Earlier this week, The Baltimore Sun published highlights of Orioles GM Andy MacPhail's address to a group of Baltimore School of Law students. MacPhail covered a wide range of topics and today the paper has published even more of his comments pertaining to the club..
- Someone in the audience asked if promises were made three years ago by ownership that some of the cash generated by the creation of MASN would go toward increasing payroll. MacPhail says that he instead told ownership to keep payroll down and invest in the farm system. The GM's reasoning was that the O's will never be able to spend like Yankees and Red Sox and MASN can't generate money the way NESN (Red Sox) or YES (Yankees) can.
- The O's would go beyond their budget to sign a special player under the right circumstances, or, as MacPhail phrased it, "the perfect storm". The GM cited the club's $140MM offer to Mark Teixeira after the 2008 season as an example of that. When someone asked if Albert Pujols could represent a similar perfect storm, MacPhail shot down the daydreams of optimistic Orioles fans everywhere by saying, "The likelihood of us stepping out to the degree that [Pujols] is looking at, for any one player, is remote at best. I read that he's looking for $30 million a year, and I just can't see how that's going to happen."
- The club never anticipated increasing their bid for Vladimir Guerrero's services to $8MM. While MacPhail didn't discern another active bidder at the time, he felt that the Rangers could jump back into the mix if they were to trade Michael Young. Because of that, the GM increased his bid in order to "make the right deal."
- The Orioles hope to make strides in international scouting, particularly in the Dominican Republic and in Venezuela.
Pujols is the best player in the game right now, if the O’s could sign him, do you know how much extra money that would bring in between merchandise, selling out the stadium for games that involve the Yanks or Sox. Hes still not worth 30 mill, we can see how much Arod was worth his big salary lol I would offer Albert 6 years 150 tops. Just my opinion, i think Albert is a great person and good for the game. Would love to see him an O;’s uniform. I doubt it, but can hope
The O’s are already making as much on Pujols merchandise as they would be if they signed him.
I really do think the Orioles will surprise a lot of people this year.
Orioles are gonna focus on Fielder instead. I’d be pretty surprised if Fielder isn’t an Oriole at this time next year
I rather have Fielder than Pujols. Fielder is 26.. Pujols is 31.. I rather have the younger person.
What if the younger player was 3/4 the power hitter, 1/2 the contact hitter, 1/4 the defender 1/8 the base runner, 1/16 the team leader than the older player, with the younger player still managing to be overweight, and out of shape?
Even if the Cardinals didn’t sign Pujols, as a Cardinal fan, there’s plenty of first baseman I’d rather have before Prince Fielder. He would not be a good fit in St. Louis.
So what MacPhail is saying is that he is willing to step up to get an elite player as long as the elite player can be had for less than an elite salary?
If Pujols can be had for about $14m a season, MacPhail is gonna be all over that!
lol yeah maybe the O’s could offer a 14M/20year contract..
Os have indicated they are neither going for Pujols nor any high priced free agent starting pitchers in free agency, so I don’t really understand your post.
Are you saying if they theoretically do one thing they said they wouldn’t do it’d be dumb, so they should do something else they said they wouldn’t do? My head just exploded.
He started with “EVEN IF the Orioles were to”
Edit to your edit: I read it as “Even if the O’s tried I doubt they could entice Pujols”.
Because some of the pieces they’ve added could easily be moved at the deadline for prospects if they aren’t in contention of any kind?
The reason I liked, and LOVE your post is this part: A lot of Orioles territory is now Phillies territory.
The Nationals are geographically the next closest team to the Orioles and yet their division rival Phillies take the Os fans. Don’t know if this is a confirmed fact, but if the statistics were there it’d be hilarious.
Yea his wording makes sense, but the logic makes my head hurt, because he is giving a theoretical the Os are not going to do, and saying a good alternative is another theoretical the Os said they will not do. The chain could go on infinitely!