Andy MacPhail addresses the fans, tells us nothing.
by Stacey on May 12, 2010 4:14 PM EDT
in News & Rumors
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PrintIt was announced yesterday via the Orioles official Twitter feed (and perhaps other outlets, although I only saw it there) that Andy MacPhail would be posting a video to the fans today on MLB.com.That video has been posted and it is 2 minutes, 45 seconds long. MLB.com doesn't allow us to embed their video, so take a few minutes to check it out at their site.
Are you back? Ok. I certainly didn't expect Andy MacPhail to reveal any grand plans or make any crazy unexpected announcements, but do you agree that it was a little underwhelming? I suppose he thought that it would be reassuring for us to hear that he knows the Orioles are doing poorly, sort of an "I got this" to the fans. Did any of us actually think he didn't know? He basically recited a few statistics and told us to keep the faith. Yeah....thanks Mr. MacPhail. That made me feel much better.
Andy MacPhail has, in the past, been very reassuring to me. That's the plain truth. Comments from him in the newspaper or on TV often make me feel better about what is happening with the Orioles. He's very thoughtful and intelligent and he has a soothing voice. And I think that because I want to believe in him so much, I need to believe that he is the right man for the job, I allow myself to be lulled by what he has to say.
Now, that doesn't mean that I don't believe in what Mr. MacPhail is doing. He might succeed, he might fail, but for now he has my trust because I don't believe we've seen enough results to determine the final outcome. But that doesn't mean I care to watch him on a video saying, "There, there. Everything will be ok," trying to trick me into feeling better with his even speaking tone and great uncle sweater vest. I trust that you're working things, Andy MacPhail. And I trust you'll tell me when something happens that I actually need to know.
Now, if Andy MacPhail absolutely believed that he needed to address the fans, maybe it could have gone more like this:
The play by the Baltimore Orioles this year has been wholly unacceptable and I apologize that so many of you have not only witnessed it on your television, but have also paid good money to see the team fail in person. It's very hard watching our young players struggle but if we didn't believe they had the talent worthy of building a team around, they wouldn't be here.
As for the other positions on the team, the ones not being manned by those we consider part of the future, please know that I am doing all I can to improve that. I can't ask you to have faith in the team as it is currently constructed; this team is not a contender. But I am asking you to have faith in me, faith that I want to see a winner as much as you do and that I will do what it takes to make this Orioles team just that.
On a related note, I'm very sorry about signing Garrett Atkins. It was clearly a mistake on my part and frankly I don't know what I was thinking. I had some bad mulberries the night before the signing and I'm fairly certain that I hallucinated that Garrett Atkins was actually Justin Morneau. Yes, I know that sounds crazy but have you ever been on a mulberry trip? It's no joke.
Would that have told us anything more than what his actual message did? Of course not. But it's a little bit better than telling us what the Orioles are doing with runners in scoring position. Anyone who cares about the Orioles enough to watch that video knows all the things that the Orioles have done on the field to suck. If you're going to try and make us feel better, you gotta make us believe you're gonig to fix it. And if you can't do that, just leave us alone.
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hahah
you should be the head of the Orioles PR department
Keep the faith?
Any of us that have kept it to this point, will keep it. Because we’re pathological Orioles fans and there’s just no treatment for what we’ve got. What was the point in asking the diseased remnant of us to do what we’re going to do anyway?
Has there ever been a cooler Oriole than Eddie Murray? I mean, just straight up cool. Like a bad, suave dude. You know what I'm sayin'. COOL. SC 7/24/08
But Stacey!
You’re not critical enough of the Orioles, and Camden Chat is just an Orioles shill!
Whatever, Forrestor (sp?)
"Real Orioles don't pout. Real Orioles don't gloat. Real Orioles just win."
Okay, I will definitely get labeled an "apologist" for saying this
But I didn’t think MacPhail’s video was a bad thing. I actually appreciated it. The guy’s a freakin’ baseball executive. He has no responsibility to get in front of a camera and tell fans how terrible his team is. That in itself is a step forward. I didn’t take it as “we’re not as bad as the numbers” as much as “yup, we’ve been pretty darn bad.”
This sort of thing wouldn’t have happened in the recent past. You wouldn’t have heard anybody from the front office use phrases like “terribly horrendous start” and “miserable.” I don’t think we can fairly expect the guy to grovel or say “whoops, I sure screwed up that Atkins signing.” To me, this sends a message that “yeah, we thought the team was going to be better, too, and they’re really stinking up the joint so far.” Keep in mind that this is the same organization that had Syd Thrift getting fooled on the radio by a caller who made up a fake prospect and got Thrift’s comments about the guy.
It wasn’t Earth shattering, to be sure, but I don’t think there’s a lot to beat up on him for.
That's a fair argument
In my opinion, the point is to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
We’ve been sold on all this rebuilding talk and MacPhail’s plan. The season before it’s all supposed to come together the Orioles are off to one of the worst starts in team history. After all these years of frustration I think even dedicated fans are ready to jump ship and say “same old Orioles.” Things are really bad right now.
So Andy MacPhail, the public face for this whole effort, has come out and essentially acknowledged “This sucks.” The head honchos at the Warehouse have long been criticized, often fairly so, for being aloof. This works to challenge that deeply ingrained perception among fans.
Fair enough
I guess to me it’s just that yeah I know this sucks and I know that MacPhail knows it also so…ok then. Back to work, dude. Make it not suck and then we’ll forget about the suckiness that is happening right now.
It does suck
The problem is that the Orioles don’t seem to be doing much about it.
I don’t mind him not announcing his changes, of course – why tell people that you’re suddenly going to spend a lot in Cuba and DR or that you plan on setting a spending record this draft? But at some point, the plan starts to look like “we counted on some of our young guys turning into stars, and they didn’t, so we’re fucked”. And that’s not really acceptable to me.
To be understood is to be a prostitute. ~ Fernando Pessoa
What would we necessarily see
if they were spending a lot more money in Cuba or the DR? It’s not like they publish when they send scouts there do they?
Rub some $100 bills on it, you sell-out. -duck
Are you tracking that against other teams?
What time of year does that usually happen?
Rub some $100 bills on it, you sell-out. -duck
Hey, can I have some of your purple berries?
Been six or seven weeks now (watching this team) haven’t been sick once.
Demoralized? Yeah.
Not much else Andy can say. Stay the course. Things will get better. We’re not working to our potential. Read that stuff in any canned pep talk. I still won’t be very surprised if MacPhail pushes the ejection button and lands in the MLB front office somewhere at the end of the year. I really do suspect that he’s anchored down by a ton of dead wood that accumulated during the previous years of Angelos-induced dysfunction. I’m not sure he can turn this club around. Every CEO/GM/whatever needs good people to execute.
ANDY
Shave his head give him a tamborine and drop him off at the airport!
ANDY
I think we can say that someone made him do this video. Watching the video he looks a little uncomfortable and i think a little pissed.
Who would make him do the video?
P.A.? Because there aren’t many other people in a position to be telling MacPhail what to do.
"things like locig and prrofreading are actually valued here" - zknower
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