Orioles: Most inept organization in all of profesional sports?

[Enjoy Terror]

13 hours ago, foxfield said:

1) GM on final year of contract

2) Manager on final year. 

3) Best player on final year. 

4) Best reliever on final year.

5) Team leader on final year.

6) Not willing to sign free agents.

7) Not willing to trade.

8) Three openings in rotation.

Maybe it was obvious to everyone but me, but this looks like a team cutting payroll, ushering in a new GM, new manager, and moving forward with a new game plan in 2019. If the Orioles look like they don’t have a plan, they certainly look like a team riding out some front office contracts.

[Tx Oriole]

12 hours ago, gtman55 said:

I don't know 100% what goes on behind the scenes with the Orioles organization but I haven't understood the end result for years. For example, why spend 160 million on Chris Davis when you just signed Trumbo? Why not take the money and sign two good pitchers instead? Why not trade Machado and Britton for a king's ransom last year, not this year?  Why do we give away our international slots? Why do we think a team with big power hitters but no speed and no situational hitting and no starting pitching is the answer?

This team has me befuddled, and honestly, most baseball people outside of Baltimore don't think the plan makes sense either.

I am with you on that. Just imagine if Angelos had used the Davis money on pitching instead? Anyway that's in the past. There is no plan. Oh well. 

[Tx Oriole]

13 hours ago, foxfield said:

So why are we distracting ourselves with lets sign Moustakas.  Or let's sign _____________?

 

We are not gonna get guys for more than 1 year.  That's not DD's fault.  That's not PA being unwilling to spend money.  Why won't it happen????  Who is gonna commit to more than a year if no one is here?  

You know the old saying:  Last one out turn off the lights...

I don't know? Something to do I guess. I don't like NFL. Hate basketball. I guess I'll take up reading. 

[Il BuonO]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

Contrary to what many think, the problem with the Davis negotiations wasn’t that the Orioles “bid against themselves.”    The problem was that their initial offer, made during the Winter Meetings, was way too high.    There’s virtually no difference in the economic value of the initial offer and the final contract, though by deferring a lot of payments far into the future they made the final total seem $7-11 mm higher (depending on which report of the initial offer you use for comparison).   Here’s a good article discussing the economic impact of the deferrals:  https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-value-of-deferred-money-in-the-chris-davis-deal/

Yes, I remember the negotiations. My point was by establishing the initial bid they never gave the market a chance to be established. There should have been bids by other teams.

[tntoriole]

2 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

We have a plan. The plan is to field a competitive team this year without spending a lot of money. Find a couple of #4 starters and hope that they are enough improvement over Miley/Ubaldo to keep us over .500. Blow it up at the all star break if the team is out of it. 

It's not a good plan, but it's a plan.

DD's MO throughout his time with the Orioles is to go for it without going fully all-in. From the outside, it looks like he doesn't have a plan but that is just because he (probably at the instruction of the owner) is a pragmatist who wants to compete but does not have the money to do so.

This is the  problem...we are  all in  the dark...you think you see a   plan when it may  just be a reactive  pattern by  the  GM to the  dictates of an owner.  Others  see no plan.  But  the problem is there is  no  vision communicated by the owner to the public.  

I see no evidence to what you see as their plan and that this is a plan only because that is what reporters have speculated or this board has speculated MUST be the plan.  Has Mr. Angelos said what the plan is? No. Has Dan?   No, except to say...well we have to address starting pitching and find a left handed bat.  But the organization has done neither as of yet.   

Peter Angelos is not a communicative leader either within his organization or to his customer base.  So we all just guess and one guess is as good as any other.  If there is a plan, none of us on this board or any fan is allowed to know what it is. 

[tntoriole]

12 minutes ago, Il BuonO said:

Yes, I remember the negotiations. My point was by establishing the initial bid they never gave the market a chance to be established. There should have been bids by other teams.

You could be right. But only Scott Boras knows for sure if he suckered the Orioles or not or whether there were other legitimate bids.  And his only response was that Davis could have gotten a larger number elsewhere.  Which could simply be a self serving lie or the truth.  

[Number5]

1 hour ago, Enjoy Terror said:

Maybe it was obvious to everyone but me, but this looks like a team cutting payroll, ushering in a new GM, new manager, and moving forward with a new game plan in 2019. If the Orioles look like they don’t have a plan, they certainly look like a team riding out some front office contracts.

If this were the case, wouldn't they have accepted one of the low-ball offers for Machado?

[Aristotelian]

47 minutes ago, tntoriole said:

This is the  problem...we are  all in  the dark...you think you see a   plan when it may  just be a reactive  pattern by  the  GM to the  dictates of an owner.  Others  see no plan.  But  the problem is there is  no  vision communicated by the owner to the public.  

I see no evidence to what you see as their plan and that this is a plan only because that is what reporters have speculated or this board has speculated MUST be the plan.  Has Mr. Angelos said what the plan is? No. Has Dan?   No, except to say...well we have to address starting pitching and find a left handed bat.  But the organization has done neither as of yet.   

Peter Angelos is not a communicative leader either within his organization or to his customer base.  So we all just guess and one guess is as good as any other.  If there is a plan, none of us on this board or any fan is allowed to know what it is. 

It's been DD's MO every single year. No rebuild, no big name free agents. Play it both ways, see what happens. This year is no different. 

With the contracts all expiring in '18 but coming off a poor season, the imperatives are pushing in both directions. Nothing in DD's history with Angelos would suggest a big move in either direction. Based on DD and Buck's contracts, the plan all along has been to try to compete in '18 and that is what they seem to be doing...but within the usual constraints.

[gmelson26]

6 hours ago, wildcard said:

I think they can convince a free agent that Buck is not going anywhere.  Ownership will tell the FA that.  And Buck will confirm it. JMO

Shouldn't be extended if this is the case?  He said he wants to come back, so why no extension?

[LookitsPuck]

There is only one plan that is realistic: fire sale. 

This club cannot compete as constructed. There are 3 missing SP spots. One of the best closers in the game is out for at least half the season. The offense is another year older and built entirely on power. There is very little speed. The defense continues to degrade. And they don't get on base. And there is very little impact depth in the minors.

In what f'ing world is this a club that could compete? 

It would take Dan Duquette finding another Wei-Yin Chen, Miguel Gonzalez in his prime and somehow acquiring a guy like Hammel for this team to compete.

And in case you're wondering, Duquette hasn't acquired an impact starting pitcher in quite some time. 

 

[flyhighbirds]

The opening post wonders why the media doesn't criticize us for inaction.      Well I suppose  that Rosenthal and the others who dislike Angelos love the fact that we are not rebuilding and doing nothing and staying stagnant.         The silence is deafening.

 

The question is who is more delusional here.   The owner or the gm.   I honestly think the three stooges are all complicit.   The owner is like the old man gambling away his money.    And the other two are like the nurses taking advantadge of the old man by telling him he is  doing fine.    Nothing to worry about here because they have no motivation to rebuild either with their contracts up.     Basically they are all playing their  fiddles while Rome is burning.        

 

 

[gtman55]

I think it's hard for a lot of fans to look at our team objectively. After all, they’re our guys. But if you step back the problem becomes clear. We play in a division with the Yankees and Red Sox. They have both money and a deep farm system. Right there it's hard for us to compete which is why we need to make smart moves.

Right now the team is in shambles. We pretty much lost our closer for a good part of the year. We have 2 decent starting pitchers but neither of them are proven top of the rotation pitchers. Our fielding is decent but we have no team speed. Our star players name was dangled around as trade bait and now he's back in the fold but probably doesn't want to play third base. We have some big hitters but they also strike out a ton.

And what do we get from Angelos and DD? Taking their good old time and ending up with retreads and bottom of the barrel guys.

Hey, I'd like to be optimistic but only people OD'ing on Orange Kool-aid could think this team is going anywhere in 2018. We have no plan.

 

[Tx Oriole]

10 hours ago, phillyOs119 said:

I agree with the rebuild, but how do you rebuild, you trade Britton, Machado, Brach. He tried to trade Britton at the deadline and it got shot down at the last minute. We don’t know if he accepted any of the Machado offers, but he at least  had some interest in trading him. He hasn’t spent any money yet, I mean that looks like trying to rebuild to me, how much authority he has in his last year with others whispering in PA’s ear is unknown. There is one person in the org that have a stated preference not to rebuild and that is Buck. How much say does he have, that’s anyone’s guess but it’s pretty clear that the Orioles FO doesn’t just run through DD.

Buck has too much say. He should answer to the Owner and GM. Somehow I think he has some pull over DD. He is too much in the owners ear. IMO 

[spiritof66]

10 hours ago, flyhighbirds said:

Why doesn't the gm deserve blame when the team has no plan?    Isn't he the one that is supposed to come up with the plan.   He was open and honest about his intent to want to go to Toronto.         So if you take him at his word, he wants to contend right now even though we all know they aren't a contender.    Yet he has no plan.     He deserves plenty of blame because he doesn't seem to be able to make the logical conclusion that most of us have made.   The team needs to rebuild.       

I can't figure out what Duquette (or anyone else n the organization ) is planning because we don't know what directions and constraints come from the owner or how some important decisions  about what the plan can be or how it can be implemented have been or will be made. 

Did Duquette want the team to give Davis the contract he got? I don't think so, but I don't know. Did Duquette want the team to sign Trumbo and O'Day to long-term deals? I don't know. Did he want to trade Britton at the deadline last year? I'm pretty sure he did. Did he want to trade Britton before then? I think so, but I don't know. Did he want to trade Brach or O'Day? I'm guessing that he did, but I don't know. Did he want to trade Manny when it became clear that the Orioles wouldn't even try to extend him? I think so, but I don't know, and if so I don't know when he first wanted to try to make a trade. Would Duquette like to see the Orioles extend Schoop? Probably. Would he like to see the Orioles try to sign top free agent starting pitchers to the long-term contracts they would demand? I really don't know. Is he willing to trade any of the Orioles' top 10 prospects? While he has been in the past, it appears that he longer is, but I don't  know.  I guess it depends. Would he like to see the team, scout, draft and develop international talent? I'm certain he would. 

Let's say every team is, at the end of a season, at a Point A. It wants to get to Point B, contending for the division title. (Very few if any teams, even division winners, think they can remain in tact, at Point B, and win it again.) Most teams come up with a plan for improving to get to Point B, , maybe in a year or maybe in three or four. The plan might be  very specific or pretty general. The team then executes on that plan by some combination of allowing young players to mature and improve, by retaining some players and shedding others, and by acquiring new players by the drafts and by signing free agents, waived and released players. Even where a team puts a plan in place and follows it, the trip from Point A to Point B isn't going to be a straight line. Injuries, surprises in players' performances, trade opportunities and the like lead to divergences from the path. Sometimes the team can stick to its plan,, sometimes the plan has to be altered slightly, and sometimes it has to be scrapped entirely, either because circumstances change or it';s just not working.

So far as I can tell, the Orioles have not been doing that  -- formulating and executing a plan -- for at least the last couple of years. They finished 2017 looking like a sub-.500 team, with some serious weaknesses (starting pitching, an aging centerfielder, poor production at 1B and DH, low OPB), with other problems (the possible loss of Schoop and Jones) looming ahead in the next couple of years. They don't have the resources to  shore up those weaknesses by throwing money at free agents (or acquiring good players from teams seeking to shed those players' very high salaries). 

For a lot of teams, the next step would be to try to figure out how to reshape the roster to create a contending team, maybe in a year or two or, if that's not feasible, over a longer period. Understandably, the team and Duquette specifically are harshly criticized for not doing that. Again, I have no way of knowing what's happening, but it's pretty clear to me that Duquette  doesn't have the option of formulating and executing on a two- or three- or four-year plan to put the Orioles in contention. Every year, he is told by the owner to come up with a team that can compete for a post-season position in that year. (I believe that's what happens when the guy who's calling the shots is approaching 90, has not gotten to the World's Series in his 24 dismal years at the helm, doesn't trust the judgment of anyone in the organization, and knows very little about baseball.) And Duquette has to tell the world that's the Orioles', and therefore his, objective. Even when that's debatable, or just stupid, to think that it's achievable or in the overall interest of the franchise.

Maybe Duquette had a plan two years ago that involved, among other things, trading Manny and Adam for some starting pitching after 2016, letting Davis walk and using that money to sign another starter and a centerfielder, and trading Jones for a shortstop or third baseman. He did seem to want to do some of those things. But I have no way of knowing whether he had a plan, let alone what it was because, if he did have a plan, he hasn't been able to execute it. Rather, he's been told, in effect, that the team would be losing Machado after 2018 but he couldn't  even try to trade him until after the 2017 season, that the deals he negotiated for Machado and Britton (and maybe others) weren't good enough to trade them, that he couldn't try to trade Jones, that he'll be stuck with both Davis and Trumbo (and their salaries) for a few years, that he shouldn't bother pursuing free-agent pitchers who are demanding long-term contracts, and that Schoop might or might not be around after this year. 

Does Duquette have a plan now for improving the Orioles? Maybe, maybe not. He obviously has seen and still sees the team's serious pitching problems -- partly his fault from some real bad acquisitions -- and that the promising young arms in the system aren't ready to help. Having been unable to execute any plan that he may have had in the past couple of years, maybe he's concluded that it's pointless trying to formulate a plan for the team's future, and that the best course is to put together a pitching staff in the only way he can without trading top prospects:  continuing to try to trade Manny and signing other team's discards to one-year contracts. Or maybe he'll trade some top prospects after all. ML'ready starters. I hope not.

It's fair to fault Duquette for the bad trades and acquisitions he's made. But without knowing more than I do now, I can't blame him for not following a plan to retool or rebuild a mediocre team when he's told to try to  take a declining core and create a contending team this year, and when options that could be key components of a reasonable plan are -- at least by my best guess -- not available to him.

 

[Can_of_corn]

37 minutes ago, gtman55 said:

I think it's hard for a lot of fans to look at our team objectively. After all, they’re our guys. But if you step back the problem becomes clear. We play in a division with the Yankees and Red Sox. They have both money and a deep farm system. Right there it's hard for us to compete which is why we need to make smart moves.

Right now the team is in shambles. We pretty much lost our closer for a good part of the year. We have 2 decent starting pitchers but neither of them are proven top of the rotation pitchers. Our fielding is decent but we have no team speed. Our star players name was dangled around as trade bait and now he's back in the fold but probably doesn't want to play third base. We have some big hitters but they also strike out a ton.

And what do we get from Angelos and DD? Taking their good old time and ending up with retreads and bottom of the barrel guys.

Hey, I'd like to be optimistic but only people OD'ing on Orange Kool-aid could think this team is going anywhere in 2018. We have no plan.

 

Yep, that is exactly my problem.