You're the GM! Baltimore Orioles Edition

is expanding the scouting and player development sides of the org. Before I make trades (which I will to expand the farm), before I cut payroll, before anything else, I want the best in the business scouting everywhere. Other teams farm systems, latin america, etc. etc. etc.

I don’t think there is enough on the roster to build on as it currently stands. I think the pieces are there to get some nice pieces on the farm, given the right buyers at the trade deadline though.

I get why Baltimore, under MacPhail, signed guys like Vlad Guerrero (1 yr., $8MM), Derrek Lee (1 yr., $7.25MM), and Kevin Gregg (2 yr., $10MM). Get an old guy who had a down-year, hope they pick up their past mojo, and try to dump them at the deadline for some young talent that can be slotted in in the upper levels of the farm, which sorely needs it. It’s a way of trying to use the money to “sign” upper-level farm assets, rather than spending on draft picks in the lower reaches of the system.

Problem is, when these guys subsequently prove to be exceedingly mediocre, which is the most likely outcome, the “talent” that can be acquired for the upper levels of the farm isn’t that talented. Then the team turns around and trades a pair of young pitchers – one of whom, David Hernandez, is ridiculously talented – for Mark Reynolds, another aging bat who can’t defend and isn’t going to return similar talent a year or two from now (and certainly isn’t going to make the team a winner).

Long story short, this needs to end. Stop spending millions of dollars on the likes of Lee, Guerrero, Gregg, Mike Gonzalez, and Cesar Izturis and go after rebound candidates that don’t cost millions of dollars. If Tampa Bay can turn a minor-league deal into an everyday first baseman (Kotchman), why is Baltimore spending millions to not get an everyday-caliber first baseman?

Make moves like that Kotchman signing, picking up guys who once had promise but have thus far failed to live up to it, throwing various strands of spaghetti with various levels of cooked-ness at the wall and hoping one is ready. Even if these minor-league invite deals and small-money signings prove to be busts and the guys are atrocious, you cut bait with them after a couple months and let more minor-league replacement filler take their spots. The difference between those guys and the geriatric ward that Baltimore ran out there in 2011 isn’t significant for a team that’s going nowhere in the short run. You can get quality clubhouse presence types – which I would do with some of the young talent that has already surfaced on the club (i.e. Wieters, Britton, Matusz, Jones) needing some guidance – without paying $5MM per year for them.

In signing Guerrero, Lee, Gregg, Gonzalez, and Izturis, the O’s basically frittered away $38.75MM. Add J.J. Hardy – a move that actually worked until they extended him instead of flipping him – to the group, and that’s $44.6MM for six players who hypothetically returned a reliever who can’t throw strikes (Pedro Strop, for Gonzalez), a maybe-future-bench-bat (Aaron Baker, for Lee), one stud MiLB prospect from somewhere (for Hardy, had they traded him), and the privilege to win 69 games. Anybody who thinks they couldn’t have gotten more value for their nearly $40MM by spending it on a ton of late-round high-upside over-slot high school kids is out of their mind.

So, basically, stop trying to win a few extra games now. Stop signing expensive stop-gap players. Stop trading your own decent minor-league players for expensive veterans signed to long-term deals (Reynolds). Start spending on the draft. Lots. If that means you have to hire more scouts to go find kids worth spending six figures on, then do it. If that means that you have to sign a bunch of awful non-drafted amateurs to fill out your short-season rosters, then do it. I think a lot of teams fall under this trap that rebound veterans can be used as a quick-fix to a farm system by re-stocking the minors with higher-level prospects than the draft provides, so the money spent is going to better use, when really those rebound veterans, more often than not, return dramatically inferior prospects than the money used on them could fetch via the draft. It’ll take longer, but it gives Baltimore the best shot at actually competing with the rest of their AL East counterparts.

Seriously, long-time (and long-suffering) O’s fan here. I agree w a lot of what’s been said, but there are quite a few things I dont agree w, too. Not space enough here to go into detail, tho.

I dont know in great detail what I would do, but here are a few things:

- Vastly improve the scouting dept, and send scouts all over the globe. The O’s were late getting into the Japan market, finally signing Uehara about 3 years ago. I thought this would finally signal that the O’s would start regularly making serious plays for Japanese players, but it seems like they’ve done little since. This offseason may be the biggest influx of talent from Japan in MLB history, even if Darvish doesnt come over. I heard that the O’s are interested in Wada, which would be good, but since they need practically everything, there are lot of others that they also should be interested in (Nakajima, Aoki, Fujikawa, Iwakuma, Kawasaki, S Tateyama, Chen), provided they dont have to pay too much. Even if they dont sign many (or any), they need to at least show everyone that they are serious players in foreign markets.
- Around here, people are constantly reminiscing about the old glory days, and you constantly hear the phrase ‘pitching and defense’. I have to say that I’m getting sick and tired of hearing this, as if pitching and defense alone are sufficient to be successful. Those great teams of old had very good offenses, too; you cant win anything by ignoring a major aspect of a team. Anyway, I think this idea has contributed to a practice which has failed them time and time again for decades, namely picking pitchers w 1st-round picks, particularly HS pitchers. I’m sure that many here will disagree w me, but I would try to select hitters most of the time w my 1st selection. Of course, you should not pass up an elite pitching talent that’s clearly better than any hitter, if one is available, but this should be the exception rather than the rule. Now Bundy might turn out to be one of those exceptions, but I also said that when they drafted Loewen, who also was the #4 overall pick – you see how that one turned out. In retrospect, I wish they had picked Rendon instead; if his health wasnt enough of an issue to prevent the Nats from taking him at #6, he was plenty good enough to take at #4. I still think the Nats may have gotten the best player in the draft for the 2nd year in a row.
- Make better trades and other player acquisitions, and follow the Rays’ example in particular. I liked the job that MacPhail was doing up until the last year or so. The O’s have made several recent trades that they got practically nothing useful for. For this franchise, generally trades made for the main purpose of dumping salary are part of the problem. They got practically nothing for the trades of Huff, Uehara (I dont see C Davis as a very useful MLB player), Gonzalez, D Lee, and others; should have gotten a lot more. The Rays continue to have one of the best farm systems and one of the reasons why is their letting FAs walk and accumulating the compensation picks. The O’s need to do a lot more of this instead of resigning overrated veterans for the purpose of selling tickets, a strategy which isnt working very well anyway.
- Spend more on the draft, and in particular follow Boston’s lead on this. It’s not like they havent been spending much on the draft; they’re probably somewhere in the mid-range. But they need to take more chances w players that fall because of signability. Did they even make a play for Josh Bell? It’s looking now like Pittsburgh is doing a better job of turning things around than the O’s are, which there is absolutely NO excuse for.
- Hire some bright young statistically-oriented guys for the front office. Not an exclusively Moneyball crew, but a good mix of statheads and old-school guys that can work together. It seems like the O’s are way behind in this respect. I’m not completely sure but I’d be surprised if this wasnt the case.

I agree with a lot of what you said. on a side note I think a case can be made for the Nationals getting the best player three years in a row with Stras, Harper, and now Rendon….although Baltimore hasn’t had 1st overall picks, a string of top 5’s should show more absolutely.

Catcher is a good position to build around. If his knee gets too messed up, move him too 1st.

as well as comments around pitching development and foreign academies – I might spend this offseason acquiring some guys who are headed for type A (or even type B) free agency that won’t cost too much – similar to the Blue Jays acquiring Kelly Johnson.

Of course this would also depend on how much I trust our scouting…

First thing I would do:
The main priority is finding reliable starting pitching and better defense to help them out.
Short-term rule of thumb: don’t trade pieces unless you’re getting a B prospect or better as the Orioles don’t seem able to develop any lower level prospects into pieces.
Keep Guthrie until the trade deadline unless you’re getting multiple good pieces like the Bedard trade because removing him means the bullpen will be overextended and will likely result in several arms being rushed to the majors and bullpen arms exploding.
 Let Tillman and Arrieta battle it out for a starting position. See if either improve enough to be a decent starter. Otherwise shift them to the bullpen. With Matuaz, if he looks good in spring training let him pitch in the majors, otherwise put him in the minors. Possible send him back to A ball like Halladay and just get him used to getting batters out. Once he has his confidence back move him up through the minors until he seems ready to take out big leaguers. If he has to spend the entire year in the minors that’s better than paying for an arm that can’t go 5 innings.
Stop shelling big bucks for bullpen arms since the main reason the bullpen isn’t great is that the starters aren’t going far enough into the games.

Next is finding defensive stars, especially in the outfield to help the pitchers out. Hardy and Wieters are the only defensive standouts on the team. You want somebody in the outfield to help out an aging Markakis and an average Jones. Whether this is moving Jones to left and bringing in a rangy cf or just a rangy lf, either will help. 3B is a black hole. Consider some sort of platoon there. Or if Reimolds is the only lf make sure there is a defensive whiz at 3rd to pick up the grounders and let Reimolds grab what would be the doubles

Invest in the player development because it seems like most prospects do well up until AAA and then just collapse as prospects. Aside from Wieters, Britton, Markakis almost none of the prospects have panned out. Some of this may be bringing back former players as coaches, and inviting star players to camps a la the Rockies. Be like the Yankees and pay for player equipment. This will allow you to recruit minor league free agents who might be useful role players as well as allow prospects to focus on being good instead of repairing faulty equipment or injuring themselves because their cleats suck. This should also bring some goodwill to the Orioles as a whole.
Longterm this is the area that needs the most work

Invest in more scouting, especially experienced scouts. That longtime scout that was fired by the Angels? Pick him up! pay more than the market value for good scouts. This goes double for scouting other teams prospects as that has been weak recently.
Move into international signings, especially new unexplored frontiers. Australia is a good place to go for this.
Find some good statistical experts and hire them, at the very least as consultants.

Recruit hungry execs from teams like the Indians, Sox, Rays.

Glad to hear someone else say that ownership is part of the problem. As for your real question. I’m not sure. Good luck Dan Duquette. It’s going to be a long bumpy road

I would focus heavily on the draft and the international market. I would barely pay much attention to the FA, unless it is absolutely necessary. I wouldn’t even think about $100M FA. The foundation of a low-win team s the farm system. Those type of teams must build themselves up from the inside; from the farm system. Plus, top FA wants to go to a winning team anyway, so they don’t want to go to the O’s, and mediocre FA won’t bring success either.

Through the draft I would first select fast-rising college players to strengthen the top of the farm system and then strengthen the team in the short run, and then focus on prep players in the long run so that the team will be well prepared for success in the long run.

I would not be obsessed with the ‘win-now’ mode; instead of thinking of the success in the next 1-2 years, I would focus more on success 3-6 years down the line. A team like the O’s will not be successful in the short run no matter what they do. It’s all about the long run.

Focus on the draft and IFA. The O’s can moneywhip big names who fall in the draft, a la the Yankees.

Keep trying to get the top-tier FA’s…I know they have tried and failed in recent years, but Baltimore is a big enough market that they could afford a few big-big FA deals to the cream of the crop. Stop overpaying for crummy old vets and mid-rotation non-upgrades. I don’t see why I haven’t heard them connected to Prince, Albert, CJ etc. May be unlikely they actually sign a guy of that caliber, but better to try and fail there than to waste money on lesser guys.

I’d keep Hardy unless blown away by an offer. Machado is too far from the bigs to worry about a logjam at SS. Keep all the young arms and hope they improve. Matusz, Tillman, Britton etc. are too talented to be this bad forever.

Deal Markakis and Reynolds while they still have value, and test the market for Adam Jones. Re-sign Wieters long-term and make him the FOTF. Let Roberts play out the string, since he isn’t likely to fetch a major asset at this point…but might if he is healthy and productive again in 2012. I agree TIllman ought to be a reliever.

Spitballing trade ideas…legit chance these could be ridiculous but whatever, I’m not losing sleep over ‘em….
*Jones to Rangers for Martin, de los Santos
*Markakis to Red Sox for Reddick, Iglesias
*Reynolds to Giants for, I don’t know, Belt? It’s Sabean, you never know.
*Or maybe a mega-deal with the Braves, say, Markakis and Hardy for Minor, Lipka, Medlen, Salcedo? Seems rich for the Braves but not implausible.