The Diamond Dave Era Ends: 2007-2010

of course he can make a phone call. He can call any GM he wants and ask for permission to interview. And it would generally be granted.

He also has every right to interview someone while there’s someone in the job. He doesn’t do this because it’s classless, not because it’s tampering.

Brett Lawrie and Casey Kelly. And they were virtually all higher regarded than Hoes and Avery. Tim Beckham, the #1 pick, has a .680 OPS in A+ ball this year. Avery has a .698 and Hoes has a .808 at A+ ball. Avery was widely considered to be a very “raw” player since he picked up baseball later, so even being able to keep his head above water at A+ ball this year is a good sign.

Oliver Drake is one more notable name that went after round 20, he could be a solid BOR starter or bullpen arm, but for round 43 thats gold.

I dont care for college players after the first round in general, so Hudson, Miclat, Zagone, and Joseph all in a row disapointed me. Joseph could be solid but you just dont get the potential to have much of an impact after round one from college players (unless we are talking Arrieta or Berry who fell for injury reasons).

Bundy has disapointed me ($600k bonus), but he had an ACL injury so that takes two years to fully recover from. He was a first round talent before the injury he got from playing basketball.

Jesse Beal ($275k bonus) is looking solid in class A at age 19.

So yea, dont worry that they aren’t in Bowie yet, because only the elite prep players have made it that far.

I’ll have to check to be sure, but I think that over 50% of draftees never reach AA.

Look, Avery and Hoes are both among the youngest players in A+, so the idea that any of the preps taken in this class should be in AA is pretty silly. Meanwhile, to me, that looks like a pretty good class. Matusz is Matusz. Hoes looked great before coming down with this mysterious illness, Avery looks good and I still am high on him, Joseph continues to hit after starting the season cold, Beal and Zagone are tweener pitching prospects with Beal having some breakout potential, Welty and Bundy are both fringe prospects with Welty moving up and Bundy moving down.

Eight guys out of 17 signed, with only one overslot signing beyond Matusz? I’ll take that in a heartbeat.

I’m on the fence with Hobgood, i accept it since extra money was spent later in the draft (we actually spent more that year than any other year). I’ll let that play out before i evaluate it, but it sounds like you are too. Avery is still very much a toolsy player, hence the comparison to crawford that is often thrown out there. He’s a work in progress.

I would love to see some shrewd trades, but you have to have chips top play. Who is going to net a big return on this team? You could do a prospect for prospect trade, or trade markakis. I’d love a Garza trade, but really, they could afford the Delmon Young trade because they had Upton and Crawford playing well at the ML level. We dont have a position of strength like that.

He got ample returns for Bedard, Tejada, and Sherrill considering their value. Only Roberts really had value beyond that, and he wasn’t going to net very much.

He has poured more legit prospects onto this team than we had seen in a decade. Roberts, Bedard, Markakis and Mussina were the only real pick’s we saw contribute in past years. He has already given us more players considered to be top prospects by third parties than we had in many years combined. For this I applaud him and this is why I think he should 5 years before his job is questioned.

When he took the job, he was considered ‘cheap’. I took this with a grain of salt since it was Chicago people, but I’m keeping it in the back of my mind for when these players actually develop. The manager has never been more than a scapegoat in these situations, but thats just cause people aren’t patient.

AM has shown he doesn’t buy impact players in FA

Bullshit. He has said along he’d by them when the time is right. The time is not right when you’re in the middle of rebuilding, which the last two years have been. If Andy had overspent on the shit free agents avilable this past offseason, I’d be pissed.

Name an impact player that Baltimore should have acquired in the past two years and didn’t?

From what I can determine, unless you are the New York Yankees, or maybe the Mets, you don’t acquire impact position players. You either draft or grow them. Even Boston depends on developing it’s own talent.

If Markakis Jones and Wieters are not key pieces of a team, then the O’s might as well throw in the towel and admit to being a permenant cellar dweller in the mold of KC and Pittsburgh.

On the other hand, it also needed to be taken with a large grain of salt. What is a GM supposed to say publically? “Hey, guys, let’s not worry about wins. We haven’t given them to you for the last 12 years, so why start thinking about them now? Let’s just go with the flow and see what this season brings.”

There has to be at least some indication that the team intends to compete.

As for Holliday, not that I would have been against signing him, but as I recall that really wasn’t an option. He appeared pretty set on resigning with the Cards.