Andy MacPhail - In His Own Words
On Saturday, Orioles president of baseball operations, Andy MacPhail had an opportunity to address the fans during one of the FanFest forums. Here are some of his comments.
ON THE REBUILDING EFFORT
"I think the course we took, as much as its going to have its painful moments, was the only course we could take. If we're serious about winning and I mean, really winning, this is the type of thing you had to do. We had two real good players, that, in my judgement, weren't going to be around here in a couple years.
With the trades, there is some risk on our part. They get known commodities while we deal with potential, but that's why we got ten players.
If we are serious about getting this franchise where we want you needed to do two things. The first is we needed to make a significant investment in the infrastructure of this franchise. I'm talking about player developement and starting an international scouting department. We built an academy in the Dominican Republic and that's where the reality is, 30 to 40 percent of the players in the game today are coming from.
We've invested a half-million dollars in our clubhouse in a new state of the art video system so our players can see what the opponents are trying to do to them. Believe me, these other teams have this type of stuff, why should we be handicapped.
We spent over 7 million dollars on our top two draft picks from last year. To me, this franchise has always been willing to spend the money its just where they've chosen to spend it.
To compete in this unforgiving division you have to make that commitment and get a good stream of talent coming up thru the farm system. We need to get the best coaches and instructers we can."
ON MELVIN MORA'S STRONG SPRING TRAINING PLAY
"The three things we preached in Florida were energy, effort and enthusiasm and we got a consistent effort from our players over the six weeks.
Melvin, my goodness, I don't know if you can have a better spring. He did everything right, he was playing great defensively, running the bases great and he hit close to .500. I don't know how you can have a better spring."
ON ADAM JONES
"I'm confident the fans will understand why he's so talked about by the Baseball America's of the world. He had a big year at age 21 in the Pacific Coast League. There's no reason for Adam to go to the minors. There are certain adjustments you can only make at the major leagues. There are no pitchers in the minors like Josh Beckett. Players aren't exposed to pitchers like that in the minors.
He'll have some struggles, but he's a gifted athlete, a very hard worker and a fine kid that you can really root for."
CURRENT STATE OF THE FARM SYSTEM
"I would say we're okay in arms (pitching), we're pretty good. We're not where we'd like to be yet, but we're okay. Position players we need more of. We need more depth in our position players.
I will go to our minor league teams and watch this year, because that's where our future lies. We can't just be average here.
This is where we need to invest our money now, its like bridges and roads, you have to have a sound foundation. There will come a time where we're going to have to get active in free agency but's its not going to pay off for us until we have that good foundation of talent."
ON MIKE FLANAGAN'S ROLE
"I asked Mike this spring to zero in on our pitching. We need to get the pitching right. He spent a lot of time on the back fields watching the pitchers. We are very pleased with some of the adjustments Brian Burress made this spring and he's one of the guys that's been working on that."
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