Is Peter Angelos the Bill Wirtz of Baseball Owners

[weams]

35 minutes ago, gtman55 said:

You're giving me crap cause I misspelled his name, seriously? He did fire Jon Miller.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1996-11-04/features/1996309053_1_angelos-jon-miller-camden-yards

 

It's not crap. I just thought you were a fan. If you were, you knew his spelling. So it must have been auto correct. Forgive me. 

[weams]

2 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

I would imagine a poll would not come out favorably for Angelos amongst the fan base!

Would a poll know who Bill Wirtz was? 

[Frobby]

On 7/10/2018 at 4:59 PM, weams said:

Would a poll know who Bill Wirtz was? 

I wouldn’t.  

[awannabegeek]

Angelos sucks at being an owner, he doesn't know how to delegate, but his a philanthropist, one of the few owners in sports that refuse to sell the naming rights to their team's stadium, and when it comes to nixing deals, specifically deals related to a physical the O's have come out on the right side more times than not.   

People treat the man like he's some TV show villain laughing from his tower while he counts money, when in fact he could be doing a lot more to make money. 

He's a bad owner, not a bad person.   

[Ripken]

There have been a lot of bad sports owners, for a lot of reasons.  I'm not sure anyone is a direct comparison to Angelos, but he's surely a problem and the vast majority want him gone.

[esmd]

PGA is the PGA of owners, he's really is deserving in dubious fashion of his own legacy, not comparable to any of a litany of previously poor owners in pro sports.  PGA is obviously a poor owner when you look at his track record.  The 2012-2016 seasons, and even the first half of 2017 were a breath of fresh air, and you can't argue that the payroll has been adequate.  Yes, they're cost conscious to a fault sometimes (examples are sticking with Ubaldo, Tillman, and Rasmus, rather than cut bait and getting someone better), but he's put the money up when needed for the most part.  Obviously they've not spent wisely, we all know the ones that got away and the ones they kept, it's been discussed ad nauseum.  In short, there's a culture of mismanagement, distrust, dysfunction, indecision, rancor with MLB and other owners, in particular the Lerners, and it all ends up at the feet of PGA.

I just hope that somehow John and Louis wise up and can do better when they assume control upon his passing, or sells the team to an owner that will and can restore this franchise to a place of prominence.  While our market isn't a huge one, they can compete here is they're smart.

[spiritof66]

17 minutes ago, awannabegeek said:

Angelos sucks at being an owner, he doesn't know how to delegate, but his a philanthropist, one of the few owners in sports that refuse to sell the naming rights to their team's stadium, and when it comes to nixing deals, specifically deals related to a physical the O's have come out on the right side more times than not.   

People treat the man like he's some TV show villain laughing from his tower while he counts money, when in fact he could be doing a lot more to make money. 

He's a bad owner, not a bad person.   

I'm not in a position to judge whether Peter Angelos is a "bad person," and I won't try.

But it does appear to me that some of Angelos's weakness as an owner reflect personal qualities that I consider to be negative: arrogance, self-righteousness, unwillingness to accept dissent or criticism, an inflated view of his own abilities, selfishness,  and cowardice in failing to acknowledge his role in bad decisions. 

[spiritof66]

11 minutes ago, esmd said:

PGA is the PGA of owners, he's really is deserving in dubious fashion of his own legacy, not comparable to any of a litany of previously poor owners in pro sports.  PGA is obviously a poor owner when you look at his track record.  The 2012-2016 seasons, and even the first half of 2017 were a breath of fresh air, and you can't argue that the payroll has been adequate.  Yes, they're cost conscious to a fault sometimes (examples are sticking with Ubaldo, Tillman, and Rasmus, rather than cut bait and getting someone better), but he's put the money up when needed for the most part.  Obviously they've not spent wisely, we all know the ones that got away and the ones they kept, it's been discussed ad nauseum.  In short, there's a culture of mismanagement, distrust, dysfunction, indecision, rancor with MLB and other owners, in particular the Lerners, and it all ends up at the feet of PGA.

I.  .  .

I disagree with the bolded assertion about Peter Angelos's willingness to spend. It's true that Angelos usually has spent a lot, relative to the Orioles' revenues, on the team's ML payroll. But at the same time, he hasn't spent  nearly enough on things that virtually every other ML owner recognizes as necessary to help build a winning team, including scouts, front office personnel and, most conspicuously, scouting, signing, paying and patiently developing young Latin American players. 

Whether because he has a warped, outlying view of how to build a successful team or (in recent years) the limited perspective of an aging owner who cares only about the short term, Angelos has invested disproportionately in assets that he thinks will help the team win now, and has skimped on those that might have improved the long-term health and success of the franchise. Peter Angelos's legacy as the Orioles' owner will extend beyond the team's lousy record under his ownership. It will include a weakened franchise for years to come -- one that will require investment beyond the revenues that the team generates if the Orioles are to close the gap between it and successful MLB teams. That gap has widened over the past decade or so, and logic tells me that the time and money that will be needed to close it have grown and continues to increase.

I don't think that Angelos's sons will be financially able to invest in a way that will rebuild the franchise, even if they have the will to do so. If the Orioles are going to improve, they would need to sell the team or bring in substantial investment from others. 

[esmd]

You're quite correct, I was specifically referring to the ML payroll, and my not spending wisely comment was meant to include things like scouting, international market, etc.  Completely agreed.

As for the sons and their capabilities both management-wise and financially, I have no idea.  I would be inclined to agree with you and be skeptical until proven otherwise, though.

[awannabegeek]

2 hours ago, spiritof66 said:

I'm not in a position to judge whether Peter Angelos is a "bad person," and I won't try.

But it does appear to me that some of Angelos's weakness as an owner reflect personal qualities that I consider to be negative: arrogance, self-righteousness, unwillingness to accept dissent or criticism, an inflated view of his own abilities, selfishness,  and cowardice in failing to acknowledge his role in bad decisions. 

I'm not sure he's a coward or selfish, a selfish person would sell the naming rights to Camden Yards.  This is the same guy that was pro-player during the strike and wasn't going to field replacement players because he didn't feel it was right to charge Orioles fans.  

That aside, I agree with your assessment, but those qualities don't make him a bad person, they're faults definitely, but there are faults that many on this board have, they just lack the millions of dollars to buy a baseball team. 

I believe his intent is good, those qualities lead to the horrible execution of his intentions I would agree.  I believe way too many people see his actions as malicious when they're simply a byproduct of incompetence (in Baseball). 

[spiritof66]

2 hours ago, awannabegeek said:

I'm not sure he's a coward or selfish, a selfish person would sell the naming rights to Camden Yards.  This is the same guy that was pro-player during the strike and wasn't going to field replacement players because he didn't feel it was right to charge Orioles fans.  

That aside, I agree with your assessment, but those qualities don't make him a bad person, they're faults definitely, but there are faults that many on this board have, they just lack the millions of dollars to buy a baseball team. 

I believe his intent is good, those qualities lead to the horrible execution of his intentions I would agree.  I believe way too many people see his actions as malicious when they're simply a byproduct of incompetence (in Baseball). 

That's a clearer way of saying what I was trying to say: I think he has demonstrated some very bad qualities as an owner/operator of the team, but I can't judge him as a person -- though I'm often tempted top do so. 

I say Angelos is a coward because of his consistent refusal to take responsibility for the bad decisions that, we hear indirectly, he made or at least influenced, and his failure to talk to the media or the fans about the team's problems (or even about who is in charge) and explain why, for instance, his is the only ML team not to use its allotted dollars to sign international free agents. Then, too, there's his  gutless hiding from the Astros on the last day before the trade deadline, leaving Duquette out to dry, instead of telling Houston yes or no to the proposed Britton trade. 

I say he's selfish -- and I've posted about this at length elsewhere -- because many of his decisions in the past three years reflect, in my opinion, the desperation of an owner in his late 80s, who has never had a team reach the World's Series, to hold on to the core of the first winning team he's had in over a decade -- even when the chances of that team winning became remote and, by mid-2017, virtually zero.  I believe that's why he's poured money foolishly into retaining veterans who had performed well on those winning teams, while failing to invest in personnel and infrastructure that would help the franchise only after his own life expectancy. Apparently using Brady and/or Buck's sycophantic willingness to endorse those bad decisions, Angelos selfishly chased his old man's, short-term dream at the expense of the long-term health of the franchise, That is part of the reason the team in in such a mess today. 

[Three Run Homer]

I hope Peter Angelos is the Bill Wirtz of baseball.  When Bill Wirtz died, control of the Blackhawks passed to his sons, and the Blackhawks have been one of the best run and most successful NHL teams ever since.