We’re the worst team in the business (Ownership driving decisions) - Dan Duquette

[weams]

Front Page Yoda. This is as good and relevant a take as could be made at this time. You've got to pay to see the monkey. 

 

[weams]

9 hours ago, O's are Legends said:

Some serious gems in this article. If DD isn't retained, I'm sure he could write a tell all book during his time with the O's.

This is probably barely scratching the surface.

I don't mean to throw Roy Firestone into this but I believe he said the O's don't have many head scouts or something along the line. I believe it. The fact DD is stating the O's haven't invested as they should in other important aspects that are necessary to run a MLB franchise speaks volume. Ownership looks worse if that's even possible.

I'm throwing in these tweets by Britt as well even though they weren't part of the article.

FiveThirtyEight

 

Not so subtle. 

[weams]

 

[weams]

[Barnaby Graves]

I hate this franchise.  Stop the guy from leaving and then don't let him do his job, whatsoever.  That is, if you believe Duquette, which I do.

[Chromehill]

25 minutes ago, Barnaby Graves said:

I hate this franchise.  Stop the guy from leaving and then don't let him do his job, whatsoever.  That is, if you believe Duquette, which I do.

I don't hate the franchise, I hate the owner.  I believe Duquette too.  If he leaves by his choice or not, good luck finding another quality baseball person to be the GM of the Orioles.  As long as Pete is breathing, unless the person is desperate, they are not taking the O's job.  Too many other good baseball people from the past have been told one thing by Pete and have the opposite happen.  Gillick, Wren, McPhail the list goes on and on. 

[Obando]

Pete is no longer physically/mentally capable of running the organization and making decisions anymore. That’s the difference now.  It’s up to John & Lou to set the course and convince good baseball people why they should be a part of the rebuilding of this organization.  Unfortunately for them, their father has created a mess that they need to clean up, and there is an assumption that they will do things the same way their father did.  I think that’s unfair, but ultimately it will be up to them to change that perception.  I’m optimistic that they have learned from their father’s mistakes and will run the organization much differently (meaning for the better).  Let’s see how this all plays out.  It’s going to be a very interesting, and hopefully franchise-altering off season.  Can’t wait for the season to be over so the real work can get started!

[Camden_yardbird]

I need my post from another thread.  This is exactly what I said happened, a disproportionate amount of money going to the major league roster.  The Orioles are like the guy you see working at McDonalds and driving a BMW.  He's going to tell you everything is great, but that disproportionality comes home to roost.  All those years people are surprised that the Orioles were in the top 10 in payroll, that surprise was the spidey sense tingling, telling you that a small-mid market team shouldnt be able to play like that.

The Orioles collapse, despite being self driven by terrible decisions, is the canary that we see due over and over again and don't take heed of.  It's a symptom of a very unhealthy competitive balance in MLB where small-mid market teams have to make a 1000 decisions correctly for a chance at a 3 year window, and large market teams swallow bad contracts and keep competing.  When the last CBA was signed we heard many experts saying, this is better for the large market teams.  Then the Orioles and the Royals went out and were competitive and everyone thought everything was fine.  Hell I have even seen people point to the Astros as a low payroll team that started competing as proof that low payrolls can win.

The Orioles made some bad decisions.  Sure.  But I doubt anyone would trade those competitive seasons away for a stronger farm system.  And if it's all a zero sum game, then some of those bad decisions were necessary evils of competing as a small market team.

That's why I remarked in another thread about the carefully manicured Tampa roster.  It's designed to keep costs down, to preserve money for player development, and to put a consistent .500 team out there where if things break right they can make the playoffs.  The crazy thing is this year everything broke wrong injury wise, and they would still be in the playoffs if they weren't in the AL east.

[atomic]

18 minutes ago, Obando said:

Pete is no longer physically/mentally capable of running the organization and making decisions anymore. That’s the difference now.  It’s up to John & Lou to set the course and convince good baseball people why they should be a part of the rebuilding of this organization.  Unfortunately for them, their father has created a mess that they need to clean up, and there is an assumption that they will do things the same way their father did.  I think that’s unfair, but ultimately it will be up to them to change that perception.  I’m optimistic that they have learned from their father’s mistakes and will run the organization much differently (meaning for the better).  Let’s see how this all plays out.  It’s going to be a very interesting, and hopefully franchise-altering off season.  Can’t wait for the season to be over so the real work can get started!

They have been pretty quiet all season.  They seem very similar to their father.  The Gausman trade and their total disappearance is all you need to know.  The leaves didn't fall to far from the tree. 

[atomic]

Also I think this whole thing is a bunch of BS.  How much do scouts cost?  From what I have read they get paid next to nothing.  A lot of guys from Dominican are getting tiny signing bonuses.  You don't have to give someone a million dollar bonus to sign a lot of these 16 year olds.  We didn't even bother to sign anyone last season.   

[spiritof66]

If John and Lou were serious about making changes, and if they wanted to persuade potential front-office hires (and dubious fans) of their seriousness, you’d think they would have started moving forward with some of those changes. I wonder whether they still need Dad’s approval to spend significant amounts of money.

Or maybe they don’t trust Duquette to get things started, recognize they can’t do it themselves, and are waiting for a new hire to do these things, on the assumption that he or she will take their word about future expenditures. Or maybe they’re not serious about doing anything that costs much.

[Ohfan67]

31 minutes ago, atomic said:

Also I think this whole thing is a bunch of BS.  How much do scouts cost?  From what I have read they get paid next to nothing.  A lot of guys from Dominican are getting tiny signing bonuses.  You don't have to give someone a million dollar bonus to sign a lot of these 16 year olds.  We didn't even bother to sign anyone last season.   

I share some of these thoughts. The Orioles blew more money on the Colby Rasmus’ of the baseball world every year than it would take to hire more scouts. I’m sure Angelos was behind the big signings, etc, but it’s hard to believe that Peter wouldn’t allow a few million or so to be invested in other areas. If true, then there was a huge failure by everyone in the Orioles leadership to convince Angelos.  This isn’t rocket science. What a mess. 

[eddie83]

41 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

If John and Lou were serious about making changes, and if they wanted to persuade potential front-office hires (and dubious fans) of their seriousness, you’d think they would have started moving forward with some of those changes. I wonder whether they still need Dad’s approval to spend significant amounts of money.

Or maybe they don’t trust Duquette to get things started, recognize they can’t do it themselves, and are waiting for a new hire to do these things, on the assumption that he or she will take their word about future expenditures. Or maybe they’re not serious about doing anything that costs much.

What changes are you specifically referring to? Dan came out the night they traded Manny and said change was coming and certain areas would be upgraded. 

Hard to know what changes have been made behind the scenes.  

[Ripken]

We all knew this.  We saw it.  The worst part is they made this push with a flawed team.  The 2014 Orioles had a real chance, which is why I don't blame them for the EdRod trade, but the other iterations were never going to win a championship.  Too weak in the rotation and too free swinging at the dish.  I've been asking for this team to be blown up since midway 2015.  We'd be in a hell of a lot better position if we had done that.  Worst owner in sports.  F'n shame.

[drjohnnyfeva]

It almost certainly wasn't Peter making decisions this year and the boys probably had a good deal of involvement over the years.  What makes people so confident that now that the kids are apparently taking the reins that anything is really going to change?  What the OP says to me is that ownership doesn't understand the machine they own and chose to grease one gear until the entire thing seized.  Any other company that chooses to operate goes under due to that kind of neglect or decision making. 

I have little confidence in ownership that any rebuild they are the architects of will be a lasting success or, perhaps even, a success at all.  I sort of see this last window of success as the "blind squirrel finding a nut" situation.