Do you trust AM

[weams]

I really wonder if people on here understand the difference between spending money for the sake of spending it vs spending money wisely.

We are Americans...of course not.

[DrungoHazewood]

That presumes there wouldn't be additional revenues from ticket sales and such as a result of adding those players. From 1998-2003 attendance steadily dropped. In the 2003 offseason, the O's made a splash in the free agent market with Tejada, Lopez as the bigger names. The town was interested because the Orioles weren't adding the usual suspects. Attendance went up in 2004. The Orioles fiddled around in the 2004 offseason and added Sosa very late in the game. Losing continued and the attendance went back on the downhill slide.

And as I mentioned before, the 2004 attendance gains were maybe enough to pay for one $15M signing for one year. Trea was suggesting adding $50M+ in one offseason, to move the team from 64 wins to 75 or so.

[TonySoprano]

And as I mentioned before, the 2004 attendance gains were maybe enough to pay for one $15M signing for one year. Trea was suggesting adding $50M+ in one offseason, to move the team from 64 wins to 75 or so.

If I read your last quote correctly, you took a $27 m surplus and subtracted $50 m to get to a $20 m loss. Nowhere in those numbers do you factor in, it appears, the $15 m WAG. The $15 m in 2004 would've been more like $18- $20 million in 2009 with the threesome you listed. Be that as it may, whatever number someone wants to throw out there, the Orioles would have been closer to breakeven +/- than your numbers suggest.