Domenic Vadala: What's more important, spending or spending wisely?

We can't lend too much analysis to the first week-plus of games in the major leagues, given the fact that it's the first week. The fact that the 2014 Orioles started 1-4 should remind us of that. Furthermore, keep in mind that the 2014 O's hovered around a few games of .500 for the first two months or so of last season. And we all know how that ended.

That said, on Monday night Orioles fans were forced to see one of their biggest weapons from 2014 turned on them in Andrew Miller. Yankees manager Joe Girardi brought Miller into the game in the eighth inning, and he completed the game for New York closing out a 6-5 win over the Orioles. It was kind of a sad thing to watch in a way, knowing what Miller meant to the O's in their 2014 stretch run.

If you flash back to Sunday afternoon, Travis Snider committed an error in right field, which resulted in three unearned runs being tacked onto Chris Tillman's line. And the O's fell to Toronto, 10-7 - three runs of course being the margin of victory. As soon as that error occurred, my Twitter feed lit up with people saying that Nick Markakis wouldn't have made that error. And perhaps that's true, but we'll never know.

So my question to Orioles fans today is whether or not the Orioles have erred in their ways. And I don't mean just in parting with one player; I mean in general. It was almost a given that Miller and Nelson Cruz were going to leave, and I would submit that most fans were probably OK with that. Markakis leaving, of course, was a surprise that most fans didn't expect.

So we've now indirectly seen Markakis' absence on display, and we've seen the departure of Miller directly affect the Orioles in a game. Ironically, the one player whose absence hasn't been felt (directly or indirectly) is Cruz. At this point, I don't think anyone is questioning Orioles bats very much, especially with the white-hot start of Adam Jones. But with that said, would the Orioles have been better off keeping one, some, or all three of those players?

The answer is a resounding yes. Of course they would have been better off. But the question I posed above was deliberately both loaded and vague. It's far too easy to suggest that the Orioles aren't interested in winning and other teams are, or that the Orioles aren't willing to pay for quality. Some folks might feel that way, and that's OK. It's also easy to say that if you want a player, you have to be willing to pony up. However, in my personal view, it's a bit overly simplistic.

Cruz is making $14 million per year over the next four years in Seattle - which incidentally is a pitcher's park. Markakis is making $11 million per year for the next four years, and Miller is making $9 million per year over the next four years. Again it's easy enough to say that the Orioles weren't willing to spend the money. However, is it better to invest that amount of revenue in two aging stars and a reliever, or is it better to potentially hold that money back so as to invest in the likes of Chris Davis, Matt Wieters and eventually Manny Machado?

This is all a matter of opinion. However it's not necessarily how much you spend or on whom you spend it. It's how smartly you spend that money. Does anyone think that the Braves or even the Yankees are going to contend for a championship this year? I would say no - so one could submit that the money wasn't very well spend on their part, and thus it's money well saved by the Orioles. (And I recognize that Markakis was a fan favorite, which makes things even harder.)

I recognize how painful it was for Orioles fans to see Miller used against the Birds in that manner, just as much as it was easy to say that with Markakis in right field those three runs wouldn't have scored on Sunday. But this is where philosophies can at times clash. Is it better to get the player at all costs, or to get the player at the proper value? Ultimately, at the end of the day, I believe that the Orioles will be in contention until the end. Whether that means the postseason is anyone's guess. But they'll be in the mix.

Domenic Vadala blogs about the Orioles at Birds Watcher, and his opinions appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our pages. Follow him on Twitter: @DomenicVadala. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.