doctor is going to say a 36 year old veteran closer is going to stay healthy for 2 years? It's not going to happen unless the arm is in amazingly good shape. So the O's created a situation that they should have known would likely blow up. I think it was even said that if it was a 1 year contract, he would have been medically cleared.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess we will. I still don't see what the Orioles did that was so "wrong." IMO, they negotiated with the guy in good faith, and made him a counter offer after their team Dr.'s expressed concern. Balfour had the option of signing the one year deal with the vesting option and turned it down. This seems like business a s usual in the baseball business. After all, didn't the Red Sox sign Napoli to a shorter deal after his physical?

Please tell me where the Orioles handled this situation badly.

Finally, The Orioles have been well known for their due diligence when it come to phyicals when they relate to free agents or long term contracts.

I'm sure if the money is flashed, these agents will put the so-called "blacklist in the shredder.

Tell me where the Oriole

Balfour's history with the shoulder is no mystery. Its something had the O's done their due dilligence they could have concluded PRIOR to reaching an agreement. I seriously doubt that any changes in his MRI are that significant considering its being relatively reliably reported that 4 teams are still on on him.

If something is stolen in your house and someone who lives there has a history of stealing, that's the first place you look fair or not. Angelos has a history....we all know it....fair or not this reeks of Pete nixing the deal based on the Balfour's history. I cant imagine DD screwing the poich like this IMO. Time will tell I guess.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you honestly think business is done this way?

Of course it is. You don't want to do business with people that are hard to work with. You don't want to do business who's word means nothing. I didn't sell a motorcycle to the highest bidder as he started talking about how he needed to get his bank loan approved through some out of state lender and they need all this information. I sold it to someone else for 500 dollars less who had a check in hand. When someone is known for having problems coming through they are not worth the effort at any price unless they are the only one making an offer and even then I would probably just wait to see if anybody else would come along.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I still go back to - What doctor is going to say a 36 year old veteran closer is going to stay healthy for 2 years? It's not going to happen unless the arm is in amazingly good shape. So the O's created a situation that they should have known would likely blow up. I think it was even said that if it was a 1 year contract, he would have been medically cleared.

Ummm... isn't that what Balfour is saying the two doctor friends of his are saying?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ummm... isn't that what Balfour is saying the two doctor friends of his are saying?

Friends? Tim Kremchek, the Cincinnati Reds medical director and renowned orthopedic surgeon, performed right elbow and shoulder surgeries on Balfour in 2005. This doctor, players go to him from all major league teams. Dr Wilckens who is the orthopedic guy for the Orioles is also good. I don't think it has anything to do with doctor friends. Just a different outlook. The A's trusted Dr. Eaton to actually do the physical on behalf of the A's when he signed with them. I don't think friendship has anything to do with it. /

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I still go back to - What doctor is going to say a 36 year old veteran closer is going to stay healthy for 2 years? It's not going to happen unless the arm is in amazingly good shape. So the O's created a situation that they should have known would likely blow up. I think it was even said that if it was a 1 year contract, he would have been medically cleared.

This is what a bunch of folks in the industry would say -- look at the shoulder of a 30-something pitcher and it's probably not going to be roses.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Friends? Tim Kremchek, the Cincinnati Reds medical director and renowned orthopedic surgeon, performed right elbow and shoulder surgeries on Balfour in 2005. This doctor, players go to him from all major league teams. Dr Wilckens who is the orthopedic guy for the Orioles is also good. I don't think it has anything to do with doctor friends. Just a different outlook. The A's trusted Dr. Eaton to actually do the physical on behalf of the A's when he signed with them. I don't think friendship has anything to do with it. /

Balfour is married to Kremchek's former assistant, so I do think there's a personal relationship there. But I doubt that influences his medical opinion, just his willingness to speak out about it.

One thing people are forgetting is that the O's did more than just look at an MRI. They put him through a physical examination in person, and who knows what else they did. It's quite possible, even likely, they have more data than Kremchek or the Tampa doctor have seen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.




  • Posts

    • Yeah the amenities are pretty outdated at the yard and they seem to do nothing year over year to improve them. The touchscreens have been banged on to death to the point they barely function, so you can't accurately fill out your order at the kiosks, and they don't have a way for the people behind the counter to ring you up at many of the food places. The sound is low to non-existent in certain sections of the club level, like around 218. Seems like there should be speakers that reach there but they might have been damaged by rain, etc. and they are too lazy to fix them. If you go to a game that's even slightly busy, you will wait forever to get into the bathroom, and the sink will be an absolute mess with no soap or paper towels. It's even worse on the club level where they have one sink that's right by the door. Nearby businesses don't care, either. The Hilton parking garage reeks of decay, pot and human waste. They don't turn on the air circulation fans, even if cars are waiting for an hour and a half to exit from P3, filling up the air with carbon monoxide. They only let you enter the stadium with one 20 oz bottle of water. It's so expensive to buy a drink or water in the stadium, but with all the salty food, 20 oz of water isn't enough, especially on a hot day. Vegetarian food options are poor to none, other than things like chips, fries, hot pretzels and the occasional pizza. Vida Taco is better, but at an inconvenient location for many seats. The doors on the club level are not accessible. They're anti-accessible. Big, heavy doors you have to go through to get to/from the escalators, and big, heavy doors to get to your seats, none of them automatic (or even with the option to be automatic with a button press). Makes it hard to carry food out to your seats even if not handicapped. The furniture in the lounges on the club level seem designed to allow as few people as possible to sit down. Not great when we have so many rain delays during the season. Should put more, smaller chairs in and allow more of the club level ticket holders to have a seat while waiting for thunderstorms to pass. They keep a lot of the entrance/exit gates closed except for playoff/sellout games, which means people have to slowly "mooooo" all the way down Eutaw St to get to parking. They are too cheap to staff all the gates, so they make people exit by the warehouse, even though it would be a lot more convenient for many fans to open all the gates. Taking Light Rail would be super convenient, except that if there's at least 20k fans in attendance, it's common to have to wait 90-120 minutes to be able to board a non-full train heading toward Glen Burnie. A few trains might come by, but they are already full, or fill up fast when folks walk up to the Convention Center stop to pre-empt the folks trying to board at Camden Station. None of the garages in the area are set up to require pre-payment on entry (reservation, or give them your card / digital payment at the entrance till). If they were, emptying out the garage would be very quick, as they wouldn't need to ticket anyone on the way out: if you can't get in without paying, you can always just leave without having to stop and scan your phone or put a ticket in the machine. They shut down the Sports Legends Museum at Camden Station in 2015 because the Maryland Stadium Authority was too greedy. That place was a fun distraction if you were in the area when a game wasn't about to start, like if you show up super early on Opening Day or a playoff day. Superbook's restaurant on Eutaw is a huge downgrade from Dempsey's in terms of menu and service quality. Dempsey's used to be well-staffed, you could reserve a table online, and they had all kinds of great selection for every diet. Superbook seems like just another bar serving the same swill that the rest of the park serves, with extremely minimal and low-quality food. For that matter, most of the food at the stadium is very low quality these days. A lot of things we used to love are made to a lower standard now if they are served at all. These are gripes about the stadium and the area that haven't changed my entire adult life. Going to an O's game requires one to tolerate many small inconveniences and several major inconveniences, any number of which could easily be fixed by the relevant authorities if they gave a damn about the people who pay to come see the team play. You would think a mid-market team would be able to afford to invest in the fan experience. You would think the city and partnering organizations like garages, the Stadium Authority and MTA would at least try to do their part to make the experience enjoyable and free of kinks. You would think they would put some thought into handling the "growing pains" of the fanbase due to recent renewed interest after the dark years. Instead, all we get is the same indifference and the same annoyances year in and year out. The whole area is overdue for a revamp. Not sure if $600 mil will get it done, but at least it's a start. Hopefully they can start to patch up some of the many holes in the fan experience. If you're not going to invest in Burnes, at least make it so paying customers have an easier, more enjoyable time getting to/from the stadium and having some food while we're there.
    • Elias has only been in rebuild mode with the O's so there's not much to speculate on there.  Houston, where he spent his formative years, doesn't seem to like to be on the hook for more than a couple of big long-term contracts at any given time.  I can see that as being Elias' choice as well, albeit with a lower overall cost - Houston runs a big payroll.  But it's all guesswork.  I really don't know. If Elias takes the 2025 payroll to $150 million it will creep up to $200 million or so by 2028 just from keeping the core together.  That's where I start to wonder about sustainability due to market size, economic forces, etc., etc., etc... If it were up to me, I would add a couple of free agents this offseason even if the contracts were longer than ideal and be conservative about extensions elsewhere until the prospects establish themselves a little better.  I think there's a competitive opportunity that the team is already into that's worth exploiting. I think ownership is very happy to have Elias on board and they're not inclined to force him to do anything.  I also think Rubenstein's demonstrated business prowess is great enough to assume that he has had plenty enough time to come to a mutual understanding with Elias as to goals.
    • We need a RH O’hearn…in addition to Westburg. At least 3 batters that will push up the pitch count and cause damage in the top 5 of the lineup.
    • Boy,  that Jackson Merrill is a good young player that is playing his best ball down the season stretch and in the playoffs.   He's only 21.  I guess some young guys are able to play up to the pressure.   Who could have guessed that?
    • I’m aware.   You are arguing something im Not.
    • What agreement? The agreement you are talking about happened as a result of the move.  The MASN agreement would not have existed if Angelos had gone to court to block the move.
    • I’m saying the Os had an agreement with MLB and that should have held up.  Been pretty clear about that. 
  • Popular Contributors

×
×
  • Create New...