Tension amongst management

[UVA_Guy81]

Found this article over at mlbtraderumors:

Earlier this month, ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick reported that Orioles manager Buck Showalter has downplayed growing rumors of tension between him and general manager/executive vice president Dan Duquette, but according to Crasnick, unrest was indeed brewing among Orioles decision-makers. FOX’s Ken Rosenthal writes today that tension has escalated, with Showalter wanting a greater role in personnel decisions (though he does not wish to actually assume GM duties himself).

Rosenthal feels that a change is ultimately unlikely, in part because of the large sum owed to both Showalter and Duquette through 2018 on their current contract. Rosenthal reports that Showalter takes home $3.5MM annually, with Duquette earning $2MM per year. Replacing either would mean owner Peter Angelos paying that as well as the salary of a replacement — an undesirable outcome.

However, one Orioles official tells Rosenthal that if the organizational structure isn’t altered in some capacity, it will be a “disaster.” Both Duquette and Showalter, unsurprisingly, told Rosenthal that the relationship between them is fine, with Showalter noting that each is frustrated by the club’s disappointing season.

Crasnick first reported that some within the organization weren’t happy with minor league pitching development director Rick Peterson’s influence in the organization. Per Crasnick, the decision to release outfielder Delmon Young was also met with mixed reviews internally, upsetting some within the organization. Rosenthal adds that there’s further frustration over the lack of replacements for Nelson Cruz and Nick Markakis, misses in free agency and trades as well as a declining farm system. He also notes that although Showalter continually praises his coaching staff, no member of the field staff besides the manager himself is signed beyond 2015.

Over the past month, there have been multiple mentions of tension among Orioles brass (including some from the Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo and an earlier report from Rosenthal himself), with both Cafardo and Rosenthal stating that one major source of friction was the fact that Angelos would not allow Duquette to pursue a higher-ranking position with the Blue Jays last offseason.

The Orioles’ front office situation figures to be a story that will develop over the coming weeks and should contribute to a fascinating offseason in Baltimore, as the team is also slated to lose Chris Davis, Matt Wieters, Wei-Yin Chen, Darren O’Day and Steve Pearce to free agency. Given the fact that failure to replace Cruz and Markakis is one of the sources of internal consternation with the O’s, it’ll be interesting to see how Duquette and his staff handle the departure of a larger crop of free agents — particularly due to the fact that Baltimore’s farm system ranks as one of the weakest in Major League Baseball per most rankings.


I can't say that this really surprises me. I wouldn't have minded one bit seeing DD head up to Toronto and finding a temporary or permanent replacement for him. It's not like we could have done much worse w/o a GM this past offseason since the biggest acquisition was DFA'd and is now back on the team we got him from. I really wish we could just get a competent owner that knew what he was doing instead of trying to make everyone miserable.

 

[mikeytheman247]

I think once it was known that DD wanted to go to the Jays everything became awkward. He didn't do anything in the off season to improve the team.

 

[hattersgonnahate]

I'd like to see Buck Showalter apply some kind of brinkmanship here: "Get rid of Duquette (since he's doing nothing with this organization), or I'll manage this team into the ground."

(The idea is that Buck can afford to issue such an ultimatum since the fans are on his side-- if Angelos simply fires Buck over such a comment, the profitability of his franchise will be affected.)

 

[UVA_Guy81]

I'd like to see Buck Showalter apply some kind of brinkmanship here: "Get rid of Duquette (since he's doing nothing with this organization), or I'll manage this team into the ground."

(The idea is that Buck can afford to issue such an ultimatum since the fans are on his side-- if Angelos simply fires Buck over such a comment, the profitability of his franchise will be affected.)

Not a fan of that idea. I think that Angelos should've just let Dan go to start with so this would all be in the past. If Dan wants out bad enough, just have him buy out his contract and let him leave. No need to have him poisoning everything. Also, I don't think Buck is that type of person. He probably has too much pride to tank a team into the ground on purpose and would lose all respect of his players and everyone across the league. If fans find out Buck is tanking the team on purpose, fans will turn on him as well, which will take this team back to 2006 standards, which none of us want to relive that horrible era again where we're dealing with Dave Trembley type managers on a routine basis.

 

[hattersgonnahate]

Not a fan of that idea. I think that Angelos should've just let Dan go to start with so this would all be in the past. If Dan wants out bad enough, just have him buy out his contract and let him leave. No need to have him poisoning everything. Also, I don't think Buck is that type of person. He probably has too much pride to tank a team into the ground on purpose and would lose all respect of his players and everyone across the league. If fans find out Buck is tanking the team on purpose, fans will turn on him as well, which will take this team back to 2006 standards, which none of us want to relive that horrible era again where we're dealing with Dave Trembley type managers on a routine basis.

To clarify, Buck doesn't need to conduct sabotage for real... because he can "manage this team into the ground" simply by resigning, and I think the mere threat of resignation is enough to send a strong message to Angelos. Here's why:

• If there's a sabermetric stat called "value over replacement manager," I'd imagine that Buck would rank high on it. (If anything, Buck has the 3rd best winning percentage out of all Orioles managers since Earl Weaver-- and that's even with 2011 included.) Losing Buck would most likely result in a downgrade in the manager position.
  
  
• As a result, losing Buck while Duquette continues to do nothing (or can't do anything because Angelos isn't willing to increase payroll sufficiently to remain competitive, etc.) would most likely cause the franchise's performance to return to 1998-2011 levels. Just imagine a 66-96 record in 2016-- the fans will say that it's Angelos' fault in that scenario.

 

[hattersgonnahate]

Two straight shutouts... at this rate, the season will be mathematically over by Monday. That should give Buck extra ammunition if he wants to take the "give me the players or I'm out" route.

Seriously... all other things being equal, overpaying to keep Cruz and Markakis alone might have been enough for the 2015 Orioles to reach the postseason. The difference in production between the two of them and our outfielders not named Adam Jones is about 7-8 WAR! The front office MUST not repeat the mistake in the 2015 off-season; among other things, they need to either re-sign Davis and Chen (even if it means paying >$20M/yr for Davis and ~$15M/yr for Chen-- like it or not, one WAR is worth about $8M/yr in free agency nowadays) or come up with a reasonable alternative plan.

 

[UVA_Guy81]

Two straight shutouts... at this rate, the season will be mathematically over by Monday. That should give Buck extra ammunition if he wants to take the "give me the players or I'm out" route.

Seriously... all other things being equal, overpaying to keep Cruz and Markakis alone might have been enough for the 2015 Orioles to reach the postseason. The difference in production between the two of them and our outfielders not named Adam Jones is about 7-8 WAR! The front office MUST not repeat the mistake in the 2015 off-season; among other things, they need to either re-sign Davis and Chen (even if it means paying >$20M/yr for Davis and ~$15M/yr for Chen-- like it or not, one WAR is worth about $8M/yr in free agency nowadays) or come up with a reasonable alternative plan.

If there's two guys I'd like to sign it'd be O'Day and Davis. While Chen's not bad, I don't think he's worth anything remotely close to 15/year. If we sign a pitcher, we need to go big on a guy like Price or someone of that caliber. We can't keep expecting to win with nothing but middle of the rotation guys and I think that's what Chen is. As for the offense, we definitely need to do something about the outfield. Jones is fine in center but with Parra leaving, we need corner outfielders badly. So in other words, we need to focus on corner outfielders, first base and starting pitching.

 

[hattersgonnahate]

If there's two guys I'd like to sign it'd be O'Day and Davis. While Chen's not bad, I don't think he's worth anything remotely close to 15/year. If we sign a pitcher, we need to go big on a guy like Price or someone of that caliber. We can't keep expecting to win with nothing but middle of the rotation guys and I think that's what Chen is. As for the offense, we definitely need to do something about the outfield. Jones is fine in center but with Parra leaving, we need corner outfielders badly. So in other words, we need to focus on corner outfielders, first base and starting pitching.

I named Davis and Chen as the two top priorities mostly because they're posted the two highest WAR figures out of our departing free agents. Regarding Chen, I see the situation as analogous to that of not re-signing Markakis after the 2014 season: You have a player who's good but not great, and not overpaying for him is okay as long as you're able to get an even better option at a similar cost.

The problem is that the front office had failed to do that last year even with Markakis (~1.5 WAR/yr)-- how can us fans count on them to be able to replace the 2.3 WAR/yr from Chen, who's arguably the best starter we've had since Mike Mussina? That's why I'm suggesting overpaying to re-sign him as a lesser evil, because we all know that the most likely alternative isn't replacing Chen with Price, but a rotation of five #4/5 types in 2016.

(Besides, I'd argue that $15M/yr isn't unreasonable for Chen considering how much they're paying Jimenez-- that's $6.5M per WAR, which is actually below the current market value. And really, if money weren't an issue, I'd prefer a "both AND" approach-- namely, re-signing Chen as the #2 starter while pursuing an ace. But we all know that Angelos wouldn't do that; in fact, even keeping Davis would probably be a stretch since he would cost more to keep.)

 

[UVA_Guy81]

I named Davis and Chen as the two top priorities mostly because they're posted the two highest WAR figures out of our departing free agents. Regarding Chen, I see the situation as analogous to that of not re-signing Markakis after the 2014 season: You have a player who's good but not great, and not overpaying for him is okay as long as you're able to get an even better option at a similar cost.

The problem is that the front office had failed to do that last year even with Markakis (~1.5 WAR/yr)-- how can us fans count on them to be able to replace the 2.3 WAR/yr from Chen, who's arguably the best starter we've had since Mike Mussina? That's why I'm suggesting overpaying to re-sign him as a lesser evil, because we all know that the most likely alternative isn't replacing Chen with Price, but a rotation of five #4/5 types in 2016.

(Besides, I'd argue that $15M/yr isn't unreasonable for Chen considering how much they're paying Jimenez-- that's $6.5M per WAR, which is actually below the current market value. And really, if money weren't an issue, I'd prefer a "both AND" approach-- namely, re-signing Chen as the #2 starter while pursuing an ace. But we all know that Angelos wouldn't do that; in fact, even keeping Davis would probably be a stretch since he would cost more to keep.)

The Ubaldo contract was a joke from the get go, I think everyone agrees with that. I don't think Chen is worth it because it seems to me the majority of his starts, he's gassed by the end of the 5th inning or earlier more often than not. He's like a lot of the pitchers we already have in that his pitch count always skyrockets because he either doesn't have confidence in his stuff to get the strikeout or he keeps nibbling around the plate way too much. In my opinion, you can't pay that much money to a guy that's barely able to get you to the middle of the game. And saying that he's been the best pitcher since Mussina isn't really saying too much because it's not like we've had a whole lot of good pitchers come through here since Mussina left for the Yankees.

If it were me running the team, I'd definitely go all in resigning O'Day, Davis and Parra (and at least make QOs to Wieters and Chen so if they decline and go elsewhere, we can get some picks to help out our farm system). That way we'd just need to work on the starting rotation and another outfielder. I'd definitely go after Cespedes or Justin Upton. As I've said, we need to sign at least one top tier starter and I'd want to go all in on David Price. If possible, I'd at least give it a go on Samardzija as well. That way we could push Tillman back to the #3 pitcher where he belongs. I definitely think that Angelos has the money to make this happen. If this were to happen, the rotation I think would look something like this: Price, Samardzija, Tillman, Gausman, Gonzalez. The only problem I could think of with that would be where to slot Bundy since he's out of options. The lineup would look something like this give or take: Machado, Parra, Cespedes/Upton, Davis, Jones, Schoop, DH, Hardy, Joseph.

 

[hattersgonnahate]

If it were me running the team, I'd definitely go all in resigning O'Day, Davis and Parra (and at least make QOs to Wieters and Chen so if they decline and go elsewhere, we can get some picks to help out our farm system). That way we'd just need to work on the starting rotation and another outfielder. I'd definitely go after Cespedes or Justin Upton. As I've said, we need to sign at least one top tier starter and I'd want to go all in on David Price. If possible, I'd at least give it a go on Samardzija as well. That way we could push Tillman back to the #3 pitcher where he belongs. I definitely think that Angelos has the money to make this happen. If this were to happen, the rotation I think would look something like this: Price, Samardzija, Tillman, Gausman, Gonzalez. The only problem I could think of with that would be where to slot Bundy since he's out of options. The lineup would look something like this give or take: Machado, Parra, Cespedes/Upton, Davis, Jones, Schoop, DH, Hardy, Joseph.

Regarding Bundy: Putting him in the bullpen is always a possibility. As for your other ideas... I agree with most of them, with a few exceptions.

• I think Wieters has more of an incentive to take the qualifying offer than Chen does... are we okay about paying him ~$16M for a year for the potential to recover a draft pick?
  
  
• Getting Samardzija is an interesting idea... but it's arguably a riskier move as well. For example, he has had less success in the AL (88 ERA+), and 2014 looks like a career year.
  
  To put it another way, my concern is that Samardzija's numbers look like that of a high-ceiling, low-floor player-- he might just turn into another Jimenez. I'm okay about getting him if the price tag is reasonable... but I'd prefer a shorter contract and NOT penciling him as the #2 starter.

 

[tedman2012]

duke hasn't really done anything to help us . needs to be fired and if chen goes we will need 2 left handers . if he stays we still need 1lhp so price would be an all in for me also . i would let matt walk tired of all his injuries never lived up to the hype just like matusz . love to keep o'day but givens is close to the same pitcher .

 

[UVA_Guy81]

Regarding Bundy: Putting him in the bullpen is always a possibility. As for your other ideas... I agree with most of them, with a few exceptions.

• I think Wieters has more of an incentive to take the qualifying offer than Chen does... are we okay about paying him ~$16M for a year for the potential to recover a draft pick?
  
  
• Getting Samardzija is an interesting idea... but it's arguably a riskier move as well. For example, he has had less success in the AL (88 ERA+), and 2014 looks like a career year.
  
  To put it another way, my concern is that Samardzija's numbers look like that of a high-ceiling, low-floor player-- he might just turn into another Jimenez. I'm okay about getting him if the price tag is reasonable... but I'd prefer a shorter contract and NOT penciling him as the #2 starter.

Samardzija wouldn't be as big of a deal and I can agree with you on your points. There's other pitchers we could grab like a Jordan Zimmerman or someone on a one year deal that could be a good stopgap like a Buehrle while we can let Wilson and Wright work on a few things back down in Norfolk. And yeah, Wieters definitely has more of an incentive to prove he's still healthy. I'm still thinking that since there's not a whole lot of catchers on the market that Boras will convince him to go to free agency anyways since there's always teams desperate for catching and will overpay. But no, he's not worth $16 million since we can get the same type of #'s from what we have now.

 

[UVA_Guy81]

duke hasn't really done anything to help us . needs to be fired and if chen goes we will need 2 left handers . if he stays we still need 1lhp so price would be an all in for me also . i would let matt walk tired of all his injuries never lived up to the hype just like matusz . love to keep o'day but givens is close to the same pitcher .

Wieters has definitely been disappointing. I think everyone was expecting him to put up offensive #'s that never came. I would've really liked to have seen if he could have continued his pace from last year before his injury because I think he could've had a career year.

 

[hattersgonnahate]

love to keep o'day but givens is close to the same pitcher .

Just brainstorming out loud: If O'Day can't be kept, and Bundy has to start the 2016 season in the bullpen, I don't see why Bundy can't be considered for the set-up pitcher role...

 

[tedman2012]

Just brainstorming out loud: If O'Day can't be kept, and Bundy has to start the 2016 season in the bullpen, I don't see why Bundy can't be considered for the set-up pitcher role...

givens set up and bundy the 7th inning guy . the big bummer this year is bundy and harvey no closer to being ready for the bigs . as we are out of it i hated giveing away edrod for a rental last year and davies most likely for a rental player this year . wilson and wright i give the edge to wilson .

 

[stealth]

I think once it was known that DD wanted to go to the Jays everything became awkward. He didn't do anything in the off season to improve the team.

owner wouldn't approve of the money

 

[mikeytheman247]

Though there’s been some reported tension in the Baltimore front office, Orioles owner Peter Angelos was as direct as possible when asked by MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko whether each would return in 2016. “Absolutely, yes,” Angelos replied. The owner went on to say that he would “probably urge them to sign for additional years” once their current contracts, which run through 2018, expire.

 

[UVA_Guy81]

Though there’s been some reported tension in the Baltimore front office, Orioles owner Peter Angelos was as direct as possible when asked by MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko whether each would return in 2016. “Absolutely, yes,” Angelos replied. The owner went on to say that he would “probably urge them to sign for additional years” once their current contracts, which run through 2018, expire.

I'd love to keep Buck in the fold somehow. Dan could leave tomorrow and I wouldn't be upset at all by it.