Come on Pete, what else was he going to say... That Millar had outlived his usefullness, That Payton was over the hill, That Hernandez is fat and lazy, That our starters are bad.... That for most of the year the goal of the bench was to exceed the mendoza line, That he has no short stop that is capable of playing at this level.....

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Pete's reply: He's said a lot of that, in one way or another. You just have to read between the lines.

Pete-
Thanks for a great season. Your comments and wit along with that of your predecessor, Mr. Kubatko, have added an entirely new facet to my enjoyment of the game and it is greatly appreciated. And...you've been a heckuva nice guy in person at the yard. You guys don't get enough attention in the press box from the fans and I appreciated the wave today as did my kids. Okay, I did spend more time in the bathroom with them today, but we got some great pictures with the Orioles Bird. And in the end my 4 year old and 6 year old had a great time. Who cares that the last question they asked me was "Did the Orioles win?". Win or lose, it was baseball.
Besides, lately the Esskay condiment race has been more exciting than the games.
And today, RELISH!!!
Have a great off-season and consider me a loyal Sun Sports reader.

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Pete's reply: Thanks very much. I think the O's should go to live condiment races, like the sausage races in Milwaukee. What do you think?

Pete,
Are the Tigers going to respect the game or are they going to roll over and play like road kill?

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Pete's reply: I actually like the Tigers in that game.

Well former Oriole Mike Mussina got his 20th win of the season. Kinda twisting the knife a bit.

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Pete's reply: If that's the case, it sure took him long enough.

I guess the finale of the '08 season typifies the last 35 games. Boy, what a brutal ending, ranking right up there with the sterling 4-32 finish a couple of years ago. I guess the eternal optimists will put a positive spin on the '08 meltdown by saying that the winning pct. this year over the last 35 games of .142 is better than '06's .111 over 36 final games.
I say that the the last 35 games should send a huge wake-up call that the 'rebuild' is off track. If MacPhail's public comments imply that all is well, then maybe he's fooling himself, along with those fans gullible enough to believe him.
Of course, it's easy for me and other disgruntled fans to criticize without offering solutions so here's my 2 cents. Quit trying to fool the rapidly declining fan base that we are going to turn this mess around any time soon or that we can become '09's Rays. Judging from what I've seen, it's going to be a least 3 years before we can even dream of getting to .500. That is more reasonable and give that situation, we might as well start from scratch. That would mean trading Roberts immediately and maybe even Markakis. Trading Markakis is a bold move but shouldnt' we be able to find an OF easy enough and wouldn't he bring a king's ransom. He'll be in his late 20's by the time the O's are near competitive and who says he won't bolt for free=agency when he's eligible. Why would he want to stay around any longer than necessary abd be another Jason Bay-praying for a trade? For those 2 guys, we'd likely get 8-10 'prospects' or even a couple of servicable starters.
Fill out the roster with the same type of veterans like Huff, Mora and Scott until the minor leaguers are ready. This time, however, make it clear that there's no quick turnaround in sight. We all know that won't happen because it will alienate the fans but let's be honest here.

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Pete's reply: That's a little over the top. The fans have to have somebody to identify with or they won't come out at all. With attendance and revenues falling, they can't go back to square one again or there won't be anybody around when and if they ever get any good.

Pete,

I guess we should be thankful the season has ended! While we probably won 10 more games than I thought we would in April, we lost 10-15 games we shouldn't have. We need a lot, but after 162 games I hope and Andy and Dave know what they need and Peter the Great opens his wallet to those millions needed to make this club competitive.

We have some deadwood to get rid of as well, beginning with Peyton, Hernandez and Walker, though I hope they sign Millar as a situational pinch hitter, while limited in talent, his energy level is always high and he is a leader on the team. Pitching, Pitching and more starting Pitching. We probably need to go get two inning eaters! Also, need a 275 hitting shortstop who can field! But already looking to the offseason and the hot stove league!

Best wishes to you during the Ravens season, as we part ways in football, I'm a celebrating Redskin fan!

Keith

22-50 against the division, lose 30 out of the last 37, have 212 pitchers come up with injuries(including one who has to try and become an outfielder) and the rest of the healthy ones prove totally inadequate, and my personal disappointment, that they actually overachieved and missed my 100 loss prediction.
Well, there's always next year...
I

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne

Peter, unfortunately, i think it will take more than "a cup o' kindness yet".

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Pete's reply: I fear you are right.

peter, I know that I’m not baseball savvy enough, and besides I'm just flat not close enough physically to where it all goes down there in B-more. But more: I'm not privy to real inside, sensitive information, critical goings on within the Orioles organization. I don’t understand the key figures and know who they really are, what they think, how bright and realistic are their ideas (do the make good baseball sense!?). Man, do they work effectively together, do they have, really, an exciting vision or goal for this franchise, which makes sense and is attainable? Finally, are they equipped to deal with the game of baseball as it has become..?

Are they, when it really comes down to it, are they sharp savvy guys who have a love and excitement for baseball, who have that drive in their hearts to find the way to get us moving to the top?

So I can’t personally evaluate if this group is the right ones for the job of bringing the Orioles back into being a solidly successful, and eventually stellar franchise. And by this I mean that no matter the score or situation, the team is always exciting to watch.. with sharp fundamentals, aggressiveness, and zinging team camaraderie.

Following from this, as critically important, I don't easily get the true sense of the real inside of the playing team, these men... these guys who live and play and go through the long enduring grind of the season. We get splashes, here and there which are colored by many factors.. and we miss too many nuances.. I’ve felt firmly for the last several years that the importance to this team of Kevin Millar was often vastly underrated, misperceived. I just heard inside myself clearly, again and again during the last couple years: “DON’T TRADE THIS MAN!....KEEP HIM ON THE TEAM... HE HAS HEART!.. ....and we need that.”

I think. I thought. Still love him, think he is the essence of the ballplayer spirit, to me it’s that ‘magic’ which makes teams really alive, and can cause them to play up to – and beyond – their perceived ability and “potential.”

But these are my musings, I must simply acknowledge that I do not know..... simply don’t know, what can help, now, the Orioles, the team, the franchise.

I think, at times, that maybe you, and a few others have some degrees of clearer view, of deeper insights – the understanding of these essential 'bits' that I lack or don’t grasp. And certainly you have ideas of what is missing, or not working, of the where, the what that the 'wrongness' might be. Though perhaps possibly even you and your better comrades in sports media analysis, possibly you don’t, or only rarely, see the important truths of it much deeper or clearer than do we.

I suspect that during the year you are limited in what you can say to openly out to the public, as some things in confidence you cannot disclose or at least discuss as frankly while the season is still ongoing, say when it comes to you in private. This would also seem to apply regarding aspects of the team management.. you may have concerns which you might give some voice to, but perhaps you tone it down some so as not to unduly throw negativity into the team while the team is trying to jell and be upbeat.

But hopefully you DO see and know some of the inner workings which we more removed don’t get to see very clearly.. And, that you DO have some intelligent insights and assessments.. which could (might?) benefit Orioles franchise. And which you would share with us.

And sooner if not later.

If so, I'm hoping you will go ahead and share with us what you perceive of the Orioles franchise, as forthrightly as you dare.. as much as you will. Bluntly.. be it with whatever dollops of sober realistic optimism. So many choices now loom possible to be made in the off-season. Are there opportunities out there which would likely and truly significantly better this team? And does McPhail have a good view of it, and if so, does he have any real chance to make it happen?

Regarding the guys, the players out there on the field... do you feel that their confidence in themselves & each other has been able to stand the discouraging slide of another late season collapse?.. Have they somehow been able to bear up to whatever has once again sent the team down?

Or was it just too undermining and unraveling? Undermining their progressing to becoming a better team, growing towards one in the top tier? I guess I'm asking you bluntly, have many lost hope?

Are enough holding on to a real desire to throw themselves into another season again, with hopefulness despite the uncertainly of what the Orioles have become? Or, do many of them just want to find their escape from here?

And so the question of the middle management.. our coaches and managers, the scouts.. the minor league system, all of it.. Can we tell, can you tell, can anyone reliably perceive, if this course the franchise has now underway, can it really have a capacity to be moving all levels of the franchise in progressive strides towards bringing about again good, well trained baseball from top to bottom? Be leading us towards some better and better years ahead? Or, do we still continue to loop endlessly, hopelessly, listlessly about... because the Orioles organization has still to yet find a true baseball roadmap leading out of the repeating morass of season-ending meltdowns, the stretches of sub-stellar, uninspired, un-alert, and life-zapping play? This life-draining twilight-zone borne along by messieurs Hemonds, Thrift, E. Bennett Williams, and Eli Jacobs, if not a few others.

For much of this last season I'd found upwellings of more real hope for this team, than I’d had but a few times in the last 20-25 years.

Then, we endured another season-ending skid.. and I’m feeling again a lot dulled and empty.

It would be encouraging to hear if you know something, anything good - and real - which could likely change about this picture we’ve yet again acquired from the O’s.

Can they be made into something hopeful.. something which plays well.. and then holds up?

I can’t see which major significant outside players who would want to come along now and would be a able to transform the team in the ways we need to be improved. Do you know of any? Realistically, where do you think the Orioles team of 2009 team is likely to be, when it is once again on the field next year?

got some words for me peter?

giles~

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Pete's reply: I don't know if there's still time. I think MacPhail is a very savvy guy who knows what he's doing. But it's a big job and there is no guarantee that a string of good decisions will lead to an organizational turnarounds. I guess you have to have some faith, or else find some other team to follow. It's certainly no picnic being an Orioles fans, but maybe it is always darkest before the dawn.

Where was the "appreciation", as in fan appreciation?
Help me here, 17,000 or so show up
to support this mess, and it being the last home game one would think the team may have found perhaps 20 minutes or so to at least aknowledge those 200 or so fans who showed up 2 hours early with the anticipation of it being the last game perhaps thanks was coming. it was apparent that their sole purpose was to try and get their kid that old school feeling you got when we were kids.
NOPE, Business as usual for these pompous, over paid, sub par athelets and owner who gives a rats ass.

Being an eternal optimist, I would like to see the Orioles take 3 steps this winter. Sign Roberts to an extension, and go hard after Texiera and Burnett. You're adding excitement by bringing in hometown boys and with Mark in the lineup, it won't be as critical to find a good hitting SS. Then with Guthrie and Burnett anchoring the 1 and 2, you let the youngsters battle for the remaining positions. I'm hopeful the bullpen is solid next year, once everyone is healthy. Also, I say keep Ramon behind the plate until later next year when we can bring up Weiters. I'm not saying that with these changes we can win it all next year, but I'm looking for a step toward consistently competitive.

At first I couldn't believe you'd want to do something so "Nationals" in Baltimore!
But...I'm game for anything that's real and not on the HD TV.
The closest the O's come is the race for 2nd base thing on weekends.
So, while the Presidents are racing around the diamond in DC, I kind of like the idea of 3 guys dressed as condiments running around the bases instead of the animated version which only has as many outcomes as the Orioles pay the animators to create.

Keep Millar? As the "heart" of the team, he's valuable. He's a fair 1st baseman (so is Ortiz) but he can't produce consistently like an Ortiz.
Guys like Salazar are the future of the team. Kevin is a great guy, but I think that his career is more of the "elder statesman" than the up and comer. Now if he could produce offensively on a consistent basis, we could talk.
Roberts needs to stay here. He does too much for the community AND produces.
I'm gonna stay tuned in here all Fall and Winter Pete, so keep me entertained and well informed

Pete. My suggestion of trading Markakis would be based only on the premise that he's not interested in signing a contract extension. If he isn't, then it makes some sense to trade him. As a fan, I like to see good players but I also like to see a winning team. I'm not sure how many fans go to the games just to see certain players but there's probably just as many that go to see Roberts as Markakis and he might be dealt.

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Pete's reply: I think Markakis still has three or four years until he can leave for free agency, so it wouldn't make sense to trade him unless you never intend to win.

It did in fact WREAK OF ARROGANCE that not a single player came back out of the clubhouse after the game to sign or toss balls to the 1000 or so people waiting around. That fell to the guys in the audio/video booth, the ushers and of course the ORIOLES BIRD.
Did the players sign more willingly and stop to talk to fans outside the parking lot after the game?
When 19,000 people come to see you drop your finale, you should do more than just "go home".
Then again, we did get those rinky-dink team photos. What happened to the big ones they gave away last year?
Maybe it's part of MacPhail's strategy-if the photo is so small you can't really see who the players are, you won't notice when the team undergoes major changes...
Watcha' think Pete??

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Pete's reply: I don't know what to tell you, because I was down in the basement and didn't see who was doing what. I know that outside the stadium, it's always going to be tough since they have a dedicated parking lot that isn't accessible to the public. I don't think it was arrogance. i think it was just a bunch of tired guys who never gave it a thought. That might not be right, but it's not pre-meditated.

Now bring Mussina back to baltimore.
Do not go for Texiera. We have Aubrey Huff. Go after a free agent ss like Furcal, or trade for the ss in SD(Green).

Pete:
Although there is a cry for the Orioles to get new shortstops, first basemen, catchers, etc., the story of the Orioles year is primarily the pitching problem. It really becomes apparent when you compare the first half of the season vs. the second half. In April, May and June the Orioles won 42 games and lost 40. During this priod the Oriole starters won 25, lost 28 and had a 4.96 ERA. The Relief Staff, in turn, did a great job supporting them by winning 17 games, losing 12, with 28 saves and an ERA of 3.11. But the July, August, September period, was a totally different story and this was reflected in the Orioles 25 win, 63 loss record, a record that should have been better because the O's offense was scoring over 6 runs a game in July and August. But the pitching staf totally tanked. The starters went 21-35 and their ERA jumped to a ridiculous 6.05, while the Relief staff suffered a total collapse, winning only 5 games, losing 18, and only saving 6 games while recording an ERA of 5.99. With the starting and relief staff giving up an average of 6 runs a game, its pretty tough to win in the competitive American League East, or for that matter, anywhere in baseball. With the great offensive years we got from Roberts, Markakis and Huff, and with the development of Adam Jones, the Birds should never have lost 93 games, but when you don't have starters that can pitch effectively for 6-7 innings, and your relief staff implodes and can't get anybody out, you can't win. So it is pretty obvious that if Peter A is going to open his pocketbook at all, the money should be spent on pitching.
Pete, I would also like to add to the other comments that have been made about the great job you did this year after taking over this blog. Your willingness to respond to the number of questions that were posed to you, along with your insights and sense of humor, made it more fun to follow the Orioles this year. Thanks for a great job.

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Pete's reply: Thanks, but I hope you're not shutting it down. We're going to keep grinding until we get this O's team fixed and the Ravens into the playoffs.