Who's most to blame for this mess?

[LookitsPuck]

4 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

What is your point?  Once again they would not give Cruz a 4th year. End of story. 

 

So let me get this straight.

The O's don't resign Cruz for 4 years....and that's Angelos's fault. Is that what you're driving at?

So basically when anything *bad* happens, it's Angelos. If anything good, it's Duquette? I just don't get it.

I think people here give Angelos way too much blame when it comes to micro decisions like these.

[eddie83]

4 minutes ago, LookitsPuck said:

Until people are willing to put a big portion of the blame on Duquette, then we can't have a true discussion.

Angelos is a big part of the blame. I refuse to blame budget. They're not the Athletics. They're not the White Sox. They're a small/mid market team that has routinely had payrolls well within what should be expected of them.

We'll never know the full details of the Britton deal. I have a very hard time believing that Angelos is so ingrained with the club any longer (especially with his health issues over the last couple years) that he's miraculously vetoing deals without management (Duquette) being lukewarm on the deal. 

Manny's trade rumours have only *recently* started. We haven't heard a lick of anything in regards to extensions for years. Why? 

I absolutely do think Dan determines what the O's offer Manny. The same way that I think Duquette outbid himself for Davis. For Trumbo. These are all Dan. Same w/ Gallardo. Same w/ Ubaldo. Same w/ Cobb. Is that all Angelos behind the scenes pulling the strings to?

These conspiracy theories are bonkers.

I have never said Dan is blameless. 

Dan Connolly reported over the winter that a deal was nixed. Roy Firestone said it again this week right on this board. 

How can you negotiate an extension if the two sides aren’t close?  You think the largest contract in the history of the Franchise and one that will be more than what Peter paid to buy the team is determined by the GM?  You believe this? 

In order to have negotiations there has to be something to negotiate. If the two sides aren’t close there is nothing to negotiate.  

Have you paid any attention at all to the dysfunction going on and how much Dan has lost power? 

[eddie83]

20 minutes ago, LookitsPuck said:

If he didn't have one foot out the door? Probably.

Was age a big differentiator especially considering Trumbo has been inconsistent at best? Seems like an odd thing to harp on. Hell, JJ Hardy was in his early 30s. :shrug: Seems that Trumbo (30), JJ Hardy (31 or 32, can't recall) and Nelson Cruz (33) are all within one another. The difference is Cruz and Hardy were more established and more deserving. Trumbo was a 1 year wonder.

I just read this again. 

You are saying that because Dan had one foot out the door that is why Cruz left? 

You are saying that Angelos, Buck and everyone else let Dan’s interest in Toronto stop them from keeping Cruz if they really wanted to keep him?  This makes no sense at all, none. 

This is a conspiracy theory. Nothing I had said is.  

[LookitsPuck]

Just now, RZNJ said:

You sure do think that Duquette has a lot of power.    You're the only one.

I think he has a lot of power. I don't think it's limitless. 

I also do think there's some weird tangle of responsibilities going on between Brady, Buck and Duquette. Which is why I think Duquette should have been fired years ago. That's my main beef w/ Angelos.

But I don't think Duquette is powerless. He has a hell of a lot more than people are willing to admit.

[LookitsPuck]

Just now, eddie83 said:

I just read this again. 

You are saying that because Dan had one foot out the door that is why Cruz left? 

You are saying that Angelos, Buck and everyone else let Dan’s interest in Toronto stop them from keeping Cruz if they really wanted to keep him?  This makes no sense at all, none. 

This is a conspiracy theory. Nothing I had said is.  

Nelson Cruz signed with the Mariners in December. Duquette was pretty much parading around with the Blue Jays the entire offseason and it didn't end until January.

The star signing of the offseason was Travis Snider. Travis freaking Snider.

That does not sound like the effort of a man that didn't have 1 foot out the door.

Is it entirely why Cruz left? No. But I think it'd be inane to think that a guy that was checked out was 100% invested in helping the O's. 

[eddie83]

4 minutes ago, LookitsPuck said:

I think he has a lot of power. I don't think it's limitless. 

I also do think there's some weird tangle of responsibilities going on between Brady, Buck and Duquette. Which is why I think Duquette should have been fired years ago. That's my main beef w/ Angelos.

But I don't think Duquette is powerless. He has a hell of a lot more than people are willing to admit.

If Dan has all this power then can’t he tell Brady and Buck to go to hell and leave him alone so he can run the team exactly the way he wants? 

[eddie83]

Just now, LookitsPuck said:

Nelson Cruz signed with the Mariners in December. Duquette was pretty much parading around with the Blue Jays the entire offseason and it didn't end until January.

The star signing of the offseason was Travis Snider. Travis freaking Snider.

That does not sound like the effort of a man that didn't have 1 foot out the door.

Is it entirely why Cruz left? No. But I think it'd be inane to think that a guy that was checked out was 100% invested in helping the O's. 

My god.

You are saying that because Dan was flirting with Toronto that the rest of the organization just sat around and let him screw over the franchise? What does this say about the owner using this logic? 

For the 994,233 time they were not willing to go 4 years for Cruz. I don’t care if Dan was giving secrets to the Yankees, Cruz was about the length of the deal. 

[LookitsPuck]

4 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

If Dan has all this power then can’t he tell Brady and Buck to go to hell and leave him alone so he can run the team exactly the way he wants? 

I'd appreciate it if you actually took the time to actually read what I posted instead of insinuated that I have an all/nothing approach.

No organization should ever give carte blanche to a GM to tell others not to have any say whatsoever in any personnel decisions. Smart organizations take information from *all* avenues and make an educated decision based on the feedback. 

It all goes back to my original thought. Duquette should have been fired years ago. Yes, there's disorganization. Yes, the buck stops with Angelos. I just don't think the state of the Orioles is all Angelos's fault. If I had to place the blame with a number? I'd break it down like such:

Angelos - 30%

Duquette - 50%

Buck - 10%

Brady - 10%

I'm not 100% set on those numbers, but Duquette makes the trades. Duquette makes the acquisitions. Duquette is responsible for the drafting. And in the end, these are the most important factors to an organization's success. All the other stuff are cracks in the armour and are certainly problems, but if we're going to give Duquette all the credit in the world for 2014...why not blame him for 2018?

[LookitsPuck]

6 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

My god.

You are saying that because Dan was flirting with Toronto that the rest of the organization just sat around and let him screw over the franchise? What does this say about the owner using this logic? 

For the 994,233 time they were not willing to go 4 years for Cruz. I don’t care if Dan was giving secrets to the Yankees, Cruz was about the length of the deal. 

Considering Duquette's star acquisition in the offseason was Travis Snider? How do you explain that? I'm sorry, good/honest GMs don't pull that stunt and then pretty much make a bunch of procedural moves without impact basically when in January it was determined that the Blue Jays pulled out.

I think if Duquette was 100% focused on the Orioles and not whoring around w/ the Blue Jays, we'd have been in a different spot for the 2015 season. :shrug:

[eddie83]

1 minute ago, LookitsPuck said:

I'd appreciate it if you actually took the time to actually read what I posted instead of insinuated that I have an all/nothing approach.

No organization should ever give carte blanche to a GM to tell others not to have any say whatsoever in any personnel decisions. Smart organizations take information from *all* avenues and make an educated decision based on the feedback. 

It all goes back to my original thought. Duquette should have been fired years ago. Yes, there's disorganization. Yes, the buck stops with Angelos. I just don't think the state of the Orioles is all Angelos's fault. If I had to place the blame with a number? I'd break it down like such:

Angelos - 30%

Duquette - 50%

Buck - 10%

Brady - 10%

I'm not 100% set on those numbers, but Duquette makes the trades. Duquette makes the acquisitions. Duquette is responsible for the drafting. And in the end, these are the most important factors to an organization's success. All the other stuff are cracks in the armour and are certainly problems, but if we're going to give Duquette all the credit in the world for 2014...why not blame him for 2018?

I have read what you have said. I have never said he has been perfect. Never. 

You compared him to Andy and I think it is an apples to oranges comparison. 

I do not care who the GM is around here this Franchise has never been ran correctly at the top. Dan inherited some talented players and then added to it. You cannot however sustain any success with the Angelos model of how to run a baseball team. It will not work. 

[eddie83]

4 minutes ago, LookitsPuck said:

Considering Duquette's star acquisition in the offseason was Travis Snider? How do you explain that? I'm sorry, good/honest GMs don't pull that stunt and then pretty much make a bunch of procedural moves without impact basically when in January it was determined that the Blue Jays pulled out.

I think if Duquette was 100% focused on the Orioles and not whoring around w/ the Blue Jays, we'd have been in a different spot for the 2015 season. :shrug:

It was a bad move. I have never said otherwise. It failed, he had a bad offseason and I criticized him at the time. 

What I don’t get is the second point.  

[LookitsPuck]

Just now, eddie83 said:

It was a bad move. I have never said otherwise. It failed, he had a bad offseason and I criticized him at the time. 

What I don’t get is the second point.  

I guess I question how dedicated a man can be when he's checked out. Does it definitively mean the Cruz deal would have gotten 4 years? No. Does it mean that ownership could have possibly been convinced to go longer if Duquette focused entirely on it and got ownership to buyin? Yes. That's my take.

I guess the issue I have here is we're giving guys like Trumbo 4 years, Hardy a 3 year extension, O'Day 4 years, Davis 7 years, Adam Jones 6 years, etc. I don't think it's unreasonable to say the following:

• If Duquette was 100% focused on the Cruz deal instead of the Blue Jays, perhaps he gets ownership to buyin to 4 years
• Perhaps Duquette is to blame for only wanting to do 3 years. After all, this organization has done 4 (and longer) deals previously and even recently.

[eddie83]

Just now, LookitsPuck said:

I guess I question how dedicated a man can be when he's checked out. Does it definitively mean the Cruz deal would have gotten 4 years? No. Does it mean that ownership could have possibly been convinced to go longer if Duquette focused entirely on it and got ownership to buyin? Yes. That's my take.

I guess the issue I have here is we're giving guys like Trumbo 4 years, Hardy a 3 year extension, O'Day 4 years, Davis 7 years, Adam Jones 6 years, etc. I don't think it's unreasonable to say the following:

• If Duquette was 100% focused on the Cruz deal instead of the Blue Jays, perhaps he gets ownership to buyin to 4 years
• Perhaps Duquette is to blame for only wanting to do 3 years. After all, this organization has done 4 (and longer) deals previously and even recently.

I still don’t get this. Cruz wanted 4 years and the Orioles only were willing to go 3. If the owner wanted him bad enough then he stays. I also understood the risk of a long term deal for a man of Cruz’s age.  

If Dan had one foot out the door then  

A) why would he care what deal they gave Cruz ?

B) why would ownership listen to him? 

I don’t think Dan was pushing for Trumbo.  

[LookitsPuck]

I guess the fundamental issue here is I think Duquette didn’t want to give Cruz more than 3 years. After all, if Angelos can be convinced to give 3 additional years (on top of the 1 remaining) for Hardy, 4 for Trumbo, 6 for Jones, 4 for O’Day, 4 for Ubaldo freaking Jimenez, 4 for Cobb and 7 for Davis...why wouldn’t he be convinced to go for 4 for Cruz?

Do you honestly think Angelos said “absolutely not, only 3 years! No more!”

Or is it more likely Duquette said, “Cruz is 33, so 3 years is the max I’d go.”

Theres that scenario that makes sense.

What also makes sense is those negotiations were going on and Duquette has one foot out the door to Toronto. Remember, Cruz signed in early December. Same time that Duquette was hot and heavy with Toronto. So negotiations could have been stronger had Duquette, I don’t know, cared more?

Either way, that deal was mostly on Duquette not Angelos.

[Frobby]

9 hours ago, LookitsPuck said:

He signed Trumbo for nearly the same deal as Cruz, when it was clear as day from any meaningful stats that Cruz was the better player. So why not after 2014 resign Cruz?

Duquette was so wrapped up in leaving for Toronto that he abandoned the club. 

Cruz, Miller and Markakis all left before the first reports of Toronto’s dalliance with Duquette.    Those decisions can be second guessed, but I don’t believe they had anything to do with Toronto.    They had to do with Dan’s reluctance to sign Cruz through age 37 and Nick through age 34, and reluctance to spend big money on the bullpen when he already had a very good bullpen without Miller.   By the way, it’s unlikely Miller would have re-signed with us unless we’d offered a lot more than the Yankees paid him, IMO.   He turned down an extra $1 mm/yr from Houston, where he would have paid no state income tax, to go to NY.

What’s always struck me is that the Orioles acted like a team that was trying to stay within very modest budget growth that offseason, and thus didn’t keep together the team that won the AL East.    At the time, it seemed disappointing but perhaps dictated by economic reality.   I was okay with it based on that understanding.

But then, the very next year, they spent like drunken sailors on Chris Davis and gave a very generous contract to O’Day nearly equal to what Miller got.    It seemed like a complete turnaround in philosophy, and frankly, a stupid way to spend scarce resources, assuming they were scarce in the first place.   (Full disclosure - I was OK with the O’Day signing, opposed to the Davis signing.)   If they had that kind of money to spend, I would much rather have kept Cruz and Markakis.

I’ve often wondered why the spending philosophy changed so drastically in 2015.