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.
The only surprise here is that it didn’t happen earlier. It’s why very few companies block their employees from taking better opportunities elsewhere in the real world.
Making the postseason has a way of making issues like this not seem so bad. And then suddenly falling out of contention has a way of letting them bubble quickly to the surface.
It’s funny how hardly anyone ever criticizes Angelos for his antics as owner of the orioles and his penny pinching ways and he has a MASSIVE inflow of cash with the Orioles in Baltimore and has had for years and years. He’s been afraid to spend money on anyone, ever since getting burned on Albert Bell’s faulty hips in a FA deal nearly 20 years ago and still refuses to get off his wallet. He takes TV money from the Nationals, is the league’s upper reaches in attendance, has a decent tv deal himself?
Why does the league and especially fans save their resentment for Loria, who doesn’t have the fan support, tv deal, or any other income that Angelos has coming in in spades?
to johnsilver, people need to understand that while Angelos ma have money coming in from MASN, that it’s not as simple as going “well I have all this extra money here, let me pour it into this other organization over here” That’s not the way it works. The Orioles have their own set of investors and minority owners who need to see that the Orioles are making money and that it’s worth pouring more money into the organization. Is Angelos cheap? Sure, although when you look at total salary, the O’s are up there for mid market teams (mostly because of salary arbitration this year) but it’s so simple to say “GIVE ALL THE MONEY!!!!” and that’s not how it’d done.
Also, the Orioles need to draft better. Flat out. It’s been said a million times but were not the Red Socks or the Yankees. We don’t have those markets and those pockets. We need to think more like the Rays and develop better far players. Home many first round pitchers have we taken the last 20 years? I mean just look at the 1999 draft. Brian Roberts was the best talent and he was the last pick we took in all those. If we can do this and be patient, we won’t need to trade our (already depleted) farm system for rentals….OR we could then be in a position to do something like the Blue Jays did this year and actually take a real gamble on a few good players by trading chips we already have instead of giving away possible 3 and 4 starters like Eduardo Rodriguez and Zach Davies.
We need to keep Buck and give him what he wants. He’s created a great foundation and culture that we have not had since the 90’s. We need to resign Manny long term and give him the money he wants and then along with Adam Jones and Johnathan Schoop we need to start building our farm system and make a push to win in three years. Draft smart – assuming we get a pick for Chen and Davis, that will make 6 picks (?) in the first two rounds this year.
Sorry for my rant. I read a lot of comments on the O’s and it seems we’ve already forgotten what it’s like to have losing season after losing season with no direction.
We have great talent up the middle – we just need to be patient and develop some legitimate front end picthing (hopefully between Gausman, Harvey and Bundy we can get one of those guys in there).
The farm system would not be ranked one of the worst if the Orioles realized the Blue Jays are going all in and how they should trade their guys unless they too were going to go all in (adding Parra was not enough).
It is going to be interesting how the Orioles will handle this and how they will utilize their remaining core.