WNST's Drew Forrester says O's fans hoodwinked, do you agree?

Yesterday morning on the WNST Comcast Morning Show with Drew Forrester, Mr.Forrester made the claim that O's fans have been hoodwinked.

His argument stems from the idea that he believes it was wrong for the Orioles to basically admit that they could not compete in 2009. Forrester compared this with the Ravens, and asked what would happen if they were to operate in the same manner.

I could not disagree more with this line of thinking. The Baltimore Orioles never made a public claim about being unable to compete in 2009, though I would have been fine if they did.

As an Oriole fan, I appreciated the organization not trying to sell the public on the idea that they could compete. This was an example of being honest with the public.

The organization was looking at the same thing that every-one of us was.The Baltimore Orioles play in the American League East, which houses the defending American League Champion, and annually two of the biggest spenders in baseball.

Every-single pre-season power ranking of MLB teams, had Tampa, Boston, and NY all mentioned as Top 10 teams overall. Nearly every-ranking had all three in the Top 5.

The Orioles play 44% of their games each year against the AL East, there were not moves that could have been made this off-season that would have allowed the O's to contend in 2009.

If you definitively know that you can not contend, the logical move is to give as much playing time as possible to the players who have a chance to comprise the future core.

Forrester disagrees with this, and regularly brings up Derek Lowe as an addition that made sense for the Orioles this past winter.

Yesterday, Forrester stated that the idea that a 36 year old pitcher can not be effective is flawed. To me, signing Lowe would have been a tremendous mistake for the O's.

Lowe signed a 4 year $60M deal with Atlanta. The deal takes him to age 39. There is nothing saying that Lowe can not be effective during that period, but logic says that the further you get away from your prime,the less likely you are to continue to contribute.

Essentially what that contract is, is paying for past performance and ultimately diminishing returns. If you disagree with me, you could counter with Lowe's 2009 stats (which are very solid) and ask where is the diminishing returns?

To that, I would say two things:
1) The fact that Lowe has been strong for the first two months of hiscontract, has little bearing on how effective Lowe will be as a 39year-old in 2012.

2) It cost 4yrs and $60M to get Lowe to Atlanta... it probably wouldhave cost an additional premium to get him to Baltimore. Even if you gothim for 'just' 4yrs $60M... tell me what Lowe's 2009 productivity wouldhave really added to the 2009 Baltimore Orioles. You could argue that the O's would have been better... you can not argue that it would have allowed the O's to contend.

Signing Lowe would have been the equivalent of using a band-aid to fix a broken leg.

Let's go back to Forrester's contention that the Ravens would be crushed with negative reaction if they went into a season not attempting to compete. This is a completely apples and oranges argument. The NFL with their salary-cap, scheduling, and revenue-sharing is all about encouraging parity. You are able to draft players that will impact your roster that year. None of that is true in baseball.

All of that said, the Ravens have had a season where they operated similar to the Orioles this year. Two years after the Ravens Super Bowl victory, the organization had to dismantle the roster. That Raven team took the field and had zero chance of winning a game that mattered, and the franchise made everyone aware of it.

It was the right move, because the Ravens were sacrificing a season where they could not win, for the long-term benefit of the franchise.

It is not just Lowe. Many people in-town ( I do not know if Forrester felt this way ) wanted the Orioles to sign Pedro Martinez. Pedro Martinez? Are you kidding me? The guy has pitched 270 combined innings over the past 3 seasons. Even if he gave you 180 innings with an era under 5, what was he going to change for this team?

Besides, if you are Pedro Martinez... and you wanted to play 1 more year in MLB, why would you sign with a team that zero-chance of playing in October?

AJ Burnett? He signed a 5year $82.5M deal with New York. He made sense for the Orioles if they could have obtained him for 3yrs. The O's giving him 5yrs is a waste of resources.

Year-in, and year-out the O's are going to be competeting against the top 2 revenue teams in the sport. While the O's have resources, they do not have the resources of NY and Boston. As such, you can not spend like you do.

Adam Dunn? He signed for 2yrs $20M with the Nationals after 5 consecutive seasons of 40 homers, and a life-time OPS around .900... I argued for most of the winter that he made sense for the Orioles at 1st or DH. He made clear through his Agent that he was unwilling to be a DH. At 1st, he has horrible career defensive numbers, and while I believed he could improve at the position if he played there full-time... the O's disagreed.

Dunn also made it clear he wanted to stay in the OF. Did signing Dunn for LF make sense for this team? I would argue that he did not. I think it was a better use of time seeing Pie play everyday for 6 weeks, and knowing that Reimold was waiting in the weeds.

Teixeira is a different argument to me, and I have expressed my feelings on that previously:

http://baltimoresportsandlife.blogspot.com/2009/03/what-teixeira-should-

The difference with Tex and the other players mentioned, is that with Tex you were not paying for prior performance, you were paying for him as a player to develop around long-term.

Instead of looking backwards at what might have been, lets look forward at would could be. The O's plan is starting to come to fruition. There are long-term answers in RF, CF, C, and 2nd. There are potential long-term options in LF, and DH with Reimold and Scott.

In the Minors there has been outstanding production at 1st with Brandon Snyder. With Bergesen in the rotation, Berken making his debut last night, and Hernandez starting tomorrow; the O's have put their selves into position to promote internal options as stop-gaps, which is an important-step. I do not project any of these 3 in the O's 2010 rotation, but I do expect two of the three to greatly help the 2010 staff out of the bullpen.

For 2009, these three can provide solid production as we await the future promotions of Tillman, Arrieta, and Matusz.

(For more on the 2010 staff, read:http://baltimoresportsandlife.blogspot.com/2009/05/projecting-2010-od-st )

Troy Patton has not only rebounded from his Torn Labrum, but is dominating the Eastern League.

By mid-June, we should be looking at a 25 man roster of:

Guthrie, Uehara, Hill, Bergesen, Hernandez

Sherrill
Ray
Johnson
Hendrickson
Baez
Bass
Albers

Roberts 2nd
Jones CF
Markakis RF
Wieters C
Huff 1st
Mora 3rd
Scott DH
Reimold LF
Izturis SS

Zaun, Wigginton, Andino, Pie

The best use of time in 2009 was seeing who could step-forward and bepart of the future core. This is occurring for the Orioles at the Major League, and Minor League levels. The plan being used here in 2009 is going to allow the O's to be competitive in 2010, and legitimately compete in 2011.

My long-winded point is that the O's facing the reality that they could not compete in 2009 is not a shell-game, it was the right decision for the long-term benefit of the franchise.