Kerry's CALCULUS
Strategy, Tactics and the Road to Nowhere
There's a two-part process a baseball organization must follow in order to be successful on the field.
The first is the existence of a strategy--a plan if you will. Plans differ from franchise to franchise and are rarely, if ever, static. An example of a strategy might be to rebuild for long-term competitiveness by deepening the organizational prospect base. Another might be to attempt to win now by signing a couple of key free agents and/or trading younger players for established veterans who can productively fill important spots on the club. There are, of course, other strategies that teams can--and do--follow.
The second part of the puzzle falls under the term tactics. Tactics are the formal moves designed to implement the chosen strategy. For instance, to implement the "rebuild for long-term competitiveness" strategy a team may decide to trade three specific major league players for, say, seven or eight specific young, promising prospects.
The team that identifies a sound strategy and produces the proper tactics to implement will be successful the vast majority of the time. But failure on either or both of these aspects of development will almost always fail.
I think it's fairly clear that the Orioles have spent several years failing on the strategy part of the equation and, even if they finally have the strategy part right, have shown no ability whatsoever to identify the tactics necessary to fulfill the strategy's overarching goal.
Any yahoo can offer a cogent post hoc analysis of what "should have" been done. There's nothing like a little Monday morning quarterbacking to get the week off to a good start.
After the 1997 season, I publicly stated in an article on the Orioles Hangout that I thought the Orioles should begin dismantling its veteran club. It was, I suggested, all downhill from 1997 division title and ALCS appearance. I remarked at the time that I thought that the team had a legitimate but outside shot at the '98 wildcard, but not a good one and certainly nothing more than that.
I don't mention this to pat myself on the back. In hindsight, I hit the nail right on the head that time, but there have been many times where I've missed the mark by plenty.
I also stated, in the same article, that I didn't expect the Orioles to throw in the towel and rebuild and, frankly, that I wouldn't blame them for not doing so. The team was coming off its most successful season since 1983 and it would have been awfully unpopular to simply "give up" at that point, even if was arguably the wise thing to do. No, the Orioles needed to see a real decline first. Fair enough.
Unfortunately, it was pretty obvious by mid-May that the Orioles weren't going to contend for anything in 1998 and that, in fact, the decline was well under way. By the '98 trading deadline the decision to adopt a rebuilding strategy should have been obvious to everyone in the Orioles organization. But apparently it wasn't. The team did not move to retool, instead keeping its highly paid veteran club together to make an ill-advised run at a playoff spot and finished below .500.
Surely the team would realize, during the off-season, that a rebuilding effort was called for, right? Think again. Rafael Palmeiro was allowed to walk, in a controversial move, which might have implied that the team was eschewing long-term deals to productive but aging veterans, but that went out the window with the signing of the likes of 30-somethings Will Clark, Delino DeShields, Mike Trombley, and Buddy Groom to multi-year contracts. No existing veteran players were dealt for young prospects. In fact, it wasn't until the trading deadline of the 2000 season that veteran players were moved for prospects (and I use the term in the broadest possible sense). Even after the mid-season purge of 2000, there remained doubt about the Orioles commitment to rebuilding. In the off-season prior to 2001, the Orioles made long-term offers to the likes of Jose Valentin, Kevin Appier, and Tom Gordon, and inked David Segui to an inexplicable four-year contract and Brook Fordyce to a three-year extension. Not until this off-season, when the Orioles almost completely ignored the free agent market--the signing of Marty Cordova to a three-year contract notwithstanding, did it finally appear that the Orioles were committed to rebuilding the team.
So, the Orioles reached the inevitable decision on a strategy to be pursued, albeit at least 2 1/2 years later than they should have. High-priced, big name free agents were written off. Unproductive, aging ballplayers whose prime has long since been past have been simply released, despite being owed money. But despite this apparent commitment, the Orioles continue to make moves--and not make moves--that make one wonder if they understand what rebuilding is all about. The latest is the rumor--by the time this is posted, perhaps fact--of a two-year extension (plus an option) to Jeff Conine. Conine's a decent enough ballplayer, and could probably actually help the right team in the right spot, but he turns 36 this season and, basically, has no position. He doesn't have the bat to be a plus first baseman or designated hitter, he doesn't have the glove--or the bat--to be a league average corner outfielder. So the Orioles, who have approximately a zero percentage chance of contending for anything while Conine is a remotely productive player lock him up for the next three seasons, with the option for a fourth (he would turn 39 in that option year) to the tune of $5 million per season.
Brilliant.
One thing that the Orioles don't seem to understand is that teams that are also-rans work to improve themselves by dealing aging, but still presumably productive players, to teams that are contending for something in return for young players--often minor leaguers--with clear, demonstrated potential to be good big league players for many years. Keeping older players while they decline is not a particularly smart move for non-contending teams. And--most importantly--signing 36-year-old I-don't-have-a-position players to $10 million extensions isn't going to make it easier to deal these guys. It's going to make it almost impossible. Who would pick up the rest of that contract? No, the Orioles appear to want to keep Conine, which brings us right back where we started--they don't understand how to rebuild. They are completely clueless as to the tactics necessary.
Of course the team has demonstrated a clear inability to judge talent, on the one hand, and develop it, on the other, so this should come as no surprise. We've beaten this point into the ground in the past, so I won't belabor it, other than to point out that the team has had almost no success developing its own players for years and is now putting almost all its hopes for any kind of on-the-field turnaround in the hands of a group of relatively talented, but almost entirely unproven, young pitchers.
Even if a best case scenario, where many of the franchise's minor league pitchers become significant big league contributors, plays out, the Orioles will be left with half a team, essentially devoid of position player talent. The way out of the pickle would be for the team to trade pitching for young position players, but this presumes that the brain trust is capable of identifying the kinds of players that should be acquired.
There is no evidence, to date that the team has any idea of how to do this--another massive tactical failure.
Barring a change in the ability of the Orioles front office personnel to correctly identify and implement the tactics necessary to carry out a rebuilding strategy, the Orioles will remain on their road to nowhere, a road they've been stumbling along for four years, with a fifth about to begin...and an untold number yet to come.