Actions Speak Louder than Words

[Dipper9]

Of course he did. :laughlol: I can hear the secretary buzzing in..."Mr. MacPhail your two o'clock is here."

Mr. Frank Shirley (aka Andy MacPhail): [picks up the phone receiver] Get me somebody. Anybody. And get me somebody while I'm waiting

[mcgraw238]

Great work Tony...I very much enjoyed the history of PA's involvement in deals and how said deals were evaluated by ownership. As stated by others, the early part of the piece was not necessarily fresh news but I think it is important to include as it sets the tone for how we got to where we are. And to think, you didn't mention how PA allegedly went out and signed Albert Belle without the knowledge of GM Frank Wren. Thanks again for spending the time writing this.

[Satyr3206]

It's almost worthy of 2 questions.

1) If you were the owner' date=' would you keep MacPhail and allow him to make every organizational change he wanted, including firing one of your favorites who is underperforming?

2) You aren't the owner, and the only change you can make to the organization is to replace MacPhail with someone else. Would you do that, and with whom? And consider, who would have more ability/authority to operate within PA's constraints than Andy does?[/quote']

Interesting questions. In response to #1, if I hired him and gave him full autonomy then firing underperforming employees is definitely within his job responsibilities. And it should be allowed if not openly encouraged. Nothing hurts morale in an Organization more than an employee that is kept around that can't do their job, won't do their job, or make it difficult for everyone else to do theirs.

As for #2 it would depend on the freedom given to either the existing GM or the new one. Not trying to be evasive but that is a genuine concern of mine. I don't think Angelos had it in him to be totally hands off when it comes to the baseball side of things. And that's the problem in a nutshell.

[TGO]

Tony, you said MacPhail's circle is small. Do you know if he has tried to reach out to people he used to work with, who he trusts? Say Tom Kelly and Terry Ryan? Obviously both retired, but neither is over the hill by any means. Ryan is 57 and Kelly is 60. I know both are still senior advisors with the Twins and they're probably treated pretty well, but waving some cash and a new challenge couldn't hurt. The worst they can do is say no.

Obviously he has pulled in a few people from the Cubs, and that's fine, but it's clearly not enough as we still don't have enough people he trusts for him to not micromanage. Not to mention, the whole Dickerson thing really peeves me. If he's so great and important to have for our youngest infield prospects, why send him to Norfolk? Hell, tell Dempsey to shut up and suit up.

[TGO]

Another question: any ideas who might have replaced David Stockstill for real had he successfully been fired? (or who would have replaced John if he had moved over to the development role)

[SoBo]

Thanks Tony. I'm glad that I can finally just wait until Angelos is gone until my Os can compete again. No more optimism that things will get better under his direction. Basically Angelos hired his perfect gm. Deliberate, cost conscious and not a big believer in spending on the scouting dept.

I sincerely hope that the talk of Cal taking a position with the organization is a sign that PA is about to exit ownership.

[El Gordo]

These have already all been answered in other pieces of late so I didn't feel the need to go into them once again.

Really? I must have missed them. I recall reading through threads discussing these issues but I never saw any answers.

My questions to AM would have been: Are MRI's commonly given to FA SP's? Did Gonzo and his agent balk at the MRI? Would an MRI have been predictive of his current injury? Why did you choose Atkins over Glaus? I haven't seen the answers to these questions. Perhaps you could point me to the articles/threads.

[Stotle]

AM is never going to "throw" himself into something completely new - he's going to slowly ramp things up. In a lot of our deficient areas, he's started that. He needs to follow through. We've seen signs, but we haven't seen enough. But those seeking a quick turnaround built on a lot of high-dollar outlays were bound to be disappointed.

BTW, I'll go on record as saying that I think he makes a valid point about the issue re: number of scouts and diminishing returns. If he's operating w/in a budge of some kind, it's perfectly reasonable to be skeptical of the quantity/quality correlation that some on here have latched onto.

I think Drungo and SG covered the big points, but there are a good number of very smart and capable young people who would gobble-up the opportunity to become a scout if the pay were even a little better than it is. I guess there is some validity to MacPhail's contention, but I'd like to think an organization looking to gain a competitive advantage would be exploring innovative ways to 1) draw the best scouts they can, and 2) maximize the number of players you get to see/video. BOS, TOR and TAM all do some pretty interesting things with regards to technology and info sharing (from equipment to scout sheets used for game notes). I'd love to see/hear BAL doing some innovative things as well...

[Lucky Jim]

I think Drungo and SG covered the big points, but there are a good number of very smart and capable young people who would gobble-up the opportunity to become a scout if the pay were even a little better than it is. I guess there is some validity to MacPhail's contention, but I'd like to think an organization looking to gain a competitive advantage would be exploring innovative ways to 1) draw the best scouts they can, and 2) maximize the number of players you get to see/video. BOS, TOR and TAM all do some pretty interesting things with regards to technology and info sharing (from equipment to scout sheets used for game notes). I'd love to see/hear BAL doing some innovative things as well...

I don't think anything here conflicts w/ or contradicts anything that I wrote.

[Stotle]

I don't think anything here conflicts w/ or contradicts anything that I wrote.

Well alrighty then.

[Lucky Jim]

Well alrighty then.

To quote you: *shrug*.

I said that he doesn't move quickly w/ big cash investments in new directions. I didn't say whether this was good or bad.

And I said that I agree with his skepticism about the correlation between enormous scouting departments and the quality of one's returns.

That doesn't mean he shouldn't be innovative, or even that we shouldn't have more scouts. It's just that holding "80 scouts" up as some goal/metric seems pretty unsubstantiated to me.

[Stotle]

To quote you: *shrug*.

I said that he doesn't move quickly w/ big cash investments in new directions. I didn't say whether this was good or bad.

And I said that I agree with his skepticism about the correlation between enormous scouting departments and the quality of one's returns.

That doesn't mean he shouldn't be innovative, or even that we shouldn't have more scouts. It's just that holding "80 scouts" up as some goal/metric seems pretty unsubstantiated to me.

*I don't think anything here conflicts w/ or contradicts anything that I wrote.*

[Jagwar]

20 pages in, and I'm finally getting around to opining on the story.

First, I thought the article was very detailed, well thought out, and well organized. Tony wanted to tell the whole story, and kudos to him.

One thing I noticed about my reaction to the story. If I consider any one of the issues in isolation, I am able to minimize any lasting concerns I have about the organization. However, Tony skillfully connected each and every issue, which revealed the sheer magnitude of the wretched state of the franchise.

[Bradysburns]

But it wasn't "news" when Nestor did it either. That is the point. Nesotr likes to pretend he is some sort of anti-establishment rebel when really he's just a shock-jock. Every knows that Angelos meddles and makes bad decisions; everyone knows that Al Davis is insane and the Fords need to sell the Lions.

The difference is Nestor chooses the most annoying, grating immature and unprofessional ways to say the things he does that makes people lash out at him. As for Davis, well he just got hired by 105.7 the Fan I mean according to Nestor aren't they just in the pocket of Angelos? So I guess they made up?

There's something to be said for credibility as a journalist, too. And IMO, Tony's credibility is probably above anyone else's in town as far as the Orioles are concerned - and especially so after this well-researched and surprisingly balanced expose. To see all these things in one magnum opus gave me a new perspective on the Orioles.

Unfortunately, it didn't leave me any more confident in their future prospects than before. I actually am less sure that the organization is functioning well, and the biggest problems don't seem to be the MLB moves (although some have been bad, like Atkins). The biggest problems are on the farm. And for a team that has espoused the all-importance of the farm system, that's about as bad as the news can get!

[Guest rochester]

Fabulous article Tony! - thank you. A lot of real journalism here...the PA issues have been well-documented - can only hope he has AM here to strengthen the bottom line for a sale... I am not huge on FA's unless they can really make a difference but the "no pitchers" thought process is really dumb and hypocritical - ummm... Gonzalez....