John Angelos continues to remind us how awful he is

[Frobby]

16 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Why hasn't the PR specialist the O's hired told John to stop giving interviews?

Interesting that he chose The NY Times.  I agree, he’d be way better off if he just shut up.  Every time he’s been interviewed this year he’s dug the hole deeper.   

[clapdiddy]

If this club is such a money pit and he only sees it changing for the worse, why in the world would the Angelos family continue to own this team?

[TonySoprano]

The more I read this, it's all about the grift on a scale of hundred of millions.  Big Peter said having a RSN was necessary in order to compete, to be "on the heels of the Yankees and Red Sox...or right in their faces.  Peter handed MASN over to John who largely squandered what he was given for years   The economics of baseball have changed, and now silver spoon John wants to try to get the state to build him a development like Atlanta has, else say goodbye to Rutschman, Henderson....

(Note to John - lock them in now before their prices skyrocket but I digress)

 

“The Braves have a couple of things going for them,” Angelos said. “They’ve done very well on the baseball side. They have a really big market, which helps a lot. And then they’ve developed this whole other revenue stream, this whole other business.

“And if big markets like Boston and Atlanta are doing it, it becomes existential — how are we going to compete and keep pace?

Angelos said he was confident of reaching a deal by the Dec. 31 deadline, and that the shared passion of government officials has helped fuel his enthusiasm for the project.

He said that the shared passion of government officials had helped fuel his enthusiasm for the project. But remember that word, existential — that is, pivotal to the franchise’s very existence.

 

Existential?  Keep using the big words John to make everyone think you're smart

 

[foxfield]

It doesn’t take The NY Times to point out what everyone here knows. 
 

He can’t help himself. But every time he opens his mouth I am reassured that MLB will insist the Orioles will be sold when Peter Angelos dies. And I wish Peter no ill will, but the sale of the Orioles literally cannot happen soon enough. 
 

Has a team ever been for sale with a stocked farm no payroll and a reigning Division winner or WS winner?

[walkersvillefan]

Long time lurker - first time poster....at least the first post in many years.

I am hoping someone smarter than me here can explain why / how our payroll was higher 25 years ago than it is now.  The O's had the highest payroll in the league in 1998 at just over $71 million. I get that revenue is down from the last five years but the dollar is also worth nearly twice as much now as it was in 1998.

[vab]

Why is this guy even putting this out here right now? Between this, the lease mess and the Kevin Brown thing it almost makes you wonder if, somewhere in his sub-conscious, he's trying to derail this thing so he can go back to being an irrelevant bottom-feeding team that just limps along collecting revenue sharing. 

[Moshagge3]

Craig Calcaterra with a good thread on the article this morning (some bad language)

https://twitter.com/craigcalcaterra/status/1693583975111934450

 

[TonySoprano]

1 minute ago, vab said:

Why is this guy even putting this out here right now? Between this, the lease mess and the Kevin Brown thing it almost makes you wonder if, somewhere in his sub-conscious, he's trying to derail this thing so he can go back to being an irrelevant bottom-feeding team that just limps along collecting revenue sharing. 

He's trying to force the State to do the land grab needed for his development, the proceed of which go to ownership.  No lease until he gets which he has already been told isn't feasible from a logistics standpoint. 

Why right now?   Because he can't help make himself and not the team the center of attention.  He's trending and getting slammed for doing just that on social media.  

That might make some fans nervous, considering the frustrations of the last three decades.

30 years of this family.  Thirty.  Years.   BASTA.  

[MCO'sFan]

35 minutes ago, vab said:

Elias can probably keep this thing going by trading pieces of this young core at the right time and continuing to stock the talent pipeline that he has built. The question is would he want to stick around for that. 

To be honest, this is what I want to see. I think that it is the best way to ensure long term success anyway. Very few players stay with their original teams for long now anyway. The worse then that can happen is handling it like Manny. You sell too late and get very little in return. Players come and go. I will always be an Orioles fan. If you can sign a player or two long term then fine. But as Chris Davis said,in this system, guys get paid for what they have already done and not what they are going to do. The AAV and the number of years you have to sign these guys for just isn't worth it. 

[Frobby]

24 minutes ago, CallMeBrooksie said:

He's right that it's not reasonable to expect the team to operate at a loss.

It's also not reasonable to believe that this club is anywhere close to taking a loss as-constructed.

Exactly.  From everything we can tell, the O’s are hugely profitable right now, and have been since 2019, except for the pandemic season. Per Forbes, here’s the O’s operating income from 2019 to now:

2019: $57 mm

2020: ($23 mm operating loss)

2021: $83 mm

2022: $67 mm

So, per Forbes, that’s $184 mm in operating income from 2019-22.  This year also figures to be huge.  Payroll is up by $23 mm, but gate receipts wil  be up by at least $15 mm and there will be playoff money (barring something catastrophic).   

Now, Forbes’ numbers may be off base, and operating income isn’t synonymous with profit.  But all indications are that the O’s have run an enormous surplus the last five years.  
 

 

[Moose Milligan]

What a moron.

There's no reason they can't lock up guys like Gunnar and Adley.  And they already should have.

11 minutes ago, Moshagge3 said:

Craig Calcaterra with a good thread on the article this morning (some bad language)

https://twitter.com/craigcalcaterra/status/1693583975111934450

 

I can't stand Craig Calcaterra but this is pretty hilarious and spot on.  

[Otter]

JA is no different than a lot of politicians and billionaires in that he is completely out of touch with the average American, and completely insulated from reality.  I don't think he has any idea how much he is hated, and even if he has an inkling he thinks his interviews can fix that perception easily.  It seems to me his comments are mainly designed to convince corrupt politicians to provide more taxpayer dollars for his plans...

[Too Tall]

Old saying - Keep quiet and let ohers wonder how smart you are - open your mouth and remove all doubt!

[TradeAngelos]

54 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Somehow I don't think the hardest thing to do in sports is to be a small market MLB team.

I don't think it's even close.

High School teams with a lack of funding and infrastructure have it harder.

College Football teams that have to schedule road games against Michigan to pay for the program have it harder.

Independent minor league teams have it harder.

 

MLB still has a ton of revenue sharing.

They already did the hardest thing. Tricked you and everyone else into repeating this "small market" bulls#$%^& over and over again. When did this start? Very recently. Angelos wins, again. And the fans just lose, because they enjoy being walked all over and not doing a darn thing about it. You are being played.  Angelos could tell you all they lose money every year and you will all believe it. Because you WANT to believe it. You WANT to believe they are scraping pennies off the marble MASN floors.  You WANT to believe that when it comes time to hand out contracts it will happen. You WANT to believe that slashing spending was "part of the plan". Only you didn't realize that this was going to be the "plan"......forever. Wake the #$%^& up. 

 

[Hank Scorpio]

8 minutes ago, walkersvillefan said:

Long time lurker - first time poster....at least the first post in many years.

I am hoping someone smarter than me here can explain why / how our payroll was higher 25 years ago than it is now.  The O's had the highest payroll in the league in 1998 at just over $71 million. I get that revenue is down from the last five years but the dollar is also worth nearly twice as much now as it was in 1998.

Right now it's just because they've expunged all of the post-arbitration from the roster and it's full of 1 year vet deals, pending FA's they traded for, and a bunch of pre-arb guys. It'll change as arb guys get to the table. 

This just further cements the reality that we all kinda knew. They likely have to pick THE guy (one guy) to extend on a $300MM deal and probably deal off the Rutschmans & Hendersons as they get more expensive and approach FA.

Think of 2016... Machado & Britton were their valuable pieces. They each had 2 years left pre-FA at that point and their window appeared to be closing. The rest of the division was on the rise and the O's had plateaued a bit. Knowing full well they weren't going to re-sign Machado, and that they weren't likely to be even the 3rd best team in the division in 2017 - they should have traded Machado at that point and cashed in significantly so that the next dip (the same dip that the big market endless wallet teams never really have to experience) wasn't as painful. Machado & Britton together could have restocked the system. Theoretically, anyway. Not sure the Duquette baseball ops group would have maximized the return but it sure as hell wouldn't have been Kremer, Bannon, Diaz, Pop and Valera. And uh... who? Dillon Tate? Can't remember the Britton deal vividly.

Does it suck to have to trade superstars before they're going to 100% walk for a comp pick? Yeah.

Is it really the only way to remain competitive throughout? According to Angelos, yeah. 

Are there inequities in the fundamental structure of baseball? Yeah.

Is it ever going to change? LOL no.

If the Angelos family is going to publicly whine about these inequities, then they should get outta the kitchen.

Or just shut up and swim in their basement full of money like Scrooge McDuck.