Eaton and Atkins

[NewMarketSean]

Isn't that what AM did with Eaton took a chance??

If the Orioles picked up Eaton after some team dumped him because the O's had to desperately fill a rotation spot in June, I dont think people would be having a big problem with Eaton. That is what Oakland did with Thomas in '08.

The difference with Eaton is he targeted him before the Phils released him and signed him during the offseason when better options were available.

[eddie83]

If the Orioles picked up Eaton after some team dumped him because the O's had to desperately fill a rotation spot in June, I dont think people would be having a big problem with Eaton. That is what Oakland did with Thomas in '08.

The difference with Eaton is he targeted him before the Phils released him and signed him during the offseason when better options were available.

What options? You are assuming those options had any interest in coming here. All he was trying to do was buy time.

[sbauer]

Isn't that what AM did with Eaton took a chance??

There's a huge difference between Eaton and Frank Thomas. Frank Thomas was one of the best sluggers of his generation. Adam Eaton was one of the best pitchers to hit if you were one of the best sluggers of your generation. He was never really good. He didn't eat innings. Only twice in his career did he pitch 165 innings in a season. He never pitched 200 innings in season.

He was OK in SD for a for years, but got bashed around everywhere else, including a one year stint in the AL. I just don't know what AM was thinking.

[glorydays]

Swisher had 1 bad year...Nothing at all like Atkins.

I made post after post saying I felt AM should have gone after Swisher, especially since the WS were basically giving him away.

He would certainly look a lot better at first than Atkins.

None of Swishers peripheral battingh stats were that bad..except a very unlucky BABIP....which went along with a very good LD%..So, he was pretty unlucky in 2008.

My bad... they did trade for Swisher.

But, Swisher did go on a slide starting mid 2007 (went from a .913 OPS in the first half to a .778 in the second), to a .743 OPS in 2008. Not as steep as Atkins, but a slide that extended itself over a year. The White Sox obviously had enough concern that they were willing to get rid of him.

With that being said, I would have liked to have seen the O's take a chance on Swisher as well.

[eddie83]

There's a huge difference between Eaton and Frank Thomas. Frank Thomas was one of the best sluggers of his generation. Adam Eaton was one of the best pitchers to hit if you were one of the best sluggers of your generation. He was never really good. He didn't eat innings. Only twice in his career did he pitch 165 innings in a season. He never pitched 200 innings.

Frank Thomas signed with a team that had a chance to compete. The A's won 88 games the year before he signed there. Then he went to Toronto because they gave him crazy $.

Older players that have had a good career aren't looking at Baltimore to continue their legacy, MacPhail isn't competing on equal footing. I chuckled last year when people thought we should go after Pedro, like he would have any interest in coming here.

[sbauer]

Frank Thomas signed with a team that had a chance to compete. The A's won 88 games the year before he signed there. Then he went to Toronto because they gave him crazy $.

Older players that have had a good career aren't looking at Baltimore to continue their legacy, MacPhail isn't competing on equal footing. I chuckled last year when people thought we should go after Pedro, like he would have any interest in coming here.

Oh, I understand that. I was responding to the question asked. I didn't say that we should have gone after a former great.

With that said, I think Eaton was a pretty pathetic signing. I know we are a losing team, but an AAAA pitcher could have given us better results.

[tilgaham]

I feel like he is saying that we didn't expect much from either player. Just to hold place for our prospects that were coming up to replace them.

Sorry in taking so long to respond...but yes, that is exactly what I meant.

[tilgaham]

Eaton I agree.

$4.5M for Atkins is pretty significant money. We could have just gone with Luke Scott who we already had, or even Hughes or Aubrey who are probably better than Atkins, and then used that extra money to sign other guys, international FAs, or to have to spend in this year's draft.

If you are expecting a guy to be a pretty bad player, you can't give him a $4.5M deal. That's what MacPhail did with Atkins, he had little hope that Atkins would be a solid producer, but panicked in his need for corner infielders for the year and gave out a bad contract to a bad player in the hopes that he'd have a miraculous bounce back to how good he was 3 years ago.

Well, the way I look(ed) at it, Atkins was a relatively low risk, high reward type of signing. If we could re-work his swing, he had the possibility of a rebirth in Baltimore, which would have given us far more than 4.5 million a year. In the very worst case scenario (what is happening now), he would play subpar defense and hit around .250 with not much power. Would drawing from the depth of the OF and converting Reimold or Scott to 1B have been a smarter (and cheaper) decision? Probably. However, we have seen this year what injuries can do to the ballclub. Without Atkins, our current injury situation would have forced Andy to sign a scrub, or move up a subpar AAAA type player (debatable as to whether that is more than Atkins' level of talent at this point...) because the surge of Hughes could not be anticipated in the offseason...

Just my take.

[NewMarketSean]

What options? You are assuming those options had any interest in coming here. All he was trying to do was buy time.

Any damaged goods AAA pitcher who could have been had for a PTBNL. Chris Waters. Andy Mitchell. Anyone but Eaton.

The thing that makes me most confused about Eaton is AM targeting him ahead of time, and not just picking Eaton's name out of a hat.

If Eaton was our last choice, fine. But like Atkins, AM had his eyes on Eaton for a while, and that is just crazy.

[NewMarketSean]

Well, the way I look(ed) at it, Atkins was a relatively low risk, high reward type of signing.

You got it backwards. He was a low-reward, high-risk signing for $4.5 million. Always was.

You don't trend downwards for 4 years and then get benched in the best hitter's park for no reason. Not to mention his terrible road splits.

Garrett Atkins had large holes in his game even when he was good. He was terrible by the time he lost his job last year and he is even worse now.

Had they signed him to a MiL deal and made him a project, fine. But MacPhail paid him thinking he could be good enough to be our starting 1B for the next 2 years.