As another Orioles season disintegrates into uninteresting mediocrity, I saw a number that blew my mind. The Orioles have the 10th highest payroll in baseball at $95.11 million, just behind the defending AL champion Tigers at $95.18. I couldn't believe it when I saw it. What kind of idiot pays this much money for the crap the O's put out on the field every night? Peter Angelos, of course!
The number one problem with the Orioles is they have no organizational philosophy. When the Oriole Way finally died in the early 80's, culminating in the 0-21, 107-loss disaster of 1988, the O's decided to rebuild. At that time the O's had a plan in place driven by a philosophy. They were going to build the team around pitching and defense. They were going to trade old for young. And they decided to build the team around 28 year old Cal Ripken. While it seems crazy now, there were discussions about trading him because he was their most valuable commodity. Luckily, Ripken was young enough (and obviously talented enough) to build around.
That summer the O's traded Mike Boddicker to the Red Sox for a couple of minor league prospects - Brady Anderson and Curt Schilling. They released Scott McGregor. They traded Fred Lynn for a prospect - Chris Hoiles. They started Jeff Ballard and eventually Bob Milacki, Pete Harnisch, and Curt Schilling every 5th day. After the season they traded Eddie Murray for a top prospect, SS Juan Bell, and 2 young major league pitchers - Brian Holton and Ken Howell. They then traded Howell for 28 year old Phil Bradley. They traded Mike Morgan for 22 year old Mike Devereaux. They drafted Gregg Olson in '88, Ben McDonald in '89, and Mike Mussina in '90, all young pitchers. While not all of the moves worked out (e.g. the Eddie Murray trade), they had a philosophy and stuck with it. The result? Surprisingly, in 1989 the O's went into the final weekend of the season just 1 game back of the division lead. While they fell short, they had a nice core on which to build.
Of course, the Orioles made a major misjudgment in 1991. Thinking they were just a big bat away from contending, they traded Schilling, Harnisch, and young Steve Finley for slugger Glenn Davis. Davis got hurt while Schilling and Finley went on to very long, successful, and in Schilling's case, Hall of Fame, careers. Harnisch didn't last as long but had a nice 10 year career.
While that poor decision and some bad luck with injuries (McDonald & Olson) took away what could have been a dominant team, the plan and philosophy led to a nice core of players who were the leaders of the '96 & '97 playoff teams - Ripken, Anderson, Mussina, and Hoiles. When Angelos bought the team in '93 he loosened the purse strings enough to allow the team to get Rafael Palmeiro and BJ Surhoff while the team made a smart trade to pick up Scott Erickson from the Twins.
Since chasing away Pat Gillick in 1998, for some unknown reason Angelos won't hire competent baseball people and allow them to develop and execute a plan guided by an organizational philosophy. Since the big-name free agents want nothing to do with Angelos, the O's end up filling their "holes" every year with overpriced second-tier free agents like Ramon Hernandez, Aubrey Huff, Kevin Millar, and Javy Lopez. And since they don't have an organizational philosophy, they end up with 3 DH-1B who can't field and shouldn't bat any higher than 6th and overpriced, crappy middle relievers ($6M Danys Baez, $4M Jamie Walker, and $2M Chad Bradford). Yet they wouldn't spend $3M on BJ Ryan 3 years ago and lost him to the Blue Jays. Instead of tearing down a shack to build a mansion, they try to patch the holes in the roof, put a few nails in it, and call it improved. When it starts falling apart again in the fall, they do the same thing the next winter.
Angelos, if you're not going to adopt a philosophy and allow baseball people to execute it, then sell the team!
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