Hi WDW,

Thanks for the comments. Hope to see you on the board sometime, and we can have an extended dialogue.

Some thoughts on what you’ve said:

Garza: He’s the most attractive arm on the market because there is no draft compensation attached to him. Is he truly elite? No, but he would immediately be right with Tillman at the front of the O’s rotation. Regardless, the O’s have made clear they won’t be involved at the price Garza will take. The pitcher I’d most like the O’s to add is Tanaka. I’d love to see the O’s pay the $20M posting fee, get the ability to negotiate a deal – and offer the likely $80M+ it would take to land him. Of course, at this point it is still TBD if Tanaka will be posted, and the O’s have indicated they would not pay the posting fee to negotiate.

Choo: Is Choo’s contract likely to be inflated? Sure… he’s a FA, in a market flush with cash. The O’s had a prolific slugging offense last year, with mediocre on-base skills. Choo would address that, and provide good defense as well. 6 yrs $110M would not cripple the O’s, that’s a ridiculous assertion. It does seem likely he might get closer to $150M though, and I agree that would be too much.

If you knew you weren’t going to be involved with Choo, where were the O’s with Chris Young, Murphy, or McLouth. I remain a fan of Reimold, but you can’t rely on him. Urrutia is likely better than he showed with the O’s, but he needs more time at AAA. Obvious issues with anything off-speed. Going with either one of them as the projected starter in LF can not happen, if the goal is contention. You need more predictable production.

Overall this discussion gets back to a larger point. The O’s have a talented core, that is not good enough to win with, without being augmented externally.

Let’s look at the rotation. As of today the rotation is Tillman, Chen, Gonzalez, Norris, and Gausman. Ideally, ever member of that staff would be slotted down 1 spot. I’d like to begin the year with Gausman at AAA, and either Gonzalez or Norris (likely Norris) in the pen. That requires two starters.

If you are not going to be involved with Garza (and again he makes the most sense there is no draft compensation), you don’t figure to be involved with Jimenez, or Santana either.

So you go to the next level of starter. Colon? I’ve said previously I’m interested. The issues/questions you would have about Colon (his age), are the same reasons he would be attractive to the O’s. They can get him on a 1-2 year (hopefully 1 yr) deal. I wanted to pair him and Kazmir. With Kazmir gone, I’d consider Maholm, or Burnett. Hoping to also get either one of them on a 1 year deal as well. I’m also not opposed to bringing back Hammel for a year.

If you don’t want to make any of those additions, and you want to go solely with what you have; I can not agree with that. The O’s were an 85 win team last year. They’ve stepped back so far this off-season. They are not good enough as is to be looked at as Playoff contender, even for the 2nd Wild Card. Right now, the O’s look like a .500 team, that needs to improve by 8-9 games to be a Playoff contender.

If you don’t want to make the moves necessary to improve the chances at winning with this existing core (which exists solely as comprised for the ’14, and ’15 seasons), then make the moves necessary to get younger. Get cheaper team controlled players through trade, reducing the payroll, and build back that way.

That’s the bottom-line, you have to pick one direction or the other. You either try and win with this group (giving them some help), or you trade from this group because they are not good enough; and you aren’t willing to make the moves necessary for this group to win.

The O’s payroll in ’13 was somewhere between $92-$95M. Explain to me, how with an additional $27M in National TV revenue alone, they are not capable of sustaining a $115M payroll in ’14? (Without even discussing their increasing MASN revenue, the additional tickets the sold, the increased advertising they sold in ’13 over ’12, etc. etc.)

Duquette has some things which I have applauded. I liked the transformation of Baseball Operations, after his hire. I liked him bringing in or promoting the likes of Brady Anderson (now VP of Baseball OPS), Lee Thomas (Special Asst to EVP), Fred Ferreira (Executive Director, International Recruiting), Roy Poitevint (Executive Director, International Scouting), Gary Rajsich (Scouting Director), Brian Graham (Player Development Director), Sarah Gelles (Baseball Analytics), Rick Peterson (Pitching Development Director), Steve Walter (Economic Advisor).

Unlike many people last Winter, I didn’t have a problem with the O’s general lack of activity. At that point, I understood the rationale. The O’s during April – July 2012 had won with smoke and mirrors. In August and Sept. 2012 the O’s were a legitimately good team. Duquette brought back that same team to begin ’13, and gave them a chance to prove who they were. It became evident during the year that they needed help, and he was aggressive as anyone looking to improve his team in-season.

It’s a year later though, and things have changed. This group needs help to win. Losing Johnson’s salary, and using that $ to sign Webb, and Balfour or Axford is not a great reallocation of resources. Avoid signing Balfour, Axford, or Perez and use the savings on a Closer elsewhere. This team needs additional talent.

I also understand that we’re free of Markakis’s awful contract (which looked okay at the time it was signed) at the end of the year, and that will free up ~$15 million for spending next year. But still, there’s Davis and all of the arbitration raises players to worry about, and we’ll have to add a right fielder (if Urrutia is not a full-time option there). Duquette currently is attempting to get the organization out of the arbitration hell that he inherited; trading Johnson was a big step in that because no mid-market team should be paying $11 for a relief pitcher unless they have literally every other spot on the 25-man roster locked in and a budget surplus thereafter.