It's days like this that make you realize how flawed MLB is... how bleak the future might be

[hoosiers]

The Os do compete against some big market teams - so structurally it may seem unfair.

That said, until we get our house in order and functioning at an appropriate level, one really doesn't have the right to complain. 

When I say get our house in order, I mean:

 - have quality scouting system - with appropriate number of scouts using appropriate technology

 - have quality development guys

 - participate appropriately internationally

Finally, you also have to operate appropriate for the market you are in.  The Rays and As operate as small market teams and constantly cycle good players pre-free agency to other teams.  I have said for years that we should operate more in that way, but have met stiff resistance since 2012 to every suggestion to trade Hardy, Wieters, Davis, JJ, and others.  The Rays would have probably traded a good number of those guys instead of waiting for the production to decline when the salary rises.  Bmore is capable of a pretty decent payroll compared to the Rays and As, but that only allows our FO to make the same mistakes other teams make when it comes to retaining players.

[Tx Oriole]

4 hours ago, Todd-O said:

Manny being traded for a bag of prospects... walking out of town with the notion that he's is going to ask for the moon in his next contract and nobody - nada... no one - thinks the home town team has an inkling of a shot of resigning him.  They call him a "generational talent" whose best days are ahead of him, yet there's not a sliver of a chance the O's ever could have made him a cornerstone to build around.

 The O's beat writers in the Sun are all but saying there was never a chance he could stay (and to get used to it because this is what Baltimore is and will be).

Then, on the flip side, you have the Red Sox thumping their chest and proclaiming they are ready and willing to cross the highest luxury tax threshold.

This is what MLB has become and the machine will never let it stop because the richest teams and MLB PA will never install true caps that make the playing field level.

Before the season I started a thread about the possibility of the O's leaving Baltimore... and I gotta say, if this truly is the reality (an  inability to ever have a chance at securing a super star while other teams will happily step over the boundaries to reel-in every thing they can), then baseball in Baltimore is on life support.   And to throw some fuel on the fire, the Washington Nationals and their stadium are turning DC's SE waterfront into a thriving neighborhood.  Construction cranes are everywhere.  Businesses that pull-in numbers in the Billions are putting their offices there.  Restaurants are blowing up.  Pretty much the exact opposite of what's happening in Baltimore, which has a shrinking population and a city that is literally torn in half by poverty.

 

And... by the way... the Nats are willing to throw around cash like it's monopoly money.

 

This might be the most depressing day in all of my years of rooting for the O's.  I didn't realize that pain in losing Manny would actually result from the weight of the overwhelming reality smacking me in the face, rather than losing Manny the player.  I am having a really hard time seeing how the O's will survive without being extracted to a region that's begging for a team.  Montreal?  It's entirely possible.

 

It's like a nightmare that I hope is easy to wake up from... sure hope my sense of doom is wrong.

It's not depressing to me. Manny wants to test FA. Sorry but  I've got more going on in my life than to worry about a baseball player or team. I like the O's been a fan nearly 60 years. 

[Natty]

It's a mathematical equation. Until we fork over the cash equivalent to NY and Boston's payroll we will never win the division.

[survivedc]

20 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

PA got hosed. DC is one of the fastest growing cities in the country. That was our territory. Baltimore is a dying city. Literally. 

Home to the largest car Port in the US, most efficient port in America, cruise terminal expansion, countless waterfront redevelopments including one of  the largest urban development projects in America. I think we’ll be ok.

[esmd]

3 minutes ago, Natty said:

It's a mathematical equation. Until we fork over the cash equivalent to NY and Boston's payroll we will never win the division.

Ummm.....did you sleep through 2014?

http://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm#2014_payroll

[Emory Eagle]

28 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

PA got hosed. DC is one of the fastest growing cities in the country. That was our territory. Baltimore is a dying city. Literally. 

Baltimore of course has its problems, but the Orioles' fan base doesn't end at city limits. Maryland is a wealthy state already and continued economic and population growth along the I-95 corridor will only help the Os, provided they can put a competitive product on the field.

I don't think there's any reason the DC/Baltimore area can't support two MLB teams.  

[sportsfan8703]

8 minutes ago, survivedc said:

Home to the largest car Port in the US, most efficient port in America, cruise terminal expansion, countless waterfront redevelopments including one of  the largest urban development projects in America. I think we’ll be ok.

1970- 920k people. 

2018- 615K people. 

Heard the car port is nice. 

[Natty]

24 minutes ago, esmd said:

Ummm.....did you sleep through 2014?

http://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm#2014_payroll

I also remember when the Marlins had a low payroll and won the World Series. 

But if anyone thinks we can compete with a 90M less payroll than Boston...Look at the standings.

 

[Punchandjudy]

4 hours ago, incubus said:

Dude, DC isn’t so great, all they did was gentrify and push out the poor people. They shifted the problem to elsewhere, thy didn’t solve it.

Also recognize, if we had the federal tax dollars pouring into our city’s coffers like DC, we’d have a much less uphill battle to restore Baltimore and pull tens of thousands out of poverty.

Funny how nice a place it can be when they spend other people's money to fix the city.  That being said Baltimore is highly subsidized by those living outside the city. 

[LTO's]

8 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

1970- 920k people. 

2018- 615K people. 

Heard the car port is nice. 

A ton of the attendance comes from the surrounding counties which are actually increasing in population and wealth. Still it pales in comparison to the population of big market cities and that is never going to change. This whole Baltimore is a dumpster fire which is why people don't go is just such a lazy assessment. They will go more if the team is good. They will go if the team is competitive in August in September. They won't average as much as NY or LA or Boston because that's not feasible, but they will go.  

Toronto has a population north of 2 million not including tons of fans who travel from the surrounding provinces to go to Blue Jays. They're averaging 29k this year. That's 12k less than they were averaging in 2016 in the middle of a playoff race. Winning matters. Bottom line.

[sportsfan8703]

1 minute ago, LTO's said:

A ton of the attendance comes from the surrounding counties which are actually increasing in population and wealth. Still it pales in comparison to the population of big market cities and that is never going to change. This whole Baltimore is a dumpster fire which is why people don't go is just such a lazy assessment. They will go more if the team is good. They will go if the team is competitive in August in September. They won't average as much as NY or LA or Boston because that's not feasible, but they will go.  

Toronto has a population north of 2 million not including tons of fans who travel from the surrounding provinces to go to Blue Jays. They're averaging 29k this year. That's 12k less than they were averaging in 2016 in the middle of a playoff race. Winning matters. Bottom line.

We were a game out of the WC last September and attendance was way down. 

[Punchandjudy]

4 hours ago, Hank Scorpio said:

Major problem for a team with little room for error financially. 

The little room for error financially, I have a bit of a problem with that statement.  Obviously, the team has made money especially the last few years owning a network that has the broadcasting rights for not only the organization's team, but another team as well.  Also, since ownership bought the club for approximately $260 million (if memory serves me) 25 years ago, the value of the club has at least quadrupled if not gone up 5 or 6 times.  Not often you see returns in an investment even over time of 400-600%.  How does that not impact a team's operating budget?  Finally, spending money directly corresponds to making money in a business like baseball as spending money impacts wins and losses.  So the margin for error seems to be whatever a team is willing to make it.   Double finally, Angelos has done well himself financially.  He could easily step outside of the operating budget, not tap into the team's inherent equity, and still find room to pay some rather large salaries. 

 

With all that being said, I've never seen an operating budget for the team but neither has anyone else on this board.  I simply don't buy that they have tight margins financially. 

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, GuidoSarducci said:

Baltimore doesn't have a chance to sign Manny because it doesn't make sense to have one player tburning $30m/year in payroll or whatever Manny is going to make when its optimistically 3 years before they are competitive again.   Manny is therefore going to be way more valuable to a team that is already competitive or at least very close to it.   This isn't really a problem a hard cap would solve.

I agree with your post.   I think the Orioles absolutely could afford to pay Manny $30 mm/yr, and he’d be worth every penny compared to free agents who make half that amount but don’t produce.    $30 mm for Manny is an underpay.    But it only makes sense if your team will contend with Manny on the roster.    If you’re going to be terrible even with Manny, save that money for a time when the team is good, and/or invest it in some long-term assets like international talent etc.

[FlipTheBird]

14 minutes ago, Natty said:

I also remember when the Marlins had a low payroll and won the World Series. 

But if anyone thinks we can compete with a 90M less payroll than Boston...Look at the standings.

 

They were $60 million under the Sox in 2014 and won the division. The Rays have won the East before. Though the O's didn't win the division in these respective years (in the last decade), they did finish higher than the Red Sox in 2012 and 2015, too, always with a lower payroll. Better than the Yankees even more often in that stretch.

Baseball has always been unfair ground. It's the nature of the business. The Orioles can be very competitive if they're being honest about the new developments in the front office. The woe is me stuff has to stop. The Sox didn't just bully their way to the top with tons of cash, ala the early 2000s Yankees and the modern-day Dodgers - they've made smart moves, repeatedly.

As a smaller club, the O's just have to be crafty - this year they're paying Chris Davis $21 million, the Sox are paying JD Martinez $23 million. One deal is certainly doing better than the other, at very little cost differential. They've still got Chris Sale at just $12.5 million, and they acquired him by building a farm system that was lush enough that it could survive trading for him. They go out and get solid role players on the relative cheap, like Mitch Moreland.

[Hank Scorpio]

26 minutes ago, Punchandjudy said:

The little room for error financially, I have a bit of a problem with that statement.  Obviously, the team has made money especially the last few years owning a network that has the broadcasting rights for not only the organization's team, but another team as well.  Also, since ownership bought the club for approximately $260 million (if memory serves me) 25 years ago, the value of the club has at least quadrupled if not gone up 5 or 6 times.  Not often you see returns in an investment even over time of 400-600%.  How does that not impact a team's operating budget?  Finally, spending money directly corresponds to making money in a business like baseball as spending money impacts wins and losses.  So the margin for error seems to be whatever a team is willing to make it.   Double finally, Angelos has done well himself financially.  He could easily step outside of the operating budget, not tap into the team's inherent equity, and still find room to pay some rather large salaries. 

  

With all that being said, I've never seen an operating budget for the team but neither has anyone else on this board.  I simply don't buy that they have tight margins financially. 

Well, who knows. I find it interesting that they had to stretch Davis' deal out to 2037 or whenever.

Relative to the large market teams in the division who can better absorb a miserable contract, they're constrained.