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Dan Duquette Q&A


kyleott

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Early in the off season Hammel wanted four years.

His price will have to come down considerably for the O's (or any sane team) to be interested.

Wow, yeah…thats outrageous. I was thinking something along the lines of 1/4M and something tells me thats not rich enough for Hammels taste.

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On baseball reference he does. That 2.7 WAR must come a lot from his defense because hitting wise his stats were just meh.

It does come a lot from his defense. But what I've seen from August 2012 on is that defense has a tremendous impact on a team. I knew that, back when I was watching the great teams of the '60's, '70's and '80's, but frankly, I'd forgotten just how important it really was until Manny and McLouth showed up and we went from below average to above average defensively overnight.

When we got McLouth, our LF defense went from lousy to average. If Lough is what he appears to be, our LF defense now goes from average to excellent. Maybe his range allows Adam Jones to shade two strides closer to the RF side -- think of the impact that has.

Don't undersell defense. Lough will still need to hit enough to stay on the field, but he could be as impactful as Dan hopes.

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I really don't understand why Dan is overselling Lough on us.

He sounds like a decent pickup, but reading Dan, you think this kid is the next Mike Trout.

Because that is his major accomplishment of the offseason. Ofcourse Dan is going to act like he did something great.

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It does come a lot from his defense. But what I've seen from August 2012 on is that defense has a tremendous impact on a team. I knew that, back when I was watching the great teams of the '60's, '70's and '80's, but frankly, I'd forgotten just how important it really was until Manny and McLouth showed up and we went from below average to above average defensively overnight.

When we got McLouth, our LF defense went from lousy to average. If Lough is what he appears to be, our LF defense now goes from average to excellent. Maybe his range allows Adam Jones to shade two strides closer to the RF side -- think of the impact that has.

Don't undersell defense. Lough will still need to hit enough to stay on the field, but he could be as impactful as Dan hopes.

How is Lough's base running abilities any idea?

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Because he was tied in WAR with Wil Myers.
Also, he didn't play for K.C. until mid-May. Dan's real high on the kid, but then I remembered he also made a lot of glowing remarks last year about Alexi Casilla. He kept comparing his role to McLouth. I want Lough to do well, especially since a proven upgrade to McLouth costs too many of Dan's marbles.
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Guest rochester
Also, he didn't play for K.C. until mid-May. Dan's real high on the kid, but then I remembered he also made a lot of glowing remarks last year about Alexi Casilla. He kept comparing his role to McLouth. I want Lough to do well, especially since a proven upgrade to McLouth costs too many of Dan's marbles.

Tony - the time and effort you have taken with this is remarkable - there are a lot of adjectives I could throw out and all would be warranted - how about thanks!!!! what a great great read!

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Tremendous post, TonyS! My main takeaways are that DD is very confident in what he's doing, is really high on Lough and Urrutia, and is confident he can make the other additions he needs before the offseason ends. I'm going to hold him to that promise.

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First--thanks Tony for the original post. Very interesting and thorough.

Second--I don't understand why so many people want us to resign Hammel for the rotation. He was below replacement level as a starter last year--we were forced to trade for Bud Norris because Hammel needed to be replaced. He was good in 2012 but in the context of his whole career, 2012 is the exception rather than the rule.

Lastly--I'm even more depressed about this offseason after reading about Dan's comments. If he's touting TJ Macfarland as an option for the starting rotation and talking about how great Tommy Hunter and Darren O'Day were last year in the bullpen, then I find it hard to believe he's going to spend any significant money on a reliever or a starter. Hammel might be at the high end of who he'll sign.

I guess I should be thankful that he didn't talk about how great Britton will be in the rotation.

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After that, I was up to bat, and asked him, in an ideal world where you can fill your needs in order, how do you rank starting pitching (with Tanaka out of our price range), another bullpen arm, DH, and is LF pretty much taken care of with David Lough? ?With the LF issue, I like David Lough to able to help us in LF. I also like Henry Urrutia, a June pickup last year, went to Arizona fall league, did well again out there, and he physically doesn?t have any gaps in his hitting profile to be an everyday ballplayer. Last year at this time, he was running from the authorities in the Dominican Republic. He had to take refuge in Haiti, and he didn?t have an opportunity to train. He had a pretty decent year. He did make a couple contributions to the major league team. I think with the benefit of a year of experience and training he should be a good asset to our team, so I like Urrutia to help our team, but I like David Lough to help us in LF and take a lot of the at bats and make a contribution that Nate McLouth did. Our shopping list really hasn?t changed we?d still like to augment our bullpen. I have to tell you Tommy Hunter had as good a year as any of these other closers had, and we already have him on our team. And then we also have Darren O?Day who spent a lot of time as set-up man the past couple years, so they?re already on our team, they could be candidates to close the game. Having said that, I?d still like to sign a couple pitchers, a starter, a reliever, and also get a LH in there at DH. They?re all on the shopping list, and I?m confident we can address all that between now and the time that we open."

Another question, ?Dan, you?re fairly committed to developing from within, that appears to be our strategy going forward, how important do you think these international signings can be, long-term??

?Fred Ferreira , who is our international recruiter, is just a fantastic scout. Fred signed 63 players from the amateur level ,brought in to pro ball, that got to the big leagues. His goal is to get to 75 and get into the HOF. I don?t know of any better talent scout than Fred. Fred seems to have a natural way of recruiting talent. He was recognized last year as the International scout of the year. He signed Miguel Gonzalez for us and h has since brought some good players to the organization including Henry Urrutia. Fred was telling me all the players he signed for the Yankees. He signed Bernie Williams, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Hensley Meulens. Then I brought him to the Expos, he signed Vladimir Guerrero Javier Vazquez, Jose Vidro, so he?s signed some really good players. Fred went to Cincinnati and during his time there he worked for Marge Schott and I looked at his resume'. Why did you not sign any good players when you were in Cincinatti, you were there for five years? He said, ?I think it was because Mrs Schott kept asking me why I didn?t drive to Puerto Rico from Ft. Lauderdale when I had a company car.?

I am now convinced that Henry Urrutia will be the LH DH and 4th-5th OF for the team. Any major signing from here until the spring training will be on the pitching side.

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