At What Point, Do You Hold DD Accountable, If Any?

[Frobby]

The Parra trade didn't turn out well but really if the farm system was stronger trading a guy like Davies would be basically nothing. In good farms Davies is probally ranked in the 15-20 range.

That's a big overstatement. Fangraphs' Kiley McDaniel stated that Davies would have ranked somewhere between 80 and 142 in his top 200 prospects. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/grading-the-58-prospects-dealt-at-the-trade-deadline. Chris Mitchell's KATOH system ranked him 71. MLB.com ranks him 10th in the Brewers' system. http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2015?list=mil BP ranks him 8th. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=27976 John Sickels ranks him 12th. http://www.minorleagueball.com/2015/12/2/9814812/milwaukee-brewers-top-20-prospects-for-2016 And the Brewers have a pretty strong system right now.

[twinedenter]

LOL where to begin, I will only make 2 points.

-Davies, Jake Arrieta, Eduardo Rodriguez, Josh Hader, Stephen Tarpley, Steve Brault and Tim Berry = All pitching prospects, all traded for players no longer in the organization, and he has the guts to say he can't believe how expensive pitching is. Although they all have different circumstances, the end result is undeniable.

-The entire off-season of 2015. Not only was the AL East winning team worse then the year before on paper, it showed it on the field. There is NO WORLD in which a good GM would have accepted the outfield he put together for 2015. People will argue he didn't have the money. There were plenty of changes he could have made to recoup some money to afford better than the AAAA's he brought in.

Examples; How about him offering arbitration to EVERYONE, including Hunter who got 5.5 million to pitch the 7th inning? How about trading a starter that was making 8 or 9 million dollars, when you have a young up coming starter, who happen to win a playoff game in 2014, in your bull pen. The 2015 Orioles should have been LOADED for a world series run and if he couldn't get the money from Angelos, then HE needed to make the necessary adjustments to make it happen.

The job Duquette has done has been below average at best and I for one wish he would have moved on to Toronto.

[Sanfran327]

I agree with most of what you said.

But, crap, how does 110 million = fairly tight budget. No, we dont spend the 300 million like the Dodgers.

There are also 13 teams with cheaper payrolls, with the Marlins at the bottom at 68 million.

This is a mid market team, spending like a mid market team. IMO

Yes, but we are talking semantics. "Fairly tight budget" simply means we don't have much flexibility to bring in expensive players beyond those we have already.

Spending money for the Cano's and the other expensive players in the bigs, does not buy you into the playoffs, either.

We had a good three year run, and a bad season last year, and yet, people are in full blown panic mode and some are automatically assuming the worse for 2016, and its not even ST yet.

Frobby gets what I'm saying. We have money to add players, but we also have multiple holes to fill, and we need to spend judiciously to fill them evenly. Because, as you pointed out, spending all of our remaining money on a Robbie Cano will leave us with multiple weaknesses in multiple areas, namely pitching, lineup, and defense.

[Frobby]

Examples; How about him offering arbitration to EVERYONE, including Hunter who got 5.5 million to pitch the 7th inning?

Not that it changes your point much, but Hunter made $4.65 mm, not $5.5 mm, and he did pitch in the 8th inning 12 times in his 39 appearances for the O's. So that point is a bit exaggerated.

I wasn't thrilled that we didn't sign a more reliable outfielder, but the options were quite limited and, to be fair, I think the outcome DD got was worse than he should have expected.

[Crazysilver03]

LOL where to begin, I will only make 2 points.

-Davies, Jake Arrieta, Eduardo Rodriguez, Josh Hader, Stephen Tarpley, Steve Brault and Tim Berry = All pitching prospects, all traded for players no longer in the organization, and he has the guts to say he can't believe how expensive pitching is. Although they all have different circumstances, the end result is undeniable.

-The entire off-season of 2015. Not only was the AL East winning team worse then the year before on paper, it showed it on the field. There is NO WORLD in which a good GM would have accepted the outfield he put together for 2015. People will argue he didn't have the money. There were plenty of changes he could have made to recoup some money to afford better than the AAAA's he brought in.

Examples; How about him offering arbitration to EVERYONE, including Hunter who got 5.5 million to pitch the 7th inning? How about trading a starter that was making 8 or 9 million dollars, when you have a young up coming starter, who happen to win a playoff game in 2014, in your bull pen. The 2015 Orioles should have been LOADED for a world series run and if he couldn't get the money from Angelos, then HE needed to make the necessary adjustments to make it happen.

The job Duquette has done has been below average at best and I for one wish he would have moved on to Toronto.

Its slightly hilarious you lump Berry with everyone else.

[Frobby]

Frobby gets what I'm saying. We have money to add players, but we also have multiple holes to fill, and we need to spend judiciously to fill them evenly. Because, as you pointed out, spending all of our remaining money on a Robbie Cano will leave us with multiple weaknesses in multiple areas, namely pitching, lineup, and defense.

My biggest criticism is that we haven't developed and retained enough good young talent. We aren't going to be able to afford to retain every good player who becomes a free agent, or replace them with another free agent who is equally good and expensive. So that means you need to develop and retain good young players who can replace the players who leave. Our farm system is below average and DD has traded too many guys away.

[Ruzious]

I think DD has this year and next year. He was very bad last year and let the Toronto thing become a distraction, but he built up goodwill before then to the extent that I'd be surprised if they let him go even if this season is another failure.

[twinedenter]

Thank you for correcting my error.

-My point with Hunter was that he was signed to pitch the 7th. O'Day was our primary setup man. His 4+ million could have gone a long way. Brach proved he was more than capable.

-You are correct in that the outcome was worse than expected, so what did Duquette do?

*He waited until the very last minute to acquire someone. Once we got slept by NY, it was over anyway. I and everyone else knew by late May, that the outfield wasn't going to cut it. Heck, I knew before the season started.

Slightly off topic;

*He traded another pitcher for an outfielder, when all SEASON long, they were complaining that it was the starting pitching.

[twinedenter]

Just was in the list. I happen to like Berry but he wasn't cutting it. Point is still proven without Berry.

[twinedenter]

The job he did in 2015 off-season, was worth of firing him. IMO

[drdelaware]

There was nothing DD could have done this offseason to replace the FA talent leaving

The bus was driven over the cliff last year when we didn't trade all our FA for near ML ready prospects.

This ^^^^^

I'll never understand why the upcoming free agents weren't traded before the deadline last year.

[Camden_yardbird]

The Marlins have had a losing record for 7 years in a row. The fact that they may have spent some money in free agency isn't very important -- their payroll is way below ours. I like their farm system, which seems to produce a good amount of major league talent. Otherwise, I don't see that their front office is doing a particularly great job.

I agree. The Marlins are clearly not a class run organization and have five plus years of losing. That said, looking at the last two years they have accomplished things that the Orioles should be able to do if they want to stay competitive despite having bad ownership.

[twinedenter]

The Marlins have had a losing record for 7 years in a row. The fact that they may have spent some money in free agency isn't very important -- their payroll is way below ours. I like their farm system, which seems to produce a good amount of major league talent. Otherwise, I don't see that their front office is doing a particularly great job.

I agree and this is a direct reflection of the job Duquette has done.

[abbott]

Again, a ripple effect. Give me Joseph/Clevenger and the 24-25M from Wieters and Trumbo.

I can't recall a time when this ownership saved money from a deal not made but spent a similar amount on another player. I get the impression that money may be ear-marked for a specific player, but when that deal isn't made, the money is not reallocated to another player. The word on Davis is that the 150M that was offered to Davis and withdrawn, is not in the current budget.

Wren and Gillick were of the highest quality baseball men. The Duquettes and MacPhail are not in their class, but a legitimately well regarded baseball executives. Thrift, Beattie, Flanny (RIP) were in over their heads.

Ownership is responsible for putting the executives in a position to be successful, or fail. I don't believe that ownership has given any VP of Baseball Operations the power and means to be successful.

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[bpilktree]

My biggest criticism is that we haven't developed and retained enough good young talent. We aren't going to be able to afford to retain every good player who becomes a free agent, or replace them with another free agent who is equally good and expensive. So that means you need to develop and retain good young players who can replace the players who leave. Our farm system is below average and DD has traded too many guys away.

I think that has been the hardest part when you have a good team but a few holes to fill to be a great team you have to move the farm system. We have not had a good farm in many years and drafted poorly and very few international money signs. We have hit on a few of the top draft picks in first round but after that have not done well in adding depth to the farm. The years Anday was here he hit the homers with the first round but not much in the middle rounds. One of the hardest things to do when you have a team that pretty good is to keep the team good and also build the farm. There is only a few teams that have been able to do that like the Cardinals.