Worse case scenario for a failed "blow up"?

[tywright]

I'm leaning towards trading BRob. He's hit .250 since the AS Break and has not looked like the same player we saw in April-June

[RShack]

Thinking about it a little more, a blow-up of this team is going to happen one way or another. They don't have one contract that goes past 2010 and almost all of them end after 2009.... What matters is the direction this team makes. Will they keep signing guys in their 30's to multi-year contracts and keep running around in circles?

I don't think there's a chance in hell that AM does that. Whatever mistakes AM might make, I think they will be different kinds of mistakes ;-)

I think he will make a series of moves that are consistent with non-radical, proven strategies and tactics for building a winner. I just hope he's good enough to do it. Given the competitive nature of the business, it's not good enough that he be "decent" at his job. We need him to be way-better than just "good". We need him to be excellent.

I think the blow-up has to start this offseason. I would prefer that they do this all together, as long as the offers are right, so the talent acquired can grow and develop together. But I don't have a problem with a waiting a bit to deal some players, specifically Bedard and Roberts.

We'll see what he does. My expectation is that it will not be all-at-once. This is based on the following:

(1) It's hard enough to make a few very good moves per year; it's nearly impossible to make a whole bunch of them;

(2) He needs to balance near-term and long-term concerns, regardless of whether people on this board agree, and

(3) He has no reason to believe that a sudden, radical approach is the best way to proceed.

It sound to me like he's gonna focus on P-and-D, and maybe rearrange where we have bats. I don't expect a huge net-increase in big-name O this winter. But we'll see.

We can all debate about whether to blow it up or not, but this team is going to blow-up naturally by 2009.

Right. You could equally well call it a natural progression of things with a new guy in charge. I just hope he's very good at it. I assume he wants to be the 3rd-generation HOF baseball executive in his family. What he does while he's here will be a big event in making that happen or not. I hope he succeeds.

[utvolzac]

Many people agree on trading Tejada, Mora, Payton, Bradford, Walker and some of the others.

The difference lies with Bedard and BRob(for the most part).

This shouldn't have to be explained every time.

For me, when talking about "blowing it up", I'm talking about trading anyone most likely will not be part of a contending Orioles team. Like I said in my previous posts, I don't see the O's turning things around by 2009, when we run into contract issues.

We have way too many holes, way too many bad contracts that inflate the team payroll and not alot of help on the way through the farm system. Give those parameters + not much help in free agency and you have to determine how many of our current starters are going to be part of a LONG TERM future with the O's.

Tejada - Should have been traded last year. We had plenty of chances to build around Tejada, but we screwed it up. Now we're hitting weak free agent classes.

Mora - Has been a huge disappointment since signing his new contract. If we can somehow get him to waive his no trade clause, then I'd trade him mainly to get out of a bad contract.

Ramon - Looked seriously worn down after being played to death last season. He'll be 31 next season and at this point is really just holding down the fort till Wieters is ready. If someone wants to offer us something significant for him, we should take it. If not, keep him as a stop gap till Wieters.

Payton/Gibbons - Just need to be gone. Overpaid and underproducing. They can easily be replaced by young, cheaper players.

Huff/Millar - decent role players. Nothing special.

Baez/Bradford/Walker - Baez is a disaster, signing him was a huge mistake. If he doesn't turn things around early next season, they should just cut their loses. Bradford/Walker have been good to decent. Neither was worth losing a draft pick for, IMO, but they've been somewhat reliable. If someone really wants to overpay for them in a trade, so be it.

Bedard & BRob are really the only two veterans who I could see being long term contributors to the O's building towards contending. Everyone listed above is fairly expendable, in the right trade.

My definition of "blowing it up" is BRob & Bedard. Since I think they long term contributors to this franchise. Cabrera is the wildcard, I definitely float him out there to see what teams would offer, but only move him in a very good deal.

Keepers: Markakis, Loewen, Olson, Liz, Hoey, House, Moore, Penn, Ray.

Everyone else is fair game in the right deal. The goal for this off-season should be to determine who is part of the future of this franchise and who isn't. We cannot continue to have losing seasons, where the majority of our roster aren't long term solutions.

[utvolzac]

Fair enough. Ambiguity resolved.

Nevertheless, its going to a dreadful team and rival the 2003 Tigers, but that will get you a #1 pick.

Losing with young players with potential, who are at least getting on the job training is a much better option than what we've seen from this franchise over the last few seasons.

[CEB]

Losing with young players with potential, who are at least getting on the job training is a much better option than what we've seen from this franchise over the last few seasons.

The devil is in the details. If you trade Tejada and/or Roberts and get back four of five Ryan Minors, you have weakened the team in both the short and long run and not accomplished your goal.

Tejada, Roberts and Bedard are now largely established quantities. There is, for the most part, no question of their proper valuation. If they are traded, they leave significant and identifiable holes in the O's lineup that must be filled or suffer the consequences.

If the acquired prospects don't pan out or take longer than expected to develop, the club will experience several very bad years. If they are complete busts, you are worse off than when you began. That's the quandry.

[Sports Guy]

Tejada, Roberts and Bedard are now largely established quantities. There is, for the most part, no question of their proper valuation.

This is flat out inaccurate.

If they are traded, they leave significant and identifiable holes in the O's lineup that must be filled or suffer the consequences.

Thank you Capt Obvious....We know this. The idea is not that you replace them and get the same production but that you become more balanced, so that you can rely on 9 players instead of 4.

If the acquired prospects don't pan out or take longer than expected to develop, the club will experience several very bad years. If they are complete busts, you are worse off than when you began. That's the quandry

No you aren't...We are already pathetic....We would be younger, get high draft picks and build that way if worse comes to worse.

[now]

objectively gauge the state of the franchise, trade away any and all valuable pieces in return for the right package that'll help to move forward, while putting emphasis on undervalued players and market inefficiencies, refusing to sign stopgap players, religiously staying away from signing players because they just happen to be available that offseason and we have a hole there, steadfastly avoiding signing free agents that will sap the team of draft picks, and constantly looking to invigorate the whole organization's future by acquiring talented youth

key phrases:

trade for the future

look for market advantage

avoid stopgaps

prefer draft picks to free agents

...which could be further boiled down to...

go young, cheap, under the radar

...in other words...

BIU

[CEB]

This is flat out inaccurate.Thank you Capt Obvious....We know this. The idea is not that you replace them and get the same production but that you become more balanced, so that you can rely on 9 players instead of 4.

No you aren't...We are already pathetic....We would be younger, get high draft picks and build that way if worse comes to worse.

I think we have had this conversation two pages back.

But.... Perhaps you disagree, but I think that there are relative few who would disagree that Tejada, Roberts and now Bedard are established first-rate quality players. While there may be a question about the extent and permanency of Tejada's power drought, there are no real questions about whether they will bounce back from bad seasons or injuries, which generate widely different opinions about future performance. In contrast, that couldn't be said about Frank Thomas when he signed with the A's or even Jeremy Gurthrie this year. They were gambles. Do you really disagree? If so, why trade them?

Not every veteran will yield a blue-chip prospect and not every prospect will be major league ready, thus the team will experience growing pains. I think they will be severe. You do not.

If the prospects received in trade are all Ryan Minors and do not pan out, you've given away a lot of runs scored and have replacement-level players in their stead. You will be worse off. Swapping Tejada for Fahey at short is a lot different than trading Markakis for Delmon Young or Conor Jackson.

[Sports Guy]

But.... Perhaps you disagree, but I think that there are relative few who would disagree that Tejada, Roberts and now Bedard are established first-rate quality players

Yes they are but in the cases of BRob a and Tejada, for how much longer? And, on top of that, will they even be here after 2009 and if not, can we compete between now and then? The answers to all of those questions is likely no.

Not every veteran will yield a blue-chip prospect and not every prospect will be major league ready, thus the team will experience growing pains. I think they will be severe. You do not.

If you trade Bedard, BRob and Tejada, you will, in all likelihood, get back 5-6 players you can put on the major league roster on OD of next year and have another few players in the minors.

If the prospects received in trade are all Ryan Minors and do not pan out, you've given away a lot of runs scored and have replacement-level players in their stead. You will be worse off. Swapping Tejada for Fahey at short is a lot different than trading Markakis for Delmon Young or Conor Jackson.

You need a better example...He wasn't a good prospect.

[CEB]

Alas, this parrott is dead.

[NoVaO]

I don't think there's a chance in hell that AM does that. Whatever mistakes AM might make, I think they will be different kinds of mistakes ;-)

Yeah, I'm hopeful they are done making these kind of moves and it does sound like they won't be going down that route anymore.

I think he will make a series of moves that are consistent with non-radical, proven strategies and tactics for building a winner. I just hope he's good enough to do it. Given the competitive nature of the business, it's not good enough that he be "decent" at his job. We need him to be way-better than just "good". We need him to be excellent.

Hopefully he will be.

(1) It's hard enough to make a few very good moves per year; it's nearly impossible to make a whole bunch of them;

I don't think thats necessarily true. Bedard, Roberts, Cabrera, and Tejada will all have plenty of teams interested in them. Hint at the availability of guys like Bedard, generate interest, start a bidding war. Have a set price that teams must meet and once somebody hits that price, don't be afraid to pull the trigger.

It doesn't usually happen all in one offseason, but you can find many instances of a team beginning to trade their pieces in one offseason, and finishing the job at the trade deadline. That would be fine with me.

(2) He needs to balance near-term and long-term concerns, regardless of whether people on this board agree

I think most agree. The talent you can get for the big 4 will likely be players that haven't established themselves as very good MLB players yet but are big-league ready with the potential to develop into more than just solid everyday players. Guys like Milledge, Quentin, Laroche, etc. fall into this category.

(3) He has no reason to believe that a sudden, radical approach is the best way to proceed.

The approach is not sudden, nor radical. One constant from most on this board is that we have to get proper value back for whoever we give up. Nobody is trying to give anybody away.

Secondly, I'm sure if the FO had this strategy, it would be planned out. If they were a competent FO, everything would be laid out beforehand, with back-up plans in place if things didn't go exactly as they wanted them to.

I don't want to get into semantics of what the meaning of sudden or radical is, but when an FO executes a plan like this, they aren't doing it on a whim...everything is planned out ahead of time and then executed.

I would like things to happen pretty quickly (meaning one offseason or into next year's trade deadline) IF we get the proper talent in return. I would want the talent we acquire to grow and develop together. Thats just me though.

It sound to me like he's gonna focus on P-and-D, and maybe rearrange where we have bats. I don't expect a huge net-increase in big-name O this winter. But we'll see.

I think the rebuilding process starts this offseason. I'm not sure how far they will take it. Tejada I'm confident will be traded. I don't know about Cabrera. I doubt they will shop Roberts or Bedard around, but at some point they will have to do something with them. Each player's value will start to steadily drop after next year's trade deadline.

Right. You could equally well call it a natural progression of things with a new guy in charge. I just hope he's very good at it. I assume he wants to be the 3rd-generation HOF baseball executive in his family. What he does while he's here will be a big event in making that happen or not. I hope he succeeds.

He has his chance to put his stamp on this franchise. Thats why I am cautiously optimistic that he will trade anybody he can get proper value for and not worry about fan-backlash or admitting he was wrong for granting somebody a contract extension.

[Sports Guy]

I am bumping this thread from several months back.

I was going to start a thread like this but remembered that we already had this discussion.

I felt this was a good discussion(except for the rshack stuff) and that it was worth rehashing(hopefully you all feel the same way).

As I read through this thread, it seemed like a lot of people weren't in favor of trading our big 3 now practically everyone wants to.

I see VaTech saying he would give Bedard anything and now he doesn't want to extend him at all(not calling you out VaTech, just using that as an example that stuck out to me). Heck, i even mentioned extending Bedard if possible.

So, to get this discussion going again, what are your feelings on this now, 4 months later?

Have your feelings on this changed?

What do you see as worst case???

[clapdiddy]

I am bumping this thread from several months back.

I was going to start a thread like this but remembered that we already had this discussion.

I felt this was a good discussion(except for the rshack stuff) and that it was worth rehashing(hopefully you all feel the same way).

As I read through this thread, it seemed like a lot of people weren't in favor of trading our big 3 now practically everyone wants to.

I see VaTech saying he would give Bedard anything and now he doesn't want to extend him at all(not calling you out VaTech, just using that as an example that stuck out to me). Heck, i even mentioned extending Bedard if possible.

So, to get this discussion going again, what are your feelings on this now, 4 months later?

Have your feelings on this changed?

What do you see as worst case???

My theory? BLOW IT UP!

We've got nothing to lose. We will lose with Bedard and Roberts, and we will likely lose without them. We need to put young bodies on the field and in our farm system.

[utvolzac]

Not at all. Bottom line, we have to stop wasting seasons. This franchise has not had a long term plan in what seems like an eternity.

I'm personally in favor of blowing it up and starting fresh. It's a gamble, but even if all of the prospects that come back are busts, so what. We're terrible even with Bedard and Roberts.

If they want to extend Bedard & Roberts, fine. Then finish the job and actually do something to build around them. Break open Angelo's piggy bank and put a contending team on the field, I don't want to hear any excuses about not over paying for premium talent. If they want a quick fix, then be prepared to pay the big bucks.

I just want to see some long term direction for this franchise, rather than the constant mediocrity we've been suffering through these last few seasons.

[Hank Scorpio]

Phew, I'm glad I stayed out of this one.

I laughed my ass off reading it, though.