Baseball Blogs Weigh In: Giles, Teixeira, Dunn, Manny

Dunn OVER Teixeria? enjoy that whole last place thing oriole fans, your management is insane.

how many crappy tv show comparisons can we make about manny?

Giles?

04Forever, You're confusing a random blog as the the same thing as Orioles' Front Office Management. Who's insane?

If you look at the recent ledger under MacPhail so far, the management has been very good actually. A lot of something for nothing type of deals, good trades, and signing Weiters. Every player in the Bedard deal has played very well and has good upside. The Tejada deal has had good solid pickups. The Patton injury brings that down a bit though.

Yeah, but what do the Baltimore blogs think about the situation?

Jesus H., Cork can you open up your coverage to include teams outside the AL East?

Since MacPhail has taken over, Angelos has been silenced. This is what the Orioles have done in the last 1-2 years:

ACQUIRED
C M. Wieters
SP J. Guthrie (Waivers)
SP B. Matusz (unsigned)
CF A. Jones
SP C. Tillman
CL G. Sherrill
SP/RP K. Mickli
SP T. Butler
OF L. Scott
SP D. Sarfate
SP M. Albers
SP T. Patton
3B M. Costanzo
PTBNL (From Rays)
OF C. Roberson

FOR
SP E. Bedard
SS M. Tejada (Traded 2 days before the Mitchell Report AND Age Gate)
RP C. Bradford
CASH (For Roberson)

A random blog is not a "Blog of Baltimore" in the sense that it is maybe a blog associated with the Baltimore Sun. It is a random blog from a random fan with enough wherewithal to open a Blogger account.

Seeing as how Teixeira is looking to make 20-25 million per for 5-7 years this winter, I wouldn't mind taking a shot at Dunn. Teams seem down on him and if he signed for only 3 years at 10-13 per I don't think it would be too bad. Of course, I don't know if that's worth it for a full time DH, but he's a nice power bat that would good in an already decent lineup.

"enjoy that whole last place thing oriole fans, your management is insane."

Anytime an Orioles fan gets worried about the future of this franchise, just go look at the Bedard/Tejada trades and smile. The Bedard trade may potentially go down as one of the worst trades ever, considering that Jones appears to have the makings of a superstar centerfielder, Sherill has proven to be a quality closer, and Chris Tillman is now an elite pitching prospect and a projectable top of the rotation starter.

Anyone who thinks that the Orioles don't know what they're doing, is simply wrong. Yeah, they may suck, but that's definately moreso because of what occurred before MacPhail got there, rather than after he arrived.

With Jones, Markakis, Wieters, Reimold, Scott, Rowell, and Snyder, they have a pretty solid core of offensive players. Including three likely star quality players in Jones, Markakis and Wieters.

Add the fact that they have some of the best young pitching in baseball between Matusz, Tillman, Arrietta, Liz, Erbe, Olson, Beato, Patton and Spoone.

As well as some veterans with trade value in guys like Guthrie, Roberts, Huff, Cabrera and Sherill.

In my opinion, the biggest obstacle the Orioles have to face is their division. They won't make the playoffs by being good, they'll have to be great. Because the Rays, Sox and Yanks continue to stockpile elite young talent, and I would be utterly shocked if those teams werent stacked for the next couple years.

I think the Yankees are in some tough straights right now to keep pace with the Rays and Bosox as far as stockpiling farm talent. Their players tend to get a lot of hype, some deserved, some not. If their farm were stronger we would never hear the Yankees being associated with names like Ponson, Pavano, Rasner. At the current moment I have to place the Orioles 3rd in that division as far as strength of farm. Tops is the Rays and Boston.

I think the talk about divisions is all a lot of hype sometimes. The Rays have spent the whole season proving that the bottom line of winning the pennant is having quality players. Period. The Orioles did it thru the 60s and 70s. The Yankees and Boston were still the Yankees and Boston then. The difference was that the Os did an excellent job identifying who to keep and who and when to trade. And 9 times out of 10 it worked out well. The Bedard trade was a good example of that. I just mentioned a the Freddy Garcia trade in another post and he's another example of selling high.

"I think the talk about divisions is all a lot of hype sometimes. The Rays have spent the whole season proving that the bottom line of winning the pennant is having quality players."

Well yeah, duh. I'm just saying that there are far more quality young players in the AL East than in any other division in baseball (outside of MAYBE the NL West). Trying to beat out the Angels, Rangers and Mariners is far different from trying to beat out the Yanks, Sox, Rays and Jays. The fact of the matter is that this is division with four well run teams in it, and its going to take Baltimore a couple years to catch up, since they just got started in terms of being a well run franchise.

Agreed.

The Yankees I would argue being a well-run franchise though. That being said, they're the only team in the majors that can make whoppers of mistakes but still absorb the cost of those choices. The Red Sox should be given a lot of credit. Theo has done an excellent job of player development, scouting, and drafting in spite of not having high picks and advantages losing teams enjoy. They don't have the kind of system the Rays have, but then again, no one else does.

"The Yankees I would argue being a well-run franchise though. That being said, they're the only team in the majors that can make whoppers of mistakes but still absorb the cost of those choices."

See I think the key difference in what makes the Yankees a well ran franchise is their ability to draft the best prospect available no matter what. This strategy has helped to land them some guys that they really had no business drafting, as these were guys with the talent to go far earlier. And honestly I would argue that the Yankees front office has done a lot of good, that's a team that got ravaged by injuries this year and is still contending. They did pretty well in the Nady/Marte trade and you gotta think that Ivan Rodriguez is a more valuable player than Farnsworth.

The AL West is a bunch of chump teams? Come on Scribbletone - I expect better from you ...

Angels are 25-13 vs the AL East. Yeah - don't think they are intimidated by anyone in the East. The rest of the division is very weak. Of course, the A's were doing well until the Angels mounted a 10+ game advantage. Trading 3 of your starting 5 pitchers does tend to hurt you for this year. The Rangers are playing respectable ball. Seattle, well, there's nothing to justify there. They are awful.

So, on a whole, the AL East is better than the West so far this year.

Of course, 2007 was a banner year for the AL West. They went 92-82 against the AL East. Which still wasn't as good as 2006. The West owned the East with a 102-74 mark.

Over the last two full years the AL West has dominated the East to a tune of a 554 winning %.

Since 2004 the AL East has won more games against the AL West ONCE.

This East Coast bias is so tired ... will the West ever get the respect they deserve?

The key problem of comparing those divisions by win percentage is that those respective teams have to play against themselves, and, teams in their respective leagues. To me it's akin to evaluating minor league pitchers based on their win totals.

The East Coast bias is what it is, but, if we're talking about farm systems, which we are, Baseball America has consistently rated the AL EAST farms to be in the upper third of baseball. The Rays just happened to have been the best in baseball at least 2 years running. So scribbletone's argument does hold a lot of merit in that regard.

I beleive the Orioles are on the brink of competing...