I'm going to try something new this off season, and depending upon how it works out, we might just make it a yearly contest. The Orioles have a new GM in Dan Duquette (I don't care, I'm calling him the GM), and he has a tough road ahead of him. Every decision he makes will be met with criticism and maybe even some praise. Because after all, we all have idea on what will or won't improve this team, right? Well it's time to put your money where your mouth is.
Each of you is invited to write a FanPost outlining your plan for the off-season, what you think is the best way forward for the Baltimore Orioles. Who would you trade? Who would you extend? What free agents would you go after? What other moves would you make? A panel comprised of myself and some of the other names you see at the bottom of this page will narrow the submissions down to the top five. Those five will be put to a community vote, and the top three vote getters will get a lovely prize!
Here are the rules:
- Start your FanPost with the acronym CCC (that's Camden Chat Contest) followed by a colon and the title of your plan. For example, "CCC: Prince Fielder will save us all!"
- No matter what your proposed plan, your payroll cannot exceed $100M for 2012 (and no fancy back loading of contracts to get around it). And, like Dan Duquette, you are at the mercy of every obligation left behind by Andy MacPhail. That $5.8M owed to Kevin Gregg? You're on the hook for that. For arbitration eligible players, use the guidelines at MLBTR (and note that Alfredo Simon is not arbitration eligible).
- Use the information at Cot's Contracts for team payroll obligations.
- Proofread, proofread, proofread. Proper capitalization, spelling, and halfway decent grammar are required.
- Be realistic. And by realistic, I don't mean what we all think the Orioles are likely to do, but what is likely among free agent costs and likely trades. If you put in your proposal that you will trade Luis Lebron for Ryan Braun, you won't be a finalist.
- All entries are due by 5 p.m. EST on Sunday, December 4th. That gives you two weeks, so get hopping! We'll post the top five on Monday, December 12th, and voting will run through 5 p.m. on Friday the 16th.