| Garrett Wilson. 10th August, 2006 - 7:34 pm
 Being in the AL East is no picnic for the Baltimore Orioles. Every year they are forced to battle the perennial contenders that are the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, creating a nearly insurmountable obstacle for them to win the division title. The Yanks and BoSox are both backed by owners who seem willing to spend whatever it takes to win. It sure must be nice to have an owner like thst. What would be almost as nice though is to have an owner who doesn’t let his own ego get in the way winning.
At this most recent trade deadline, it appears that Peter Angelos, owner of the Baltimore Orioles, once again overrode the decisions of his front office executives (men he hired, by the way) and squashed deals that would have finally put the wayward Baltimore franchise back on track to being competitive. Peter the Terrible’s most recent transgressions revolved around Miguel Tejada and his steadfast refusal to trade away the player Angelos thought (wrongly) would resurrect the Orioles. In so doing, Angelos obliterated any opportunity for the O’s to improve in the present and future.
By adamantly refusing to let his GM trade Tejada, Angelos ended up killing three different trades in one fell swoop. The first of which was a proposed deal with the Angels that would have swapped Tejada (and his fat contract) for ace-in-the-making Ervin Santana, highly-touted and major league ready SS prospect Erick Aybar and possibly another top prospect. When this rumored proposal leaked out, experts and MLB executives alike were left with mouths agape that the Angels would make such an overwhelmingly strong offer. After all, it isn’t every day that a young top-of-the-rotation starting pitcher is traded, much less packaged with a quality defensive shortstop prospect with tons of speed and a little power. After those experts and execs heard that the Orioles turned down the offer, they quickly went from mouths agape to slamming their heads against the wall in disbelief.
But the fun didn’t stop there. Right up until the deadline arrived, it was widely rumored that Baltimore had agreed to deal Tejada to the Houston Astros for Roy Oswaly, Morgan Ensberg and Adam Everrett. So, instead of a potential ace and a lead-off type shortstop, the O’s could have had an established Cy Young candidate, a slugging All-Star third baseman and a pretty good defensive shortstop. The Orioles didn’t save any money in this deal, but the proven talent was much greater than the Angel proposal. Orioles GM Mike Flanagan wasn’t done there though. Considering the payroll implications of acquiring Oswalt, he had set-up a secondary deal that would have sent Oswalt to the Texas Rangers for another slugging All-Star third baseman, Hank Blalock (who presumably would have switched to first base or the outfield), solid shortstop prospect Joaquin Arias and one of the pitching prospects from Texas’ vaunted DVD (Dansk-Volquez-Diamond) trio of potential aces. Essentially, it would have been a five-for-one deal for Tejada (or more if the Baltimore decided to trade Ensberg or Blalock at a later date, a strong possibility). The Orioles would have gained payroll flexibility, quality prospects and enough major league talent to remain moderately competitive. There is literally nothing to not to like about that kind of deal… unless your name is Peter Angelos.
All Peter Angelos had to do was swallow his pride and allow his general manger to pull the trigger on one of the deals. Instead, Peter the Greek felt it was more important that he continue to try and justify his biggest free-agent expenditure in years by holding on to Tejada, a man who a few months earlier allegedly demanded a trade from the team he perceived to be a sinking ship. Angelos would rather ignorantly try and prove that he was right in signing Tejada rather than admit that the deal did not work out as expected and trade for some actual return on the investment.
This is not the first time that Angelos has let his own personal preferences interfere with the well-being of his ball club either, and once again it is the fans that are made to suffer. If Mr. Angelos is so concerned about losing fans to the new team in Washington, D.C., he might want to consider butting out and letting the front office do the job he hired them for. If he gets bored he can just go back to counting the millions of dollars he squeezed out of Major League Baseball when he “allowed” the Nationals to move in next door. |
