Here is an excerpt of Cashman’s comments about the O’s rebuilding effort headed by team president Andy MacPhail.
“Andy is doing exactly what Andy does best. He is as sharp as they come. Patience is the biggest key. He made such an astute trade with Seattle and now he has a collection of talent. Getting Adam Jones to play with Markakis was remarkable. Now he has one of the bright young outfields.
“Now he’s filling in, taking advantage of the free agent market to protect his young talent and wait for them to pop.
“I remember a few years back when Tampa Bay was perennially losing. Everyone in the industry was following them and saw all their young talent brewing and slowly getting refined. You don’t know, because prospects are suspects until they declare themselves at the Major League level.
“Andy is doing the same thing. Everybody kind of sees the collection of talent. Players with big tools and high ceiling. When you are athletic and have those kinds of tools, when it all comes together, it comes fast.
“The Orioles are a team that has closed the gap, without a doubt. And Andy is showing the patience. I think their fan base will be very, very pleased. All the sudden, before they know it, they’ll have that foundation in place. They just haven’t seen it pop yet at the Major League level.
“They are doing the right things because they have a baseball guy running it. Their owner Peter Angelos hired a tremendous baseball talent in Andy MacPhail. He’s worth his weight in gold.
“The Oriole way is coming back real quick. I went to high school and college in the DC area, so I know how important the Orioles are to that area. It’s a sleeping giant that will emerge again, I promise you.”
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And does this mean that Cashman is Yamamato? Because if he is, I highly suggest to him that he doesn't fly in airplanes.
Is Angelos patient? If not, it doesn't matter how patient McPhail is, nor does it matter how sharp he is.
It depends on whether my plan on putting sedatives in his drinking water works out.
Why the Orioles are actually a threat (and TB will never be): The franchise can support a top 5 payroll. That's scary.
No, man, not at all. Were some people? Those people be crazy. Crazy crazy people.
Szymborski mentioned the possibility of a playoff run here. Not to rag on Szymborski - he clearly stated he didn't think it would happen - but it shows that the possibility was on people's minds.
That thread is actually interesting to read for the Greinke comments. ZIPS sure biffed that one (though you just can't predict young starters to have the best season since Pedro).
Given slow but steady progress on the development side of players, it's quite possible that Angelos' latest passion: remaking the West Side of downtown B'More, will have the same benefit for the Orioles as did Steinbrenner's suspension from the Yanks in the early '90s. You can only micromanage so many things at a given moment.
/Actually, just driving through you can see Angelos has done a lot of good stuff for the West Side, though how much of that is because he can actually pull off the shady deals with various bureaucracies needed to "make things happen" I leave to another forum.
I don't know... another 64 win-ish season and I can see Andy getting fired in October.
Especially taken in context of the huge grin on Roberts' face and the "trying not to grin" on markakis' face, from left to right. It's like a pictorial expression of the "sad trombone".
Yeah, but at some point in the MacPhail era, the decisions have completely bypassed Angelos. If ole Pete still had to lift his leg on everything, would they have really hit opening day last year with the rotation of Guthrie, Simon, Hendrickson, Koji and Adam freaking Eaton? There'd have been some kind of late ST deal for a proven vet...
I mean, maybe Angelos still has his fun getting the state to pay for a new scoreboard, but apart from the trades and the improved player development (thank god), there've been too many signs that the right things are getting done--even if, in the case of Sarasota, it's things that are 17 years too late (or 30 years for international scouting).
Last move I can think of that was all Angelos was probably the signing of Weiters. Maybe the Roberts deal, but Andy gets the needs of the casual fanbase to the point of courting bloggers.
/Sorry, I can't hate on the O's as much just now. Ravens went ahead and signed a dude who killed another dude, again, making the orange bird my de facto avian squad for '10.
Well Cashman did say they are a sleeping giant.
Having a young center fielder as promising as Adam Jones is a nice compliment as well. Strong and young up the middle, that's what everyone wants for their team.
Oh, and not trading Roberts (and then subsequently signing him) was absolutely Angelos. Roberts' own mother doesn't value him as highly as Angelos does.
I agree re Roberts, and they probably gave him one too many years, but if that's the worst thing Angelos has done in the last 5 years, I'll take it. It's hardly a crippling contract, and the rumored trades involving Roberts weren't all that great. Would any orioles fans be happy now if they'd traded Roberts for Sean Gallagher, Eric Patterson, Rich Hill, Matt Murton, and Ronny Cedeno? Or for Adam LaRoche and Marcus Giles (I think that was the rumored deal)? bleechh...
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