Lowball history of the Orioles since 2000

[Mackus]

How can there be 6 pages of comments, and no one has made the point of how the O's really screwed up with Ryan??

Of course I am talking about how the O's foolishly installed Ryan as the closer prior to the end of 2004 season.... prior to negoiating a deal with him... he would have been a lot cheaper to sign to an extension, if you were dealing with him as your set-up man vs your closer.

I don't think a handful of save opportunities at the end of the season made any difference with Ryan. It was obvious he was gonna be the closer in 2006, and after the year he had in 2005, he (rightfully so) decided he wouldn't sign an extension during the season in hopes of striking gold as a closer. There was never a time where we could have signed him to a 3/$15M type deal.

[Sports Guy]

I don't think a handful of save opportunities at the end of the season made any difference with Ryan. It was obvious he was gonna be the closer in 2006, and after the year he had in 2005, he (rightfully so) decided he wouldn't sign an extension during the season in hopes of striking gold as a closer. There was never a time where we could have signed him to a 3/$15M type deal.

Sure it did.

You made no bones about it. You took away any possible competition.

You said, this is what you are.

And to think we never could have signed him to a 3/15 contract is absurd.

I bet he would have signed that contract(actually even less than that) in July of 2005.

And i certainly think he signs that in that offseason..In fact, didn't he say he would have?

[Mackus]

And i certainly think he signs that in that offseason..In fact, didn't he say he would have?

No, he made it very clear that he was going to make a run at getting huge closer's money, which he did. And theres absolutely no chance he'd sign that in July of '05, only 2 months from free agency and having an All Star season as a closer under his belt. If you meant July of '04, then maybe, but that would have been a terribly stupid risk to take at the time, considering that was really the first time he'd ever been dominant before for any extended period of time. It'd be like giving Daniel Cabrera a huge contract extension in September if he has 2 good months in a row.

And come on, theres no way he wasn't going to be the closer in 2005. You'd have to be a complete idiot to not realize that was coming, even if he didn't get a trial run at the end of 2004.

[Sports Guy]

No, he made it very clear that he was going to make a run at getting huge closer's money, which he did. And theres absolutely no chance he'd sign that in July of '05, only 2 months from free agency and having an All Star season as a closer under his belt. If you meant July of '04, then maybe, but that would have been a terribly stupid risk to take at the time, considering that was really the first time he'd ever been dominant before for any extended period of time. It'd be like giving Daniel Cabrera a huge contract extension in September if he has 2 good months in a row.

And come on, theres no way he wasn't going to be the closer in 2005. You'd have to be a complete idiot to not realize that was coming, even if he didn't get a trial run at the end of 2004.

Yea sorry, meant July of 2004...And yes, a 3/10 type extension then would have been very smart.

It doesn;t matter...You don't hand the title to him at that point in the season.

By him actually getting the title, his value went up tremendously.

[Mackus]

Yea sorry, meant July of 2004...And yes, a 3/10 type extension then would have been very smart.

It doesn;t matter...You don't hand the title to him at that point in the season.

By him actually getting the title, his value went up tremendously.

His value to what? Maybe as a trade piece, but his value in his own mind (what he would have signed for) was already set. He wasn't going to sign, even if he was still just a setup man on a team with a godawful closer (Julio).

[Sports Guy]

His value to what? Maybe as a trade piece, but his value in his own mind (what he would have signed for) was already set. He wasn't going to sign, even if he was still just a setup man on a team with a godawful closer (Julio).

I disagree...As you said, he hadn't been consistent...He definitely signs in JUly of 2004 and i think you could have gotten him in that offseason as well.

[Mackus]

I disagree...As you said, he hadn't been consistent...He definitely signs in JUly of 2004 and i think you could have gotten him in that offseason as well.

Oh, I agree he signs in July of '04. I think that at the time that would have been a very risky move though, hindsight is great, but he was pretty much a lefthanded bullpen version of Daniel Cabrera before 2004. It would have paid off, but I think the risk of that move would have been incredibly high.

I don't think he signs in the offseason before 2005 even if he's not given the closer trial at the end of 2004 though. I think at that point he would have realized at some point in '05 he'd get a closers shot or even if he didn't could market himself as a closer if he had the type of season he ended up having. He was putting all of his chips in his own basket, and it paid off for him.

[mweb]

Its amazing to me that people still can not understand this lol... yes, coming to Baltimore was not Vlad's 1st choice... however, since he countered with 7yrs $105M, it showed there was a price that would bring him here.

It is still laughable that we did not offer 6yrs $90-$96M.

But enough about Vlad.. its history, and I already have at least 200 posts about that....

How can there be 6 pages of comments, and no one has made the point of how the O's really screwed up with Ryan??

Of course I am talking about how the O's foolishly installed Ryan as the closer prior to the end of 2004 season.... prior to negoiating a deal with him... he would have been a lot cheaper to sign to an extension, if you were dealing with him as your set-up man vs your closer.

Countering with a price that they knew would not be met does not mean he would have came to BMore. Did they request that from the Angels? It likely means they set a outlandish price in an attempt to get us to increase our offer so they could get a better offer elsewhere. Or to at least keep us involved to provide leverage with other teams and to keep a last resort instead of just flat out saying no. That is clearly a possibility.

[Sports Guy]

Countering with a price that they knew would not be met does not mean he would have came to BMore. Did they request that from the Angels? It likely means they set a outlandish price in an attempt to get us to increase our offer so they could get a better offer elsewhere. Or to at least keep us involved to provide leverage with other teams and to keep a last resort instead of just flat out saying no. That is clearly a possibility.

So, you think if we had said yes to the 7/105 offer that he would have said, nevermind?

[geschinger]

So, you think if we had said yes to the 7/105 offer that he would have said, nevermind?

I suspect he'd of likely tried to drag out the process hoping to get another team involved. Baltimore was clearly a place he did not want to be. If our offer blew everything else away that he was offered then maybe we could of gotten him to come play for a team he clearly did not want to play for. But I suspect if we had said, sure we'll do 7/105 Cuza and Bentz would of said something like Tellem would get with us to try to nail everything down and then they'd of delayed and frantically tried to leverage the offer to get a team interested in a place where Vlad actually had an interest in playing.

[BaltimoreTerp]

So, you think if we had said yes to the 7/105 offer that he would have said, nevermind?

He probably would have tried to wait and get someone else to go that high (while Hangouters screamed that we should keep going higher and higher and quit low-balling him). That was Moreno's first year in Anaheim, so he really wanted to make that splash, if I'm remembering correctly.

If not, well, that $30 million difference can buy a LOT of private flights for one's mother, or home to the Dominican, so who knows?

[mweb]

So, you think if we had said yes to the 7/105 offer that he would have said, nevermind?

I agree with what Gesh said. However, that's not the point. The point is they were probably 99% certain the O's wouldn't meet that price, so them countering with an offer they knew wasn't going to be made is not necessarily a sign that he was willing to play for the O's.

In fact, I think it's more of a sign that he was not willing to come to the O's. No other team was going after Vlad for awhile, yet his agents were willing to keep their asking price at 7/105 for the O's. The Mets came in with a mediocre offer(did team Vlad ask for 7/105 from the Mets? I couldn't find anything), yet Vlad and his agents remained patient, waiting for anyone else to jump in. So the Angels jump in offer 5/70, and they accept quickly without even asking the O's to up their offer.

If you really think about this instead of saying what if the O's had offered Vlad 7/105 which no one including Vlad and his agents thought was realistic, all signs point to him having no interest in being an Oriole.

But yeah, if we offered 7/105, we probably would have gotten him, too bad that wasn't really realistic at the time. That would have been 4 years and 75M more than any other offer. Instead we offered 3 years and 48M more than any other offer that I recall, that is called blowing the competition out of the water.

Arrghhh, I said I wouldn't get back into this! Everytime if you want out, they pull you back in.

[mweb]

To clarify a little, SG, I understand that if you were the owner, 7/105 would have been realistic, but with PA as the owner, it wasn't. I wish you were the owner, well I really wish I was the owner, then I would give you, Drungo, and others job in baseball operations.

BTW, another possible reason for Vlad's agents not giving the O's a chance to up their offer:

They didn't want to get in trouble with the players union. If the O's offered him 6/90, and he still signed with the Angels for 5/70, the union would have been upset.

[Zaimoku]

The Vlad example is twisted ridiculously - "tell us what it takes to sign you in orange and black" (???) - when does that happen in early negotations.

I hope that's a rhetorical question. Nobody around here has a clue about what happens in early *baseball* negotiations.

[hoosiers]

.....for the money we offered him.

I've been away for nearly a day - so I just wanted to offer this final thought on those who say $ was a big deal.

1. The Os apparently had a last offer of 6/$78 on the table.

2. Vlad's agents did not consider the Orioles among the two final bidders.

3. One final bidder only offered three guaranteed years.

4. Our FO found out we had been eliminated in the bidding through the press.

Vlad and his people were not interested in the Orioles raising their offer - even though we had a sixth year on the table. We were never given an opportunity to go to 5/$80 or 6/$90 .... that's a pretty good sign that Vlad had found the city and $ he was looking for and stopped the bidding.