Losing faith in Andy MacPhail

Adam Jones came to the O’s under Andy. That was a big winner. I also think, you’ve got to take chances on guys that are percieved as washed up (like Billy Beane would). My problem with Andy is that he’s overpaid for crummy relievers. That’s not growing the arms.

20th century GM (everybody drink).

Mark Reynolds has historically been a high strike-out, high-power hitter. He brought one of those characteristics to the Orioles.

He’s certainly brought the power to the Orioles and if anything he’s cut down slightly on his Ks.

what “proven baseball analytics” do you have in mind, given that you mention that one sentence after using average, HR, and RBI to declare Vlad the most successful FA acquisition of the past off season?

Factual inaccuracies aside, the real issue is MacPhail and Angelos are in a self-defeating quest to just get 81 wins.

MacPhail came in and made some necessary trades, specifically Bedard and Tejada. He’s inherited a few guys and procured a few decent players via the draft. He also changed some presonnel in the minors. Now they are in a holding pattern.

Last off season was a let down, at least to me, as they clearly made just reaching 81 wins a priority. MacPhail turned into the same ineffective GM that we saw with Flanagan, Beattie, and Duquette in the sense that he figured a few aged free agents would get them to the .500 ball plateau. The hope this time was there was a better young pitching core that the washed up guys could compliment. It’s been a waste. At the same time he’s retreated from the international scene with some uninspiring quotes about it being too tricky to deal with the DR middle men.

Don’t discount Angelos’ role in all this. You have to believe that the pressure to get to .500 ball ASAP is coming from him. He may also be against international investing. We don’t know the details, but he is exerting some kind of pressure.

The net result is a franchise that looks like it is just meandering and reverting back to the pre-MacPhail days of relying on mediocre to bad free agents in a desperate attempt to just win 81 games. The odds are not good they’ll hit 81 wins this year. If MacPhail sits on his hands this year and especially if he replicates this past off season, then he’ll have become just as useless as the past GMs.

Andy MacPhail trade Aubrey Huff to the Giants for Brett Jacobson, and then turned Jacobson and Jim Hoey into J.J. Hardy, the current best player on the team.

Vladimir Guerrero has somehow proven to be the best acquisition this year

JJ Hardy has been a significantly better acquisition than Vlad. Mark Reynolds has even been better and both of those guys are much younger.

Exactly which big FA’s has MacPhail missed on?

I don’t recall any big name hitters in or close to their prime who seriously considered Baltimore. And is it his fault that Roberts, Markakis and to a lesser extent Luke Scott are either injured or playing poorly? Maybe it is fair to critize him for resigning Roberts, particularly if you view it in isolation. But the team was expecting to have a core of Jones, Weiters, Markakis, Roberts, with either Scott or Reimold added to the mix. With those guys playing to expectations, getting decent performances out of just 2 of the 4 guys added last off-season would result in at least a competative team. Arguably Baltimore is getting this from 3 of the 4 guys. It is the core group that is not playing up to expectations.

The only “failed” moves I see are the Gonzales and Gregg signings. But even this begs the question – who would you have signed or plugged in as relievers?

Andy MacPhail deserves to be fired because:
- he has not put in pace a long term strategy that an win. If he were more interested in this, he would be providing as much talented depth as possible. Instead of this, he has chosen the bandaid approach of signing craptastic relievers like his predecessors have done.
- he has not done enough abroad, and specifically in Latin America and East Asian countries.
- he has not explored, nevermind exploited, market inefficiencies.

If the goal was to some day get to 85 wins, I think MacPhail would be great.

for Scott, Albers, Sarfate, Troy Patton, and Mike Costanzo was another decent trade. After this trade, Tejada revealed that he was two years older than he had previously reported. I’d say most people percieved this as a better deal for the O’s than the Astros.

It’s true these multi-player deals yielded some mediocre guys and some lifetime minor leaguers but Andy had to start somewhere.

I’m under the impression that Andy MacPhail’s copies of Sports Illustrated are older than the ones in my dentist’s office. Yes, he spent the money of Derrek Lee and Vlad Guerrero, but if anything, those two are hindering the Orioles. They would be great 6 years ago in their prime, but now they’re just too old. Baseball players age, but not like fine wine. Lee and Vlad were given year long contracts, they’re just rentals to sit somewhere and get a paycheck before retirement.

What I’m saying is that we need a YOUNGER GM, who knows how to work the ropes of the greed-filled MLB organization. We need a GM who wants an immediate plan, because O’s fans are sick and tired of five year plans.