NL VP of Scouting : " It’s embarrassing to the sport what they’re doing, or aren’t doing."

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, MCO'sFan said:

I find the comment interesting in that the O's are certainly not the first team to rebuild in this manner. They are not even the most extreme version of the tanking. The Astros, Padres and Pirates all come to mind as teams that have tanked it worse than the O's. But, I guess the record is not complete yet. 

What Pirate teams are you talking about?

What Padres teams are you talking about?

Was it the 2019 Padres team that signed Machado a year early and decided against gaming Tatis' service time?

[eddie83]

10 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Dan, Buck and Peter were not worried about the long term costs involved.

I don’t think Peter ran an organization with any vision at all. Clearly Buck wanted to win now, he was aging. The GM sometimes can be allowed to rebuild. 

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

I don’t think Peter ran an organization with any vision at all. Clearly Buck wanted to win now, he was aging. The GM sometimes can be allowed to rebuild. 

I think Peter did want to bring a title to Baltimore.  I don't think he was interested in doing it six years down the line.

[Philip]

20 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

Just stating the obvious, they were committed to trying to extend the window. 
 

Davjs wasn’t terrible in 16 actually. They extended O’Day as well before 16. 
 

Smart teams make decisions in concert. 

 I think O’day’s contract was also a bad decision.

[eddie83]

5 minutes ago, Philip said:

 I think O’day’s contract was also a bad decision.

The part about all of this is if teams are ran better before the tear down the tear down isn’t as painful.  
 

This team pushed itself to the edge and over... as others have stated when they did deal the value of the talent for trades was lower. Combine that with contracts of non performing/hurt players like O’Day, Cobb and Davis it’s a terrible combination. Then add on in an attempt to win losing draft picks and no Int market. When it ended it was bound to end very ugly. They would have needed more reinforcements from the minors to ease the transition and the talent was all in the lower levels except Hays who hit a snag. 

[Camden_yardbird]

I think this comment is more about tanking in the league than it is about how the Orioles are run.  If I had to guess I would say this is a large market GM who has absolutely no clue about what small markets teams have to do to rebuild.

Baseball's structure is not conducive to the same competitive cycles among large and small market teams.

[eddie83]

14 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I think Peter did want to bring a title to Baltimore.  I don't think he was interested in doing it six years down the line.

Clearly he knew it was his last shot. 
 

I totally got why they/Peter let Cruz walk but if you are smart you know your window is closing. If you want to push it, role the dice with Cruz and add an arm and you are still south of Davis deal. I don’t think Peter operated that way. 

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, Camden_yardbird said:

I think this comment is more about tanking in the league than it is about how the Orioles are run.  If I had to guess I would say this is a large market GM who has absolutely no clue about what small markets teams have to do to rebuild.

Baseball's structure is not conducive to the same competitive cycles among large and small market teams.

Small market clubs like the Astros and Cubs?

[eddie83]

4 minutes ago, Camden_yardbird said:

I think this comment is more about tanking in the league than it is about how the Orioles are run.  If I had to guess I would say this is a large market GM who has absolutely no clue about what small markets teams have to do to rebuild.

Baseball's structure is not conducive to the same competitive cycles among large and small market teams.

The funny thing is all the big market teams who have won lately all had solid production from within. The Dodgers are by far the next franchise in the sport. They do it all. 

 

You aren’t winning anything in this era unless you have productive players in their 20’s and in general they aren’t sitting there in FA.  

[Frobby]

36 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

It was obvious if you weren’t wearing orange colored glasses and your head wasn’t buried in the sand.

And btw, even if they had a good 2017, the trajectory was still pointing down for them and up for everyone else.  It was still an inevitable collapse.  

I can’t really win this argument, but I just don’t think things in baseball are as obvious as you seem to think.   Many things don’t go as you expect, good and bad.

When I look at the 2017 team, what stands out to me is they allowed 126 more runs than in 2016, which wasn’t exactly a banner year for the staff.    It sure wasn’t obvious to me that Tillman would completely collapse, that Miley would post a 5.61 ERA and that Gausman would go from a semi-breakout in 2016 (3.61 ERA and very strong second half) to mediocrity in 2017 (4.68).     Things break the other way and maybe it’s a pretty good team.   
 

[Tony-OH]

I don't think some you appreciate the disfunction within the warehouse with competing visions and factions vying for Angelos' ear and influence.

While Dan was certainly not a visionary for bringing in cutting edge technology and using analytics, when he was allowed to do what he did best he had the Orioles as a true World Series contender in 2014 for the first time since what, 1997? 

The whole Toronto fiasco was the beginning of the end as Duquette lost influence and then tried to make up for it by making stupid trades in hail mary attempts to make the playoffs and perhaps catch lightning in a bottle and win a World Series.

The other, and probably the more important thing, is this organization was not built on a solid ground of cutting edge developmental tools and their international efforts were laughably behind most franchises. When you don't have the finances to compete for top free agents, and then choose to basically cut off any meaningful efforts in a significant talent pool such as Latin America, and you are not built for long term success in today's baseball.

What the Orioles actually did pretty good was draft decently under Rajisch who drafted Means, Scott, Mancini, Hays, Mullins, Stewart, Sisco and some of the current top prospects in G. Rodriguez, Mountcastle, Hall, Baumann, Lowther and Akin.

While it's debatable when the "powers that be" should have recognized the team needed to be rebuilt, it's even doubtful who those powers that be really were and if anyone was going to be able to convince Peter Angelos with his fading health to completely rebuild.

That decision was made when Peter Angelos was no longer able to make those decisions and that's when his sons decided to build from the ground up by hiring Elias. Elias has done everything right to build a solid foundation for this organization to compete in MLB. 

The question that won't be answered today, tomorrow or even by the next two years is whether Elias can take that foundation and build a successful major league team on the field. That will be the next and most important step in his job of rebuilding this organization.

[eddie83]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I can’t really win this argument, but I just don’t think things in baseball are as obvious as you seem to think.   Many things don’t go as you expect, good and bad.

When I look at the 2017 team, what stands out to me is they allowed 126 more runs than in 2016, which wasn’t exactly a banner year for the staff.    It sure wasn’t obvious to me that Tillman would completely collapse, that Miley would post a 5.61 ERA and that Gausman would go from a semi-breakout in 2016 (3.61 ERA and very strong second half) to mediocrity in 2017 (4.68).     Things break the other way and maybe it’s a pretty good team.   
 

I think from a business standpoint there was no way they were trading pieces. They were too committed financially to blow it up before 17 along with the backlash it would have caused.

 

The time to do it with some players like Manny was the trade deadline in 17 and the owner wasn’t willing. Then they sign Cobb and Cashner prior to 18 and it’s one big train wreck. 

[Sports Guy]

6 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I can’t really win this argument, but I just don’t think things in baseball are as obvious as you seem to think.   Many things don’t go as you expect, good and bad.

When I look at the 2017 team, what stands out to me is they allowed 126 more runs than in 2016, which wasn’t exactly a banner year for the staff.    It sure wasn’t obvious to me that Tillman would completely collapse, that Miley would post a 5.61 ERA and that Gausman would go from a semi-breakout in 2016 (3.61 ERA and very strong second half) to mediocrity in 2017 (4.68).     Things break the other way and maybe it’s a pretty good team.   
 

I don’t believe in expecting some best case scenario is going to happen.  
 

I didn’t expect the Os to be as bad as they were in 2017 but I also didn’t expect them to be a legit contender.  
 

I absolutely expected them to decline rapidly and that everyone else around them would get better and that looking out for the long term and trading main pieces at peak value was always the smartest and best way to do things.

[Hank Scorpio]

44 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I don't think some you appreciate the disfunction within the warehouse with competing visions and factions vying for Angelos' ear and influence.

While Dan was certainly not a visionary for bringing in cutting edge technology and using analytics, when he was allowed to do what he did best he had the Orioles as a true World Series contender in 2014 for the first time since what, 1997? 

The whole Toronto fiasco was the beginning of the end as Duquette lost influence and then tried to make up for it by making stupid trades in hail mary attempts to make the playoffs and perhaps catch lightning in a bottle and win a World Series.

The other, and probably the more important thing, is this organization was not built on a solid ground of cutting edge developmental tools and their international efforts were laughably behind most franchises. When you don't have the finances to compete for top free agents, and then choose to basically cut off any meaningful efforts in a significant talent pool such as Latin America, and you are not built for long term success in today's baseball.

What the Orioles actually did pretty good was draft decently under Rajisch who drafted Means, Scott, Mancini, Hays, Mullins, Stewart, Sisco and some of the current top prospects in G. Rodriguez, Mountcastle, Hall, Baumann, Lowther and Akin.

While it's debatable when the "powers that be" should have recognized the team needed to be rebuilt, it's even doubtful who those powers that be really were and if anyone was going to be able to convince Peter Angelos with his fading health to completely rebuild.

That decision was made when Peter Angelos was no longer able to make those decisions and that's when his sons decided to build from the ground up by hiring Elias. Elias has done everything right to build a solid foundation for this organization to compete in MLB. 

The question that won't be answered today, tomorrow or even by the next two years is whether Elias can take that foundation and build a successful major league team on the field. That will be the next and most important step in his job of rebuilding this organization.

1000% this.

[Three Run Homer]

This guy would probably love to see us have more guys on the roster like Wade LeBlanc.  I would personally prefer not to have any Wade LeBlanc types on the team.