2009... Adding Two Monster FA's

[RShack]

Whether you are doing it intentionally or not, this post (and many others) comes across as condescending. You make it seem as if I am an ignorant sheep who can only visualize the concept of "simple" concepts... and "prefab" ideas. It is difficult to discuss things with you when you talk down to people.

I feel as if I'm a fairly intelligent man with a clear understanding of what rebuilding is. Our concepts of what that means is different. We cannot debate something when we each have a stated definition of what that is... and again... they're different from each other. Therefore we cannot be proved 'wrong'.

I didn't say that Tony's idea was bad, as a matter of fact it was me who started this thread in an attempt to understand the merits of signing two major free agents.

SG and I feel that the idea of keeping our vet guys and signing big money free agents is a change in the plan that AM began with. Hence my questioning it. Whether or not it's a bad idea or not... I am still undecided.

It's not my intent to insult you, but rather point out that the way you write sometimes comes off as snobbish. I truly do appreciate your post, and apologize if I seem too defensive.

I certainly never intended insult you, and I apologize if I did. You typically put work into many of your posts, and I respect that.

Nonetheless, the same prefab idea get repeated around here, forever and ever, and sometimes I wonder if the people who echo-chamber it to death ever stop to think about what they are saying. I am not talking specifically about you, just about the narrow set of assumptions that frequently show up about rebuilding the franchise.

In the case at hand, I have repeatedly asked, "Why not". The only answers I've gotten are about how somebody defines the term "rebuilding", as if this is primarily a semantic issue, or a philosphical issue, or whatever. It's not about semantics or philosophy, it's about making the franchise become good all the time at Actual Baseball. Nobody has yet responded at all to the substantive baseball part of the issue. So far, it's just repeats of pro forma definitions. If somebody has a substantive baseball answer, I would love to hear it.

Various people say "that can't work without abandoning rebuilding". I have repeatedly asked "Why not?" So far, nobody has answered the baseball-part of that question. Instead, multiple people, including yourself, have repeatedly changed the subject to something else: either definitional issues or personal issues. Rather than make it personal, I wonder why doesn't somebody just answer the baseball question? My theory is because there isn't a good answer.

[Greg Pappas]

Maybe not our definitions, but our time tables are different. I think if we acquire Dunn and Tex and add a decent shortstop, we can compete by 2010 and be competitive in 2009. I think we have enough pitching to be able to do that.

Now whether we can do this financially??? That's what Andy MacPhail will need to figure out.

Even if we lose our first few picks for Dunn and Tex in 2009, we're stocked with pitching right now and should be able to use some of that to land us a 3B and SS for 2009/2010. Remember, we can always get some overslot guys later to make up for losing those picks like we did with Arrieta.

I don't think this has to be a five year process. If we had better hitters in the system then maybe, but the system is barren besides Wieters and maybe Reimold right now.

Now, maybe Dunn isn't the right fit and maybe we can get a younger outfielder we can build around. I'm not against going in that direction, but after watching this club this year, I really think we add a few impact bats and our young pitching comes through, we've got something that could compete by 2010 and by 2011 at the latest.

Good post... we are on the same page. I absolutely see the difference adding those two monsters could make, and actually we could deal from our pitching depth to add a good veteran to the staff, fortifying in the same sense I said Sabathia would.

It's a alternative idea to a full-fledged rebuild, but still has some serious merit. I was caught between, but am coming around to the possibilities.

Again, good post.

[Fan4Life]

Maybe not our definitions, but our time tables are different. I think if we acquire Dunn and Tex and add a decent shortstop, we can compete by 2010 and be competitive in 2009. I think we have enough pitching to be able to do that.

Now whether we can do this financially??? That's what Andy MacPhail will need to figure out.

Even if we lose our first few picks for Dunn and Tex in 2009, we're stocked with pitching right now and should be able to use some of that to land us a 3B and SS for 2009/2010. Remember, we can always get some overslot guys later to make up for losing those picks like we did with Arrieta.

I don't think this has to be a five year process. If we had better hitters in the system then maybe, but the system is barren besides Wieters and maybe Reimold right now.

Now, maybe Dunn isn't the right fit and maybe we can get a younger outfielder we can build around. I'm not against going in that direction, but after watching this club this year, I really think we add a few impact bats and our young pitching comes through, we've got something that could compete by 2010 and by 2011 at the latest.

I, and a few others agree. What typically is said by others to a post like this is "just more of the same ole thinking that's had us floundering for years"... this isn't good logic in my view... most of those that fit into this bucket don't understand the difference between having a plan, and executing it properly. Typically they'll see failed execution as a bad plan. There is a difference and understanding it is huge.

[Tony-OH]

I, and a few others agree. What typically is said by others to a post like this is "just more of the same ole thinking that's had us floundering for years"... this isn't good logic in my view... most of those that fit into this bucket don't understand the difference between having a plan, and executing it properly. Typically they'll see failed execution as a bad plan. There is a difference and understanding it is huge.

Signing guys like Payton or Cordova would be the same old, same old. going after premiere guys is totally different in my opinion.

Now don't get me wrong, I think the chances of signing both Tex and Dunn are remote at best, mainly because there's no way the Yankees would let us do that.

[Greg Pappas]

I certainly never intended insult you, and I apologize if I did. You typically put work into many of your posts, and I respect that.

Nonetheless, the same prefab idea get repeated around here, forever and ever, and sometimes I wonder if the people who echo-chamber it to death ever stop to think about what they are saying. I am not talking specifically about you, just about the narrow set of assumptions that frequently show up about rebuilding the franchise.

In the case at hand, I have repeatedly asked, "Why not". The only answers I've gotten are about how somebody defines the term "rebuilding", as if this is primarily a semantic issue, or a philosphical issue, or whatever. It's not about semantics or philosophy, it's about making the franchise become good all the time at Actual Baseball. Nobody has yet responded at all to the substantive baseball part of the issue. So far, it's just repeats of pro forma definitions. If somebody has a substantive baseball answer, I would love to hear it.

Various people say "that can't work without abandoning rebuilding". I have repeatedly asked "Why not?" So far, nobody has answered the baseball-part of that question. Instead, multiple people, including yourself, have repeatedly changed the subject to something else: either definitional issues or personal issues. Rather than make it personal, I wonder why doesn't somebody just answer the baseball question? My theory is because there isn't a good answer.

I appreciate the response.

I see the issue at hand. The concepts of smart baseball management that you referred to are sound and logical... and I'm not refuting it. We were discussing two seperate things. I was speaking to the definition of rebuilding, which is what our GM has intimated since the beginning, and in my view if we abandon the basic principles of rebuilding (a definition you see differently) then that clearly shows a sign toward a new plan.

You want to debate the merits of Tony's plan (or mine in a round-about way)... but it's a solid plan and worth considering, or I wouldn't have put it out there for discussion. The premise of the discussion got a bit off-canter because I asked Tony about the rebuilding thing. I should have just PM'ed him.

Again, thanks for the response.

[Mad Mark]

I don't know about you guys, but I make "plans" all the time. They almost always wind up getting modified, re-written, or just plain scrapped due to changing circumstances.

If Andy MacPhail decides to accelerate the timetable on the Orioles return to competitiveness, I'm certainly not going to complain about it.

And I'm also not going to look to the performance of previous front office regimes to predict the future performance of this one.

We have the GM in place. We have the manager. The young pitching appears to be developing a little bit faster than we expected. I'm stunned, and thrilled that 60% of our current starting rotation is now home-grown, and relatively young...and that number likely goes to 80% next year.

We simply may be in a situation where Andy MacPhail feels that things aren't quite as bad as many of us thought they were...or that the 13 players he got for Trachsel 1, Tejada and Bedard are enough of a launch point that he can build on what is here--right now--and make a run for it in the 2009 / 2010 timeframe.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm certainly not getting any younger, and will be content to see the plan accelerated--if that's what Andy MacPhail feels is appropriate.

[Greg Pappas]

I don't know about you guys, but I make "plans" all the time. They almost always wind up getting modified, re-written, or just plain scrapped due to changing circumstances.

If Andy MacPhail decides to accelerate the timetable on the Orioles return to competitiveness, I'm certainly not going to complain about it.

And I'm also not going to look to the performance of previous front office regimes to predict the future performance of this one.

We have the GM in place. We have the manager. The young pitching appears to be developing a little bit faster than we expected. I'm stunned, and thrilled that 60% of our current starting rotation is now home-grown, and relatively young...and that number likely goes to 80% next year.

We simply may be in a situation where Andy MacPhail feels that things aren't quite as bad as many of us thought they were...or that the 13 players he got for Trachsel 1, Tejada and Bedard are enough of a launch point that he can build on what is here--right now--and make a run for it in the 2009 / 2010 timeframe.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm certainly not getting any younger, and will be content to see the plan accelerated--if that's what Andy MacPhail feels is appropriate.

This is one of the better posts I've read in some time... You do an excellent job of explaining the reasoning behind AM's potential to adjust on the fly. Again, outstanding observation. :thumbsup1:

[EddeeEddee]

Agree with every single thing you just said. Our rotation needs an ACE. Guts as a number 2 guy would really help. That said, I would be shocked if we landed both C.C. and Tex. And I do like the idea of grabbing Dunn and Tex. That would make up alot of offense firepower.

Thanks, Roy. I just don't think signing free agents like Teixeira and Dunn will amount to much if the O's do not also address the issue of their somewhat overrated starting pitching prospects. The O's are hitting OK right now. But as usual they have the worst starting pitching in the AL (at least in terms of ERA, and at least for the moment). Sure, some of the young arms should come along well. But 5 solid starting pitchers all coming from the O's minor league system is unrealistic. Eventually the O's are going to look outside the system to flesh out their starting rotation. They can still trade some veterans to bring back young talent while also signing other veterans to round out the team. It doesn't have to be a one way street. I think they should work to get one solid veteran starter this offseason or even prior to the deadline.

[Mad Mark]

This is one of the better posts I've read in some time... You do an excellent job of explaining the reasoning behind AM's potential to adjust on the fly. Again, outstanding observation. :thumbsup1:

Thank you!

[mweb]

When going after free agents, the best type to go after is certainly premier hitters on the right side of 30, so Tex and Dunn would be good choices, especially with our needs. Doing so would obviously put us in a better position to compete starting next year.

However, I do agree with Greg and SG that signing both of them along with keeping our vets is going away from rebuilding. That's not necessarily a bad thing, that team could make the playoffs in the near future, it could go either way. Although, if we sign those two guys and keep the vets, but don't become a multiple playoff team within 3-4 years, it probably won't be worth it since Tex, Dunn, Brob, Huff, Guthrie, and Sherrill will likely be lesser players than they are today at that point, and we won't have as much young talent as we otherwise would if we dealt our current vets and kept the draft picks.

Regardless of the route we take, the young pitching that we already have is going to be the key. We will likely become contenders if they pan out as a group, if they don't, we probably will fall short regardless of Tex and Dunn.

I think if we trade at least two of Roberts/Sherrill/Huff/Scott/Guthrie/Cabrera, we will extend our window to compete with this young pitching, thus it is my preference. Signing one or both of Tex and Dunn can still fit into that plan, but bottomline, I want more top young talent(other than through the draft/international market) infused into the franchise, and the only way to accomplish that is to trade some of the productive vets we have.

[ejf1025]

We'll see, if he signs. But this kind of thing is almost always overblown. People used to write that Nolan Ryan would increase attendance by thousands every game he pitched, especially at home in Texas. Then somebody studied the issue and pegged the number at a few hundred.

I'm very skeptical of any Tex attendance increase in a vacuum. Maybe if it's accompanied by a winning team, but in that case the attendance would increase if the first baseman had been born in Ghana.

I bet they would get a sizable increase in TV ad revenue.

[Just Regular]

Every indication I have is the same thing. The O's will try hard for Tex this off season.

I'd also like to see them go after Dunn as well and extend Roberts.

Imagine this lineup:

1. Roberts - 2B Switch

2. Markakis - RF Left

3. Teixeira - 1B Switch

4. Dunn - DH Left

5. Huff - 3B Left

6. Wieters - C Switch

7. Scott - LF Left

8. Jones - CF Right

9. Shortstop

With a bench of Mora, Reimold, Fahey, Quiroz

All I can say is that lineup will score some runs.

By 2010 Our rotation could look like this:

Brian Matusz - Left

Jeremy Guthrie - Right

Garrett Olson - Left

Chorye Spoone - Right

Daniel Cabrera/Radhames Liz/Adam Loewen/David Hernandez/Brad Bergeson/Jake Arrieta/Troy Patton

Bullpen could include:

George Sherrill who could be a Jamie Walker type reliever instead of closer

Adam Loewen

Jim Johnson

Chris Ray

Randor Bierd

Bergeson as a ground ball guy

Albers

Sarfate

McCrory

Penn

I'd be willing to go to "war" with this group of guys in the AL East....

The dreamy nice thing is this sounds decent as is, and leaves out Tillman, although it may have been intentional given the youth. By 2010, barring setback, he'd have full AA and AAA seasons under his belt. I remember as a kid a story about Mike Boddicker being "stuck" in Rochester overlong due to pitching strength in the show, and he broke through memorably.

Doubling up with Dunn behind Tex is tantalizing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there even a gaming advantage to signing two type A's the same offseason, because then you lose a 2 and a 3? Whereas if you sign them in separate offseasons, it is a 2 twice (or even a 1 and a 2, if we get out of the top half of the first round)

If Tex is Tejada, is Dunn Vlad, though that reverses the hero/sidekick roles of 5 years ago.

[RShack]

I see the issue at hand. The concepts of smart baseball management that you referred to are sound and logical... and I'm not refuting it. We were discussing two seperate things. I was speaking to the definition of rebuilding, which is what our GM has intimated since the beginning, and in my view if we abandon the basic principles of rebuilding (a definition you see differently) then that clearly shows a sign toward a new plan.

I think what it comes down to is that many here adopted a very narrow and rigid definition of what rebuilding means. It comes from the whole "blow it up" thing, and is a definition that was hatched around here. I have disagreed with this narrow definition forever, and I think its so-called "basic principles" are a lot of extremist hooey from folks who are trade-happy and who largely ignore the lessons of baseball history. But I have never disagreed that the franchise needed to be rebuilt from top to bottom. IMO, the franchise has been left to rot for a whole lot longer than 10 years. It was more like almost 30 years.

I know of nothing AM ever did or said that "intimated" he bought into the narrow and arbitrary definition of rebuilding. He clearly indicated that the franchise as a whole had bigger problems than he realized before he got here, and that it needed to be rebuilt. However, there's nothing about that which indicates that he ever bought into the narrow message-board definition of rebuilding. The idea that he ever did buy into that was just folks putting words in his mouth that he never said. Some folks just assumed that what he means by rebuilding is the same thing that some message-board posters mean by it.

I know of exactly zero reason to conclude that if AM were to do something like this, it would be a case of him "abandoning" anything at all. Rather, it would simply be a case of him doing what he said he was gonna do, which is to fix the franchise, and use every tool in his toolbox to do it. He has no allegiance to the narrow "blow it up" definition of rebuilding that got sold around here. His allegiance is to something broader than that. He's not trying to win arguments on message boards. He's trying to getthe O's back to the WS a few times, and arrange things so that whenever he leave the organization, it will keep on running without him, just like his Daddy did. To put it another way, AM doing a "true rebuild" has zero to do with message board definitions and everything to do with him joining his father and his grandfather in Cooperstown.

[Jericho]

I think what's going on here is an example of "baseball ideology", by which I mean that you're getting locked into a simple prefab answer and forgetting what that simple prefab answer is supposed to be *for*. In other words, IMO, you're so locked-in on one prefab answer that you've lost sight of what the actual goal is.

The whole purpose of rebuilding is to make the franchise good in a way that it's not just flash-in-the-pan good. We want it to be good and stay good. Can we agree about that? If we can, then I think you're rejecting Tony's wishful-thinking idea, not because it conflicts with that goal, but rather because it conflicts with the standard prefab answer that gets echo-chambered around here about how to achieve that goal. The prefab answer says to rely on trades for kids and signing kids, and to focus on the future at the expense of the near term by trading anybody who's older than 27.

In actual reality, there are 3 basic tools available to the FO: signing young kids, signing FA's, and making trades. Of those 3, the one that gets oversold around here is making trades. If you don't think so, then all you need to do is demonstrate that the way teams get-good-and-stay-good is by making trades their primary tool. Face it, you can't do it, because baseball doesn't work like that. Just because people like to dream up trade ideas on a message board, that doesn't mean trades are the main part of rebuilding. Trades are actually a fairly small part of rebuilding. The main part of rebuilding is to grow your own good players. That's the main thing. Compared to that, both trades and FA's are small potatoes in the long run.

So, if we can agree that the main thing is growing your own players, and that the main value of trades and FA's is to augment that, or jump start that, then it is goofy to say that having the lineup that Tony mentioned is somehow "abandoning rebuilding" unless it meant either raping the farm system or preventing AM from building a farm system that grows good players. Now, I think we can all agree that AM has said that you grow your own pitching, and that future-pitching is the organizational strength. I think we can also agree that, no matter what might happen about anything else, whether the future-pitching comes through is gonna play a huge role in how things turn out. So, the main thing that we're disagreeing about is how to fix the non-pitching, how the franchise should fix the supply of everyday players.

Tony's wishful-thinking idea fixes the supply of everyday players sooner rather than later. If you look at it, it fixes everything about the lineup except for SS, and it fixes it for a few years. Exactly zero teams are strong everywhere. Zero teams don't have a weakness somewhere. So, while Tony's idea still leaves AM with an issue to address at SS, that doesn't change the fact that Tony's idea would make the lineup a scary thing that we could put up against anybody's.

Which means the only reason for not liking Tony's wishful-thinking idea would be that it somehow rapes the farm system or prevents AM from making the farm system better. Does Tony's idea do that? Here's my answer: "No, it does not." Here's what it does and doesn't do:

• It gets us Tex and Dunn for the farm-system-cost of 2 unknown draft picks, most likely one 2nd-round and one 3rd-round. We give up nobody who we already have. And, as FA future-farm-system-costs go, they're cheap: Tex and Dunn would typically cost one 1st-rounder apiece.
• It does not affect any of the other 50 draft picks for that year, and it does not effect draft picks in any future years (except for the normal cost of being a good team, which is you don't draft as high... but being good is the whole goal anyway, so that's not a good argument).
• By keeping BRob at 2B, Huff at 3B, and Sherrill in the BP, it costs us whatever "prospects" we could get for them. So, it does have some costs when it comes to trading proven talent for iffy prospects. But that's not the same thing as somehow raping the farm system. All it does is put us in the situation that any good franchise is in, which is you have to grow your own players.
• The only reason to say that Tony's wishful-thinking idea is bad is if you somehow believe that the unproven and unknown "prospects" we would get from a 2nd-round pick, a 3rd-round pick, and trading BRob, Huff, and Sherrill would somehow be more likely to produce a solid team than we could get by having a team that has proven or high-upside guys everywhere but SS: Wieters, Tex, BRob, Huff, Luke, AJ, Nick, and Dunn.

So, if you think Tony's wishful thinking idea is somehow a bad one, then here's what you're betting on: that a handful of unproven prospects are *more likely* to produce than are Tex, Dunn, BRob, Huff, and Sherrill. IMO, that's a crazy bet to make. AFAIK, the only reason anybody would make that bet is if either:

• They don't realize how *low* the probability is of unproven prospects turning into Actual Star Ballplayers, or
• They are in love with a prefab answer about rebuilding and have somehow forgotten what the entire purpose of rebuilding is really about.

Now, if I'm wrong about this, I would love for somebody to explain how it's wrong.

ps: I don't think Tony's wishful-thinking idea is likely to happen. This is about the merits of it, not about the likelihood of it.

I agree with much of what you're saying, but I would still look to deal Sherrill and Huff for two reasons: (1) their value is pretty damn high right now; and (2) they are replaceable players.

Any yes all prospects are risky. But probably not as risky as some make them out to be. You can see what a player is becoming, particularly when he hits AA. There are always flaws in a players game, and there's also usual warning signs of players that may not make it to the majors. But if you're smart, you can also identify the right players and the ones that can help out a team. Just like the Orioles did with Tejada and Bedard.

This is of course contingent upon the market and what a team can get in return. But I sometimes worry people get caught up in the hype. Huff couldn't be given away this offseason, now he's untradeable? A year from know, people might want to run him out of town again. Capitalize on the high value now, get cheap players, and trust in your evaluation of propsects.

As for draft picks, I'd gladly lose them for top flight players. No worries there. The odds of second and third rounders becoming useful major leaguers is not particularly high. It doesn't set back the team to sign a good player who's not blocking anyone.

[davearm]

A very good amount.

Just the excitement and buzz that the signing of Tex would generate would create a spike in season tickets and would spur more media coverage and attention going into the year. The O's would be more of a story everyday than they currently are which would urge more people to go to the games.

Perhaps this should be known simply as "The ARod Fallacy."

The Rangers' experience would suggest "if you sign him, they will come" is pure folly.

Three years of stagnant or declining attendance and unrealized marketing synergies later, Hicks and co. were willing to shell out ~$71M to have ARod play elsewhere.