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Dan Duquette can't get the financial go-ahead from owner Peter Angelos to meet Morales' asking price


Greg

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I think that was his specific plan for the bullpen.

What other relief pitcher would you have liked him to sign after the Balfour deal fell through?

Well without any, you know proof, of PA waking up and suddenly vetoing deals now that the O's are winning again I am going to assume that there are other reasons for the lack of interest in the other players. (Arroyo and Burnett were pursued btw) Things like giving up the draft pick and players wanting three year deals.

You assume that Balfour/Webb was DD's specific, A-number-1 plan for the bullpen, and you dismiss the idea of "plan B's."

You assume that a GM with a history of signing free agents to expensive contracts of longer than three years has refrained from going after other free agents due to the loss of a draft pick and/or the lengths of prospective contracts (despite DD's recent comments concerning the possible loss of the draft pick).

You assume that Angelos hasn't interfered this winter (because, enacting a less-than-three-years rule for pitchers is DD's brain child, right?).

And yet, with all those assumptions, you can't find your way to doing anything other than criticize the assumptions that have been made by others. Even without any, you know, proof.

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You derailed it by spouting absolute garbage as fact.

I can't believe nobody else has chimed in to tell you how moronic it is to say that - and yes, even last year- JJ was far better than Kevin Gregg.

That's just colossally stupid, and verifiably false.

You are right. Kevin Gregg is a really bad closer. And if you that "I can hit a homer" I would have let it go.

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You are right. Kevin Gregg is a really bad closer. And if you that "I can hit a homer" I would have let it go.

I can hit a ball out of the park. A lot of grown men can.

And Kevin Gregg can save a ML game. A lot of grown men can.

That doesn't mean he's as good a closer as JJ.

Nor does it mean I'm as good a hitter as Chris Davis.

I was showing you how moronic you initial comparisons by making an absurd one myself.

You're the one constantly making ridiculous statements, which you quickly run away from, when pointed out just how ridiculous they are.

I don't need to do that, but I don't make ridiculous statements.

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I think it's certainly plausible that DD has a budget and hasn't been able to close the deal on a few free agents, either because he wasn't willing to overpay or the players simply didn't find Baltimore appealing. I wouldn't necessarily call that incompetence, nor would I call Angelos setting a budget "up to his old tricks."
Arroyo said that if the O's had made the offer they did, a few weeks earlier he would have probably accepted it. Well DD knew he wanted Arroyo for some time. Why did he drag his heals on getting that offer together. Either he blew it ,and wasn't aggressive enough, or some thing like waiting for PA's approval caused a delay. The latter has happened in past, I wouldn't be surprised if it's happening now.
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You derailed it by spouting absolute garbage as fact.

I can't believe nobody else has chimed in to tell you how moronic it is to say that - and yes, even last year- JJ was far better than Kevin Gregg.

That's just colossally stupid, and verifiably false.

Could you please stop with the name-calling? I disagree strongly with weams on this topic, but calling his opinions "moronic" and "collosally stupid" is unnecessary.

I think we all understand that an 84.7% save rate is a little below average for a closer and that you wouldn't pay $10 mm if that's what you thought you were going to get. I have a much higher degree of confidence that JJ will exceed that in 2014 than that Kevin Gregg would. But I still wouldn't want to pay him $10 mm to try, if I had other things to spend that $10 mm on. My problem is, we haven't spent it. I'd rather have JJ closing in that scenario.

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Weams says:

Fun discourse. But this thread supposed to be about Dan! And how he is not allowed to do anything.My bad for derailing it. Or someone who said the could hit a homer did. One of us.

You derailed it by spouting absolute garbage as fact.

I can't believe nobody else has chimed in to tell you how moronic it is to say that - and yes, even last year- JJ was far better than Kevin Gregg.

That's just colossally stupid, and verifiably false.

That was certainly the most gracious acceptance of an apology I've read in a long time.

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As I've posted before, the only rational explanation I can come up with for Angelos not going all-out to try to build a team that will give him one last shot at the World Series is his desire to hoard cash so that, after estate taxes, his heirs will not be cash-strapped in running the team (including, possibly, extending Hardy or signing Davis, Weiters and/or Machado).

I would love to think that he's preparing to try to sell the team, but the kinds of financial commitments to a SP or DH that we're talking about wouldn't reduce interest in, or have an effect on, the price of a billion-dollar asset. To the contrary, if you believed (as most of us do) that a couple of signings costing $20 million dollars a year would enhance the chances of building a contender and boosting fan enthusiasm and attendance, they could the current owners' efforts to generate interest and get a higher price.

Based on the information I have seen, Angelos' thrift can be explained only by his irrationality or by estate planning concerns.

This makes no sense to me. The money he makes today will be taxed at a much higher level then estate taxes. By not spending now, it also leads to higher profits and thus a higher value of his share of the Orioles. If he is smart, he has been slowly dumping shares to his family. He has to have some kind of valuation on the value of those shares. The more profit that is made by the Orioles, the higher that valuation would be. If he was really concerned about estate planning, he would try as hard as he could to reduce profits and therefore reduce the value of his shares. I am not an accountant, however, I was involved in a similar situation on a much smaller scale and this is the way we handled it.

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Could you please stop with the name-calling? I disagree strongly with weams on this topic, but calling his opinions "moronic" and "collosally stupid" is unnecessary.

I think we all understand that an 84.7% save rate is a little below average for a closer and that you wouldn't pay $10 mm if that's what you thought you were going to get. I have a much higher degree of confidence that JJ will exceed that in 2014 than that Kevin Gregg would. But I still wouldn't want to pay him $10 mm to try, if I had other things to spend that $10 mm on. My problem is, we haven't spent it. I'd rather have JJ closing in that scenario.

I mean, I'm not calling him names. I'm calling his statements what they are: stupid. LOL.

Sorry, not all opinions should be treated equally.

Part of the problem is the idea that save % is a particularly good way to evaluate a closer.

It isn't.

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Weams says:

Fun discourse. But this thread supposed to be about Dan! And how he is not allowed to do anything.My bad for derailing it. Or someone who said the could hit a homer did. One of us.

That was certainly the most gracious acceptance of an apology I've read in a long time.

That was an apology? Looks pretty snarky to me.

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You assume that Balfour/Webb was DD's specific, A-number-1 plan for the bullpen, and you dismiss the idea of "plan B's."

You assume that a GM with a history of signing free agents to expensive contracts of longer than three years has refrained from going after other free agents due to the loss of a draft pick and/or the lengths of prospective contracts (despite DD's recent comments concerning the possible loss of the draft pick).

You assume that Angelos hasn't interfered this winter (because, enacting a less-than-three-years rule for pitchers is DD's brain child, right?).

And yet, with all those assumptions, you can't find your way to doing anything other than criticize the assumptions that have been made by others. Even without any, you know, proof.

I don't think DD thinks this group of free agents is worth a three year deal. (aside from Yoon at his discounted price)

I also don't think the contract length is PA "interfering" in the way you are implying. I think it is a condition of the job. The O's have shown no indication in recent history of even considering giving any pitcher a 4 year + deal.

I am even willing to admit that there were other plan's "b's", Mujica for instance. He was signed too quickly.

I do not think that there was a valid plan B for the bullpen after Balfour failed the physical, maybe they were serious about Rodney (who ended up signing for almost exactly what Balfour had been offered).

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