Just get better

[tennOsfan]

My problem with AM is he's half-doing his job. If the Rays or Twins are our model, then I expect Huff and Roberts to be gone soon. Perhaps Mora as well.

If our starting rotation is Guthrie-Olson-Liz-Looper-Hendrickson or the like, there is zero chance we're doing anything in 2009. So why have all these one-year hitters around?

I expect we'll soon hear that AM approached Roberts about an extension. He shouldn't even bother.

I think the Orioles can be ran as a hybrid of the Twins/Rays model and that of the bigger market teams. We can afford to splurge on one or two difference-making FAs every once in a while, try to keep our young talent, and build our farm system while filling in around the edges with the Izturis and Redding types. In his comments yesterday, I take it that AM doesn't agree with that outlook, and I just think he's wrong.

[Todd-O]

I'm not sure if there is a serious disconnect between the Orioles Hangout world and reality... but I think there might be.

There are a ton of aggressive ideas on this site... inventive trade ideas... and all around suggestions of what the Orioles should do. But the Orioles seem to be headed down a different path.

In this mornings Washington Post, Thomas Boswell stated that the Orioles meager offering to Mark Teixeira (as compared to the Nationals, Sox, Angels and Yankees) basically proves that Baltimore is basically irrelevant on the Baseball stage. I understand Boswell is a proclaimed Oriole hater. I understand he has an axe to grind with Angelos. But what if he is right? I read it and thought he was over-simplifying the situation. But that's my opinion as based through my Oriole fan eyes...

This is a really round-about way of looking at the issue, but I think there is a serious disconnect between what Oriole fans want and the great ideas that are proclaimed on this website... and the reality of where the Orioles are and are going to be in the near future.

We are in a division with the biggest baseball powerhouse - money and Championships-wise - and a team that wants to be a mega-powerhouse and is much better equipped to achieve that than Baltimore. Don't fool yourself - the Red Sox are a money generating machine that now has a nationwide and international marketing presence... they have a Brand image that matches the Yankees and buries the Orioles in both staying power and money generating prowess.

Peter Angelos all but announced that we will, for his ownership, behave like a small market team. He said it. Not anyone here. Now, whether this was an extension of his public tantrum stemming from the arrival of the Nationals or simply stating the facts.... it appears to be a reality for the time being.

Angelos and company has done the team no favors in digging us into this massive hole. The farm system was, up until about a year ago, a total disaster... we had poor scouting down south... and some absolutely miserable free agent acquisitions. We now have next to no trading power and a very young team with nary a stud pitcher. We have no Tim Lincecum.

So... I really think that the reality of the situation is often ignored or wished away on this site. We are going to have as bad of... if not worse, of a season this year and probably the next. Teixeira might have appeased some of the disgruntled fan base... but he wasn't going to make this team into a winner in the foreseeable future. He knew it. The Orioles know it.

[Mad Mark]

After the Yankee$ remember they also want Manny Ramirez, and throw another giant bag of cash at him, the free agent market is going to get very slow...and very cheap. Once all the big fish have been fried, the minnows are going to go for pennies on the (2008) dollar.

As far as pitching goes, I belive that--barring extraordinary good luck--the Orioles are going to look for one to two-year stopgaps, until the Bowie Bunch matures and arrives in Baltimore. It may be painful to watch in the short term, but it's likely a better long-term solution than rushing those kids.

[bigbird]

I'd wager if you called Greg Zaun (backup catcher and starter until Weiters gets here) and Chriz Gomez (utility IF who can play all 4 positions and can actually hit a little) and offered each a $1,000,000 contract they would sign on the spot.

It's not as hard as AM makes it.

[NCRaven]

Sure they do...They just have to be willing to trade them and I suspect that outside of BRob, they aren't willing to do that.

Their three most desireable players are probably Markakis, who I doubt you'd be willing to trade, Guthrie, who is our only reliable starting pitcher, Roberts and Sherrill, who most teams probably view as a quality LH setup man and not as a big-time closer. I don't see any team in baseball offering a quality prospect for either Scott or Huff. We're not going to get a Bedard or Tejada package for Roberts.

My biggest complaint about MacPhail, at this point, and based completely on 20-20 hind-sight, is that he misplayed the Roberts situation last off-season. Roberts seems to be drawing less attention now, which you probably pointed out was a possibility last year. IIRC, the Cardinals, Indians, White Sox and Cubs all had some level of interest in Roberts last year. Now, I'm not sure that any of them do.

We weren't going to get Sabathia, Burnett was grossly overpaid (what else is new) by the Yankees, and if we think Burnett is a health risk, Sheets is even more so. There really is nothing else on the free agent market that approaches the level of quality for those three. So, there are limits to what MacPhail will be able to do.

[Sanfran327]

After the Yankee$ remember they also want Manny Ramirez, and throw another giant bag of cash at him, the free agent market is going to get very slow...and very cheap. Once all the big fish have been fried, the minnows are going to go for pennies on the (2008) dollar.

As far as pitching goes, I belive that--barring extraordinary good luck--the Orioles are going to look for one to two-year stopgaps, until the Bowie Bunch matures and arrives in Baltimore. It may be painful to watch in the short term, but it's likely a better long-term solution than rushing those kids.

The Yankees would be better off going after Dunn. He's way cheaper than Manny, and they could use the LH bat down the lineup.

[L.D.Blair]

The Yankees would be better off going after Dunn. He's way cheaper than Manny, and they could use the LH bat down the lineup.

Any chance of getting you to post this stuff on the Yankees board?

[Sports Guy]

I am so tired of hearing them say we will use Minnesota and Tampa as models.

Now, overall I get their point...Develop from within...Build your team through your farm system, the draft, etc....

But, there are some problems with that in terms of the Orioles ability to accomplish these things:

1) We haven't been getting a lot of #1 picks and top top guys...Longoria, Upton, etc... Yes we have gotten Wieters and Matusz and they should be good but its not enough.

2) Our player development system is awful. We can't develop guys like these teams do.

3) Our scouting doesn't seem to be as good.

These things are going to prevent us from doing exactly what AM wants to do...We have to get talent into this organization that has been developed by other teams.

[ChaosLex]

Why does anybody listen to what this guy says? He worked as a ticket seller before getting fired. He was loud and obnoxious then and it doesn't seem like anything has changed.

Any opinion is fine, but this guy acts like he was born to be a GM - and that's all he's remembered for at the warehouse - a loud-mouth know-it-all.

There is good fan sentiment on here and some good insider information, but anyone who listens to this guy even for one sentence is misguided...

Truth hurts, doesn't it?

As SG said, this team has done NOTHING these past 11 months. I'm not going to build AM a statue just because he traded an aging, decling catcher for a utility player and two guys who weren't even in the Reds Top 20. Get real.

Unless AM starts doing something, you can book another losing decade.

[osfan83]

I think it will be a lot easier to make moves once the bad contracts go away. After 2009 there won't be a single contract on the books, save for Cesar Izturis. We will have a payroll of roughly $20M, and MacPhail can use this money to do things like extend Jones, Markakis and Wieters. Also, we will have begun using players like Bergesen, Berken and Hernandez in the pen and rotation. Erbe, Tillman and Arietta will likely be in AAA. And I'm sure not far behind them will be Britton and others. We may draft a 1B by then, or maybe Snyder will be in AAA and we'll be looking at an LF, SS, 3B, or 2B. For all we know, those pieces could come in a trade for Scott, Huff, Sherrill or Roberts.

We're a couple years off, but I enjoy watching the team develop.

I'm not so sure Nick wants to extend, especially if we wait until next off season to do it. He probably wants to play for a winner, rather than wasting any more time here.

[neveradoubt]

There's a lot of division of opinion about whether the team mishandled the Tex negotiations, and whether it would have made a difference.

But you know what? At the end of the day, we all want the same thing. We want the team to get better. And the real concern here is not that we didn't get Tex, it's that we haven't done enough yet to actually get any better than last year, either for 2009 or longer term.

Oh sure, we've nibbled at the margins by signing Izturis and clearing space for Wieters to step in. But we haven't addressed the horrible pitching situation for 2009, and that situation seems to be deteriorating. We don't seem to have any long-term plan in place to replace Roberts, Huff and Mora in a year. We don't have a long-term answer at SS even though Izturis may be fine for his 2 years.

So that's all I care about. Put a better team on the field, one that seems to have a future, and I'll quickly forget all about Tex. I don't expect every problem solved at once, but I need to see steady progress. Now get to work.

Do not worry. AM is the savior of the Orioles. Give him a few more years

[Sanfran327]

Any chance of getting you to post this stuff on the Yankees board?

I'd love for them to be even more of a beer-league softball team than they already are. Station to station, no speed, no versatility. They'll have Cano, Jeter, and Swisher as their speed guys, and that's it. A-Rod is too much of a pansy to be a runner...

[MCL1021]

I'd wager if you called Greg Zaun (backup catcher and starter until Weiters gets here) and Chriz Gomez (utility IF who can play all 4 positions and can actually hit a little) and offered each a $1,000,000 contract they would sign on the spot.

It's not as hard as AM makes it.

BB, what's the chance we are really looking at signing these two guys or possibly Aaron Miles instead of Gomez?

Also, is there any interest in Dunn at all?

[Sports Guy]

Their three most desireable players are probably Markakis, who I doubt you'd be willing to trade, Guthrie, who is our only reliable starting pitcher, Roberts and Sherrill, who most teams probably view as a quality LH setup man and not as a big-time closer. I don't see any team in baseball offering a quality prospect for either Scott or Huff. We're not going to get a Bedard or Tejada package for Roberts.

My biggest complaint about MacPhail, at this point, and based completely on 20-20 hind-sight, is that he misplayed the Roberts situation last off-season. Roberts seems to be drawing less attention now, which you probably pointed out was a possibility last year. IIRC, the Cardinals, Indians, White Sox and Cubs all had some level of interest in Roberts last year. Now, I'm not sure that any of them do.

We weren't going to get Sabathia, Burnett was grossly overpaid (what else is new) by the Yankees, and if we think Burnett is a health risk, Sheets is even more so. There really is nothing else on the free agent market that approaches the level of quality for those three. So, there are limits to what MacPhail will be able to do.

What does one good starting pitcher really do for you at the end of the day?

Trade Guts and sign Sheets if that is the issue.

Guthrie, BRob, Scott and Sherrill could be dealt for valuable pieces but I suspect that AM MAY trade BRob...The rest of them I doubt, especially Guthrie.

[Enjoy Terror]

I'm not so sure Nick wants to extend, especially if we wait until next off season to do it. He probably wants to play for a winner, rather than wasting any more time here.

I personally think he will extend here. I'd put money on it. I think MacPhail would put a Chase Utley-esque contract on the table and Nick would take it. After all, Nick has 3 years left here whether he signs or not.