How much longer do we hang onto...

[Frobby]

Here's when I'll start to begin getting frustrated and disappointed in MacPhail's tenure here:

When I don't think we're on a good pace to be a borderline contending team in 2010 and beyond.

I don't care if we win 85 or 55 games next year. I could be happy with either or pissed off with either depending on how the organization is set up.

Right now, I think we can be a legit threat in 2010 and for several years beyond. We've got a solid offensive core right now, our young pitching is a year or so away from the majors and a half-season after that away from being a major impact. As long as we stay along that pace, I'll be happy. If he makes moves that deviate from that plan, I'll be disappointed.

Sounds right to me.

[Pruke]

how long do people think a rebuild takes?

does it take longer or shorter than a straight up 'build', as they Rays really have done?

and, does it take longer when your roster depends on some older players who some might consider retreads with little or no value to other teams?

we have a lot of work to do, and we have to expect it to take some time.

it's not like we dangled Tex this past trading deadline and pulled him back because the offer was low...

in the same breath, i think AM has tried to give DT something to win with, albeit worthless in retrospect, but nonetheless, he cannot tell DT to win and then give him a bunch of A / AA players...

[Enjoy Terror]

Until MacPhail starts causing doubt that his rebuilding plan isn't working, then you can start to panic. But he hasn't done anything yet to show that it isn't. This years team was never supposed to be any good and exceeded everyone expectations for a long time. Now that the Orioles are back to being horrible, people are starting to question him, even though he has over and over again explicitly stated that the Orioles still have a lot of work to do.

For right now, the minor leagues are top five in the majors right now, and that is, above all, the best first step this club can make right now. Change has to be made from the foundation up, and it's not simply a matter of cutting all the veteran Orioles that are past their prime like the diehard O's fans want. The minor leagues look great after only a year of work; that's enough to make me happy.

[TonySoprano]

But I stand by my claim that he is going to wait and see if he lands Tex this offseason before making a decision on Roberts.

If he does this, he has wasted most of his offseason. The thing to do is to find out, yesterday, how willing Roberts is to sign an extension and work from there.

The Angels have exclusive negotiating rights with Teixeira until November. If Scott Boras follows his modus operandi, he'll drag other teams into the negotiation after that. Tex will be the talk of the winter meetings. This won't finish until some team gets to gift-wrap him for their fans under their Christmas trees.

By that time, we're behind the eight-ball trying to execute "plan B," assuming there is one.

Dunno bro, I've got a feeling we're all gonna be in for a big disappointment this offseason.

It wouldn't surprise me one bit.

[ChaosLex]

I would think so. It'd be hard to use the excuse "well, the contracts various FA's wanted were outrageous" and "the trade market wasn't too our liking" again.

Just to add this, I'm going to be really, really disappointed if we don't sign Markakis to an extension this offseason. That's when I'll REALLY start to question MacPhail's presence in the front office.

[Mackus]

If he does this, he has wasted most of his offseason. The thing to do is to find out, yesterday, how willing Roberts is to sign an extension and work from there.

I don't think its that dire.

Tex will likely sign during the Winter Meetings, IMO. You can certainly approach Roberts about an extension before signing or missing out on Tex, but I don't think its a bad idea to wait and see what happens with Tex before determining what to do with Roberts.

Having Tex rapidly moves up the expected date of contention, making it much more likely that Roberts could be a valuable member of a contending Orioles team. I think extending Roberts without signing Tex is a much riskier move than extending him with signing Tex. There is some dependence there, IMO. I'd be much more willing to trade Roberts if we miss out on Teixeira than if we sign him.

[Pedro Cerrano]

No, I think you're confused. It has been 11 years since the franchise was decent. MacPhail has been the GM for about 15 months. Judging him on what happened during those 11 years is the quickest way to make stupid decisions. We're still digging ourselves out of the holes created by his predecessors (each ensuing group of GMs has gotten better - Thrift, Beattie, Flanny, Duquette - so the holes have gotten shallower as we've gone along, but none of them was what I would call "good").

I'm speaking strictly in terms of the fan base having their patience tried. AM may have been on the job 15 months, but the fans have been on the job for 11 years.

[JTrea81]

I don't think its that dire.

Tex will likely sign during the Winter Meetings, IMO. You can certainly approach Roberts about an extension before signing or missing out on Tex, but I don't think its a bad idea to wait and see what happens with Tex before determining what to do with Roberts.

Having Tex rapidly moves up the expected date of contention, making it much more likely that Roberts could be a valuable member of a contending Orioles team. I think extending Roberts without signing Tex is a much riskier move than extending him with signing Tex. There is some dependence there, IMO. I'd be much more willing to trade Roberts if we miss out on Teixeira than if we sign him.

I agree. Our priorities should be to sign Tex, extend Roberts, then extend Markakis in that order. I could see us getting some more starting pitching such as signing Burnett before we sign Teixeira. Roberts is more likely to extend if we sign Tex and Burnett before we offer an extension IMO. And once Tex, Burnett and Roberts are in the fold, I would bet Markakis would back off his demands some and the two sides could come to a compromise for an extension much quicker.

[Hank Scorpio]

Yes I am but I am not being impatient here.

There is just no reason other things weren't done.

Put me in the "incomplete" camp. There are obviously issues that need to be addressed, but I don't think we need to be hitting any panic buttons, here. This is going to take at least a few years.

I am very happy with the start (Bedard & Tejada trades.) I'm not going to sit here and judge MacPhail on things that didn't happen, because I don't know what's really happening behind the curtain. I don't know for sure that MacPhail could trade Huff to the LA Angels for Brandon Wood this offseason. Maybe he can? Maybe he will? But if he doesn't, I won't sit here and say, "Wow, he really blew that one," because the fact is I don't KNOW that it was possible.

I realize this is one example and I'm sure there are countless others that we have dreamed up on here that seem plausible, but for whatever reason haven't happened.

Given the Bedard & Tejada deals, I would say MacPhail has a good idea which teams to target and what kind of talent to ask for in return. Given his history and performance to date, I'd say he has job security for awhile. Really, we need to see how his conservative approach with the young pitchers pans out... because our approach to this point hasn't been kind to the team or the pitchers.

[Pedro Cerrano]

I think this is where you're truly offbase in how you categorize the feelings of those who don't constantly criticize AM or DT. I don't think AM is a savior. I don't think most of us think he is a savior. We simply think he is more competent than his predecessors and that his ideas and actions make sense to us in most cases. So, we're willing to give him time.

We didn't become terrible overnight. It tooks years of mismanagement to get us into our current hole so I don't think it is realistic to believe it will be fixed overnight. I want to see him make smart moves this offseason, but I totally disagree that he had a bad regular season. I see several new pitchers on the team that were acquired during this season and no stupid panic moves made. That isn't awful. It just isn't as good as the offseason. He had a great offseason last year and just an "anhhh" regular season. OK, lets focus on the next steps during this offseason.

BTW, I'm not sure I would have traded the equivalent of a healthy Jim Hoey for Reyes. If Reye's arm stuff turns out to be as bad as I'm hearing, we may all have our reason for why more teams weren't interested. Maybe we looked at the MRIs and medical evals and decided "No thanks". I don't know and neither do you.

I personally believe we will have a solid offseason. I have stated many times on here that AM's biggest strength (taking his time on matters) is a huge benefit in the offseason but becomes his biggest detriment during the season when the clock is constantly ticking.

I am of the belief that the AM tenure will be looked back on as being mostly positive during the offseason and greatly frustrating during the season.

[RHall31]

...the idea that AM made 2 really good trades last offseason?

We all agree they were good trades for us but how much longer do we allow AM to hang his hat on them?

How much longer do people continue to give him a pass because he says the right things(not do, says) and that he made those 2 trades?

Sometimes the best trade, is the one you don't make. I have no idea

what he is/was asking for Roberts or Huff, so can't really judge that.

If they're not resigned or traded, the comp picks may be the way to go.

I'd say if the team doesn't look like a contender by the end of spring

training 2012, I'll be dissapointed. Markakis, Roberts, Huff decisions will

have been made and acted on, and the players we get/draft in return

can then be analyzed.

[Satyr3206]

Seeing as how Rome wasn't built in a day, I'm giving Andy McPhail another 2-3 years to get his ball rolling. You can't trade sirloin for porterhouse, so I trust his judgment in not pulling the trigger on trades when our return value is not enough, and I don't believe in getting rid of guys just for the sake of getting rid of them.

I see two possible scenarios that McPhail is facing:

A) What he expects in return is much too much for what he is offering, thus the other GM's are rolling their eyes and chuckling at the caliber of prospects that we're looking for considering who we're offering.

or

B) We're getting lowballed by every other ML team, who view our talent as worthless and thus will not give up anyone worth their salt.

In either situation, it's impossible - no, downright irresponsible - for McPhail to act. He's a patient man, and even though we just finished up more than a decade of losing seasons, I think we could all learn something from McPhail.

This off-season will be telling, but it's going to take a lot of time to get this clubhouse into respectability and contention. Yes, it sucks for us as fans, but we knew upon McPhail's hiring that we shouldn't expect success until 2010, or 2011. That's another season or two of pain, but so long as we get there, I'm willing to wait and see.

It's nowhere near midnight, so I don't see why we're all clamoring for Cinderella to get out of town. Let's just take a deep breath, except the season for what it was, and see where we go from here.

Patience, guys. Patience.

Totally agree. But patience is in short supply in todays "I want it now" mentality.

[nadecir]

Selig has announced he is going to retire in four years now. Maybe MacPhail's personal plan involves being considered for the commissioner of baseball in four years. As for the Orioles, I am not sure what his plan is.

If I had to guess what his plan was, part of it seems to wait until he can find a GM who is willing to make a one-sided trade in favor of the Orioles. Another part seems to be to cut the team payroll. Another part seems to be to not get any extensions signed for our players. And another part seems to not rush our prospects.

MacPhail has traded the most easily tradeable players (Bedard and Tejada) for some very good players in return. That was the easy part. Now comes the harder part.

The AL East is shaping up to be an extremely difficult division to compete in for the forseeable future, maybe for even 3 years or more. In order for the Orioles to compete against this, MacPhail needs to take some major personnel risks. The draft by itself won't do it, signing mid-level free agents or other teams' cast-offs won't do it and just waiting for our prospects to make the majors won't do it either. Sure we've got Wieters and some nice arms coming up to the majors in the next couple of years. But that's not nearly enough to compete in the AL East soon. Just waiting until these guys make it to the majors is not much of a plan without aggressively finding ways to make the team even better.

The plan I'd prefer? The one that moves Roberts, Huff, Scott, Sherrill, or any other tradeable vet for prospects in the low-levels of the minors. Don't worry about trying to get major league ready prospects in return. If we can get two or three guys that can be significantly above average major league players in 2011 or 2012 in return, it will be worth trading these guys. Go out and try to find players that will be entering their prime when Matusz, Arrieta, Wieters, Erbe, and others are in their prime years too.

I want to see MacPhail take some real risks starting this offseason and continuing next season in order to try to make this team a lot better. Sign some young international free agents, make a few trades for young players that may not help the team immediately. Overpay Markakis if you have to in order to get him signed to any extension.

MacPhail should not be afraid to roll the dice a bit more on player moves. In my opinion it is not prudent to continue a conservative approach which has led to inaction during the 2008 season. What has MacPhail really got to lose at this point by taking a few risks with some young prospects?

[JTrea81]

Let's say this is true....Does AM go from savior to disappointment in one year?

Absolutely. He's got this offseason to prove last offseason wasn't a "fluke."

If we are serious about competing in 2010 I expect a run at Teixeira with us offering the most $, signing two starting pitchers (hopefully one being Burnett) and extending Roberts and Markakis.

Or if we are going the blow it up route, trade everybody including Guthrie, Scott, Roberts and Huff getting major prospects in return. And listen to offers for Markakis cause he won't be signing squat...

Ultimately he's got to pick a direction, and be decisive. He can't be a tortoise this offseason.

[Sports Guy]

I realize that is what you meant. My post was tongue-in-cheek. I'm just simply saying that we don't want to push for more than is reasonable in an effort to "make up" for the last 11 years. It just won't work IMO. We either do this process correctly or we'll be doomed to be stuck in rebuild mode forever. We have to try to have patience and let AM do smart things in an orderly manner. I haven't seen him make any "dumb" moves yet. I haven't been a huge fan of some of his "non-moves", but non-moves don't hurt you nearly as much as dumb moves. You have to live with dumb moves for a long time. As the Mariners and Bavasi.

The idea that we haven't done any dumb moves is both stupid and valid.

Its great that AM hasn't done those things....But the other side to that is, why should we commend him for not being an idiot?

Just because we have been foolishly run in the past doesn't mean we should be happy that AM hasn't been foolish.

How about we be happy for real results not because of a lack of stupidity?

For me, i want results and the results aren't there...He needs to do a lot more...If this offseason ends up a disappointment, then I will go from having faith in him to saying he is just another member of our horrendous string of GMs.