Dan's Strategy This Offseason

[weams]

The strategy was to build the best team available with a 125 million dollar payroll. Because he did not have 130 to spend.

In retrospect, Dan should have non-tendered Matt Wieters and Brian Matusz not signed Wesley Wright. He then could have traded for Melvin Upton Jr. By himself.

[El Gordo]

Strategy was obviously to do as much as possible to undercut the O's and give TOR chance to win the division, If it works TOR will be so grateful they will do what ever it takes to get Dan next year.

[MarylandAaron]

The offseason is officially in the books. What do we think of DD's strategy? A consistent theme the whole offseason has been depth. Dan tendered contracts to Matusz, Hunter, and De Aza, even though these guys seem to be both expendable and making more than market value. We bring back Reimold on a minor league contract, even though we had just re-signed Delmon. Then we sign Cabrera despite already having Flaherty and Navarro. Holding off (at least for now) on trading either a starting pitcher (Bud) or reliever (Matusz, Webb, Hunter) despite strength at both positions. Most recently, we go with Clevenger, allowing us to stash Lavarnway in the minors.

The strategy seems to be to stand pat with the team we had last year (minus Markakis and Cruz but hopefully with more from Davis, Machado, and Wieters), but build up insurance in case anything happens to our stars (we got extremely lucky that CJ filled in so well for Wieters). The message is that we do not need a big free agent, just some MLB ready guys to fill in if needed. So far the strategy has been at least partially vindicated, with Wieters and JJ already on the DL and Bud having a shaky spring. At the moment it looks like a waste of money that could have been spent (arguably) on resigning Cruz or extending Nick. But if JJ needs a while on the DL or Ubaldo is as bad as he was last year, DD may be vindicated.

No big splashes, but no major mistakes either.

This is a really great post. I think it illustrates the strategy really well. It's certainly interesting, all the guys who are ML caliber just stashed in AAA. There's no way injuries could cripple this team unless we happened to have a ton of them at once. I don't think the losses of Cruz and Markakis will sting too bad. We are still a pitching and defense centered team, and we will still hit the long ball. Even without those two guys.

[SteveO]

The strategy was to build the best team available with a 125 million dollar payroll. Because he did not have 130 to spend.

Very well said.

Its not like DD sat around on a pile of money he had to spend and did nothing. To me this next offseason will be very telling in regards to judging how serious the Orioles are about remaining a playoff threat moving forward. Clearly with the number of guys who will be FA after this year, there will be a lot of work to be done.

DD did the smartest thing he could given the resources he had. He let guys go whom he would have had to overpay in order to retain their production but retained and acquired some guys who collectively could offset a significant amount of the production lost. Not sure what else he could do. The man can only spend what he is given to spend. I suspect he has 5-10 million in flexibility should the right scenario via trade occur in season.

[Redskins Rick]

I spent all last season reading lots of rants by OP that wanted Markakis gone, in fact, probably longer than just last season.

Now that he is gone, some people feel the need to harp and dump on DD for not resigning Nick.

[Frobby]

I spent all last season reading lots of rants by OP that wanted Markakis gone, in fact, probably longer than just last season.

Now that he is gone, some people feel the need to harp and dump on DD for not resigning Nick.

It's probably not the same people.

It will ne interesting to see what kind of production we get from the corner OF spots this year.

[atomic]

I spent all last season reading lots of rants by OP that wanted Markakis gone, in fact, probably longer than just last season.

Now that he is gone, some people feel the need to harp and dump on DD for not resigning Nick.

Well those of us harping on DD were not he ones who wanted Markakis gone. Do you think the board is one person? I don't really understand your point.

[Redskins Rick]

It's probably not the same people.

It will ne interesting to see what kind of production we get from the corner OF spots this year.

Probably not, but they were very vocal of their displeasure of Nick and that he was below a replacement player in their opinion. Just funny seeing the other side now.

Yes, now that he is gone, interesting to see how that spot goes this year.

[atomic]

In retrospect, Dan should have non-tendered Matt Wieters and Brian Matusz not signed Wesley Wright. He then could have traded for Melvin Upton Jr. By himself.

He could have also traded Chris Davis and signed someone else in his place. Just because he has a fixed payroll doesn't mean his hands were tied into doing nothing.

[Redskins Rick]

He could have also traded Chris Davis and signed someone else in his place. Just because he has a fixed payroll doesn't mean his hands were tied into doing nothing.

Do you realistically see another team giving up anything for Davis, not knowing which Davis they were renting for 2015?

[atomic]

Do you realistically see another team giving up anything for Davis, not knowing which Davis they were renting for 2015?

I wasn't thinking of trading him for anything of real value. But if you think we couldn't even get a AAAA player for him then you just don't have to offer him arbitration. I don't know spending what they did on Davis for a guy who couldn't even hit .200 and was suspended for PED's doesn't make sense to me. I would rather have Markakis.

[Bahama O's Fan]

For all the whining about what we lost this season, I can't find any "expert" or sportswriter that believes Cruz or Markakis will be worth their contracts. Too much money for their future production.

[atomic]

For all the whining about what we lost this season' date=' I can't find any "expert" or sportswriter that believes Cruz or Markakis will be worth their contracts. Too much money for their future production.[/quote']

How is it whining to say that you think that losing Markakis and Cruz and not replacing them is a bad decision?

[backwardsk]

I wasn't thinking of trading him for anything of real value. But if you think we couldn't even get a AAAA player for him then you just don't have to offer him arbitration. I don't know spending what they did on Davis for a guy who couldn't even hit .200 and was suspended for PED's doesn't make sense to me. I would rather have Markakis.

Who would be your 1st baseman?

You would rather have Nick for four years:, $45M than Davis for 1 year $12M and a future draft pick? Or would just pick up Markakis' $17M option?

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[NCRaven]

I'm a Nick fan and I'm glad he's gone. Not that we didn't give him the Atlanta contract which would obviously have been a huge mistake. I'm glad he's gone at virtually any price. It was time to move on. We did replace him with Travis Snider and Steve Pearce. They will produce more in right field than Nick.

Not a Cruz fan, but I do respect what he did last year. It was a career year at age 33. If we gave him the Seattle contract, would he be likely to replicate what he did last year. I doubt it. We didn't replace 40 home runs with one player, but there wasn't one player available that the Orioles could acquire to replace 40 home runs.

We didn't "win" the off season. We didn't last year, either. We just won the AL East. I think we have a good chance to do it again.