How much credit does Andy MacPhail deserve?

[BuckMagic]

Serious question...

Duquette has brought in Hammel, Chen, and McLouth but a lot of the pieces were already here.

How much of this team's success is because of MacPhail?!

[ofahn]

Serious question...

Duquette has brought in Hammel, Chen, and McLouth but a lot of the pieces were already here.

How much of this team's success is because of MacPhail?!

Andy gets an assist on Chen because the team had been scouting him for two years.

What I blame MacPhail for is not significantly expanding our presence in the International market and not doubling our June Draft budget. If we would have spent an additional 25M in amateur players over the last four years I can only imagine what our farm system would look like today.

[Matt P]

31 players made their Orioles debut this season. Whether some of them were already in the minors before Duquette got here or not that is a pretty remarkable number for a team that is tied for 1st place and is 18 games over .500.

MacPhail made a lot of nice trades for the team but Duquette definitely put the finishing touches on the team and brought in more depth in one year than MacPhail brought in during his entire tenure.

I'd say Duquette gets 65% and MacPhail gets 35% in terms of GM credit.

[A_K]

80% MacPhail, 20% Duquette.

[birdwatcher55]

AM deserves a great deal of credit for bringing in much of the talent (Jones, Hardy, Strop, Davis, Reynolds, Machado, Wieters, Tillman etc). DD fine tuned it by adding more pitching, and depth. His constant roster moves have been extraordinary

[Matt P]

AM deserves a great deal of credit for bringing in much of the talent (Jones, Hardy, Strop, Davis, Reynolds, Machado, Wieters, Tillman etc). DD fine tuned it by adding more pitching, and depth. His constant roster moves have been extraordinary

I don't think it's fair to give AM credit for Wieters or Machado. Both were obvious draft choices. The one who should get credit for them is Peter Angelos for the willingness to pay the amounts necessary for both players.

[birdwatcher55]

Hail Peter

[Matt P]

Hail Peter

I'm not saying that I'm just saying he was the one who gave the okay to draft each player.

[osforlife]

Macphail positives:
1. got us great new spring training complex.
2. got us great manager in Buck Showlater.
3. got us a defensively sounded shortstop with alot of pop in JJ Hardy for nothing.
4. signed Kogi which eventually gave us what should be a nice bullpen arm in Hunter and young power hitter in Davis.
5. got us a star in Adam Jones, a shutdown middle reliever in Patton, a nice young starting pitcher in Tillman, and several quality years of hitting production out of Luke Scott for Tejada and Bedard.
5. traded Sherril for Bell(which got us nice LOOGY prospect in Bielfore) and Johnson who should be a nice bullpen arm in Johnson.
6. got us shutdown set-up man in Strop for Gonzalez.

Macphail negatives:
1. basically wasted money spent on Lee, Guererro, Duchscherer, Gonzalez, Gregg, Atkins, Tejada, Accardo.
2. failed international talent scouting.
3. two extensions that didn't turn out too well in Markakis and Roberts.

With a little more luck with free agent signings, I think Macphail could still be here. 50%

[osforlife]

Duquette put on many nice pieces in Hammel, Lindstrom, Saunders, Chen, Ayala, Gonzalez, McLouth, Flaherty.

[Old Sneakers]

Serious question...

Duquette has brought in Hammel, Chen, and McLouth but a lot of the pieces were already here.

How much of this team's success is because of MacPhail?!

Honestly, I really think he deserves little if any credit. Joe Jordan did the drafting. McPhail had a horrendous track record while here for doing little in the way of player acquisitions. Think back to Short Stop on 2008. Or for that matter the ghastly starting rotation in 2009. That rotation was positively inept and we up and ran with it for months in sheer futility! Brian Matuzs was promoted to the majors way too early and we are still paying for that.

Yes, he brought in Mark Reynolds who brought much needed power but remains a mixed bag. But it cost us David Hernandez whom is likely going to be a quality relief pitcher for a long time. We had already paid too much Mike Gonzalez in money and a second round draft pick. Then acquired Kevin Gregg whom has mostly been a very mixed bag. Andy McPhail never settled the issue at first base or left field either.

In the end he will be remembered for the Erik Bedard Trade which brought us Adam Jones and Chris Tillman. He also does deserve credit for signing JJ Hardy. But in the end he never adequately gave the team enough options to compete with the division from a pitching stand point.

That may seem harsh but DD is going to bear the same wrath from fans beyond this season if he doesn't continue to bolster and improve what he did this past off-season. More starting pitching, solving problems at first, second and left field cannot be put off. If not the teams success this season will be remembered as a fluke.

[DougDE]

I'm not saying that I'm just saying he was the one who gave the okay to draft each player.

McPhail was brought in after Wieters was drafted but before he was signed

[ofahn]

I give MacPhail points for convincing Angelos that the proper direction was building a solid farm system and turning away from using that money on free agents. I just wish AM would have been comfortable with coloring outside of the lines and made the case to PA that our farm system was SO barren that the only way we could repair it was to TRIPLE what we had been spending and draft the best talent available REGARDLESS of the cost. That's what Washington did and look where they are now.

I honestly don't think AM was capable of that kind of unconventional thought.