AM lied when he said this season was about winning

[BrunoCherrytown]

I disagree with this. The roster isn't a disaster, at least not as it was on Opening Day.

1B is the only spot - among fielded positions, bench, rotation, and bullpen - that was woefully worse than average heading into the season.

A bench of Wigginton, Reimold/Scott, Lugo/Andino, and Tatum isn't that bad. A defensive alignment of Wieters, Atkins, Roberts, Tejada, Iztris, Pie, Jones, and Markakis isn't bad at all. A rotation of Millwood, Guthrie, Matusz, Bergesen, and Hernandez with Arrieta and Tillman knocking on the door at AAA is fine. A bullpen with Gonzalez, Johnson, Ohman, and Hendrickson with Koji and Kam on their way is even decent, although probably the weak link heading into the season.

When injuries take away 3-4 guys and a huge case of the sucks hits half of the guys you have left, your roster is going to look a whole lot less talented than it really is.

I don't blame MacPhail for Roberts, Gonzalez, and Pie getting hurt. I don't blame MacPhail for Reimold, Scott, and Jones getting off to terrible starts. I don't blame him for Bergesen forgetting how to throw pitches until he got sent down. I don't blame him for Izturis being far worse than normal. I don't

blame him for Markakis and Wieters not quite producing how we'd like them.

I blame him for his one terrible move this offseason, which was signing Atkins. That was an atrocious move that has probably cost us 1.5 - 2 wins so far. Other than that, most of the bad news is really out of his hands. I was pretty pleased with the roster as constructed on Opening Day.

I understand your sentiment and why many have it. And in many ways i agree with you. But I politely disagree with it in others.

1.) Don't we want at least one "exceptional" offseason from our GM instead of "not terrible" or "adequate" ones filled with nothing but stop gaps. When has anyone got ahead in this game with "adequate" improvements.

And when you pile Gonzalez, Tejada, and Atkins in together as an offseason - adequate is the best-case outcome for an offseason. And we didn't end up with that unfortunately.

Injuries happen to all teams and we unfortunately got hit by 3 pretty critical ones this year.

2.) Can't we blame the GM for relying on only using 2 methods to build a team - ala a couple o' great trades (admittedly) and some overslot drafting? This is easily the 2 cheapest ways to do it.

I think we all thought we'd see progress from most of our prospects, but to make that the only centerpiece of actual team progress may have been shortsighted.

3.) Can't we openly blame MacPhail for being too conservative? And that "over conservative" in many instances can be just as bad as being "too risky."

So we could say we were "over conservative" and the Mariners were "too risky" - and we are having equal results.

But with Cliff Lee and King Felix and an aggressive GM, I wouldn't put a turn around past them or a complete fire sale of everybody minus Hernandez.

Either way the GM will react quick whereas ours will plod along and let all that percolating transpire. Percolating generally happens to align nicely with cheap too.

Maybe if MacPhail at least attempted to find that middle ground between "tail between his legs conservative" and "all out roulette risk taking," our team would be better.

But he's never found that middle ground in his entire career. So why expect it to happen now?

4.) Why can't we blame him for not evolving to today's game? Big money, Big Drafting, Trades For Now, Trades For Future, International. We know he's got Big Drafting and Trades for Future - but he has to adapt to the other parts. I personally am concerned that he can't or won't.

When I look at all these points I weigh them just as much as I weigh his "Plan."

And his "Plan" doesn't seem to include these parts. It's just draft a bunch of arms...hopefully existing prospects pan out and make some budget additions.

That's all I've seen. I don't count low offers for top free agents as effort, I count end results.

So whatever MacPhail meant by "wins counting more" - I think it was either somewhat misleading, overly hopeful, or just a bit delusional.

But I can absolutely see where Fans are more bought into the logic than I am. And maybe i'm just overly negative from too many years of the O's sucking.

Maybe people who think like I do are suffering from that "forest through the trees" mentality. I openly admit that may be the case. I'm not a GM and I don't play one on TV either. I just want results not hypothetical future ones, but actual ones.

[JTrea81]

I believe the assumption is that MacPhail should have had another good major league second baseman signed the minute there was a hint that Roberts might be hurt.

Bingo! And the bonus being that player could slide over to SS when Roberts came back.

[JTrea81]

Again, if the O's trade multiple young players for expensive veteran talent and have to pay market rates for their salaries we can just give up and go home now.

Why? It's not like we won't stop drafting players and the Orioles can easily afford Cabrera's salary. And the guy is only 27. He's one of the best players in baseball.

If guys like (Tillman plus Britton) and the cash necessary to pay a Cabrera don't net the O's 6-7 wins a year they're toast.

We're toast now anyway if we don't get a player like him.

[Lucky Jim]

Tell us how you interpret his UZR. Last we chatted about it, you thought that 70 games was an adequate sample size. I trust you've read up on it since?

JTrea may have me on ignore. Would someone ask him for his interpretation of the UZR numbers, please?

[DocJJ]

"this season is about whining..."...

[TonySoprano]

"this season is about whining..."...

That's because the offseason wasn't about....

wining and dining:D

[JTrea81]

Are you going to show us were he was available? Also, what we would have to give up, and whether it would be worth it for an alcoholic who wouldn't be a sure thing to give you any production?

It was a risk, but the guy went to rehab and is doing fine now. And as for your availablity question:

Miguel Cabrera, 1B, Tigers — After the problems with alcohol at the end of last season, the young slugger has done a lot to improve his image. He’s having a great season, entering last night’s game with 21 RBIs to lead the American League, and all four of his homers had put the Tigers ahead. He’s also growing into a leadership role. The Tigers entertained trade proposals for him, but they wanted the farm in return (with good reason). What a monster this guy would be at Fenway.

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2010/04/25/sox_must_hope_that_the_problem_isnt_catching/?page=4

The Orioles "farm" would have been worth what Cabrera would have given us.

[Sports Guy]

Again, if the O's trade multiple young players for expensive veteran talent and have to pay market rates for their salaries we can just give up and go home now.

If guys like (Tillman plus Britton) and the cash necessary to pay a Cabrera don't net the O's 6-7 wins a year they're toast.

This isn't true at all.

The overall message of needing our core to produce or we won't win is correct.

However, who is to say that we can't replace Tillman and Britton relatively quickly and put their replacements with MCab?

Saying that we need those 2 pitchers specifically to win is just flat out wrong.

The Orioles have plenty of players they can trade from...Now, they can't trade all of them but they can trade a few of them for a real bat, especially one that is a bargain like MCab.

That being said, I am not sure he was really available and I am not sure a trade for him would have made sense for us because they would have wanted more than the moon and we probably would have been competing with Boston to get it.

[Boy Howdy]

Having the brand new closer (who apparently wasn't physically sound) blow Opening Day and the home opener sent this relatively young team into a snowballing free fall for the first three weeks that they'll be digging out of the rest of the year.

Add in the fact that 2009 Most Valuable Oriole, Brian Roberts, has been able to contribute next to nothing, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Personally, I think the offensive struggles come from guys pressing and trying to do too much rather than not caring, but an unfortunate side effect of losing baseball is often more selfish performances overall.

How much of this is MacPhail's fault? Oh, he's got to take the heat for some of it, I suppose, but the 10-11 record since the hideous start tells me this flawed, troubled team really isn't as bad as their record says they are.

I remain pleased with MacPhail, though I would've severed ties with Trembley at the end of 2009.

[Lucky Jim]

Personally, I think the offensive struggles come from guys pressing and trying to do too much rather than not caring, but an unfortunate side effect of losing baseball is often more selfish performances overall.

I know I beat the empiricism drum like I'm marching toward war, but - even w/o any numbers to back this up - I think there's merit to this.

The only reason I wouldn't be upset w/ a firing right now is because it may take some kind of paradigm shift to snap these guys out of this.

[JTrea81]

Add in the fact that 2009 Most Valuable Oriole, Brian Roberts, has been able to contribute next to nothing, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Roberts is not the problem. He is worth around 3.0 WAR at his best and that's over a full season, so we've probably lost about .6-.7 WAR from him thus far. And with a bad back, who knows how well he would have performed?

[Lucky Jim]

Roberts is not the problem. He is worth around 3.0 WAR at his best and that's over a full season. And with a bad back, who knows how well he would have performed?

He didn't say Roberts was "the problem," he said "add into the fact," i.e., the loss of Roberts is part of the problem. And even a diminished performance from him would be part of the problem.

[waroriole]

It was a risk, but the guy went to rehab and is doing fine now. And as for your availablity question:

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2010/04/25/sox_must_hope_that_the_problem_isnt_catching/?page=4

The Orioles "farm" would have been worth what Cabrera would have given us.

This just shows that you're not interested in having a logical conversation. You're only interested in beating the same drum.

Also, do you have an answer for Lucky Jim as to the small sample size of Aviles' UZR?

[H0smash]

Roberts is not the problem. He is worth around 3.0 WAR at his best and that's over a full season, so we've probably lost about .6-.7 WAR from him thus far. And with a bad back, who knows how well he would have performed?

This is the reason I'm not crazy about the WAR statistic. Without Roberts (and Pie) we have not had a legitimate leadoff man, and I think that that has resulted in a chain reaction of other players (i.e. Markakis, Jones, Reimold) putting more pressure on themselves to perform. Add that to the fact that the defense at 2B has not been close to as good as what Roberts can do and I would say you can't put a firm number on how many wins losing Roberts has cost us. He's not the whole problem, but he might be a big part of it.

[waroriole]

This is the reason I'm not crazy about the WAR statistic. Without Roberts (and Pie) we have not had a legitimate leadoff man, and I think that that has resulted in a chain reaction of other players (i.e. Markakis, Jones, Reimold) putting more pressure on themselves to perform. Add that to the fact that the defense at 2B has not been close to as good as what Roberts can do and I would say you can't put a firm number on how many wins losing Roberts has cost us. He's not the whole problem, but he might be a big part of it.

Defense is factored into WAR. Other than that, I think you have a good point.