This is "blow it up"

[RShack]

the sentiment from this board that the farm system has to improve is dead on, that spending on average over the hill players has to stop is dead on, and that the front office has been a joke is dead on so its not like everyone is totally wrong about things?

I don't disagree with any of that. But that list is nothing but simply enumerating things that need to be different. That's the easy part. Finding fault is the easy part. We can all find fault. We can all point out how somebody else has fallen short. How much talent does it take to say that you need a good farm system and that you shouldn't pay a ton for over-the-hill players? What is hard about that? Nothing. It's just noting the obvious... which is *way* different than concluding that there is an simple-and-easy prefab solution for making the franchise a consistent contender.

I'm not only a baseball guy, I'm also a car guy. I can tell you in considerable detail about all the things that are wrong with General Motors, and have been wrong with General Motors since the late 70's... just like I can tell you what's been wrong with the Orioles since the late 70's. Because I can tell you what's wrong with General Motors, does that mean that I should be Chairman of General Motors? I don't think so. Pointing out bone-headed moves is way different than saying I have an easy sure-fire plan that will fix General Motors. What some people here are doing is highly similar to claiming that they have an easy prefab solution for fixing General Motors.

The bad news is that turning the O's into a consistent contender is a hard problem. But on a more positive note, I am quite sure that fixing the Baltimore Orioles is an easier problem than fixing General Motors ;-)

[Dipper9]

I think we can all agree on one thing...the September roster and call-ups and guys that we want to see are Moore at 3rd, Reimold, House, Knott, Penn. The team that was on the field last night including Fahey, Bynum, Redman, BAKO , all at the same time, was ridiculous. Any of those four men would not be on the roster of a good team, and we have ALL FOUR of them! That is what is disgusting to me. If we're gonna rebuild, fine, do it right and bring in TALENTED young guys, not these same retreads year after year!

I am in favor at this point of blowing it up, but if it means we see a team that was fielded last night, then I say HELL NO to the blowup idea. I guess it all comes down to again how much we trust the Orioles to blow it up and rebuild the rigth way, versus the way they have done it in the past!

[DrungoHazewood]

If blow it up means trading Roberts, Bedard, Tejada and Hernandez and all the other veteran players that you can get rid of, what you are left with is a bunch of inexperienced guys playing in the majors.

That means a lot of one sided games for a long period. A year, may two years depending on who you get back in trade.

Are you ready for that? Is the fan base? We have had it for maybe three weeks and a lot of people are tuning out. Can the O's go into a total rebuilding and come back out as a successful franchise?

If you think the last three weeks is "blowing it up" you don't understand the phrase.

[DrungoHazewood]

I am in favor at this point of blowing it up, but if it means we see a team that was fielded last night, then I say HELL NO to the blowup idea. I guess it all comes down to again how much we trust the Orioles to blow it up and rebuild the rigth way, versus the way they have done it in the past!

What's the alternative? If you don't trust the Orioles to blow it up, what do you trust them to do? Assemble a 3rd consecutive kerosene bullpen? Plug some more holes with even bigger holes like Payton, Deivi, Batista, Bako, and Gibbons?

At least if they blow it up they might stumble upon some prospects by accident, and they might have some kind of plausible future success. If they piecemeal it again we're guaranteed to have another year (or maybe decade?) where 75 wins looks great.

[Dipper9]

What's the alternative? If you don't trust the Orioles to blow it up, what do you trust them to do? Assemble a 3rd consecutive kerosene bullpen? Plug some more holes with even bigger holes like Payton, Deivi, Batista, Bako, and Gibbons?

At least if they blow it up they might stumble upon some prospects by accident, and they might have some kind of plausible future success. If they piecemeal it again we're guaranteed to have another year (or maybe decade?) where 75 wins looks great.

Perhaps you misunderstood me, or I didn't make it clear. I am agreeing with you that a complete BLOWUP is needed. The alternative, ie the way we have done it for the past decade, is to sign medicore veterans and call that rebuilding. THAT is what I don't trust the O's to do. And I will NOT trust them until I see MacPhail do things differently than the other FO have done before him.

[Fan4Life]

While many posters on this board would prefer to watch a bunch of kids trying their hardest yet losing most of the time than the gang we have now basically doing the same, the general fan base will only support it IF there is either some mild success, or, a success story by a player or 2 having phenonminal years. Other than that, most of the general fans will continue to tune out until the progress shows up in the standings.

[Dr. FLK]

Am I imagining it or hasn't most of the kerosene in the bullpen been provided by the cheap minor league fill ins that should be able to perform almost as well as FA signings for a fraction of the cost? I mean the main problem this year in the BP hasn't been the conglomerated results of Baez, Walker, and Bradford (though Baez has been bad by himself) so much as terrible results from Parrish, Birkins, Hoey, Doyne, Burres, Shuey, Bell, etc...., right? I grant you that some of this later group was crap from the start but that isn't the point, is it? If not for the guys that were signed for the BP, the BP could have been historically bad (ok, more historically bad, lol).

But they assembled this horrible bullpen. I mean, no one knew they would be this bad. But, they signed 3 high-priced guys...1 of whom most people here didn't want. As a result, we came into this season with a steady closer, 2 nice additions, 1 very questionable addition, and a bunch of question marks in the pen. We knew Parrish wasn't any good...he's never been good. Did we really expect a retread like Bell to succeed? Hadn't we already seen what Birkins was capable of? This bullpen was very poorly assembled.

It's like the FO bought a new particle board dresser at Ikea. They started assembling it with some of the big pieces. But, they got bored in the middle, so they just slapped everything together all willy-nilly...putting some pieces in the wrong places and leaving some important ones out all together. Then, they act shocked when it falls apart after putting some weight on it.

[Dr. FLK]

While many posters on this board would prefer to watch a bunch of kids trying their hardest yet losing most of the time than the gang we have now basically doing the same, the general fan base will only support it IF there is either some mild success, or, a success story by a player or 2 having phenonminal years. Other than that, most of the general fans will continue to tune out until the progress shows up in the standings.

No one comes anyway. They are a joke. So, playing the young kids is the best way to eventually show progress. It needs to be done. The current path leads to nowhere.

[DrungoHazewood]

While many posters on this board would prefer to watch a bunch of kids trying their hardest yet losing most of the time than the gang we have now basically doing the same, the general fan base will only support it IF there is either some mild success, or, a success story by a player or 2 having phenonminal years. Other than that, most of the general fans will continue to tune out until the progress shows up in the standings.

So? How is that different from now?

[DrungoHazewood]

Am I imagining it or hasn't most of the kerosene in the bullpen been provided by the cheap minor league fill ins that should be able to perform almost as well as FA signings for a fraction of the cost?

Yep. And the fact they haven't performed reflects very badly on the Orioles' scouting, analysis, and management. Other teams get good performance from the same type of player. Almost every other team gets a few of these pitchers to give them useable performances. For years the O's have gotten the worst performances imaginable from these pitchers.

The organization isn't doing its job.

[geschinger]

When did the Braves ever blow it up? When did they trade all their good veteran players for young players? I will have to do some research on it, but I sure don't remember them trading good players in their prime like Roberts and Bedard.

When they traded Millwood is was to lower salaries.

These are good questions to look at though.

The Braves haven't had to blow it up as they've got a great minor league system to reload from. Blowing it up to get an infusion of young talen would help expedite the process. In the late 80s / early 90s they slowly replaced veterans w/young talent. Some talent was brought in through trades for veterans, i.e. acquisition of Smoltz and a lot were just letting the veterans walk and replacing them w/kids. Following the Braves model might mean slowly replacing veterans w/young talent over a number of years. We have more marketable pieces than they had and blowing it up could expedite the process. I just don't see how we get from where we are now to contention by trying to add to the existing core. I don't think it is possible.

[Ruzious]

Yep. And the fact they haven't performed reflects very badly on the Orioles' scouting, analysis, and management. Other teams get good performance from the same type of player. Almost every other team gets a few of these pitchers to give them useable performances. For years the O's have gotten the worst performances imaginable from these pitchers.

The organization isn't doing its job.

Doesn't that come down to coaching - more than anything else?

[RShack]

In the late 80s / early 90s they [the Braves] slowly replaced veterans w/young talent. Some talent was brought in through trades for veterans, i.e. acquisition of Smoltz and a lot were just letting the veterans walk and replacing them w/kids.

Wait a sec... let's review what really happened in ATL... Smoltz was a 1-time steal at the trading deadline... it may be the single best use of the trading deadline by anybody ever, but it happened 4 years before ATL became good... other than that, here's what happened:

Bobby Cox went from manager of TOR to GM of ATL... and he spent a handful of years focused on the farm system... for the most part, the man could not pull the trigger on a decent trade... he just couldn't do it... the team was bad, and the team stayed bad... Cox was good at feeding the farm system but not good at getting proper ML guys... in 1990, the team was in last place Yet Again, and there was nothing to make you feel hopeful...

In 1990, they gave the GM job to Schuerholz and limited Cox's duties to the dugout... Schuerholz made a small number of trades for the perfect non-star players, and the P staff came on like gangbusters... and they went from Worst to First... it was the combination of three non-stars who were 30+ (Pendleton, Bream, Leibrandt) and provided leadership, combined with the sudden success of young P's... that's what did it... if you look at their 90 and 91 rosters, there's a whole lot in common... and nothing about the starting lineup is scary in either year... what happened was that they got a GM who recognized which parts they needed, and he got them... this is something that Cox-as-GM could not do, and it's something that Flan/Duq have been unable to do... only time will tell if MacPhail can, I don't pretend to know.

[Sports Guy]

First of all, the idea is to buy and sell. I have never advocated the Marlins way of doing things...We have more resources than they do.

For me, i trade Tejada and BRob for sure.

I look to see what the market is for DCab and if we can get a very good young OFer for him, he is gone.

Now, it comes down to Bedard....If you trade those guys, does Bedard want to be here? If he does, offer him an extension that is better than any extension ever given to a pitcher 2 yars away from FA. If he turns that down, you trade him too.

But, it is also about buying...For example, a guy i would like to see us target is Jonny Gomes. So many of you are craving a 30-40 HR bat, well here is one and we could probably get him cheaply. Perhaps, if we took on Baldelli and his contract, we can also get Gomes back.

This is buying and selling.

This is us adding top young MAJOR LEAGUE READY prospects(or young guys already in the majors) and some young established hitters.

The ideais not to trot a 20 million dollar team out there.

So, use the Marlins idea of trading your expensive and/or close to FA talent to speed up the rebuilding process. But then, you follow the model of the Braves and build with the system, youth, keeping your own, knowing who to trade and when to trade them and then, sprinkle in a FA signing here and there.

["Clank"]

I'm all for trading anybody and everybody to get younger talent, but lets not lose site of the reality of the situation. The teams that built through the minor leagues to become winners in recent years - Atlanta, Detroit, Oakland, Minnesota, Marlins - did so primarily because they developed young pitching and supplimented it with a sprinkling of veteran FA signings. If Penn, Olson, Liz, Loewen (injury), DCab, Hoey, Doyne, Birkins, and Burres continue to pitch the way they have recently, it doesn't matter what we do because we're going to fail. These guys (along with Bedard, Guthrie, and Ray) are our main cogs for the future. If only Bedard, Guthrie, and Ray succeed and the rest of them fail spectacularly, we will be a poor team regardless of what we get for Roberts and Tejada.

If we're being honest, the FA signings this past offseason have actually worked out OK overall. Payton, Bako, and Baez haven't done well, but Millar, Huff, Bradford, and Walker have done well in much more extended action. Our biggest issue this year is that almost every single youngish player that we were counting on to take that next step and/or build on early success has either regressed at the ML level thus far or gotten hurt. Loewen, Penn, Olson, Liz, Cabrera = 5 starters not getting it done; Ray, Hoey, Doyne, Burres = 4 relievers

Now, I'm not saying that means we shouldn't be making trades because these guys aren't getting it done. We should. I'm just being honest about the state of things.

I have carefully read all the posts in this thread, and I think yours is the one I most agree with. My two cents-Rebuild, yes, but concentrate on talented young pitching, pitching, and more pitching. Then put the guys with the best gloves on the field. Trade Tejada, but to whoever has the best young pitchers, (at least two). Ditto Roberts. Bedard is here through the 2009 season, he's the Ace, so you have to keep him. Try like hell to sign him for four years right now. If he refuses, trade him at the deadline in '09 for a power hitter. My point is, IMO, stockpiling good young pitching and defensive players should be the foundation for a winning team.