A steady Atkins diet of comments
Garrett Atkins knew for the last three or four months that the Rockies would non-tender him. And he learned of the Orioles' interest in him almost immediately after the move became official.
"Obviously, it's a great opportunity here," he said during today's conference call. "You look at the lineup and they have great hitters - young, left-handed and right-handed. This lineup will score runs. And this is obviously a good place to hit.
"It's a good city, a good baseball city. It's a tough division, but it's the best division in all of baseball. And I'm excited to be a part of that."
Atkins is a career .298 hitter over seven major league seasons, all with the Rockies, but he slumped to .226 this summer and lost his starting job at third. His home run total dropped from 25 in 2006 to nine this year.
"We're very confident that he's going to be able to get back to where he's been in the past," president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail said. "Most of you know I have a lot of confidence in (hitting coach) Terry Crowley, and Terry has always been a believer that, if it's in there, he can get it out."
Said Atkins: "I just got off to a rough start and coaches started tinkering a little bit and I really couldn't get a handle on it. I kind of lost my starting spot and playing time was sporadic. I'd have a couple good games in a row, then one bad one and I'd find myself sitting on the bench for a few days. I'm looking forward to playing every day and showing that I can be the productive hitter that I've been in the past.
"No doubt, I have a lot to prove, and that's why I'm excited about this opportunity, to get the chance to get back to playing every day. There's not going to be a better opportunity to show that I'm back on track.
"They obviously have the most confidence in me over any other team, and that's appealing to any player."
MacPhail said he had more interest in Atkins once it was time to leave the winter meetings than when he first arrived in Indianapolis, just from talking to various people who knew the infielder. And Atkins' one-year deal, with a club option for 2011, won't create an issue if a prospect is ready to be promoted from Triple-A Norfolk.
"We do feel like we have young kids at first and third down the road, and anybody who required a long-term commitment was something that wasn't ideal for us," MacPhail said. "So here we have the opportunity, in our view, to take a bit of a risk on a flier for a guy who was one of the game's more productive hitters before last year, and on our terms, one plus an option. And it gives us the versatility to gauge the first and third base market going down.
"Also, as most of you know, we continue to pay particular attention as best we can to the makeup of the players we bring in. We're trying to be protective of the kids we're developing. We want to surround them not just with quality major league players, but quality people, and we're more than confident that Garrett meets that standard."
Atkins is going from a team that played in the World Series in 2007 to one that hasn't posted a winning season since 1997.
"I think it's kind of similar, just looking around here and talking to people, to the way the Rockies built up their system," he said. "The way they're doing things here, with a lot of talented players who grew through the system, that process takes time. As you saw, Colorado was terrible in '05 and '06, then in '07 a light clicked on, and the next thing you know, we're in the World Series. It shows that if you stick to the young talent, it eventually becomes veteran talent, and with more experience, you learn how to win."
More to come.
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Categories (click for archive)Roch Kubatko | Roch Kubatko Orioles |
Roch, what's his record in AL parks? Has he ever played in Camden Yards?
Marc S.
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Check baseball-reference.com. Or yahoosports.com. Go to baseball, players and type in his name, and you'll be able to call up a ton of info, including situational splits. - Roch
Garrett Atkins at OPACY
1-4 with an RBI
Random thought- opening day is on a friday. Do they wear black on the home opener? Have they ever wore an alternate jersey for opening day?
KPB,
Yeah, sometimes you guys have some insightful things to say, when you think of something different to put out there. I actually agree with alot of what you guys say, I just wish you would change the record every once in a while. I just thought it was funny that Brummie said Hill just "won't admit that he stinks". I thought that was a pretty ridiculous thing to say. What professional player, whether he stinks or not, is going to come out and say, "yeah, I'm going to give it up, I stink". Nobody does that, he's going to keep trying to find someone to give him a shot and he will do what any one of us would do in his situation - he'll make as much money as he can, while he can. Hopefully for his sake he can get it straightened out, if not, enjoy the ride while he can.
Keep up the good thoughts, just find something new to say every once in a while.
Hey Jedd,
One last thing to think about on setting a minimum payroll without a corresponding maximum. The total payroll was for the ML last year was about $2.5 billion (say what?) with about 2/3 of that spent by about 10 teams. If you set a minimum of $80 million, you're increasing the payroll on a bunch of teams but not lowering the others. There may be some balance as a result, but mostly you're just going to drive up the payroll because I don't see the top 10 teams spending much less than they are right now.
I'm guessing the O's will be in the low to mid 70's this year and in 2-3 years they'll be somewhere above the midway point but not in the top 10.
I'm seeing comments here regarding a salary floor.
Very simply put, it's a dumb idea. Rebuilding teams would have to invest in mediocre free agents that don't figure into their future just to get to the salary floor. These underperforming, overpaid veterans would be taking significant playing time away from young players that have come through an orginization's farm system. These young players would be much more productive than the old veterans.
So you would have young players who could be very productive for the big club surrendering playing time for old, decrepit veterans who are on the roster just to get the team to the salary floor.
This would not be a problem for New York or Boston because, well, they don't rebuild through the farm system -- they just reload -- and they have payrolls that would be so far above the salary floor, that they wouldn't really matter in the salary floor argument.
Sounds like a salary floor would widen the gap between the Baltimore's and Toronto's as opposed to the New York's and Boston's, does it not?
LJ said:
Wow, talk about anticlimactic. We're getting ready to announce a deal that was done last week, while the rest of our division are making moves like crazy. I think it might be time to check the perculator Andy.
*****
I know, right? The Jays/minus Halladay, and the Rays/add Shoppach deals clearly cement the Orioles' spot in the basement. What else have the Jays done that I missed? I mean, aside from giving away the best pitcher in baseball for some prospects? Sure, they signed John Buck and Joey Gathright. Good call. The Rays? Well, at least they have Chris Richard.
To be completely irrelevant, the Dodgers have done even less than we have. They signed Josh Towers and Jamey Carroll, for crying out loud. The Cubs? Carlos Silva. Annnnnnnnnd... that might be it for them.
Yes, the rest of our division are "making moves like crazy". This just in.... our division also now includes Toronto and Tampa Bay.
Anything I can do to be informative :)