Keith Law’s O’s top 20

[deward]

24 minutes ago, LTO's said:

The previous regime won one singular playoff series and ended their run with a terribly bloated payroll and the worst team in franchise history. The best players were acquired by the previous regime and Buck in the interim, and they were good because of the defense of those players and Buck's management of that otherworldly bullpen. Duquette wasn't a good GM which is why even though the Orioles had success under him, he didn't even come close to getting another GM job. I'm pretty sure he's helping sell baseball equipment nowadays while Buck is still managing. People look back on that era fondly because of the previous 14 years but the fact is that it was a greatly squandered opportunity. And the prospects that he gets credit for, like Grod and Hall, get on podcasts and quite literally laugh at how poorly he ran things during that time. 

Weird how Duq's teams managed to win so many games over the years, burdened with such a bad GM....

[LTO's]

3 minutes ago, deward said:

Weird how Duq's teams managed to win so many games over the years, burdened with such a bad GM....

Weird how the man responsible for winning "so many games" didn't get a look at any of the numerous GM vacancies after he was canned. Meanwhile, the manager everyone here vilified in order to defend DD, is still employed and is thought of highly by nearly everyone in the sport. I understand everyone's love affair with DD here. I'll take the heat. He was a mediocre GM that did some good things and did some bad things while dealing with a bad owner. However, at the end of the day, the lack of playoff success, the 2017/2018 teams and his current status in the sport speak for themselves.  

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Es4M11 said:

Wieters played a big role in why our starters couldn't work deeper into games during that era. Especially when he caught Tillman. So many 2-strike fastballs that would just be fouled off repeatedly, routinely running up pitch counts. It was so frustrating to watch then, and even to think about it now.

Funny that you’d say that about Tillman, who threw 200+ Innings in 2013 and 2014, and 170+ in 2015 and 2016.   He worked deep into games more than any of our pitchers of recent vintage.  We haven’t had a pitcher throw 192+ innings since Tillman’s two years of 206+.  And he was on track for about 200 innings in 2016 before developing a sore shoulder.

I’m not going to say Wieters was some brilliant game-caller, but I didn’t think he was particularly bad, either.   

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Funny that you’d say that about Tillman, who threw 200+ Innings in 2013 and 2014, and 170+ in 2015 and 2016.   He worked deep into games more than any of our pitchers of recent vintage.  We haven’t had a pitcher throw 192+ innings since Tillman’s two years of 206+.  And he was on track for about 200 innings in 2016 before developing a sore shoulder.

I’m not going to say Wieters was some brilliant game-caller, but I didn’t think he was particularly bad, either.   

I'm guessing he doesn't care. 

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, LTO's said:

Weird how the man responsible for winning "so many games" didn't get a look at any of the numerous GM vacancies after he was canned. Meanwhile, the manager everyone here vilified in order to defend DD, is still employed and is thought of highly by nearly everyone in the sport. I understand everyone's love affair with DD here. I'll take the heat. He was a mediocre GM that did some good things and did some bad things while dealing with a bad owner. However, at the end of the day, the lack of playoff success, the 2017/2018 teams and his current status in the sport speak for themselves.  

The sport has changed and I do think that the game passed him by the end, but that does not mean he was not a successful GM. Until he lost all of his influence to do what he wanted after the Toronto thing, the Orioles were pretty good under him and Buck from 2012-2014.

Also, by your evaluation system, I guess Buck was a bad manager too? Either way, this is beating a horse that was dead 4 years ago. It really doesn't matter anymore. 

The Development system is much better than it was in ANY previous regime because they have the most technology and analytics to help players through technologies that were not readily available or accepted in the past.

Now, channeling my inner Corn, now it's time to see how it all turns into success at the major league level. So far Elias has delivered one winning team and that was a team he never thought would contend and one that he gave up on at the All-Star break.

Now this is his first year where the team expects to win. The rubber now meets the road and from this point forward, Elias gets graded on major league team success.

 

[LTO's]

11 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Until he lost all of his influence to do what he wanted after the Toronto thing, the Orioles were pretty good under him and Buck from 2012-2014.

What does this mean in practice? What were the things he wanted to do but wasn't allowed to? And what proof do we have of this? Wouldn't his rep around the league still be strong if this was an obvious fact? He's completely out of the sport.  He made mistakes that led to a terrible state of the org and his ultimate firing. Doesn't mean he didn't do some good and have some success but as Interloper eluded to, there was more success to be had there. History will show they won one playoff series and didn't win a single ALCS game. 

22 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Also, by your evaluation system, I guess Buck was a bad manager too?

I wanted Buck gone but I do think he is a better manager than DD was a GM and I think most people in the sport think that as well. 

23 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Now, channeling my inner Corn, now it's time to see how it all turns into success at the major league level. So far Elias has delivered one winning team and that was a team he never thought would contend and one that he gave up on at the All-Star break.

No disagreement here. I do think he should be graded on a curve a tad considering DD had vastly higher payrolls afforded to him, but if all he accomplishes is one playoff series W and no ALCS wins, then that's a massive disappointment and he will be criticized as much as I have criticized DD. 

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, LTO's said:

No disagreement here. I do think he should be graded on a curve a tad considering DD had vastly higher payrolls afforded to him, but if all he accomplishes is one playoff series W and no ALCS wins, then that's a massive disappointment and he will be criticized as much as I have criticized DD. 

He had a larger ML payroll.

He had less money to spend on the young International players and the sort of minor league infrastructure that Elias has been allowed to implement.

At one point in time Dan was an Elias type.  Would Duquette had gone as far as Elias did?  No, but I think that if he had been given true freedom to spend his budget as he wished the O's would have been middle of the pack and not behind. 

The O's were in the bottom 2-3 in International spending every year when Dan was here, I don't think that was his choice.  It wasn't how he ran things in Montreal and Boston.

Peter wanted money to be spent at the ML roster, some years it was even an issue getting him to spend money on the draft.

[Il BuonO]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

The sport has changed and I do think that the game passed him by the end, but that does not mean he was not a successful GM. Until he lost all of his influence to do what he wanted after the Toronto thing, the Orioles were pretty good under him and Buck from 2012-2014.

He was also named Exec of the Year in 2014.

[deward]

2 hours ago, LTO's said:

Weird how the man responsible for winning "so many games" didn't get a look at any of the numerous GM vacancies after he was canned. Meanwhile, the manager everyone here vilified in order to defend DD, is still employed and is thought of highly by nearly everyone in the sport. I understand everyone's love affair with DD here. I'll take the heat. He was a mediocre GM that did some good things and did some bad things while dealing with a bad owner. However, at the end of the day, the lack of playoff success, the 2017/2018 teams and his current status in the sport speak for themselves.  

The end of his tenure here was clearly a mess that tainted him (probably more to do with the Toronto debacle than one really bad season). DD didn't have Buck in Montreal or Boston, and those teams still won a bunch of games. I take you aren't in the group who thinks success in the playoffs is largely random chance....in which case, you must think Billy Beane is also a bad GM, right? 

Duq won everywhere he went, that speaks plenty for me.

[deward]

1 minute ago, Il BuonO said:

He was also named Exec of the Year in 2014.

His second time picking up that honor, he also won it in 1992.

[Il BuonO]

1 minute ago, deward said:

His second time picking up that honor, he also won it in 1992.

Yup, I was being specific for his time in Baltimore.

[Frobby]

29 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

He had a larger ML payroll.

He had less money to spend on the young International players and the sort of minor league infrastructure that Elias has been allowed to implement.

At one point in time Dan was an Elias type.  Would Duquette had gone as far as Elias did?  No, but I think that if he had been given true freedom to spend his budget as he wished the O's would have been middle of the pack and not behind. 

The O's were in the bottom 2-3 in International spending every year when Dan was here, I don't think that was his choice.  It wasn't how he ran things in Montreal and Boston.

Peter wanted money to be spent at the ML roster, some years it was even an issue getting him to spend money on the draft.

When Duquette got here, he made a lot of noise about increasing our international presence, and hired Fred Ferreira and Ray Poitevint.  But it never really translated into signing young Dominicans and Venezuelans.   We are never really going to know whether Duq was forbidden to spend money that way, or chose to deploy his resources elsewhere.  Personally, I’m done worrying about who was to blame for what in past regimes.  I’m living in the present.  

[LTO's]

23 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

He had a larger ML payroll.

He had less money to spend on the young International players and the sort of minor league infrastructure that Elias has been allowed to implement.

At one point in time Dan was an Elias type.  Would Duquette had gone as far as Elias did?  No, but I think that if he had been given true freedom to spend his budget as he wished the O's would have been middle of the pack and not behind. 

The O's were in the bottom 2-3 in International spending every year when Dan was here, I don't think that was his choice.  It wasn't how he ran things in Montreal and Boston.

Peter wanted money to be spent at the ML roster, some years it was even an issue getting him to spend money on the draft.

All true. But when he arrived he was in a far more enviable position than Elias. That team was young and on the come up and had a respected manager that had just made two moves that were as good if not better than any DD ever made. Elias inherited a completely stripped down ML roster, middling farm system mired in complete dysfunction from a PD standpoint, and the same empty international pipeline that DD dealt with. And if I remember correctly, he brought in his own guys to do international scouting that resulted in......nothing. 

I'm sorry but I don't buy the whole "DD was a secret analytical genius kept down by Peter and Buck" thing that's spouted here. His work in Montreal 30+ years ago was admirable but irrelevant when discussing his body of work in Baltimore. His big FA SP acquisition was absolutely terrible, he forfeited picks, traded two SP prospects from a barren farm system for limited value and gave out bad contracts to aging vets. I know I'm out on a limb in this forum but I truly believe DD was more bad than good from organizational standpoint. 

[Number5]

41 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

The O's were in the bottom 2-3 in International spending every year when Dan was here, I don't think that was his choice.  It wasn't how he ran things in Montreal and Boston.

Agreed.  For example, Expos signed Vlad under DD's watch.

[Il BuonO]

Just now, Number5 said:

Agreed.  For example, Expos signed Vlad under DD's watch.

Yeah, but he didn’t know what he was doing. 

The idea that his decision making wasn’t constrained by PA is ridiculous.