Britt: The Crash of 2015

[foxfield]

4 minutes ago, milbest77 said:

I will always maintain that announcing the Hardy extension a few days before the 2014 ALCS was a colossal mistake. To me, that was the beginning of the end. 

Maybe...but I think it's whatever transpired around the Blue Jays/Warehouse and the subsequent power plays.

[DrungoHazewood]

36 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Sorry this is classic hindsight.  There was plenty of reason not to keep Cruz.

Markakis has had exactly one excellent half a season since he left.

The problem isn't the people they let go, it's the people they kept.

I will go to my grave holding fast to the idea that signing a 34-year-old DH to a four-year contract is a dumb thing to do.  And signing injured fan favorites who's OPSing .700 as an everyday right fielder might feel good, but won't do anything to help your push to the playoffs.  If I had both those choices to do over I'd make the same call.

[Frobby]

31 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

They traded for Trumbo the first time.

I will say that I would have been a lot happier with them bringing Markakis back then I was Trumbo or Davis (Or Cruz if that had happened).

I’m as big a Markakis fan as anyone on this board, but I understand why they felt 4/$44 mm was too big a risk for a guy about to have surgery for a herniated disc. As it turns out, Nick recovered well and (per Fangraphs) produced $45.9 mm in value for his $44 mm.     Basically, a break even deal.   I would have liked to have his steady presence in the lineup those four years.    But, hindsight is 20/20.   

[SteveA]

This series of articles by Britt has been fantastic.

[ShaneDawg85]

36 minutes ago, backwardsk said:

I’ve always believed the Trumbo signing was heavily influenced by Buck.

I'll maintain that was the case about all of those guys.  The whole I like our guys statement wasn't just a PR slogan for the team in 2014, I completely believe it was what Buck truly believed and wanted.

[Number5]

51 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

They traded for Trumbo the first time.

When they traded for Trumbo, I thought that meant they were letting Davis go.  Davis/Boras just were demanding too much.  I still think that was probably DD's plan.  I was surprised when Boras got directly with Angelos and we ended up signing Davis, too.  I wasn't really angry about it, as I had no idea Davis would fall off a cliff like he did, but I was surprised.  

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Number5 said:

When they traded for Trumbo, I thought that meant they were letting Davis go.  Davis/Boras just were demanding too much.  I still think that was probably DD's plan.  I was surprised when Boras got directly with Angelos and we ended up signing Davis, too.  I wasn't really angry about it, as I had no idea Davis would fall off a cliff like he did, but I was surprised.  

I'm sure it was the plan.

Just think of a world in which instead of Davis the O's had an additional first round draft pick that year.

[Frobby]

21 minutes ago, SteveA said:

This series of articles by Britt has been fantastic.

I was kind of annoyed that she was writing about Rick Adair’s serious problems now, but wrote nothing about them at the time they were relevant.     

[Tony-OH]

26 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I’m as big a Markakis fan as anyone on this board, but I understand why they felt 4/$44 mm was too big a risk for a guy about to have surgery for a herniated disc. As it turns out, Nick recovered well and (per Fangraphs) produced $45.9 mm in value for his $44 mm.     Basically, a break even deal.   I would have liked to have his steady presence in the lineup those four years.    But, hindsight is 20/20.   

Although not as big a fan of Markakis as your were (I thought his defense was hurting the team), I felt the same way. I was not favor of resigning him to a 4yr contract at $11mil/yr. In retrospect, considering the disaster RF has been since, probably was not the right call, but one based on the information at hand I would have made again as well.

Heck, I remember thinking that Travis Snider might outperform Markakis for a fraction of his price. I was certainly wrong about that one.

[Tony-OH]

4 minutes ago, Number5 said:

When they traded for Trumbo, I thought that meant they were letting Davis go.  Davis/Boras just were demanding too much.  I still think that was probably DD's plan.  I was surprised when Boras got directly with Angelos and we ended up signing Davis, too.  I wasn't really angry about it, as I had no idea Davis would fall off a cliff like he did, but I was surprised.  

I'm pretty sure that was the plan as well. Angelos, at the urging of Showalter from what I heard, directly made that signing without much input from Duquette.

[Frobby]

5 minutes ago, Number5 said:

When they traded for Trumbo, I thought that meant they were letting Davis go.  Davis/Boras just were demanding too much.  I still think that was probably DD's plan.  I was surprised when Boras got directly with Angelos and we ended up signing Davis, too.  I wasn't really angry about it, as I had no idea Davis would fall off a cliff like he did, but I was surprised.  

Just to remind everyone of the timing, the Trumbo trade occurred about a week before the initial 7/$150 mm offer to Davis was reported.    So yeah, it was surprising to see the O’s go all in on Davis like that.     Though certainly we did have room for both in our lineup.   

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Just to remind everyone of the timing, the Trumbo trade occurred about a week before the initial 7/$150 mm offer to Davis was reported.    So yeah, it was surprising to see the O’s go all in on Davis like that.     Though certainly we did have room for both in our lineup.   

In the lineup yes, but only one could play first base at any given time.

[Tony-OH]

32 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I was kind of annoyed that she was writing about Rick Adair’s serious problems now, but wrote nothing about them at the time they were relevant.     

Aha, now you see how the Baltimore media worked back then and really over the last 30 years (A few of the new guys may be changing things though, but we'll see). This is why I've been directly contacted by people in or previously with the organization for things that led up to my "behind the scenes articles on the organization."

One former GM told me directly, "I tried to get them to write this but no one wanted to write it because they feared blowback." He knew I had no problem ruffling the whole thing if need be, which I did.

It cost me though. The Orioles pulled their advertising from us and I became a pariah among most of the local media and with some within the warehouse. 

Since the Hangout never was my bread and butter for occupation, it never really mattered to me though. 

But, if this was my livelihood, I might have thought twice considering how things had worked in the organization. 

So at the end of the day, can you really blame Britt for not saying anything back then? Would you had wanted to get on the bad side of Showalter for some reason? She literally worked for MLB, so how hard do you think it would be for her to be replaced if the Orioles wanted her gone?

The local media have enjoyed a friendly relationship with whoever the manager is and whoever in the warehouse they could because it made things easy on all of them. Unfortunately though, it meant a lot of behind the scenes things that have caused this organization to be dysfunctional for so many years (before Elias) went unreported to the fans. 

 

[Can_of_corn]

I was apparent to me that the media was scared of Buck and we all know how Angelos could be.

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

Although not as big a fan of Markakis as your were (I thought his defense was hurting the team), I felt the same way. I was not favor of resigning him to a 4yr contract at $11mil/yr. In retrospect, considering the disaster RF has been since, probably was not the right call, but one based on the information at hand I would have made again as well.

Heck, I remember thinking that Travis Snider might outperform Markakis for a fraction of his price. I was certainly wrong about that one.

Duquette had really poor luck with his group of corner OF that year.    To a man, they underperformed their career numbers and the previous season’s numbers.   He pretty much got the worst case scenario.   I honestly felt he got too much blame for how that turned out.