A potential storm brewing?

[DrungoHazewood]

There's no need for all this dramatic finger pointing and speculating. The O's had a crap year, give it another whirl next year. It's baseball.

That's the post of the year. Life is short, have fun, there's always next year. And if there's not, well, it doesn't matter anyway. Baseball is fun, if it's not do something else.

[DrungoHazewood]

Payroll did not go up to retain or improve the team. We let 3 players core to our 96 win season leave. We tried to replace them with guys like Snider, Parmalee, and so on. The real talent on this team understood the replacements weren't close to what we lost.

Summary: I don't care about payroll or revenues or resources or reality, sign the players I want or I won't be happy.

[spiritof66]

Baltimore is a small media market among MLB teams. The only smaller media markets with MLB franchises are San Diego, which is virtually the same size, Kansas City, Milwaukee and Cincinnati. (Actually, the size of a market is a more complex metric, but the size of the metro area media market provides a good starting point.)

San Diego competes in a division with two large-market teams (the Dodgers and Giants). Cincinnati and Milwaukee have one big-market rival in the NL Central, the Cubs. (Arguably, the sharing of Chicago makes neither the Cubs nor the ChiSox a large-market team.) Same with Kansas City. The Orioles' division rivals include three large-market teams, the Yankees, Red Sox and Jays (although Toronto at times has not acted like one).

From the opening of Camden Yards in 1992 until the moving of the Expos to Washington in 2005 (and the opening of their stadium in 2008), the Orioles were able to generate sufficient revenues to impersonate a mid-market team by drawing fans (and viewers and listeners) from the much larger, franchise-less Washington market. Over the past decade, the Orioles have held on to that advantage, while seeing it decrease, by continuing to attract fans and viewers from the following it had built in Washington and by the additional revenues it obtains from majority ownership of MASN (and the under-market rights fees paid by MASN, enhancing its profits).

As the Nats develop a fan base over time, and as the premium the Orioles receive from ownership of MASN diminishes, the Orioles' revenues will drift downward into the realm of smaller-market teams. The effects of that are hard to predict. I don't see Baltimore losing the Orioles since there are few attractive expansion opportunities, and the Rays (and perhaps two or three other teams) are more likely to take advantage of them than the Orioles. I do see the Orioles finding it harder and harder to compete against their better-heeled division rivals.

It does seem clear that the Orioles' revenues will decline relative to that of other teams. The same will be true of its payroll, unless ownership changes to a regime that is willing to earn minimal profits or lose money while operating the club. That is one reason why the current owner's incompetence has made me so angry: he failed to use the team's revenues, at a time when those revenues were temporarily high for a team in a city the size of Baltimore, to build an infrastructure of player development (in the minor leagues and internationally) that would enable the Orioles to compete successfully if those revenues declined relative to other teams', as they have done and will continue to do.

[mdbdotcom]

Payroll did not go up to retain or improve the team. We let 3 players core to our 96 win season leave. We tried to replace them with guys like Snider, Parmalee, and so on. The real talent on this team understood the replacements weren't close to what we lost.

And we ended up scoring as many runs as last season but lost because of the starting pitching.

[Can_of_corn]

Their rebuttal is something along the lines of "arbitration raises don't count" usually. Which is hilarious.

I have the same complaints about allocation as you do, although I don't remember a lot of people calling for Norris to be non-tendered. I wanted him traded. I would have non-tendered De Aza, Matusz, and Hunter most likely. I will not complain about a 120 million dollar payroll.

I don't recall anyone suggesting Norris get non-tendered.

A number of us wanted him traded and I suggested starting him the bullpen when he looked bad in spring training but I can hardly imagine the O's couldn't find a taker for him last offseason at his arbitration cost. My guess is that either Dan wanted actual value back or that he just really hates Gausman a lot and wanted to mess with him out of sheer spite.

[Can_of_corn]

And we ended up scoring as many runs as last season but lost because of the starting pitching.

But if you score more runs, since Cruz, then the starters are a lot more relaxed knowing that they can give up six and still win.

And if we had Miller we would have lost -2 games in which we were leading after eight.

[Stotle]

That's the post of the year. Life is short, have fun, there's always next year. And if there's not, well, it doesn't matter anyway. Baseball is fun, if it's not do something else.

You are not you—you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a thought. I myself have no existence; I am but a dream—your dream, a creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this, then you will banish me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the nothingness out of which you made me.

In a little while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander its limitless solitudes without friend or comrade forever—for you will remain a thought, the only existent thought, and by your nature inextinguishable, indestructible. But I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself and set you free. Dream other dreams, and better!

Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago—centuries, ages, eons, ago!—for you have existed, companionless, through all the eternities.

Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane—like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell—mouths mercy and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites a poor, abused slave to worship him!

You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks—in a word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier.

It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream—a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought—a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!

[Can_of_corn]

What? I would think this is a good joke except I know you're serious. Propose a $120M payroll that retained that talent or put a sock in it.

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But their endgame is that the O's should have increased payroll more.

It's always more.

[Babypowder]

But if you score more runs, since Cruz, then the starters are a lot more relaxed knowing that they can give up six and still win.

And if we had Miller we would have lost -2 games in which we were leading after eight.

Exactly, since Cruz is like a 10-win player the starters would obviously have pitched way better knowing that they were at least going to get the 6 runs of support every night that Cruz would drive in himself. You add the 5 extra wins that they would get because Nick Markakis was an obvious leader and essential cog in the clubhouse all the years he was here and you're really cooking with Wesson. Not to mention that he is totally a very very good player who is worth every penny of the deal he got.

All they had to do was move Norris for salary relief, never sign Young, never trade for Snider, never tender De Aza, Matusz, Hunter, and Pearce and they would have been able to retain them.... for the first year of their deals.

It was so obvious in the offseason.

[Can_of_corn]

Exactly, since Cruz is like a 10-win player the starters would obviously have pitched way better knowing that they were at least going to get the 6 runs of support every night that Cruz would drive in himself. You add the 5 extra wins that they would get because Nick Markakis was an obvious leader and essential cog in the clubhouse all the years he was here and you're really cooking with Wesson. Not to mention that he is totally a very very good player who is worth every penny of the deal he got.

All they had to do was move Norris for salary relief, never sign Young, never trade for Snider, never tender De Aza, Matusz, Hunter, and Pearce and they would have been able to retain them.... for the first year of their deals.

It was so obvious in the offseason.

It is hard to fathom how bad the Braves would be without him.

His post game interviews alone are worth three wins.

[Stotle]

It is hard to fathom how bad the Braves would be without him.

His post game interviews alone are worth three wins.

He got them a new stadium in East Cobb. Nice try with the hate, tho...

[Can_of_corn]

He got them a new stadium in East Cobb. Nice try with the hate, tho...

Is it a done deal?

Last I heard there were still people fighting it.

[Stotle]

Is it a done deal?

Last I heard there were still people fighting it.

Markakis is handling. Don't you worry, Joshua...

[Can_of_corn]

The people fighting it have zero shot IMO. It will happen.

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Well yea, but that wasn't the question.

I was more upset that the deal could have been finalized without me hearing about it.

The people in that county are going to be hosed.

[Larry18]

Signing Cruz would have allowed Crush to pitch more.