Duquette: 'We've got to put a little bit sharper focus on the future'

[25 Nuggets]

6 hours ago, LookitsPuck said:

I don't feel bad for Duquette one bit.

He signed a 6 year extension and tried to jump ship 2 years into it. In the division, nonetheless. 

[Mitch Connor]

On 6/4/2018 at 7:40 PM, Roy Firestone said:

I've said it before and I'll say it again...Dan Duquette has made some bad moves and some good ones...but he is FAR from the culprit in many of the decisions made by this organization. If you knew what I know you'd fault Dan less, and understand. Not that he is completely without blame....but many of his ideas and trades were blocked or vetoed by several people. By and large, Dan Duquette is a professional who knows what he's doing. Others may not be as good a judge of talent as they have been given credit for.

 

Maybe he knew what he was doing back in his Expos and Red Sox days, but being out of MLB baseball for so long, he hasn't kept up with the times.

[OriolesMagic83]

12 hours ago, wildbillhiccup said:

So answer my second question then. Why would it make sense for the Orioles to be the highest bidder for his services? Whether or not Jones wants to win or wants the money is irrelevant, because the Orioles won't offer either option. The ship is clearly sinking and everyone who can (Machado, Jones, Britton, Brach, etc.) will be getting in life boats after the season ends (if they aren't traded before hand). 

Jones is the sort of player the O's sign to an extension.  Angelos likes players that are fan favorites.  I believe the Davis was mostly signed to a long term deal because he was a fan favorite and would sell tickets.  I hope the O's don't sign him, he would block one of our better prospects wherever he plays and likely not be worth his contract.  

[atomic]

37 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

Jones is the sort of player the O's sign to an extension.  Angelos likes players that are fan favorites.  I believe the Davis was mostly signed to a long term deal because he was a fan favorite and would sell tickets.  I hope the O's don't sign him, he would block one of our better prospects wherever he plays and likely not be worth his contract.  

He let Markakis and Wieters go. 

[wildbillhiccup]

10 hours ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

Jones is the sort of player the O's sign to an extension.  Angelos likes players that are fan favorites.  I believe the Davis was mostly signed to a long term deal because he was a fan favorite and would sell tickets.  I hope the O's don't sign him, he would block one of our better prospects wherever he plays and likely not be worth his contract.  

Again, you all are missing my point. The Orioles might WANT to resign Jones, but they really have nothing to offer. 

1) They won't offer him the most money.

2) They don't offer him a "winning" environment.

Someone will pay Jones, even if it's just a two year deal, for his veteran leadership. For god's sake, Todd Frazier and Carlos Santana both landed two and three year deals this past off season. Jones is much closer in talent and value to those players then he is the Jose Bautista / Logan Morrison's of the world. Especially if he's willing to play LF or RF. 

[El_Duderino]

10 minutes ago, wildbillhiccup said:

Again, you all are missing my point. The Orioles might WANT to resign Jones, but they really have nothing to offer. 

1) They won't offer him the most money.

2) They don't offer him a "winning" environment.

Someone will pay Jones, even if it's just a two year deal, for his veteran leadership. For god's sake, Todd Frazier and Carlos Santana both landed two and three year deals this past off season. Jones is much closer in talent and value to those players then he is the Jose Bautista / Logan Morrison's of the world. Especially if he's willing to play LF or RF. 

It’s going to be tough sledding out there for Jones. He is probably looking at a one year deal. Look at what Carlos Gomez and Carlos Gonzalez got this past offseason. I actually wouldn’t mind bringing back Jones on a 1-2 year deal if he plays a corner OF spot. 

[Ohfan67]

19 hours ago, LookitsPuck said:

I don't feel bad for Duquette one bit.

He signed a 6 year extension and tried to jump ship 2 years into it. In the division, nonetheless. 

Just for clarification: It was a four year extension. 

 

I don't feel bad for Duquette either, although if the Orioles have taken away responsibilities from DD because of Toronto then they are very dumb for not releasing him. Cut off your nose to spite your face situation. But I don't feel sorry for DD. He was not the O's first choice, but they did revive his career and his pairing with Buck worked well for several years. 

[wildbillhiccup]

1 hour ago, El_Duderino said:

It’s going to be tough sledding out there for Jones. He is probably looking at a one year deal. Look at what Carlos Gomez and Carlos Gonzalez got this past offseason. I actually wouldn’t mind bringing back Jones on a 1-2 year deal if he plays a corner OF spot. 

Jones is better than both of those players. He's much closer to Carlos Santana (who landed a three year deal) then he is to Gomez and Gonzalez. I'm predicting that he'll get a two year offer from a West Coast team (and take it). Probably the Angels. Or the Padres sell him on them being ready to contend and sign him. If he's going to play on a bad team I'm sure he'd prefer it to be one that plays half it's games where he lives in the off season. 

[Yardball85]

14 minutes ago, wildbillhiccup said:

Jones is better than both of those players. He's much closer to Carlos Santana (who landed a three year deal) then he is to Gomez and Gonzalez. I'm predicting that he'll get a two year offer from a West Coast team (and take it). Probably the Angels. Or the Padres sell him on them being ready to contend and sign him. If he's going to play on a bad team I'm sure he'd prefer it to be one that plays half it's games where he lives in the off season. 

Good post.  I could see something like 2 years 20 for Adam or 3 years 30.  Angels make sense if Adam is willing to play RF.  Mariners and Giants make sense too.

[Frobby]

28 minutes ago, wildbillhiccup said:

Jones is better than both of those players. He's much closer to Carlos Santana (who landed a three year deal) then he is to Gomez and Gonzalez. I'm predicting that he'll get a two year offer from a West Coast team (and take it). Probably the Angels. Or the Padres sell him on them being ready to contend and sign him. If he's going to play on a bad team I'm sure he'd prefer it to be one that plays half it's games where he lives in the off season. 

Can we only compare Adam Jones to players named Carlos?

Gomez: 25.1 rWAR, 1.7 before signing his contract.

Gonzalez: 23.8 rWAR, -0.2 before signing his contract

Santana: 24.7 rWAR, 3.4 before signing his contract

Jones: 32.0 rWAR, -0.3 so far this season.   

I think the thing that sets Jones apart from Gomez and Gonzalez is that he’s a very consistent offensive performer.    Not a lot of variation season to season, you know what you’re going to get.    Of course, he’s done as a CF and nobody knows how he’d do in a corner spot.  I think he’ll get two years, but the money will probably be a lot less than he’s expecting.   

[LookitsPuck]

3 hours ago, Ohfan67 said:

Just for clarification: It was a four year extension. 

 

I don't feel bad for Duquette either, although if the Orioles have taken away responsibilities from DD because of Toronto then they are very dumb for not releasing him. Cut off your nose to spite your face situation. But I don't feel sorry for DD. He was not the O's first choice, but they did revive his career and his pairing with Buck worked well for several years. 

Fair enough. It was a 6 year contract. 4 year extension. Regardless, the point stands.

[foxfield]

1 hour ago, LookitsPuck said:

Fair enough. It was a 6 year contract. 4 year extension. Regardless, the point stands.

Facts are funny things.  Your opinion of DD is clear.  But your point does not stand.  It was erroneous at 6 years and it is erroneous at 4.  Why?

Because two years in on the new deal or half way, he looked pretty good and was approached for a raise and a promotion.  We could have done one of two things...let him go, or given him a raise and a promotion to keep him.  As is the Oriole way, we did neither.  We did not let him go, and then punished him by limiting his ability to do the job. You make it sound as if the traitor jumped ship before the ink was dry on his contract...or like a date looking for an exit at the first chance.  That just isn't true.

Now you can very easily take apart decisions made by DD and you still come back to your base opinion.  I am fine with that and in many ways agree.  But this traitor position is false and inaccurate.  He is a pretty damn good baseball man and we will be lucky to have one as good when he leaves.

Of course, if you believe anyone could do better at his job, with this team and with this owner, well I don't know what to say other than I strongly believe you have the right to your opinion.  But still facts are facts.

[LookitsPuck]

55 minutes ago, foxfield said:

Facts are funny things.  Your opinion of DD is clear.  But your point does not stand.  It was erroneous at 6 years and it is erroneous at 4.  Why?

Because two years in on the new deal or half way, he looked pretty good and was approached for a raise and a promotion.  We could have done one of two things...let him go, or given him a raise and a promotion to keep him.  As is the Oriole way, we did neither.  We did not let him go, and then punished him by limiting his ability to do the job. You make it sound as if the traitor jumped ship before the ink was dry on his contract...or like a date looking for an exit at the first chance.  That just isn't true.

Now you can very easily take apart decisions made by DD and you still come back to your base opinion.  I am fine with that and in many ways agree.  But this traitor position is false and inaccurate.  He is a pretty damn good baseball man and we will be lucky to have one as good when he leaves.

Of course, if you believe anyone could do better at his job, with this team and with this owner, well I don't know what to say other than I strongly believe you have the right to your opinion.  But still facts are facts.

My premise is that if you sign an extension (especially a relatively new one) and still have *4* full years left on it...you should honour that contract. 

The point of the matter is that Duquette was seemingly blackballed by baseball for a decade...and then he got a second chance at baseball by Peter Angelos. And then 3 years in after winning the ALCS, he's gallivanting around  *in the division* and half-assing his role with the O's fully expecting to get the position with the Jays. The pride of that offseason? Travis f'ing Snider who was essentially acquired by giving up 2 decent arms.  

The point of the matter is this: Duquette didn't deserve any kind of promotion from the Orioles after being out of baseball for nearly a decade. His reward of "turning the franchise around" was a 4 year extension. The Orioles shouldn't have let him go. Nor should have they have given him a promotion. Expecting some black (let him go to the Jays) or white (promotion) scenario just seems all kinds of wrong to me.

And I still stand by my assertion that Duquette fully expected to take that position. I don't think he was doing nearly enough with the organization as it currently stood. Now, that's not entirely on Duquette. Part of it has to be on Angelos, but while Angelos is negotiating things, I'd hope Duquette was at least doing something meaningful. But instead who parted ways? Nelson Cruz. Andrew Miller. Nick Markakis. There were virtually *no* quality signings after winning the division and then losing 3 very key players on the club.

I go back to my original statement that the one thing I fault Angelos for (in this Duquette debacle) is not firing Duquette after the 2015 season. I don't fault him one bit for letting Duquette go *in the division* for pennies on the dollar. I think it is beyond asinine that there's some unwritten management rule in baseball that management should be allowed out of contracts to take a better position somewhere else. That is patently stupid. 

The  thing I will fault Angelos for is keeping Duquette along this long. And my only guess it's because Duquette is merely here still after the debacle of 2017 season...to potentially train Brady. Otherwise it makes no sense that he wasn't fired after the 2015 or 2017 seasons.