If you could have any O's HoFer added to this franchise right now...

[Moose Milligan]

I think this is a thread we have about once a year, usually in the offseason.  But things are pretty bad/boring right now so here it is.

If you could have any O's HoFer added to the team right now, who would it be?  You can hop in the time machine and bring one of our 5 Cooperstown members back and add them to this team.  I'm leaving out greats like Roberto Alomar who wasn't here long enough and Mike Mussina for @Tony-OH's sanity.  Gotta have an Orioles hat on your HoF plaque.  

Let's say for arguments sake that you get the player at age 25, so you're going to be able to add them for the prime of their careers.

Your choices are:

SP Jim Palmer

3B Brooks Robinson

RF Frank Robinson

1B Eddie Murray

SS Cal Ripken

[ArtVanDelay]

Frank Robinson easily. 

[Can_of_corn]

Brooks, just because I'd like Brooks to be young again.

[Moose Milligan]

This is a tough one for me.  We could easily use any of them, probably except Eddie.  And even then, if someone picked Eddie it wouldn't be at terrible choice.  He'd be an easy upgrade over Mountcastle/Mancini.  But 1B isn't the biggest position of need.

I think I gotta go with Palmer.  We need a top of the rotation starter more than anything, IMO.  If you had Palmer, Means and then G-Rod and Hall on the horizon, that's pretty good.  

After that, I'm not sure.  It'd be close between Cal, Brooks and Frank.  We need a 3rd baseman, we need a SS.  And while we have a lot of outfielders in the organization, none of them can touch Frank.  

[Ripken]

Palmer.  Just so every 5th day we wouldn't get blown out.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

Palmer this teams needs starting pitching more than anything else right now. 

[Oriole1940]

Palmer because they need SP.  Not my favorite player on the list, but it is still PITCHING, PITCHING, PITCHING.

[jdwilde1]

I’ll take the top-5 all time defensive shortstop with power and durability.  With a young Cal at SS, Mullins in CF, and Adley coming up next year, the O’s top three players would be the three most premium positions.  All with plus defense.  

[GuidoSarducci]

Palmer easily.   If we invest enough, we can usually find enough quality bats to have a good enough offense.  But finding (stable) quality starting pitching for this franchise has been next to impossible since Mussina left.   I'm not talking about guys having a good year or two, I'm talking about having a guy who's going to put up solid numbers for 7-8 years.  And Palmer did that for 10+ years after his age 25 season.    

[Philip]

I’m surprised so few people said Brooks.

Imagine what it be like to have world class Defense at 3rd again.

[PHRESH]

There's no real wrong answer, but I went with Cal for the position flexibility, bat, defense and durability. 

[Moose Milligan]

5 minutes ago, Philip said:

I’m surprised so few people said Brooks.

Imagine what it be like to have world class Defense at 3rd again.

Imagine what it would be like to have world class pitching again.  

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Imagine what it would be like to have world class pitching again.  

Or just regular, normal major league pitching.

[Moose Milligan]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Or just regular, normal major league pitching.

Yeah, league average would be nice.

[Philip]

6 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Imagine what it would be like to have world class pitching again.  

When was it 1971 when we had McNally Palmer and the gang? I was 8. Can’t remember that far back.

But I can sure remember Manny, and Brooks was even better.