Schmuck on Tex

[emmett16]

I agree with most of your post. I do not think Tex alone stops us from being losers in 2009 and 2010. I really question whether the organization can afford to wait 2 or 3 years let alone the 6 or 7 you propose. The print media and certain radio stations enjoy pounding the Orioles and even though their rants are partly a vendetta, perception often becomes reality. The perception is that the Orioles will not spend.

I agree 100% that pitching and defense wins. If you can pitch and catch you will be competitive. I have said many times in other post that the team does not tank in August and September it collapses due to lack of pitching depth. AM obviously agrees and is trying to add arms and to that point.

I think everyone agrees Tex would improve our offense and defense. Instead of losing games 9-5, we would lose 8-6, so IMO if we do go all in for Tex we should be prepared to go all in for Burnett or another impact pitcher and then also sign another solid starter after that. We would not become next years Rays but would be much improved and to SG's point Tex is an investment in 2009 and beyond. The signing of a solid pitcher would be the same.

Signing a stud pitcher comes with injury risks, but so does signing Tex or any other FA. Success comes with taking risks.

I agree we need to take a risk, and a Burnett type pitcher would be worth the risk. Look at the royals signing Gil Meche...it look rediculous at the time, but they are the favored team in '09 to do what the rays did today. If we get a Burnett to stabilize the rotation a bit, I think it helps the team long team significantly by letting the young pitchers have some success on the fram and in the short term by eating more innings and saving the bullpen. I think everyone should step back and look at all the teams in the playoffs - the teams with the best pitching made it the furthest....the Tex lead Angels with sub-par pitching (compared to other teams in playoffs) now how did they do? On top of that - the angels are better than us at almost every position - have better pitching - and play in the AL west. We have a ways to go and Tex fits no where in our little puzzle.

[Lucky Jim]

.Again, Tex has no impact on what you do about the pitching.

Are you implying that the Orioles don't operate with finite resources?

[emmett16]

IF the Orioles believe this right now, they should all quit or be fired and bring in some people who have a clue as to what they are doing. This is foolish...Tex improves us more than any single player we can bring in. We Um, you can do both. This is why you don't do stupid things like extend BRob and Huff...Its why you make deals and get young ML ready players...it is why you deal for guys like Vazquez...guys near the end of their contracts who end up netting us draft picks, so in essence, you trade for picks(ala the A's). You can sign Tex and still get depth...it is fooish to think these things are related. Except give us a 6-8 win improvement. Mlore foolishness...Again, Tex has no impact on what you do about the pitching.

Hey fella - you sign Tex you don't get a stud top of the line prospect in next years draft...how does Tex not affect pitching? I guess i'm just a fool...sorry for posting. I forgot, a couple moves here a couple moves there and the O's are fixed...wow

[Sports Guy]

Great. Now we win 75-77 games and still finish under .500

That's up to AM and the players to make it more than that.(btw, you can't say that win improvement about AJ)

Yes, he does. One has to assume, that like every other year, the Orioles are operating under a limited budget. Angelos is not going to fling open the vaults and let the (Confederate) money flow despite the rumblings otherwise. We have heard that tune before.

The Orioles aren't going to spend huge money on pitching...Yes, they could go after Burnett but they can afford both AJ and Tex. The Orioles have a philosophy of developing pitching...and that is exactly what we should do...You either develop or trade for pitching. If you can get a FA starter at the right money, you can do it but that doesn't happen and I think people are kidding themselves if they think AM is going to put a 5 year deal for 15+ million a year on the table for a starting pitcher, especially one with a shaky injury history.

Tex or Burnett is one decision MacPhail may have to make

If this were to be true, Tex is the obvious decision.

[emmett16]

Sports Guy, don't forget Baltimore is a small market team no matter how you spin it...get used to it.

[Sports Guy]

I don't see where the article purports to be about about whether we should sign Tex. I do see where it is about whether we can sign Tex.

You can discount Tex's desire to play for a winner if you want, SG. But the "direction" of this team isn't so written in stone that anyone can bank on it being a contender even in the next two years.

So, sure, Tex may consider the Orioles out of some desire to "come home", though I'm not convinced of that (hopeful, but not convinced). That said, say it gets the Orioles in a conversation they wouldn't otherwise be having with Tex, i.e., it "gets them to the table."

The real question is, if the O's are bidding against the Angels, Yanks and Sox (if), how much more will the Orioles have to pay than any of them to compensate for not being a contender?

I can easily see Tex discounting any Orioles offer with the fact that we're not yet, and show no real signs of being, a contender. Even if this isn't a legitimate factor, it's a bargaining tool that could lead to a serious overpayment for Tex.

That said, I'll reiterate what I said earlier: this article isn't about whether we should sign Tex. It does state one complication in our pursuit, however. It's not a great article, or a startling opinion. But it's not saying what you're maligning it for saying.

The article is about how we are a long shot to win with or without Tex...Not exactly a pulitzer prize winning thought. That should be obvious to anyone who has the ability to think.

[Sports Guy]

Hey fella - you sign Tex you don't get a stud top of the line prospect in next years draft...how does Tex not affect pitching? I guess i'm just a fool...sorry for posting. I forgot, a couple moves here a couple moves there and the O's are fixed...wow

If we sign Tex, we lose a second rounder.....Would you trade Xavier Avery for Teixeira?

[Sports Guy]

Sports Guy, don't forget Baltimore is a small market team no matter how you spin it...get used to it.

You have said this before...You can continue to say it but you are flat out wrong.

At worst, they are a mid market team and they are a team that can afford a payroll up to 110 million.

Small market teams can not consistently pay out 70-80 million a year in payroll. Small market teams spend 30-50 million.

We can't spend with the LA teams, the Chicago teams, Ny teams or Boston but we can with anyone else and that has been proven over the last several years.

[TonySoprano]

The Orioles have a philosophy of developing pitching...and that is exactly what we should do...You either develop or trade for pitching.

Where has their 'philosophy" gotten them? The offense as a whole did better than in 2007, but once again the pitching held them back. MacPhail's approach is no diffferent in regard to pitching than Flanagan; stockpile a bunch a bunch of arms and hope a reasonable percentage perform. What Mac was able to do, that Flanagan couldn't, was to convince Angelos to let go of some expiring assets, to start to fill up the farm system.

[Enjoy Terror]

IF the Orioles believe this right now, they should all quit or be fired and bring in some people who have a clue as to what they are doing. This is foolish...

To say Andy MacPhail has no clue is foolish ... to think someone like Beane or Epstein could do a better job quicker is speculation and highly unlikely. Epstein was hired and inherited an already great Red Sox team. Beane was brought into an underacheiving division where the Angels and Rangers were equally if not moreso pathetic. MacPhail hasn't benefitted from either situation in the AL East. He hasn't been given the time the Rays have had to build a winner, he hasn't been given the money and reputation the Yankees have to attract huge free agents, and he certainly hasn't been given the deep farm system and fanbase to support the team like the Red Sox have.

Tex improves us more than any single player we can bring in.

Yes, but at a particularly inefficient price tag. You might think the Orioles have all kinds of money, but I'm willing to believe that diminished ticket sales (particularly this year) are tighting Angelos' coin purse a little. It may explain why Angelos decided to get realistic about the team and hire a baseball guy to do baseball things. I guess spending on free agents every year to bandage things up wasn't working out real well.

Considering our current options, moving Huff to 1B and platooning Luke Scott with Montanez and Reimold is a very solid option at first base at absolutely NO COST to the Orioles other than prexisting contracts. I like Tex, but if you told me 6-7 years at $20MM, what if he get's hurt? What if he hates losing and starts playing like Miggy?

Like it was said before, you can sign Tex and hope he puts butts into seats, but come September when you're only winning every tenth game again because of the pitchers... people will stop coming like they do every year, and Tex won't be as much of the ticket seller we thought.

Again, Tex has no impact on what you do about the pitching.

Sure it does. $20MM a year for Tex is money not spent on pitching.

[Sports Guy]

Why can't they do both? Where has their 'philosophy" gotten them? The offense as a whole did better than in 2007, but once again the pitching held them back. MacPhail's approach is no diffferent in regard to pitching than Flanagan; stockpile a bunch a bunch of arms and hope a reasonable percentage perform. What Mac was able to do, that Flanagan couldn't, was to convince Angelos to let go of some expiring assets, to start to fill up the farm system.

They can do both...just as they can sign Burnett and Tex.

As far as the pitching, yea he hasn't worked yet(of course, we do have more talented guys now than we ever have and, knock on wood, they are healthy as well)...That doesn't mean you stop it and doesn't mean you do something foolish and spend a bunch of money on several FA starters.

[Lucky Jim]

The article is about how we are a long shot to win with or without Tex...Not exactly a pulitzer prize winning thought. That should be obvious to anyone who has the ability to think.

Ugh. Yes. Exactly. We are a long-shot to win w/ or w/o Tex. Which is the primary reason we will not be able to sign Tex. The salient point of the article isn't that we're a long-shot to win with Tex, it's why and how the fact that we remain a long-shot to win with Tex actually affects our ability to sign Tex.

The idea around here is that "Tex likes our direction" and will see himself as "an important cog in a winning team." But if Tex crunches the numbers, and sees just how little of the way toward a winning team he inches us, the direction may not matter. Because every other component of that equation - save for Jones and Markakis (and maybe Guthrie) remains a probability/possibility of one degree or another (Wieters, Tillman, Arrieta, Matusz, et al) and not an ML "certainty" (to the extent that anyone is, barring injury).

That's a different point. And that's certainly not "obvious to anyone who has the ability to think." Because, to be frank, people on here seem to be missing it.

[Lucky Jim]

Where has their 'philosophy" gotten them? The offense as a whole did better than in 2007, but once again the pitching held them back. MacPhail's approach is no diffferent in regard to pitching than Flanagan; stockpile a bunch a bunch of arms and hope a reasonable percentage perform. What Mac was able to do, that Flanagan couldn't, was to convince Angelos to let go of some expiring assets, to start to fill up the farm system.

I tend to agree with SG here. Pitching is so high-risk (mostly due to injury) that by far the best way of acquiring pitching talent is to do it by trading expiring contracts (and getting multiple prospects in exchange) and draft and development.

In both cases, you get talent in bulk at a low cost. This is essential. With FA, you always pay a premium, you always overpay (because you're already paying for past performance) and you run the risk of receiving no return with a single injury.

The cost of using trades and FAs is time. And that has to be considered. It's also - depending on the prospects you receive - a probabilistic difference between an established MLer and an (even very good) MiL prospect.

That said, I think AM's general approach to using the draft and trades to stockpile pitching is the way to go. But you have to be patient enough to let it develop.

The real problem is that this is at odds with our attempt to sign Tex, which may require us trying to convince him that winning is imminent.

[Sports Guy]

To say Andy MacPhail has no clue is foolish ... to think someone like Beane or Epstein could do a better job quicker is speculation and highly unlikely. Epstein was hired and inherited an already great Red Sox team. Beane was brought into an underacheiving division where the Angels and Rangers were equally if not moreso pathetic. MacPhail hasn't benefitted from either situation in the AL East. He hasn't been given the time the Rays have had to build a winner, he hasn't been given the money and reputation the Yankees have to attract huge free agents, and he certainly hasn't been given the deep farm system and fanbase to support the team like the Red Sox have

.

if it takes AM 6 or 7 years to build things up, then yes he is clueless.

. You might think the Orioles have all kinds of money, but I'm willing to believe that diminished ticket sales (particularly this year) are tighting Angelos' coin purse a little.

First of all, PA is guaranteed a sale price on the O's and is going to make well over 120 million when/if he sells the team and that doesn't include any money he has already made.

Secondly, you sign Tex and put a good team on the field and the ticket sales go back up.

It may explain why Angelos decided to get realistic about the team and hire a baseball guy to do baseball things. I guess spending on free agents every year to bandage things up wasn't working out real well.

As I have pointed out recently, the Orioles have pissed money away on their FA signings...They have signed the wrong player..Older, mediocre talent...Middling talent...Tex doesn't qualify for any of those things. He is more of a Tejada signing except Tex is better.

Considering our current options, moving Huff to 1B and platooning Luke Scott with Montanez and Reimold is a very solid option at first base at absolutely NO COST to the Orioles other than prexisting contracts. I like Tex, but if you told me 6-7 years at $20MM, what if he get's hurt? What if he hates losing and starts playing like Miggy?

What if he gets hurt? Later on in this thread, you mention spending 20 million on pitching. Well, Tex is far less likely to get hurt...The double standard is amazing and really makes no sense.

Like it was said before, you can sign Tex and hope he puts butts into seats, but come September when you're only winning every tenth game again because of the pitchers... people will stop coming like they do every year, and Tex won't be as much of the ticket seller we thought.

Tex isn't the one who would stop us from winning....that would be the team and Andy MacPhail.

[Sports Guy]

Ugh. Yes. Exactly. We are a long-shot to win w/ or w/o Tex. Which is the primary reason we will not be able to sign Tex. The salient point of the article isn't that we're a long-shot to win with Tex, it's why and how the fact that we remain a long-shot to win with Tex actually affects our ability to sign Tex.

The idea around here is that "Tex likes our direction" and will see himself as "an important cog in a winning team." But if Tex crunches the numbers, and sees just how little of the way toward a winning team he inches us, the direction may not matter. Because every other component of that equation - save for Jones and Markakis (and maybe Guthrie) remains a probability/possibility of one degree or another (Wieters, Tillman, Arrieta, Matusz, et al) and not an ML "certainty" (to the extent that anyone is, barring injury).

That's a different point. And that's certainly not "obvious to anyone who has the ability to think." Because, to be frank, people on here seem to be missing it.

Tex will sign for money...plain and simple.

That will be the #1 reason he signs anywhere.

You can mark it down right now...Tex will sign with the team that offers the best contract.