Baltimore Sun: Angelos Story

[24fps]

32 minutes ago, theocean said:

This is a really good point. Why would Brady want a new GM that he'll have to compete with for influence?

OTOH why would Duquette want to continue being the palace eunuch one second longer than he had to?

[flyhighbirds]

Im gonna give Brady a fair chance.    If he comes in and makes some good trades, what is not to like about him?

[spiritof66]

I find this really depressing.

Peter Angelos has done a monumentally poor job of running the Orioles. One way in which he's hurt the team is by favoring loyalty (or blood relation) over talent in the Orioles' front office. Twenty-five years ago, that wasn't too big a deal. Lots of teams had pretty mediocre guys as GMs. Angelos's insistence that he knew better than his hired hands did how to build a winning team, and his inability to accept dissent and his rewarding of sycophancy was distasteful, even kind of nauseating, but probably didn't hurt the team that much.

Times have changed. The sources of potentially useful knowledge about how baseball games are won have exploded in the past 20 years, and the job of President/GM has gotten far more challenging and complex. Most, maybe all, of the 29 other teams have hired highly intelligent, even brilliant, executives who have extensive knowledge about how teams are built and games are won and who have worked long hours to learn the craft of what has become not just a job, but a recognizable profession. The teams let these knowledgeable experts decide how to build and shape their rosters and baseball operations.

Peter Angelos doesn't care much about that expertise -- he thinks he knows as much or more than anyone about putting together a winning team. Instead, he prizes loyalty and personal relationships. That priority may reflect his own experience; Angelos made his fortune not through legal brilliance or eminence, but by his relationships with the unions whose members were exposed to asbestos, with the courts, and with the legislature and other politicians. But at least since the late 90s, and maybe before, Angelos's version of "trust" has meant agreeing with him, not questioning his preferences and decisions or offering different opinions about how to build a winning team. Call it My Way or the Byway: as an Oriole executive, you are free to disagree with the owner, but if you do you'll be shunted off to an impotent dead end in the Warehouse. 

Angelos's approach has put the Orioles at a competitive disadvantage relative to other teams: the Orioles get decisions made by an aging ignoramus, not by a knowledgeable professional baseball person. Some, maybe many, of those intelligent potential GMs want no part of the Orioles' front office. And important team positions are held by Angelos's sons and Brady Anderson, guys who could never get a job with any other ML team (putting aside Brady's possible employability in training and conditioning).

The Angelos boys may be very fine people -- I met Lou years ago and found him quite likable. But they are two middle-aged men with no record of professional accomplishment, and it seems virtually certain that they lack any semblance of the knowledge and experience that today's baseball executives have. I've asked several times on this board what talent or experience Brady has that would commend him to a position as the Orioles' president or GM.  It seems to come down to his good relationship with the Angeloses and his ambition, so far as I can tell.

Here's the depressing part. I have hoped for a long time (and still do) that Peter Angelos' death would lead to a sale of the team. But I also thought there was a possibility that his sons would take a smart, enlightened approach to running the team, including hiring talented executives and giving them decision-making authority. From this article and Tony's piece, it sure doesn't look that way. Instead, it looks like, while other teams are run by smart people who competed for and are trying to keep their jobs based on their merit, we'll have decision-makers who got where they are because of who their pop is or, in Brady's case, because he cultivated Peter Angelos and his sons for years -- and, I'm guessing, always did their bidding and neverexpressed disagreement with them.

The Orioles compete with the NYYs and RS, and may soon compete with the BJs, from a large revenue deficit. Adding a self-inflicted deficit in management talent makes things still worse.

[Can_of_corn]

Depends on how you look at it.  The team is worth a great deal more now than we he bought it.  In that respect he's done a fine job running it.

[Tony-OH]

50 minutes ago, 24fps said:

OTOH why would Duquette want to continue being the palace eunuch one second longer than he had to?

Guess it depends on whether he thinks he can get another Gm type job. Man has to make a living and being a baseball executive, neutered or not probably isn't the worse job in the world.

[eddie83]

38 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Depends on how you look at it.  The team is worth a great deal more now than we he bought it.  In that respect he's done a fine job running it.

Look at what the Marlins sold for. 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, eddie83 said:

Look at what the Marlins sold for. 

I know.

But if you view success in terms of managing an investment he's done fine.

[eddie83]

1 minute ago, Can_of_corn said:

I know.

But if you view success in terms of managing an investment he's done fine.

Sure. Just really irritates me how big his ego must be. 

25 years and he still has no clue. Probably never looks in the mirror. 

[spiritof66]

41 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Depends on how you look at it.  The team is worth a great deal more now than we he bought it.  In that respect he's done a fine job running it.

At least in recent years, the value of the Orioles estimated by Forbes have increased much less than the MLB average.

The team would be worth more if it had some more on-field success. Being a laughing stock for years at a time doesn't help.

Then there's the way that the Orioles screwed up the MASN agreement  . . . 

[Deadwood Fan]

22 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

At least in recent years, the value of the Orioles estimated by Forbes have increased much less than the MLB average.

The team would be worth more if it had some more on-field success. Being a laughing stock for years at a time doesn't help.

Then there's the way that the Orioles screwed up the MASN agreement  . . . 

If the Os lose the Masn Dispute to the Nats, what do you think will happen? 

[tntoriole]

This Sun article told us absolutely nothing not already known and left the whole situation as clear as mud. 

[spiritof66]

23 minutes ago, Deadwood Fan said:

If the Os lose the Masn Dispute to the Nats, what do you think will happen? 

The short answer is that I have no idea. But on Peter Angelos's death, if he leaves his interest in the Orioles (and MASN) to his sons or one of them, they will be even more strapped for cash. That might induce them to sell the team, but it maybe just wishful thinking on my part.

[Frobby]

31 minutes ago, Deadwood Fan said:

If the Os lose the Masn Dispute to the Nats, what do you think will happen? 

Depends what you mean by “lose the MASN dispute.”    If you mean the Nats get everything they wanted, then MASN is bankrupt and the O’s are a joke.   If you mean the RSDC decision is upheld, then the O’s probably have the same budget as they currently do, since they’ve had to operate on the assumption of that the RSDC decision might stand.   

[24fps]

56 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Guess it depends on whether he thinks he can get another Gm type job. Man has to make a living and being a baseball executive, neutered or not probably isn't the worse job in the world.

I have to respectfully but strongly disagree here.  I expect that the rest of the industry is fully aware of the difficulties he's had to work under and equally aware of the success he had for most of that time in spite of the extraordinarily broken organization he's worked for.  Secondly, he found a way to feed his family for ten years before the Orioles job limped into his lap, and thirdly, I don't think it's ever a good career move to consider yourself a beggar even if it happens to be true - which I don't think is the case here.

My prediction is he's working again before New Year's Day and not with the Orioles, which IMO would be good for both his career and his mental health.

 

[OriolesMagic83]

43 minutes ago, 24fps said:

I have to respectfully but strongly disagree here.  I expect that the rest of the industry is fully aware of the difficulties he's had to work under and equally aware of the success he had for most of that time in spite of the extraordinarily broken organization he's worked for.  Secondly, he found a way to feed his family for ten years before the Orioles job limped into his lap, and thirdly, I don't think it's ever a good career move to consider yourself a beggar even if it happens to be true - which I don't think is the case here.

My prediction is he's working again before New Year's Day and not with the Orioles, which IMO would be good for both his career and his mental health.

 

Maybe Dan will write a tell all book about what goes behind the scenes of the Orioles management, executives, and ownership.  I predict it would be a best seller.  I know I would buy it.