Anyone still want to make a compelling argument against rebuilding?

[NewMarketSean]

Do you realize how little these three names have had to do with our current record? They are less than 5% of the problem collectively.

If it is that easy buddy, I would advise you to make a clear concise post at the end of this season about who you would go after and what you would do within a 95 million dollar payroll limitation. That way we can track against your progress. I'll do the same if you want. We can make a game of it.

You are shortsighted then. You don't think Payton's .299 OBP has hurt the offense? You don't think Bako's .282 OBP has been a hole in the order haven't hurt the offense? What's our record in 1-run games? You don't think better players would have affected our record? You don't think that their blocking of Knott and House, 2 players who, however small their chances may be, represented a possible future for this team?

These are the kinds of guys the O's should be going out of their way to avoid... and you call them 5% of the problem? They represent the problem!

I'd love to hear what you call the other 95% of the problem.

[wildcard]

If you work with the known or proven you have a much better chance of success. Roberts is proven. Bedard is proven. Miggy is proven but needs to show he will continue on a productive track over the next month.

You're right, we should stick with veteran mediocrity solely because it is proven.

When did Bedard, Roberts and Miggy become mediocrity. Anything that comes after that statement has no credibility.

[RShack]

Come on, you can't expect to make a statement like "being a GM is an easy job" and not get called out for it. This isn't Strat-O-Matic. It's not as simple as saying "This trade would help us out, so let's do it."

I think that's the essence of it. It's the diff between what makes sense in one's head while staring at computer screens full of stats and rosters vs. what can actually get done in the real world of actual ML baseball...

To be fair, I think SG would be way better at the non-people-part of GM-ness than I would. I just think he doesn't realize that being an excellent ML GM in Actual Reality is way different than being successful as a fantasy-GM. His role around here is being the primary fantasy-GM; I doubt if I could excel at that job either.

[Fan4Life]

Anytime you are in the business of trying to buy low and sell high with everyone else trying to do the same thing... it's only easy if you suck at it.

[mcgraw238]

95% the people on these boards could put together a 70 win team.

50% of them could probably put together a winning team based on the things they discuss here on the boards. The approaches they talk when evaluating players, etc...

What the GM's do is not that hard and the quality of the job they are doing is appalling.

If 95% of the people on this board were running the O's, Boras would have gotten Wieters $25 million plus.

[ColumbiaOriole]

No really. Payton is a 4th OF, Gibbons is a bench guy. Huff may turn out to worth his contract if they now know him better and can get him on track earlier next year.

Mora with the right amount of rest is still productive and the regular 3b.

Baez is the 7th guy in the pen.

Is this serious? Sure, those guys are what you say they are but those aren't the roles the front office had envisioned for them. You don't give 2 years/$9 mil to a fourth outfielder. You don't give a bench player who never was that good to begin with a contract for over $20 million. Mora has played well this year but I don't think it makes sense to assume that he will keep it up over the next couple years seeing as how he's in his mid 30's. You don't pay $19 million for the seventh guy in the pen. This is an extremely poor allocation of funds and should've been used to get actual talent in here as opposed to these tired retreads whom many were against acquiring from day one.

[Sports Guy]

Come on, you can't expect to make a statement like "being a GM is an easy job" and not get called out for it. This isn't Strat-O-Matic. It's not as simple as saying "This trade would help us out, so let's do it."

You can call me out on it, that's fine.

But i just don't think they have a hard job.

These guys have a ton of people around them doing several jobs..They don't have to worry about finances and things like that(when i say finances, i am talking ticket sales and things like that)....They have guys to run the minor leagues, to scout and to draft.

Many managers and things like that in other corporations have to oversee all of this and do a lot themselves.

Look at MacPhail...he has 2 other Co-Gms...he has Smouse to handle legal stuff...Jordan, Stockstill and Norton handling the minors.

He has guys like Kousaris, J Angelos and others handling ticket sales and stuff like that.

They have marketing departments, community relations, customer service...All of that stuff...It goes on and on for these guys.

[ColumbiaOriole]

[quote name=wildcard;1033158

When did Bedard' date=' Roberts and Miggy become mediocrity. Anything that comes after that statement has no credibility.

Coming from someone who thinks we're a player or two away, I'm not going to let that bother me and I wasn't referring to those three. If you take a look at our roster, you will see it chock full of veteran mediocrity whom people like you favor over propects who might actually give us a chance of being successful in the future as opposed to treading this line of 70 wins or so. Those players are our only valuable commodities; most of our offense is veteran mediocrity whom you just inexplicably defended in another post. I'm saying rather than stick with players you've heard of, we might be better off going younger by trading what little value we have. My statement was in response to your contention that trading for young guys is a bad move since we don't know what we'll get from them as opposed to knowing what we'll get from our current roster. This is the same short-sighted approach that has plagued this franchise for the last decade. Of course, you just defended Gibbons, Payton, Baez, etc. so there is probably no reasoning with you.

[Baltimoron]

You can call me out on it, that's fine.

But i just don't think they have a hard job.

These guys have a ton of people around them doing several jobs..They don't have to worry about finances and things like that(when i say finances, i am talking ticket sales and things like that)....They have guys to run the minor leagues, to scout and to draft.

Many managers and things like that in other corporations have to oversee all of this and do a lot themselves.

Look at MacPhail...he has 2 other Co-Gms...he has Smouse to handle legal stuff...Jordan, Stockstill and Norton handling the minors.

He has guys like Kousaris, J Angelos and others handling ticket sales and stuff like that.

They have marketing departments, community relations, customer service...All of that stuff...It goes on and on for these guys.

Is this somehow different than most other executives charged with running a business with @150-200 million in annual revenue?

[Sports Guy]

Is this somehow different than most other executives charged with running a business with @150-200 million in annual revenue?

Probably not. I am sure all of those guys have the same things.

[wildcard]

Is this serious? Sure, those guys are what you say they are but those aren't the roles the front office had envisioned for them. You don't give 2 years/$9 mil to a fourth outfielder. You don't give a bench player who never was that good to begin with a contract for over $20 million. Mora has played well this year but I don't think it makes sense to assume that he will keep it up over the next couple years seeing as how he's in his mid 30's. You don't pay $19 million for the seventh guy in the pen. This is an extremely poor allocation of funds and should've been used to get actual talent in here as opposed to these tired retreads whom many were against acquiring from day one.

Tell me again how you get out of these contracts or utilize these player an better? Complaining about these guys does no good. Finding a solution to the situation the O's are in is what needs to be done.

Are these bad contracts. Sure. Now what?

[DrungoHazewood]

Take a look at the runs created difference if an 800 OPS outfielder replaced Payton's at bats this year.

Take a look at the runs created difference if an 725 OPS catcher replaced Bako's at bats this year.

Take a look at the runs allowed difference if a replacement level pitcher replaced Baez's innings this year.

Now, add those additional runs scored and subtract those additional runs saved from our RS/RA. Now, find our Pythagorean record. I'll bet it improves our record by less than 5 wins. Do you disagree?

If you agree, than you should see that these guys are not even close to being the root of the problem. None of them were good decisions by the FO. I agree with that. However, whether Bako or House was the back up catcher this year is akin to re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Those three guys aren't the only problem, but they are representative of the problem. They're players who seem to be signed because they were warm bodies that, if you squinted hard enough, filled holes the Orioles had. They don't seem to be part of any coherent plan, whether that plan might be to win now, or save money build for winning later.

Five wins isn't going to make this team contend, but 63-66 looks a heck of a lot better than 58-71. The Orioles seem to ignore the little things enough that it adds up to one big thing.

The biggest issues this year IMHO have been the complete inability for anyone not named Bradford and Walker to pitch even at a replacement level out of the pen (Baez is included in that group, but he has an equal share with 4-5 other guys including some of the "young" guys), the injuries to Loewen, Ray, and Penn, Perlozzo giving games away before he was fired, and the fact that EVERYONE in our line up except Roberts and Millar have performed below pre-season projections (Markakis is debatably below expectations though I think he has done fine).

Quite literally, if you'd swapped the Diamondbacks' pen with the Orioles', the O's record would be about 71-58.

[wildcard]

Coming from someone who thinks we're a player or two away, I'm not going to let that bother me and I wasn't referring to those three. If you take a look at our roster, you will see it chock full of veteran mediocrity whom people like you favor over propects who might actually give us a chance of being successful in the future as opposed to treading this line of 70 wins or so. Those players are our only valuable commodities; most of our offense is veteran mediocrity whom you just inexplicably defended in another post. I'm saying rather than stick with players you've heard of, we might be better off going younger by trading what little value we have. My statement was in response to your contention that trading for young guys is a bad move since we don't know what we'll get from them as opposed to knowing what we'll get from our current roster. This is the same short-sighted approach that has plagued this franchise for the last decade. Of course, you just defended Gibbons, Payton, Baez, etc. so there is probably no reasoning with you.

Sorry, that was not the way your post read. I agree with you and do not defend the bad contracts or players. The question is do you just pay off these guys? I can't see the O's doing that know matter what we feel they should do.

[Flosman]

The hardest part of a GMs job is the hours, stress and time away from family IMO.

No the hardest part of the Job is that it is in a zero sum environment with the results dependant on very rare highly perishable components. Your posts always neglect these facts. The truth is a GM can make all the right moves and the team still suck. In almost all jobs the outcome; 1) allows more mixed results 2) the competitions objective is not dependent on your failure.

I doubt the GMs actual work time is much greater than many in corporate settings, we all sacrifice family time in order to be successful. I would agree that many jobs are more important and the consequences have a vital real impact on peoples lives, but that is not the same as saying the job is more difficult.

In no way do i think the FO has done enough or even made enough good desicions when they did do things over the past 15 years. We are a poorly run team with real talent problems. That being said the FO needs to develop a real plan to turn the ship around. I think we are in pretty good shape in the pitching department going forward. The position players are the problem. How the FO fixes that is where the rubber meets the road. I could come up with a "add pieces" plan that I really think would work. However it would take a dramatic increase in the commitment of financial resources. That is a question that only ownership can answer. If the ownership is not willing to spend money in a big way for real impact guys then rebuilding is in order. The thing I fear is we will do it half a$$ trading a few, signing a few Payton Millar types and ending up were we are now +- 5-10 wins. That is the course that is totally unacceptable in my eyes. We are not missing role players we are missing impact stars IMO.

Before I get roasted for the comment about the pitching. I know the Pen has been beyond horrible. However I think real help is on the way. Many wonder why the O's don't do things like they used to, having young guys start thier careers in the Pen and gradually work into the rotation. Well one it was not as common a practice has some remember and 2 look at the rotations these guys were trying to break into. Back then we had 4 or 5 way above average starters. It was not a rotation that you threw a guy into so he could develop. You had to be pretty darn good to move a guy out. I see us getting to that point soon. Then the quality of arms moved out to the pen will dramatically increase. It is the one area Flanny deserves some credit.

[NewMarketSean]

I think the biggest difference between Vatech1994 and myself is that he is looking at results and I am looking at the approach.