MikeFlanagan might be a lifelong Oriole, but his days with the organization are numbered. The same could be said for Jim Duquette.
When Andy MacPhail stepped to the podium to take over as the team?s president of baseball operations Wednesday, it officially stripped any power from the duo that had been operating as essentially the team?s co-general managers.
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If there was any doubt about whether they were walking the green mile, it was erased when the team?s general counsel, Russell Smouse, said: “We are pleased to announce Andy MacPhail to the position of president of baseball operations to full and ultimate responsibility for players personnel and baseball decisions.”
MacPhail, whose résumé includes two World Series rings as general manager of the Minnesota Twins, let it be known that the proverbial buck stopped with him.
“If I didn?t feel that way I wouldn?t be here,” MacPhail said. “It?s just that simple.”
In an organization that has had way too many cooks in the kitchen, three GMs are overkill. MacPhail put a good spin on it, saying repeatedly that he had to watch, read and listen over the next few days and weeks in order to make an estimation about the team.
All you have to do is read between the lines. He?ll take whatever knowledge there is from those men and move on. Maybe that?s why Flanagan seemed so muted at Monday?s news conference for manager Sam Perlozzo?s firing. With MacPhail unofficially on board, Flanagan just had to stand there and wait until the Big Show arrived.
Sure enough, the former Cy Young winner was there two days later at MacPhail?s announcement, standing silently to the side, staring at his new boss.
Flanagan?s contributions to the club as a player are historic. His five years in the front of office are subject to serious grilling, however. In Flanagan?s team biography, it boasts of how he orchestrated contract extensions for MelvinMora and Jay Gibbons, the same ones that have hamstrung the organization through 2009.
Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos courted MacPhail over the last few months to right a ship that is beyond sinking. The organization is so far under water, it is barely making bubbles.
The Orioles have made confounding move after confounding move during their stretch of nine and probably now 10 straight losing seasons.
The team will temporarily keep Flanagan and Duquette around for the summer to maintain “stability,” but once the season comes to a close, only MacPhail will likely be left standing.
Over the years, Angelos was the ultimate voice. His respect of MacPhail, earned through dealings at the baseball owners? meetings, convinced him to cede that power.
“Any owner of any team has the prerogative to run the team and I outlined to Peter where I think those lines are,” MacPhail said. “He?s very comfortable with it, I?m very comfortable with it.”
Probably about the only men not comfortable about the lines drawn are the ones eventually heading out the door.
Matt Palmer is a staff writer for The Examiner who regularly writes columns on Major League Baseball and the NFL. He can be reached at [email protected]. You can read his blog at examiner.com/blogs/bottom_line.
