Dodging a Bullet

"Today I didn't even have to use my A.K. I gotta say it was a good day." - Ice Cube

Yes, the not so subtle irony of Ice Cube's "Today Was A Good Day" really applies to the Orioles this morning.

First, the draft. I had to scrap my original post about how the Orioles have failed yet again to secure their top talent and continue to strangle the farm system but somehow, some way, at the last minute Matt Wieters signed his contract and the Orioles brought him into the fold.

"They got the deal done," said an elated Orioles scouting director Joe Jordan. "You can tell the city of Baltimore that the old evil owner stepped up and took care of things tonight. We had to fight to the end."

Hey, f you dude. As if we didn't have reason to be concerned. As if not signing the top pick hasn't happened before in the last three years. Yeah, we don't like the owner and he didn't step up and take care of anything tonight. We got lucky.

As far as I can tell, the O's front office didn't come close to Wieters' demand of $10 million dollars. They moved from $5 mil to $6 mil and seemingly made most of that money signing bonus but it's not like they met him halfway. the bottom line was this: Wieters didn't want to go back to school. At all. So he took the best offer he could get and the Orioles dodged a bullet.

We got lucky, O's fans. The end result today was good but we're still stuck in south central L.A. when it comes to the draft.

On the plus side, the Orioles did manage to sign 7 of 8 of their players drafted in the first 10 rounds when it looked like they might not sign 4 of them a couple of days ago. I am of the opinion that you need to get all of your players drafted in the first 10 rounds into the fold but occasionally a player jsut doesn't want to go pro yet. 10th round pick P Eryk McConnell went back to school and eludes the Orioles' grasp. I would usually give that a pass if it wasn't such a pattern for Baltimore. They have failed to sign at least one player in the first 10 rounds for the last five years (the exception being 2005...the year after the Wade Townsend fiasco).

The bottom line is, we're lucky we got him but we did get him. And 6 other guys who can lend a hand. We are better off than we were 24 hours ago even if the front office succeeded despite itself.