Roch clarifies AM's "O's will be judged more on wins and losses" comment

[osfan83]

Yeah, I saw your other post where you said we should aspire to be the Marlins. IMO, that idea is the worst thing to try for.

It's not like restoring a car where you get it right and than X-years or miles later you have to rebuild a lot of stuff. This is a people-thing, which means it's always a work in progress. Doing it right means that there's always just a couple things that need fixing, not a whole bunch of things. Doing it that way is how the O's were the best franchise in baseball for 35 years. Now, I know that the money is different, but there's no reason why it can't be done. There's nothing BOS and the MFY's can do to stop it. Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's impossible.

If everything breaks right with our young players, we will have a lot of guys looking for a big payday at the same time. They all won't go to the Yanks or Sox, but we can't give Wieters/Matusz/Tillman/Jones/Pie and Bergeson all big contracts at about the same time. If all hit or exceed talent expectations, we might have to pick 2 ofthe 6 to keep.

[Stotle]

I would think so. I don't know much about what was given in exchange for Hardy, and what the O's would have needed to trade in order to top it. What would have been an equivalent or slightly better package, in your view?

Tough to say. As LJ points out, Pie is an easy answer. But his offensive upside is so much higher than Gomez's, that I'm not sure they're really that close (though Gomez is one of the better defensive CFers in the game right now).

Sorry to duck the question -- I just don't know who MIL values at what, and that always stops me from confidently proposing deals. I guess, as LJ also pointed out, Guthrie is an interesting option. Maybe Bergesen or Hernandez? Like I said, I don't know what MIL values. Apparently Hernandez got a lot of "asks" at the winter meetings. I'd have moved him for the right to try and resurrect Hardy.

[RShack]

If everything breaks right with our young players, we will have a lot of guys looking for a big payday at the same time. They all won't go to the Yanks or Sox, but we can't give Wieters/Matusz/Tillman/Jones/Pie and Bergeson all big contracts at about the same time. If all hit or exceed talent expectations, we might have to pick 2 ofthe 6 to keep.

Well, that would be a great problem to have. Except I don't agree that we'd be able to keep only 2 of the 6. We might have to trade 2 of the 6. Maybe just 1 if the O's are good and most everybody wants to stay. But so what? If the pipeline is good, we'll have new guys, plus if we have to trade a couple guys who are really, really good, then we can trade them for a haul. If it's managed right, there is no downside to this, except for the sentimental part about wanting to keep everybody who got off the bus at OPACY.

[24fps]

It's not some hazy point in the future. He came right out and said that he needs to see how things work out this year before he can judge exactly what needs doing. There's nothing hazy about that. Just because he's not in the Right Now mode you want him to be, that doesn't mean he's being wishy-washy about it. To the contrary, he's been surprisingly clear about what he's up to. All you have to do is listen to the guy. He's bland and boring sounding, but that doesn't mean he's not telling the truth. He just has a different idea than you do about exactly when he's supposed to make important judgments.

The post you're quoting -

Originally Posted by 24fps

But things are always changing and there's always an opportunity to construct a rationale to wait a little longer when the picture might be more complete. We each have the ability to affect the outcome of things and some of us want AM to start embracing that idea now, not at some hazy point in the future.

- was originally in response to Lucky Jim and I deleted it when I saw it had become obsolete by his response to an earlier post. It finished with the following sentence: "Nobody's talking about recklessness here."

This is AM we're talking about after all, someone not likely to ever be accused of recklessness even by the most reluctant armchair GM. Conservative is fine by me as long as it's not moribund. Suggesting I'm in "Right Now mode" whatever that is clouds the issue more effectively than an Andy MacPhail press conference. The only thing clear is that things will be different in the future and are unpredictable by their nature.

Carpe Diem, Andy.

[RShack]

This is AM we're talking about after all, someone not likely to ever be accused of recklessness even by the most reluctant armchair GM. Conservative is fine by me as long as it's not moribund. Suggesting I'm in "Right Now mode" whatever that is clouds the issue more effectively than an Andy MacPhail press conference. The only thing clear is that things will be different in the future and are unpredictable by their nature.

I'm not trying to misrepresent anything you did or didn't say. Sorry if it seems that I did. What happens is that it's an ongoing topic, and I'm not good at remembering exactly who said what. When there's various folks chiming in, it's hard to keep up with the precise details of what each person said.

[24fps]

I'm not trying to misrepresent anything you did or didn't say. Sorry if it seems that I did. What happens is that it's an ongoing topic, and I'm not good at remembering exactly who said what. When there's various folks chiming in, it's hard to keep up with the precise details of what each person said.

Not to worry, and I didn't take it that way. I just took the opportunity to underscore that my point-of-view is (hopefully) more nuanced than can be captured in a three word tag.

An important detail when you're distinctly in the minority as I am on this issue.