The Orioles finished the first half of the season with one of the worst records in baseball, yet the team?s management remains clear: wait until 2008.
Andy MacPhail, Baltimore?s president of baseball operations, said he would not make a move simply to bring about change.
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“I’ll get a lot of opportunities to do some stupid things,” MacPhail said. “You want to make a big splash, but [making a stupid move is] something I’m intending to avoid.”
MacPhail, who was hired on June 20 to oversee all player-personnel decisions, said he will concentrate on gathering information. He said Wednesday the team is unlikely to make any moves until the July 31 trading deadline ? the last day a player can be traded without having to clear waivers ? draws closer.
There is interest in starting pitchers Erik Bedard, Daniel Cabrera and Jeremy Guthrie and veteran Steve Trachsel, according to MacPhail.
But he won’t deal his top players for marginal ones.
“I’ve made it clear that that’s not my first choice in talking to other teams,” MacPhail said. “But you have to keep an open mind.”
MacPhail said in his opening news conference the ultimate bosses of any team are the fans, who have been losing patience with a team who last made the playoffs in 1997.
“I think you do that by winning games. We need to try to do that by putting the team not just over .500, but a postseason team,” MacPhail said. “We can talk until we’re blue in the face, but at the end of the day we have to put something together that people will want to watch.”
