No deals per Olney

[clapdiddy]

A team with young pitching needs as good of a bullpen as it can get. Our bullpen with Sherrill is the reason we are where we are.

Do you mean in last place, with no chance at even sniffing the wild card?

[JTrea81]

Do you mean in last place, with no chance at even sniffing the wild card?

We'd be a heck of a lot worse if we had last year's bullpen. At least this team can beat any other team on any given night.

And they are fun to watch again.

[ChaosLex]

I think that one thing that we should all understand with near certainty, is that none of us or any of the writers/bloggers/reporters are aware of the details on any and all discussed deals. MacPhail should not be judged on whether or not he makes a trade by 4pm today, but rather what the overall results are. Perhaps he makes some good deals in August, or this off-season, that has many pleased with the returns. Let the man do his job and when/if he fails to get good returns on our guys, then we will have a legitimate beef with him.

Look, I'm one that wants to see a major influx of young talent as much as anyone here, but while my frustration on a lack of movement comes from my impatience, that fault of mine should not blur my vision to the overall bigger picture.

Time will tell on MacPhail's success or failure, but I'm hopeful that things will work out in the end.

Here's what worries me. We're in the middle (or is the beginning?) of a rebuild. Barring any free agent signings or major trades, this is the way our 2010 roster shaping up.

C - Wieters

1B - ???

2B - ???

SS - ???

3B - ???

LF - Reimold?

CF - Jones

RF - Markakis

DH - Scott?

We have a lot of pitching for sure, but then again, our pitching was heralded a couple of years ago as well. Cabrera, Loewen and Penn were expected to be what we're expecting Tillman, Matusz and Arrieta to be.

[Hank Scorpio]

It's a shame MacPhail won't get into specifics, because I'd really like to know what he was offered for Sherrill.

Here's the rub.

Nobody knows... so while they can speculate what they think the offers might have / could have / should have been, they don't know and they never will know with any kind of certainty.

I'm sure that's maddening for some people, but I'm comfortable enough with AM's decisions to date to believe that there was nothing worth doing.

This is just another opportunity for us message board geeks to try and prove how we think we could do a better job than the guy running the team. But the truth of the matter is we don't know the reality of the situation.

[JTrea81]

Here's what worries me. We're in the middle (or is the beginning?) of a rebuild. Barring any free agent signings or major trades, this is the way our 2010 roster shaping up.

C - Wieters

1B - ???

2B - ???

SS - ???

3B - ???

LF - Reimold?

CF - Jones

RF - Markakis

DH - Scott?

We have a lot of pitching for sure, but then again, our pitching was heralded a couple of years ago as well. Cabrera, Loewen and Penn were expected to be what we're expecting Tillman, Matusz and Arrieta to be.

Which is why we need to extend Roberts, sign another bat for DH, so Scott can play LF, and trade Reimold and some of that pitching for established young ML talent.

[Hooded Viper]

How about something to support the case in the other direction? You do realize that most things that people say on here are opinions right?? You are saying yourself that he is the only one that knows for sure....so tell me what makes you so much smarter than me?? Do you know him? Do you have inside information? Don't tell me to back up my opinion when there is no way that you can back up yours in the other direction.

Another thing. Don't tell me to put IMO at the end of my statement. I know when to put IMO at the end of my statement. How about you get to 200 posts before you start telling people how to post on here.

First of all I didn't state an "opinion" for one side or the other. I simply asked you to support yours.

Second of all, Mr. 200+ poster, does that make you some sort of God? Give me a break. This board is to offer up opinion but yours was stated like it was a fact so I merely asked you state it was your opinion or back it with facts.

If you took offense to that, because you perceive yourself as some posting God, then that is your problem. Not mine.

[WebLink21]

A team with young pitching needs as good of a bullpen as it can get. Our bullpen with Sherrill is the reason we are where we are.

I am def not arguing with you that a bullpen is important. I agree with you 100%. I am just stating why I think that Sherill should have been moved. If there is one thing we have learned this year it is that a good bullpen is just as important as a good starting rotation. Just take a look at how different the team has been since we lost Albers.

[clapdiddy]

We'd be a heck of a lot worse if we had last year's bullpen. At least this team can beat any other team on any given night.

And they are fun to watch again.

Not disagreeing with you on these counts. This team is a lot more fun to watch, but we still have huge holes to fill, and don't have the pockets (or recent playoff history) to compete with the big boys.

I think we've made good strides this year, but we are still quite a few players away from being a consistent competitor in this division.

[frankpembleton]

To me, it's a huge disappointment that we didn't trade Sherrill. A team like the Orioles that's so far away from contention should get everything they can get from an overrated position like closer. Sherill is an all-star closer, has a ton of saves, and his underlying stats indicate he's pitching over his head. Isn't that the perfect trade candidate for a team like the Orioles? And isn't this the time when his value will be highest - coming off his best half year of baseball ever and a huge performance in the All Star game? It just seems like more of the same to me. Hesitation.

I recognize the job McPhail did with the Bedard and Tejada trades. It's just that there is so much more to be done. A trade here and there just doesn't work - he needs to fully commit to this rebuild.

Huff and Roberts are not going to be around, or will be in decline when the Orioles are ready to compete and they are having monster seasons. How can there be no market for these guys?

[Fan4Life]

Here's the rub.

Nobody knows... so while they can speculate what they think the offers might have / could have / should have been, they don't know and they never will know with any kind of certainty.

I'm sure that's maddening for some people, but I'm comfortable enough with AM's decisions to date to believe that there was nothing worth doing.

This is just another opportunity for us message board geeks to try and prove how we think we could do a better job than the guy running the team. But the truth of the matter is we don't know the reality of the situation.

Amen brother, rep points for you.

[WebLink21]

First of all I didn't state an "opinion" for one side or the other. I simply asked you to support yours.

Second of all, Mr. 200+ poster, does that make you some sort of God? Give me a break. This board is to offer up opinion but yours was stated like it was a fact so I merely asked you state it was your opinion or back it with facts.

If you took offense to that, because you perceive yourself as some posting God, then that is your problem. Not mine.

OK. First of all, I wasn't even speaking to you when I made my statement. I was talking to JTrea. You jumped in with your opinion. Also, you didn’t ASK me to support my opinion. You may have said it in question form, but you followed it with your condescending comment, "You act as if you are AM." So don't act like you are innocent and I am just reacting to you ASKING for me to support. You can go over my posts since I have been on here and I have never reacted this way to someone.

Second of all, you keep saying this “posting god” thing to me, but you don't even know anything about me or my posts other than this one. I have never even seen you in a thread before this one. So you saying this to me just shows that you are insecure about your own posts. I don't care how many posts you have. I have talked to people on here that made their 1st post and I haven't said that to.

My point is this. Contribute something useful and then question other people's post. Right now you just remind me of a troll trying to have anyone pay attention to them.

[ChaosLex]

You're worried about our 2010 starting nine because we've only got long term solutions at 5 of the 9 positions? This is your reasoning behind all the panicky, anti-MacPhail posts you've been making lately? I'd take a look around the majors and assess how many teams have more than 6 of their starting 9 determined for 2010. You might be VERY surprised.

You do realize that there are TWO offseasons to sign free agents and make trades between now and 2010, right? You do realize that MacPhail made two huge trades last offseason, right? At the rate he has gone so far, he won't even need to sign a FA or have someone else develop from the minors. He has picked up two starting position players in one offseason.

It just amazes me how little patience and trust some of you are willing to exhibit regarding a man who has done more right for this organization in a year on the job than his predecessors did in a decade.

• He hired the right manager and then retained him
• He let the previously untouchable pitching coach, who clearly wasn't a good match for this team, go
• He signed Wieters for a price FAR BELOW what most of the experts on here were ready to pay
• He made a damn good trade for Tejada that got us a starting left fielder that is producing very well and is under our control for four years
• He made a phenomenal trade for Bedard that got us our starting center fielder, our closer, one great prospect, and two good prospects

The man deserves more respect than most of you are showing him IMHO.

What anti-MacPhail posts?

[Dipper9]

Here's my thing. If the Orioles look at the non-moves as MacPhail having enough confidence in them NOT to break them up for no good reason, it could possibly motivate them to at least try to achieve that elusive .500 record for the rest of the year.

The other side of the coin is, what if Huff was playing TO get traded? Same for Sherrill? We could see a bigtime lapse from these guyus in the next two months that sends us into a downward spiral. I sure hope not, but you never know.

I hope that this motivates the guys like Millar who said not to break them up, and Sherrill who says he likes playing for the O's, and we end the year on a positive upswing that propells us into the offseason where Tex's can be signed and others can be traded. Time will tell.

Either way, next year at a minimum...Wieters starts at C, Reimold should be here, Payton is gone, and Ray is back.

[Greg Pappas]

Jason Bay just got dealt to Tampa for Brignac/Niemann.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/

[Three Run Homer]

Let's get concrete here.

The Nats were able to trade Jon Rauch for Emilio Bonifacio, a 23 year old AAA second baseman with lots of speed but otherwise unimpressive slap-hitting numbers in the PCL.

Let's say the O's were offered the SS equivalent of Bonifacio for Sherrill. I'd say Chin-Lung Hu is a pretty good comp for Bonifacio--he's 24 but his numbers at AAA last year were, if anything, a little better than Bonifacio's this year.

If the O's were offered Hu straight up for Bonifacio, would you do it? What about Ivan DeJesus, who I regard as a somewhat better hitting prospect than Hu (not much power but very good plate discipline at AA this season at age 21)?

I'd have to think real hard about it myself. I'd probably do DeJesus (but not Hu) straight up for Sherrill, but I have a pretty high opinion of DeJesus.