7:10pm: The Orioles have announced that neither Duquette nor Showalter will be retained for the 2019 season. Director of player development Brian Graham will oversee baseball operations while the team conducts a search for an outside hire. He’s been with the team since 2007 and previously served as an interim GM for the Pirates as well.
“The club will hire an executive from outside of the organization to lead the Baseball Operations department,” the Orioles said in tonight’s press release. “Once in place, this individual will have the final determination on all baseball matters that he or she believes will make the Orioles successful on the field, entertaining to fans, and impactful in the community.”
5:06pm: The Orioles have indeed moved on from Duquette, tweets Fancred’s Jon Heyman.
4:59pm: Not only will the Orioles reportedly part ways with manager Buck Showalter, they’re also “expected to let go” executive vice president/general manager Dan Duquette, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Like Showalter, Duquette’s contract expires at the end of the 2018 season. However, while reports in recent weeks had largely indicated that Showalter was likely to depart, the general sense was that the organization would hang onto Duquette. Instead, it now seems that the Orioles will be looking for both a new field manager and a new head of baseball operations this offseason.
Duquette, 60, has been with the O’s since the 2011 season and helped to orchestrate three postseason appearances, including an AL East division title in 2014. That said, Duquette’s fingerprints are also on the 2018 season’s MLB-worst 47-115 team — the fewest wins in franchise history. Not all of that disappointment can be placed on Duquette alone, as owner Peter Angelos has had his own detrimental impact on the organization at times. While Angelos gave the front office plenty of payroll capacity with which to work, he also reportedly had little interest in investing on the international amateur free agent market and was also said to be instrumental in bringing back Chris Davis on what is perhaps baseball’s worst contract at this point.
Duquette’s tenure with the O’s featured some notable successes — e.g. signing Nelson Cruz when his market collapsed in the 2013-14 offseason, extending J.J. Hardy, the initial acquisition of Mark Trumbo for pennies on the dollar — but there were as many, if not more missteps along the way as well. Free-agent deals for Ubaldo Jimenez and Yovani Gallardo proved to be busts, and the trade sending Jake Arrieta to the Cubs will go down as one of the more lopsided swaps in recent history, even if Arrieta had plenty of chances in Baltimore and was considered to be a project at the time of the deal.
Whoever steps into the GM chair in Baltimore, be it vice president Brady Anderson or an outside hire, will take over a rebuild that Duquette kicked off in earnest this past summer with the trade of Manny Machado to the Dodgers. The Orioles netted five prospects in that trade and, not long after, had also shipped out Jonathan Schoop, Zach Britton, Brad Brach, Kevin Gausman and the remainder of the injured Darren O’Day’s contract — netting a combined 13 new prospects and some significant international funds to aid their reported pursuit of Cuban phenom Victor Victor Mesa.
The Orioles’ farm system has improved with those deals and with the success of some recent draft picks, but the organization still faces a long road back to contention in a stacked AL East division that features a pair of powerhouses in the Red Sox and Yankees, plus a surprising 90-win Rays team that has an impressive young core of stars around which to build.
Can they let the owner go?
Wouldn’t that be amazing.
Have a Lottery to own a he Team
Owner stays. He/they have actually been just fine.
Owner in Baltimore has been half the problem. Specifically staying out of the IFA market, Chris Davis, etc.
Are you mad?! Angelos has been amongst the worst owners in history. He is the worst owner in modern baseball. The guy has been a plague upon the Orioles franchise, taking them from being a premier organization and baseball town to a joke in a city that has been given no reason to show up.
I’m beginning to think dimitrios is actually one of the Angelos brothers.
Yeah there’s reasonable homerism for your team but you can’t look at everything with rose colored glasses all the time.
Please take Williams from the White Sox. Please please please!
I think Duquette was more at fault than Buck. DD gave Buck very limited talent to work with and prior to trading Machadon, Schoop, and others hadn’t really done much to prepare for the future.
Pretty much this. I will cut DD a bit of slack though. He was handcuffed by an owner that seemed to almost intentionally try to sabotage his team. Almost identical to Pierre Dorion and the Ottawa Senators.
Not sure there’s any evidence—at all— that PA tried to sabotage the team; there is however plenty of evidence to the contrary.
Not allowing the team to sign IFA’s. Always dumpster diving despite only being a couple pieces away from being legit contenders. That could be on DD though not sure.
Not allowing your front office to invest in the international amateur market for multiple decades sounds like sabotage to me.
Chris Davis by himself is plenty of sabotage.
I don’t think he intentionally sabotaged the team. He did hurt us severely but he truly doesn’t believe in spending the money for the IFA’s and thought Davis was a franchise player. He was just wrong and pretty much everyone knew it.
i agree. I’ll crap on Buck all day for how he handled Zach Britton against the Blue Jays, but he isn’t the one that built the roster. He didn’t sign Chris Davis to an unconscionable contract. He didn’t build the roster. I’m not even sure I’d blame Duquette before I’d blame Angelos and his spawn. But I definitely wouldn’t blame Buck. Having said that, this team is going to be awful for many years. If anything, this was a mercy killing. Buck is free now from this terrible, god awful organization.
Do you really believe that Buck had no influence on the roster, especially the re-signing of Chris Davis? Buck loves him some Chris Davis.
They should have turned the comments section off on this post two!
Too….not two
Sorry I’m a Trump Supporter!
Lmao
MAGA!!!
ouch
Orioles better do things by the numbers this time
Hire a GM and then you hire a Manager.
I am not surprised that Duquette left, he never had any real authority over Showalter
PS I WILL NOT MISS SHOWALTER! Bah Humbug!
What? Dan handcuffed Buck with the Rule 5 guys and retreads.
Was ownership at fault? Probably. But if you like your job you should probably avoid publicly blaming them for the teams failure.
Why do you assume that DD, or Showalter for that matter, liked their job? They’ll both be much happier working for someone else.
Wow. Didn’t see this coming.
About time the house is cleaned.
As long as the owner goes over the GM’s head to sign contracts like the Davis one and prevents his team from accessing international talent, there won’t be much improvement.
This scenario is similar to the Angels a few years ago and we’re just now starting to dig out of it (farm system rising, some payroll flexibility).
The next GM of the Orioles is not going to be able to help much since the damage has been done
Disagree. The question is will the next GM be able to sell Angelos on a full rebuild while the bad contracts play out?
I’m proud of Jon Heyman. He’s finally using capital letters and not tweeting in all lower case
Whoever okayed the Davis extension and the Cobb signing will forever have that albatross on their resume.
Not sure I view the Cobb signing that way. Bad year, should be a very solid rotation piece.
Yeah cobb was quite good in the second half. Seems he didn’t respond well to missing Spring Training. I think he’ll be solid next year
Look on the brightside, The Rays would send the Os lots of minor league pitching talent (#2 minor league talent in baseball) for Cobb if they would pay 1/2 his salary?
don’t see how you can equate those two contracts…
Cobb is an important stabilizer for the next two years.
Davis is an automatic out and has no role whatsoever on a rebuilding team…none.
Davis sells tickets. He’s a good guy and strong supporter of the community. A good Christian with a good work ethic. His baseball skills are irrelevant. Life is about more. Baltimore is lucky to have a high character guy like Chris Davis.
Okay, that was a load of BS. I’m thrilled the O’s have the Davis contract. It pretty much guarantees irrelevance for the franchise. One less opponent for the smart teams.
This is great news!!!
I feel better now. If DD had stayed an Buck was gone I was seriously considering the decision making. Dan took over what Andy McPhail started. Problem is the McPhail philosophy was “grow the arms buy the bats.” Then DD let’s Nelson Cruz walk, that made Peter Angelos determined to sign Davis. Then Duquettw loads up on 3 First Basemen screwing Buck who wanted pitching and defense. Mancini was ok considering his experience, Trumbo was barely adequate, though he tried. Then Dan proceeded to trade away young pitching. Last time I looked we had 4 starters on major league teams and a few relievers. Big Question is Brady Anderson the winner of the power struggle. I just hope they move fast, which has not been their SOP!
Like free Agents, the best GM’s and Managers will go fast
Why are comments turned off for the Addison Russell article?
????
Probably the most qualified for the Mets GM job.
I can see it now,Brady Anderson as GM, n Jim Palmer as manager!
They should sign Manny Machado and Bryce Harper
The O’s once Again showing why they’re the worst organization in the sport.
The Blue Jays wanted to interview DD for a better position and the O’s didn’t allow it smh.
Not the O’s…. Ange-LOSE
Chris Davis signing, enough said!!!
Are you blaming that on Duquette?
That was all Angelos and Showalter.
Will he resurface? Dan was crippled by a stubborn owner. Peter Angelos is a Poor man’s Arte Moreno Lol.
Hope the Mets don’t consider Duquette he made very poor decisiones as GM.
So, there you go, fantasy GMs. You’ve got ageing, pretty terrible roster that’s SOMEWHAT costly (it’s not terrible, really, adjusted to revenue) , a minor league system that’s not horrible, but is full of a lot of low ceiling guys, and no field staff,
Where do you begin?
I actually would like to see a Chris Davis for Pujols trade straight up. Money is almost identical (Davis 4 yrs less AAV, Pujols 3 yrs more AAV). Angels need someone more capable than Pujols at 1B to leave Ohtani at DH, plus they do need LH power and Davis is a lottery ticket for them. Pujols on the other hand can chase accomplishments with little pressure in Baltimore, his contract would come off the books, just as soon as they start getting ready to take off the rebuild label.
Oh and also this frees up about 7m a year annually for Angels, immediate salary relief for 2019-2021 gives them a shot to push chips all in for Trout extension.
Not a bad first shot at all. Moreover, it relocates the “face of failure” for each franchise.
You’re hired….don’t worry, I hear Angelos is generous……
I like where you’re going with this but Pujols would never agree to that trade with his 10-5 rights.
Chris Davis is unwatchable. I’d easily take pujols for him at this point. Maybe he’d find some life again in LA because he is absolutely horrific.
Someone Chris Davis is taking a bath in his gold plated bathtub listening to “All By Myself” and sobbing
Arrietta would never have become the pitcher he is had he stayed in the O’s organization. It was the changes they forced on him that hindered him.
I think the big question is what to do with Chris Davis.
I guess you could DFA him. I can’t see another club touching that awful contract.
As they should let Duquette go. No team needs a clean sweep more
Keep the sharp objects away from Nick Cafardo. There goes his two favorite subjects
Now the Angelos’s won’t be taking this franchise to the ground anymore!
How about Bobby Evans? LOL
Good riddance. Dan plucked David Ortiz of the waiver wire and his be riding that ever since. He was horrible.
should keep Buck as president of baseball ops/gm
Yeah, because this team needs more Chris Davises, Chris Tillmans and Ubaldo Jiminezes. Buck loved him some Chrisses and Ubaldo.
Can the Orioles take Matt Klentak off the Phillies hands? I certainly hope that the Phillies dump Klentak and Gape Kapler.
Buck and duquette brought the Os to the playoffs after years of disapointment. Couldnt maintain the success and their window closed. bad free agents signings never panning out. time for a change. mets owner is worser.
John Hart available?
And the bad free agent signings aren’t Duquette’s fault… why? He gave Chris Davis one of the worst contracts in MLB history.
im saying buck and duquette brought the os back into contention. the bad free agent signings didn’t maintain it. totally duquettes fault for that.
From Reds fans all over, good luck.
Joe Girardi, Orioles new General Manager and manager.
Mets and Orioles should merge!