O's game blog: Duquette and Showalter speak at "State of the Orioles" address

Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette and manager Buck Showalter took questions from some of the club's season ticket holders today. It was their "State of the Orioles" address.

Here are some of the question and answers from this afternoon's program. The duo got more pointed and specific questions today than in previous years, in my opinion.

"Do not drop your expectations of what you expect us to be," Showalter told the fans early in the program. "We need you to hold us to a high level. It is not good enough if we are not playing in the postseason every year."

A young fan asked, "Do you have enough money to keep key players like Chris Davis?"

"That is the million dollar question right? Or multi-million dollar question," Duquette said. "I can tell you this. We will sign some of them and some we will not be able to sign. The important thing for us to have a good team every year is that we have a good farm system. We do have a good farm system. The free market is a market that we are active in. We want to sign some of our key players for the future and Chris Davis is one of them."

A fan asked about the strategy of trying to replace Nelson Cruz and Nick Markakis when they left via free agency.

"Some of the things we tried didn't work out the way we planned," Duquette said. "We did make an effort to replace them. We haven't been able to replace the power production of left field and we are still working on that."

A young fans asked, "Can you please sign Manny (Machado) to a contract extension?"

"Is Manny your favorite player?" Duquette asked the fan. "I love Manny. He is mine too. And he is already signed for a couple years," he said, meaning Machado is under team control through the 2018 season.

The duo was asked about the club's philosophy in signing free agents and asked if the Orioles were willing to overpay for a player to not leave holes on the team.

"It was not an issue what we would pay (Nelson) Cruz for this year," Duquette said. "It was an issue of the fourth year at 34 and we were not willing to do that, right or wrong. We have enough resources here to have a competitive team year in and year out.

"I don't think the good values for player contracts are usually available in the major league free agent market. So we look in all the markets. We're active in that market but we look to the farm system, we look in the international market, we do the Rule 5 draft. We sign minor league free agents. We've made a few minor league trades that are going to help our team next year, you just don't know it yet."

A question was asked about young pitchers and their health issues in baseball. The man said, "Have you guys considered letting guys throw the pitches that made them the good prospects that they are?" This was an apparent reference, I would assume, to the Orioles asking Dylan Bundy to hold off on throwing a cut fastball early in his career to work more on other pitches.

Showalter said: "Let me tell you, if they can get people out they can throw it until they are blue in the face. ... They talk about way back when they threw 150 pitches, take a look. Their careers were done at 28, 29 years old.

"I don't apologize and we don't in trying to protect your assets in our organization. We let them go. We've taken the governors off Kevin Gausman. It's time to go. The increments that we take guys, we're proud of the health of not only our starting pitchers but our bullpen guys. There is a reason why they've been healthy, knock on wood."

Duquette said: "That is an ongoing issue, the health of pitchers throughout the industry. There is a billion dollars of pitchers getting paid on the disabled list. It is not just the Orioles trying to keep our pitchers healthy, it's the industry."

A fan asked about giving up a young pitcher in Zach Davies to acquire outfielder Gerardo Parra from Milwaukee.

"One of the costs of adding to the team is giving up young pitching," said Duquette. "You can use your farm system to staff your major league team or to try for major leaguers. In this case, we traded for an outfielder because that was one of the holes on our team."

Showalter said: "We like Zach Davies but we think we have some pitchers better than him in our system, ahead of him. What do you think about the movement on his fastball? He's probably going to pitch in the big leagues, I don't know if he'll be impactful. But Mr. Parra has a chance to play for us for the next seven or eight years."

Another young fan - quite a few spoke up today - asked about adding Dariel Alvarez.

"I was thinking when you asked about Nelson and Nick (Markakis)," Showalter said. "And believe me, no one likes them more than Dan and I. But I wonder what Henry Urrutia and Dariel Alvarez feel about them not being here?

"One thing we can do is out-opportunity people. Dariel is doing okay. He's got to get a little more selective in the strikezone. Right now he's swinging at about anything that is moving. But he can catch up with anybody's fastball and you'll see him. As soon as he figures out the strikezone a little bit more, you'll see him."

@danduquette & Buck in Q&A w/season ticket holders before tonight's game. @Orioles @masnOrioles pic.twitter.com/KMJo5YjSDu

-- Jim Hunter (@JimOriolesTV) August 15, 2015