Loverro takes one last shot at Angelos and Baltimore

[BarclaySouthway]

Don't know much about Loverro except that he wrote a book called Orioles Magic that I bought at the library's clearance sale for a buck.  I'm not sure it was worth a dollar.  It was poorly written with a very clunky prose style and contained scant insight.

I haven't really sought out any of his writing since.

[atomic]

I am not sure what is to argue within the article. He is just stating known facts.   The only new information in the article is that John Angelos was looking to enter a deal to perhaps sell 49 percent of the team with the ability to buy the whole team in a few years.

That seems to tell me the sons have no interest in owning the team and are just waiting for the team to pass hands to them and then they will sell it. 

Perhaps they don't have the money to pay the Nationals if they lose the appeal on MASN.  

[eddie83]

5 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

Who knows? Like I said, sometimes I love the guy and sometimes I hate him. His opinions are so strong that they're often off-putting. He dismisses nuance. That gives him clarity, which is good, but not context.

I have a ton of issues with how much of the sports media operates anymore. 

In general I see someone take a side and then ignore or explain away something that discredits or diminishes their take. On the other side hyperbole is used as a means to enforce their opinion of a certain player, team etc. It drives me crazy.

 

[theocean]

7 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

I don't disagree with your post. You pretty artfully articulated how we got here, but you didn't address how to get out of it. If your answer is to spend more money in the short run in hopes of competing (e.g., the anti-tanking strategy), I'd like to know just how much you mean. In practice, the O's have done that in the past and failed to compete. That approach created the conditions for fans to leave.

Elias' plan is to create the conditions for sustained success. If he achieves that, he will bring back old fans and they will bring their kids, and their friends. If it's truly sustained, he will create the conditions for financial success and a new love affair between generations of fans and the O's. 

I don't think they necessarily need to spend money in free agency or anything - but they do need to at least keep interesting players around long enough for kids to get attached to them. If I was a kid, I'd probably think Villar and Mancini are pretty neat. 

But, it's hard for kids to have a favorite player or have much to tune in for when the roster is pretty transient. I doubt there are a lot of kids on the sandlot pretending they are Richie Martin.

I'm not saying they need to spend money to try and win 70-games, but I think in the long-run - it is valuable to maybe hold onto the occasional Mancini or Villar in an effort to develop some sort of long-term fanbase amongst the kids.

I really resist that that rebuild is either tank or spend. There's a lot of middle ground there - and I think a corporation as big as the Orioles can find the pennies to pay for a few mid-level players.I like what Elias is doing, but you have to figure it'll at least be a five year rebuild from 2018 until some on-field success. Five years isn't much to an adult, but for a kid - that's a pretty significant development time. An eight year old versus thirteen year old.

[LookinUp]

14 minutes ago, atomic said:

I am not sure what is to argue within the article. He is just stating known facts.   The only new information in the article is that John Angelos was looking to enter a deal to perhaps sell 49 percent of the team with the ability to buy the whole team in a few years.

That seems to tell me the sons have no interest in owning the team and are just waiting for the team to pass hands to them and then they will sell it. 

Perhaps they don't have the money to pay the Nationals if they lose the appeal on MASN.  

Ehh. I think we may be missing another unspoken story here. Perhaps, as Tony said, because of his space limits.

If the O's are essentially preparing for a sale, this rebuild strategy makes even more sense. So does the exit of that business exec that was here for about 5 minutes. I've always thought this, but the Elias rebuild strategy doesn't just make sense from a long term, foundation up, perspective. It also makes sense if the Angelos' are preparing the team for sale. Typically, sellers of sports teams and other businesses like to strip as much of the overhead as possible. The O's cutting of payroll and not taking on any substantial salary (both last year and this year) fits perfectly with that narrative.

If they are preparing the O's for a sale, I just hope the new guy is on board with Elias' strategies, because I really like what he's doing.

[atomic]

4 hours ago, weams said:

Stupid. Superficial. Excellent word choices. By the way. I spent the weekend on Baltimore St  Never uncomfortable at any time day or night. Nice city to hang out in. Cities require a certain effort.  So does living on a farm. 

Strip clubs? 

[weams]

1 hour ago, atomic said:

Strip clubs? 

My wife enjoyed it too. 

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, eddie83 said:

I have a ton of issues with how much of the sports media operates anymore. 

In general I see someone take a side and then ignore or explain away something that discredits or diminishes their take. On the other side hyperbole is used as a means to enforce their opinion of a certain player, team etc. It drives me crazy.

 

Good thing our political journalists don’t do that!

[Philip]

I wonder what he would say about the ‘03 Tigers. And Detroit.

what did Moe Sizlak say about Detroit?

”they got Mad Max goin’ on up there.”

[TonySoprano]

9 hours ago, Curse of the Bamdino said:

“They’ve lost more than two million fans since their high of 3.7 million in 1997. Even when attendance picked back up, peaking at 2.4 million during the team’s five-year revival from 2012 to 2016, it was evident that many fans from the ’90s weren’t coming back.”

Interesting how the writer (in)conveniently omits the fact that another franchise moved into that team’s territory during that time frame, which took (guesstimating here) at least a third or so of its market.    

Interesting how attendance had dropped by almost 1.25 million (33.9%) from 1997 to 2003, two years before the Nats arrived.  400K fans disappeared in the first year after Ripken retired.   Attendance dropped 23% last year.  Was that because of the Nats or the worst record since the team moved to Baltimore 65 years ago?

Lazy article, as others have noted.

[backwardsk]

I read this somewhere else, so I won’t take credit: “Loverro has a face for radio and a voice for the silent movies.”

 

[tntoriole]

On 7/17/2019 at 10:07 AM, Moose Milligan said:

Tony's response is appropriate.  Loverro is either...out of touch or has an axe to grind.  Or just needed to fart out a column to meet a deadline and couldn't be bothered to do any research.  Or a combination of the three.  And I like Loverro.  I've been around him, he's a nice guy.

It's easy to kick the Orioles while they're down, no doubt about it.  The correct story to tell would be that Angelos is reportedly out of the picture, the sons are in charge and have given the reigns over to part of the FO team that helped get the Astros to become yearly contenders.  That's all factual, not hyperbole.

You can still write that column and still take shots at Angelos.  By and large, his ownership has been a failure, no one will debate that.  

Agree....sons are not fathers.   Robert Irsay was a very different owner than Jim Irsay. 

[Enjoy Terror]

18 hours ago, weams said:

My wife enjoyed it too. 

Is that the Lord Baltimore?

Actually my wife and I dined at the Alex Brown two weekends ago. 

[tntoriole]

19 hours ago, LookinUp said:

Ehh. I think we may be missing another unspoken story here. Perhaps, as Tony said, because of his space limits.

If the O's are essentially preparing for a sale, this rebuild strategy makes even more sense. So does the exit of that business exec that was here for about 5 minutes. I've always thought this, but the Elias rebuild strategy doesn't just make sense from a long term, foundation up, perspective. It also makes sense if the Angelos' are preparing the team for sale. Typically, sellers of sports teams and other businesses like to strip as much of the overhead as possible. The O's cutting of payroll and not taking on any substantial salary (both last year and this year) fits perfectly with that narrative.

If they are preparing the O's for a sale, I just hope the new guy is on board with Elias' strategies, because I really like what he's doing.

Significant, stripped down payroll reductions doesn’t mean necessarily the team is being sold...which would be OK if it was too.   It is mainly consistent with an Astroball style of rebuild...2011 payroll there was 85 mil, then to 54 million in 2012 and 41 million in 2013 then 57 million in 2014 and 87 million in 2015, 109 million in 2016 and 193 million in 2017.

It appears that the early in the rebuild,  very drastic payroll cuts better enabled the rapid spending escalation when it was strategically indicated. 

[LookinUp]

2 minutes ago, tntoriole said:

Significant, stripped down payroll reductions doesn’t mean necessarily the team is being sold...which would be OK if it was too.   It is mainly consistent with an Astroball style of rebuild...2011 payroll there was 85 mil, then to 54 million in 2012 and 41 million in 2013 then 57 million in 2014 and 87 million in 2015, 109 million in 2016 and 193 million in 2017.

It appears that the early in the rebuild,  very drastic payroll cuts better enabled the rapid spending escalation when it was strategically indicated. 

Ehh. I'm not saying stripped down payroll is in any way inconsistent with the Astroball style of rebuild. I agree that it is. What I'm saying is that it's also consistent with preparation for a change of ownership. That doesn't mean that it's happening, but if changing ownership is Angelos' plan, it fits perfectly with the direction he's decided to take this franchise (Astroball rebuild).