Baseball’s Free Agency is Here but Angelos Continues To Say No
Angelos continues to remain stringent on the rules: No new spending unless he says so.
A 101-61 season by the Baltimore Orioles got fans in a frenzy that finally they can get some prime free agents to come to Baltimore to compete but there’s just one wall that’s blocking Mike Elias from making any moves and his name is John Angelos. John Angelos continues to make it clear that the Baltimore Orioles’ will not sign any major free agents this offseason to any long-term deals. Mike Elias, when he took the job in 2018, was made clear that he would report to John Angelos only. Mike Elias seems all too eager to improve upon the roster but he’s not able to but of constrained spending limits that have been put in place. Angelos is trying to live off of the minor league system.
Fans have already seen Kyle Gibson, who went 15-9 with the Orioles, sign with the St. Louis Cardinals, going with him will be Sonny Gray, someone who was targeted by the Orioles as well. Kenta Maeda signed with the Detroit Tigers. The Orioles again, continue to stand pat because Angelos won’t get out of general management’s business and allow Elias to sign players.
This is my belief: Ownership should run the business aspects of the team and only have an “advice and consent” role in the signing of players. By business aspects, that means television deal, expenditures, revenues, and other things necessary to run the franchise. General management’s job is to use the “power of the purse” to sign players. That means, they use the money available to them to sign players. Well thanks to the Orioles having saved a lot of their money from not signing players, the Orioles should have a large bank account to make the necessary signings to compete with the rest of the league. However Angelos made it very clear that if Elias so much as signs any players, that he would have to raise prices drastically to pay for players which leads fans to believe that Angelos doesn’t have the funds necessary to run the team.
I, as the fan, this angers me to no end. Now, I feel that Angelos does have a right to “advice and consent” but I don’t think he has the right to be telling general management how they should do the job. He hired Elias to do a job: sign players to help the team compete. Meddling in general management’s job, just shows that he’s just another “Jerry Jones” where it is his final say is absolutely appalling.
John Angelos, the fans have made it extremely clear that it’s not your job to tell Mike Elias what to do to help the team compete. So get your hand out of the cookie jar, cut Mike Elias some slack, and let him sign players so that the team can compete with the league! I know that the Orioles have the best minor league system in the MLB but your ineptitude will see those players the team seasoned go to other teams in the future because they want to go somewhere and win a championship.
I believe the Orioles are maybe one or two pitchers short of the complete team that can go deep in the playoffs and have a very successful season. So Angelos, do the fan base a favor: Take care of the business aspects of the team and allow Elias to work on signing players!
