We Have The Right GM

[JTrea81]

No doubt the Yankees will go out and buy new, younger high-priced talent. Still, you have to realize that these guys are pretty rare.

2011-2012 has a scary good FA class coming up, and the Yankees and Red Sox both will have a ton of payroll room.

Felix Hernandez, Justin Verlander, Josh Johnson, Jose Reyes, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Prince Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez just to name a few. And you can bet at least 3 of those players will be wearing red socks or pinstripes.

[Stotle]

You do realize low 90's isn't going to cut it any more until baseball does something about the spending of those two AL East giants. Boston and New York have raised the bar to a whole new level and will keep it up there indefinitely.

Basically what you are saying is you'd have no problem with missing the playoffs year after year as long as the Orioles were a winning team.

My point was BAL, without big moves, needs to consistently be 83-87 in order to take advantage of opportunities to strike at a playoff spot. Your assumption that NYA and BOS are now perennial upper-90 win teams is (unsurprisingly) flawed. It assumes no improvement from TAM/BAL/TOR, which we all know is incorrect. The AL East is starting to distance itself as easily the best division in baseball and will likely be a fair amount ahead in three years, when BAL and TAM have their core established and TOR is taking advantage of organizational improvements. It could be that in some years upper-80s will actually come close to or win a division -- not because it's so bad (NL West) but because the division as a whole is so strong.

Just saying you're projection as to the future of the division is clearly biased by your agenda.

[Oriolesfan1988]

We won't be winning more games against the Yankees and Red Sox until the whole organization loses that defeatist attitude toward those two teams.

From the owner to the GM to the players, there's a major inferiority complex against both of those two teams.

And we can start to end that by actually trying to challenge them and not back down when we are competing against them being it for talent or in actual games. We've got to be willing to play with the "big boys" if we want to win.

There is no defeatist mentality here. The Yankees and Redsoxs simply just have more talent then we do. When you have more talent then the other teams more often then naught you are going to get beat by those teams that has more talent.

[Sports Guy]

My point was BAL, without big moves, needs to consistently be 83-87 in order to take advantage of opportunities to strike at a playoff spot. Your assumption that NYA and BOS are now perennial upper-90 win teams is (unsurprisingly) flawed. It assumes no improvement from TAM/BAL/TOR, which we all know is incorrect. The AL East is starting to distance itself as easily the best division in baseball and will likely be a fair amount ahead in three years, when BAL and TAM have their core established and TOR is taking advantage of organizational improvements. It could be that in some years upper-80s will actually come close to or win a division -- not because it's so bad (NL West) but because the division as a whole is so strong.

Just saying you're projection as to the future of the division is clearly biased by your agenda.

You really think Trea would do this?

[mweb]

This job shouldn't be in phases...Its quite simple...You obtain the talent you need when it is readily available.

Now, you do that within the framework of your budget, future, etc...Just because AGOn may be available, that doesn't mean you do something stupid.

But if you see a guy out there that you feel is a building block long term and you can obtain him for a reasonable cost, either in terms of money or players, then you do it.

The idea that you have to wait until you are on the verge of something is so poor and such a cop out.

You don't have to wait, but it makes more sense to wait. Not for guys like Escobar and Josh Johnson if they're available, or guys like Harden, Bedard, Nick Johnson,etc, but for guys guys who are going to cost a ton, and are going to decline throughout the contract or leave soon, it usually makes sense to wait.

Now if there was a guy that was a great fit in terms of him as a player and the contract that it would take, yeah, go for it. But I don't think Lackey, Holliday, or AGon fit that bill. If we aren't talking about them, I'm not sure who we are talking about passing up.

So it seems like we're mostly agreeing in your middle two sentences.

[RShack]

Boston and New York have raised the bar to a whole new level and will keep it up there indefinitely.

You're way too panicky. They're running hard to just stay where they are. As the O's get better, they're gonna win less, not more...

[mweb]

BTW, I think it's funny that the Yanks, in 2 of their 3 big moves, have gone after short-term options, something Trea seems adverse to, yet he's praising them left and right.

So again, long-term options everywhere is very overrated on here. Good and great teams constantly find guys who can give them very good production for 1-3 years. Sometimes those guys even become longer-term solutions.

[mweb]

You're way too panicky. They're running hard to just stay where they are. As the O's get better, they're gonna win less, not more...

Pretty much.

As always they will have their peaks and valleys, but will mostly be in the mid 90's or so in wins, with the Yanks typically being higher than the Sox, at least that's been the case in the past.

[JTrea81]

Back to the OP, you mention that we wouldn't be where we are if Flanagan and Duquette were still in charge, but you don't take into account what MacPhail inherited.

He inherited a team with Reimold, Erbe, Snyder, Bergesen and Johnson already in the system.

Wieters and Arrieta had already been drafted due to Duquette's relationship with Boras.

Jordan and the Stockstills were already in place.

His predecessors did all this, not MacPhail. And had that not been in place, MacPhail wouldn't have nearly as much to work with as he does now.

Imagine if DeMacio was still drafting...

[Frobby]

We won't be winning more games against the Yankees and Red Sox until the whole organization loses that defeatist attitude toward those two teams.

From the owner to the GM to the players, there's a major inferiority complex against both of those two teams.

And we can start to end that by actually trying to challenge them and not back down when we are competing against them being it for talent or in actual games. We've got to be willing to play with the "big boys" if we want to win.

I think you are grossly exaggerating this. We went 9-9 vs. the Yanks as recently as 2007. Our poor record of late has more to do with our lousy pitching than being intimidated. Did Tillman and Matusz look intimidated to you when they beat the Yanks last September?

[epic]

We won't be winning more games against the Yankees and Red Sox until the whole organization loses that defeatist attitude toward those two teams.

From the owner to the GM to the players, there's a major inferiority complex against both of those two teams.

And we can start to end that by actually trying to challenge them and not back down when we are competing against them being it for talent or in actual games. We've got to be willing to play with the "big boys" if we want to win.

What the hell are you talking about? If you think we've been losing to them because there's a "defeatist" attitude then I don't really know what to tell you. The O's players don't take the field against the Yankees and Sox and not give it their all I can tell you that 100%. If anything they really lay it all out there against the best teams.

No professional sports team take the field looking at the other team going "Wow, those guys are pretty big. They look pretty fast too. Looks like we're going to lose...I think I'm going to take it easy out there today there's no use in trying because I know we'll lose."

That's why the games aren't played on paper.

[byrdz]

How would this team,this system,and front office look if we kept Beattiegan or Duq and Flanny as the GMs? I say this because I believe we would be still the laughing stock of MLB. If AM has changed anything its that. I have spoken to several people that are involved with the game and say the Os are serious and doing it right with AM. So if that's the case then why are his own team fans not happy with what he has done?

I think you'll find that most rational fans are happy with AM.

[Satyr3206]

Just a insight into the validity of WAR. The highest batting WAR figure from last year was............................................................Ben Zobrist.

[Lucky Jim]

Just a insight into the validity of WAR. The highest batting WAR figure from last year was............................................................Ben Zobrist.

Just a little insight into the validity of your commentary on WAR: Zobrist was actually 9th.

Name	Team	Batting 	Fielding	Replacement	Positional	RAR	WAR	DollarsAlbert Pujols	Cards	72.1	1.3	23.3	-12.4	84.3	8.4	$38.0Joe Mauer	Twins	56.0	 	20.2	5.4	81.6	8.2	$36.8Prince Fielder	Brewers	55.4	0.6	24.0	-12.5	67.5	6.8	$30.4Adrian Gonzalez	Padres	48.9	3.8	22.7	-12.4	63.0	6.3	$28.4Ryan Braun	Brewers	46.0	-14.4	23.6	-7.3	47.8	4.8	$21.5Hanley Ramirez	Marlins	44.2	-0.3	21.7	7.0	72.6	7.3	$32.7Mark Teixeira	Yankees	43.8	-3.7	23.6	-12.2	51.4	5.1	$23.2Miguel Cabrera	Tigers	40.9	2.8	22.8	-12.5	54.0	5.4	$24.3Ben Zobrist	Rays	40.2	26.4	20.0	-1.1	85.5	8.6	$38.5Derrek Lee	Cubs	39.8	3.7	20.5	-10.9	53.1	5.3	$23.9

If you don't understand how positional adjustments work, then you probably shouldn't actually comment on the metric.

[OrioleFanatic2008]

We won't be winning more games against the Yankees and Red Sox until the whole organization loses that defeatist attitude toward those two teams.

From the owner to the GM to the players, there's a major inferiority complex against both of those two teams.

And we can start to end that by actually trying to challenge them and not back down when we are competing against them being it for talent or in actual games. We've got to be willing to play with the "big boys" if we want to win.

There's no defeatist attitude that I'm aware of. IIRC, there was a point in the season before last where we were pretty far ahead in the season series. Pretty sure we finished up about even but still--I don't think anyone is afraid of the Yanks or Sox.

Sure there's this us vs them attitude but I don't think that translates to an assumption of losing within the organization. I've been to too many Friday night, bitterly contested games against the yanks, where I just had a feeling that we were onto something special. Sure the crowd was littered with Jeter Jerseys (puke), but there was so much energy coming from our guys on the field as well as the fans in orange.

Maybe I've digressed into a different topic, but I've seen amongst many, players included, a belief that we can hang with these guys.