The Orioles, meanwhile, are talking to former Florida Marlins manager Joe Girardi about the vacant position. Girardi, you may recall, led a team with a $15 million payroll to 78 wins last season. That’s a little less than Baltimore is paying Danys Baez, Kris Benson, Chad Bradford, and Jamie Walker this year.

Girardi gets a lot of credit for the Marlins ‘06 season, as well he should. But let’s not forget that the team had a tremendous amount of young talent thanks to GM Larry Beinfest and the entire front office. Girardi wouldn’t have that working for him in Baltimore. He would have Nick Markakis, Erik Bedard, Adam Loewen, and a boatload of albatrosses.

What is the best this team can hope for in ‘07 — that they finish ahead of Tampa Bay and Toronto? Is the situation likely to improve in the near future? For the sake of Orioles fans everywhere, I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t see a lot of cause for optimism here.

Girardi caught in the big leagues for 15 years. In 1996, with the Yankees, he stole 13 bases. If Girardi has anything left in those legs, now would be a good time to start running.

Post from: Knuckle Curve

According to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, all three of these guys have deals that run through 2009. Next year, they will cost the Orioles a combined $12.5 million, and the year after that, they’ll cost $13.5 million. And they’ll eat up three spots in the bullpen as well.

The bad news is, Baltimore won’t be able to trade any of these relievers without absorbing some of the cost. (Same with Ramon Hernandez, but as a catcher, he falls under a different subcategory of Truly Awful Ideas). The good news is, Baez isn’t likely to collect the extra $1 million he would earn by being the team leader in Rolaids points.

Post from: Knuckle Curve

For example, as chronicled in Moneyball, the Oakland A’s at one time were able to exploit teams’ lack of demand for players with high on-base percentage. Now that this is common knowledge, they are no longer able to use that particular inefficiency to their fullest advantage.

But the A’s, as any smart organization will do, have adapted and found new ways to help level the playing field. And they’re not the only ones. Here are some concrete examples from the article:

That could mean, as in Cleveland’s case, starting the year with a bunch of platoons with the understanding that some halves of those platoons won’t be available for a month here and there. For Toronto, it means fully expecting to use eight or nine starters to get through the year. For Oakland, it means accepting that you may have to improvise to put three outfielders and a designated hitter in the lineup every night.

Fascinating concept. The San Diego Padres have been doing this with their bullpen for years. While other teams are throwing money at guys with more of a track record, the Padres tend to gravitate toward pitchers that are flawed in some way. Grab enough of them, and you increase the odds that you’ll make it through the season with a decent aggregate performance from your relievers. It doesn’t always work perfectly, but that’s where “risk” comes into play — and why these players don’t cost as much as Danys Baez or Jeff Suppan.

How will teams exploit this “new inefficiency”? This is an excellent question; however, I expect that we’re a bit late in asking it. Jeff has pointed out several examples where organizations already are using risk to their advantage, which most likely means that organizations only just now getting around to it may have missed the proverbial boat.

The good news is, there will be other inefficiencies down the line to exploit. Such is the nature of markets…

Post from: Knuckle Curve