Do you trust AM

[mweb]

Funny how the people ripping Trea and/or asking him to respond to certain things haven't responded to Soprano's post.:scratchchinhmm:

[andrewrickli]

Funny how the people ripping Trea and/or asking him to respond to certain things haven't responded to Soprano's post.:scratchchinhmm:

All I know is I trust him until we can't trust him anymore. He has been true to us his entire time...let the plan fall into place and take effect on our club and organization.

[RShack]

I honestly don't know.

He certainly has done the job laying the foundation...Now, will he be willing to do things he doesn't like to do in order to get us to compete in this division?

I am not sure.

You're assuming he doesn't want to do them. Big assumption. He couldn't do it in MIN. He didn't do it while minding the store for the Tribune, but we don't know why. Maybe he didn't want to, maybe there were other factors. Regardless, that was then and there. No reason to think that his point of view is the same now. It's fair to say it involves taking a specific kind of action he didn't do before, but that's different than assuming he has some ingrained bias against it.

[RShack]

Funny how the people ripping Trea and/or asking him to respond to certain things haven't responded to Soprano's post.:scratchchinhmm:

Soprano thinks AM is a mediocre GM and he expects him to not succeed here. That has long been his position. It's been a topic of discussion before.

[HoodGuy007]

Funny how the people ripping Trea and/or asking him to respond to certain things haven't responded to Soprano's post.:scratchchinhmm:

If we can get to a .800 OPS we will be 3rd in OPS, pushing past the Rays and with an extra year of experience from Weiters, Jones, Reimold, and Pie I think that is reachable. We won't do that if we trade two of them. Meanwhile, if we shave .75 runs off our ERA, which we won't do if we trade some of our pitching for AGon or Fielder, we jump up to the 6th to 8th range for ERA, right in the range of the Sox and the Rays.

I'm pretty sure I talked about that already...

If we shave our ERA .75 runs, and get more consistent batting from three or four of our young guys (Jones, Pie, Weiters, Reimold) I believe we could be a contender. I know that is a lot to ask for, but I completely believe it is possible if we remove a 1/3 of a season with Gregg Zaun and his .730 OPS, a full season of Mora and his .639 OPS, and hope that the 1B and 3B can put up .725 OPS similar to Aubrey Huff.

IMO it all hinges on young pitching. If they can pitch to a 4.3 ERA I think we'll see the playoffs sooner than a lot of people expect us to.

[Orioles West]

That was a fairly fun thread to slug through.

Most of my AM doubts were taken care of last winter. Yes, we didn't get Tex, but I think we will be able to eventually spend that money better. The keys to me are to start to really build something. To have some key players to build around, a couple vets to help the younger players along and to constantly work to restock the minor league talent pool.

Signing Markakis and Roberts was a good thing in my mind last winter. The Bedard trade is still one of the better deals I've seen any GM make. I think we're still a year or two out from seeing more contributions from the players he has brought into the system and being competitive.

A good free agent pitcher signing or two, to help the younger guns, seems to be among his priorities this off-season.

I trust him.

Of course, as an avid fan, I'll borrow an old Reagan quote, "Trust. But verify."

-Don

[TonySoprano]

Soprano thinks AM is a mediocre GM and he expects him to not succeed here. That has long been his position. It's been a topic of discussion before.

I never said mediocre, but we have had that debate before here.

However, I think, mweb was referring to this post.

[baltimoreO's22]

Thats just BS. AM given a chance [by some of you ] will get this thing turned around. Were already getting close.

Right, we are getting very close to contention lol. Since AM has become GM the orioles have gotten progressively worse, while the yankees and redsox have gotten better.

[Sports Guy]

You're assuming he doesn't want to do them. Big assumption. He couldn't do it in MIN. He didn't do it while minding the store for the Tribune, but we don't know why. Maybe he didn't want to, maybe there were other factors. Regardless, that was then and there. No reason to think that his point of view is the same now. It's fair to say it involves taking a specific kind of action he didn't do before, but that's different than assuming he has some ingrained bias against it.

Beliefs are beliefs...Whether you have 100 million to spend or 40 million...When you have a belief about something, its hard to change that.

[DrungoHazewood]

I would say it was pitching. But good pitching is harder and harder to find in the expansion era, and teams are depending now more on their offenses to win games IMO.

This doesn't make any sense at all. No matter how good overall pitching is (and it's better than ever, by the way) teams still need exactly as much as they've ever needed.

The idea that expansion has somehow diluted pitching but nothing else is fundamentally flawed and logically absurd. It's one of those crazy things that's taken hold in the culture, and holds on despite that. Much like bigfoot or ghost stories.

Getting back on topic, I go back to what I've stated before about Andy's record. He has not built a consistent winner in twenty-four years and the challenge he faces now is harder than it was in his previous two places of employment. Boston and New York reload year after year. We might pull a Tampa Bay one year, but I don't think Andy, or anyone, can consistently break the stranglehold they have on the top two spots.

No, nobody can consistenly break the Sox/Yanks stranglehold on the East so long as they have a massive financial advantage. The O's and Andy MacPhail's goal is to create an organization that can sustain an 85-90 true talent major league team, which by luck and bunching of career years will get to the playoffs one year in three or four. That's where the bar is set. Not at some ridiculous level of 100 wins a year and consistently crushing the Yanks and Sox. That's basically asking MacPhail to be one of the best GMs ever and the O's organization to consistently be not just the best in the majors, but the best by miles and miles.

[NewMarketSean]

I trust him to get the Orioles to .500 in the AL East which would probably mean a shot at the playoffs in another division.

[Wind Rider]

I'm pretty sure I talked about that already...

If we shave our ERA .75 runs, and get more consistent batting from three or four of our young guys (Jones, Pie, Weiters, Reimold) I believe we could be a contender. I know that is a lot to ask for, but I completely believe it is possible if we remove a 1/3 of a season with Gregg Zaun and his .730 OPS, a full season of Mora and his .639 OPS, and hope that the 1B and 3B can put up .725 OPS similar to Aubrey Huff.

IMO it all hinges on young pitching. If they can pitch to a 4.3 ERA I think we'll see the playoffs sooner than a lot of people expect us to.

An ERA of 4.3 and an OPS of .8 gets you 93 wins. Competitive but not in the playoffs. Its going to take some work to get our OPS to .8 too.

[waroriole]

An ERA of 4.3 and an OPS of .8 gets you 93 wins. Competitive but not in the playoffs. Its going to take some work to get our OPS to .8 too.

How many 93 win teams haven't made the playoffs since the WC.

[Wind Rider]

This doesn't make any sense at all. No matter how good overall pitching is (and it's better than ever, by the way) teams still need exactly as much as they've ever needed.

The idea that expansion has somehow diluted pitching but nothing else is fundamentally flawed and logically absurd. It's one of those crazy things that's taken hold in the culture, and holds on despite that. Much like bigfoot or ghost stories.

No, nobody can consistenly break the Sox/Yanks stranglehold on the East so long as they have a massive financial advantage. The O's and Andy MacPhail's goal is to create an organization that can sustain an 85-90 true talent major league team, which by luck and bunching of career years will get to the playoffs one year in three or four. That's where the bar is set. Not at some ridiculous level of 100 wins a year and consistently crushing the Yanks and Sox. That's basically asking MacPhail to be one of the best GMs ever and the O's organization to consistently be not just the best in the majors, but the best by miles and miles.

We can sustain a payroll of 120 million which would make us competitive with the SOX and put us in 95 win territory. MacPhail doesn't need to be one of the best GMs ever, Angelos just needs to spend the money.

[Wind Rider]

How many 93 win teams haven't made the playoffs since the WC.

I don't know the answer. I'm laboring under the assumption you need 95-96 wins to get in, if you're in the east.