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Duquette will be on WBAL Hot Stove tonight, 7-8 pm


Frobby

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Life is like a box of bagels.

"We've been looking for a veteran starter to bolster our staff all winter, and hopefully we'll be able to sign one. We've been trying this winter. We just haven't quite got it done yet"

"Every pitcher that we are involved in, that we're trying to recruit to come to Baltimore, there's four or five teams on each of these pitchers, and that tells you there just aren't quite enough quality skilled pitchers to go around the big leagues."

"The good news is we're starting to develop some of these starting pitchers in our farm system, and I'm confident that some of these young guys that we have are going to come up and have an impact and make a contribution this year."

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Life is like a box of bagels.

"We'll always use spring training to see where we're at, but I'd hope some of these pitchers are going to sign in the next week. We're getting ready to start at the end of next week with our workouts. I've got to think these pitchers are thinking the same thing. They want to go and have a full camp and get ready to have a good season wherever they sign."

"I think it will get resolved in the next week or so."

"We're trying to win now. The question is what the cost is to each of these players. Some of them you have to give up a draft pick and others you don't. We'd like to build the ballcub through the draft, but I can tell you we are getting some pretty good talent and a pretty strong talent base in our minor leagues. We're talking about six of the top 43 prospects in the business are right now in the Orioles' farm system, so that's the good news."

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"We've got a few more players in the minors and that gives us a little bit more of a possibility to utilize some of those players to help the big league club and use others in trades to supplement the big league roster. So, I'm not as concerned about the draft picks now as before, because we have a pretty good draft system and Fred Ferreira continues to sign good players. We're getting more good players into our pipeline."

Rochtranscrption

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This "every player we go after has four or five team after him" comment sounds weak. It sounds like DD's off season strategy is sliding away from him. The wait till the prices drop strategy hasn't worked. There is too much money in the baseball industry for the low rates the O's want to pay.

Arroyo sounds like he is leaning D'Backs. Burnett does sound interested in the O's. Yoon has enough teams after him that he may need a multi year deal and he may not pass the O's physical for that.

Dan could make two signing in the next three days but he sounded down to me last night.

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"They are part of our core and we've got them for the next couple of years. I'm more focused on trying to fill out our pitching staff for this year. Hopefully, we'll get beyond the signing season here in a couple of weeks and we can get on with the rest of our ballclub."

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If memory serves me, last off season DD kept saying he was going to sign a middle of the order hitter. Right up until he didn't.
I agree with this. From December, 2012
Next year, we'll have the core back and hope to resign Joe Saunders. The ballclub is pretty well set but they would like to add a middle of the order bat.

This year, January, 9.

“We have some areas to address that we want to continue to address between now and when we open and that’s on the pitching staff. So we’re hopeful to sign another starter and a reliever. But I have to tell you, I like our talent base. I like our pitching staff going into the season, we’re better than…I think we have a little more depth than we had the last couple years that I’ve been here, on the mound. So if we can add a couple more pitchers I think we’ll be in pretty good shape.”
“We hope to be able to address our DH, being that we didn’t get a lot out of our DH last year. We know that is an area that we need to upgrade along with adding to our pitching staff. Between now and when we open, keep your eye on what we do we should be able to help ourselves in those areas by either signing a player or making another trade” I’d still like to sign a couple pitchers, a starter, a reliever, and also get a LH hitter in there at DH. So, they’re all on the shopping list, and I’m confident we can address all that between now and the time that we open."

Since the latest, his LH DH is ??? Delmon Young is a RHB. The reliever is Aceves? Meek? Last night, he didn't list DH or reliever as positions of need.

As these are the current solutions, and they are not ones that seem to meet his stated shopping list, I'm not confident about adding a starting pitcher. One could argue that Dan was playing a good game of poker last night, not wanting to tip his hand. To me, all offseason he has sounded like a man who didn't want to make promises he wasn't sure he was going to keep.

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I agree with this. From December, 2012

This year, January, 9.

Since the latest, his LH DH is ??? Delmon Young is a RHB. The reliever is Aceves? Meek? Last need, he didn't list DH or reliever as positions of need.

As these are the current solutions, and they are not ones that seem to meet his stated shopping list, I'm not confident about adding a starting pitcher. One could argue that Dan was playing a good game of poker last night, not wanting to tip his hand. To me, all offseason he has sounded like a man who didn't want to make promises he wasn't sure he was going to keep.

Rather he has sounded like a man who didn't want to make promises he was sure he wasn't going to keep.

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To me, all offseason he has sounded like a man who didn't want to make promises he wasn't sure he was going to keep.

Well, he did make it clear multiple times that the payroll this year would be higher than last year. We're still waiting on that one.

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I like Duke, and I don't want to sound like I am throwing darts at the man.

But, to me, the failure to sign a SP, after all the public hype, is so much like last year, and everybody agreed Sheriff was too costly and they were going to get a big FA bat to replace him, and they never did. A point that came back to bit the time in the arse, big time.

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The past 3 offseasons he has stressed how we are going to improve our OBP. I am still waiting on that.

There's only one promise he's made that I really cared about, and he's kept it so far. He promised we'd have a winning team. He promised that in 2012, 2013 and now. He's two for two. The rest is footnotes.

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There's only one promise he's made that I really cared about, and he's kept it so far. He promised we'd have a winning team. He promised that in 2012, 2013 and now. He's two for two. The rest is footnotes.

While I agree with this, he's also semi-acknowledged that we have a window of opportunity here. We have Wieters and Davis for the next two seasons and we haven't really done a whole lot these last two offseasons to supplement a suspect pitching staff.

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There's only one promise he's made that I really cared about, and he's kept it so far. He promised we'd have a winning team. He promised that in 2012, 2013 and now. He's two for two. The rest is footnotes.

You are right, personally I wish he was 2 for 2 with playoff visits, but winning baseball beats 14 years of losing.

So many question marks about this current team as it stands now, it could very well be a winning team, but it wouldn't take much for it to be bad, and I am trying not to drink the kool-aid.

Especially, when some of us feel they could have done more than they have, and that they have a better budget than they acknowledge, they cry and pretend small ball market team.

I no argument about castoffs and trying to find diamonds, there is little risk there and big rewards when they do.

I think if they had signed a couple of avoidable mid tier free agents, plug them into their core six, then we would be talking strong WS contender and I think this is the point that burns many fans.

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You are right, personally I wish he was 2 for 2 with playoff visits, but winning baseball beats 14 years of losing.

So many question marks about this current team as it stands now, it could very well be a winning team, but it wouldn't take much for it to be bad, and I am trying not to drink the kool-aid.

Especially, when some of us feel they could have done more than they have, and that they have a better budget than they acknowledge, they cry and pretend small ball market team.

I no argument about castoffs and trying to find diamonds, there is little risk there and big rewards when they do.

I think if they had signed a couple of avoidable mid tier free agents, plug them into their core six, then we would be talking strong WS contender and I think this is the point that burns many fans.

I think this is a very fair post. I wrote back in November that I thought we were an 85-win team that could win anywhere between 80 and 90 wins. Since then, our biggest moves of the winter have been trading Valencia for Lough and dumping JJ. McLouth, Roberts and Feldman are gone. Young, Webb and Aceves have been added. Overall, I don't think we are materially better on February 7 than we were in November before the free agency period started. Even if we landed one of the available starting pitchers, I wouldn't see us as vastly improved over last year. Maybe I'd see us as an 87-win team with another solid starter, capable of winning as many as 92-93 but also capable of hovering at .500.

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