Orioles Close to Naming New GM

[blumj]

The Baltimore Orioles are close to officially naming Dan Duquette as their next general manager, two sources confirmed Saturday.

Duquette, formerly a GM for the Montreal Expos and Boston Red Sox, interviewed in Baltimore Friday and was traveling to Baltimore Saturday to finalize a contract.

I don't think he's had a job in MLB since before the '02 season.


http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/71...ording-sources

[MWM]

Wow. Dan Duquette? Is this is joke?

[jmcclain19]

Duquette signed Manny, Pedro, Johnny Damon Tim Wakefield and was GM when the team drafted Nomar, Youkilis and Hanley Ramirez. He also Traded for Varitek and Derek Lowe.

He built a huge core of a team that won the 2004 World Series. If he wants to volunteer to go step into the Angelos fun house, they could do a heckuva lot worse.

[HeatherC1212]

The O's are having a tough time getting anyone to take this job so finding someone willing to take a chance on them is a big deal. I hope he's a good fit for them because they do have some potential if they can find the right pieces to work with their established players. I'd love to see the O's be relevant again in the AL East.

[cinreds21]

Damnit, I was suppose to interview on Monday.

[Tom Servo]

Duquette signed Manny, Pedro, Johnny Damon Tim Wakefield and was GM when the team drafted Nomar, Youkilis and Hanley Ramirez. He also Traded for Varitek and Derek Lowe.

He built a huge core of a team that won the 2004 World Series. If he wants to volunteer to go step into the Angelos fun house, they could do a heckuva lot worse.

He also played a large role in building that 1994 Expos team.

[cincinnati chili]

Duquette's biggest knock, fairly or unfairly, was his perceived lack of people skills. For the most part, this type of criticism came from people in the media or with other clubs - not from his own employees. Some people are still very loyal to him.

Yes, he probably needs to exist in a big-budget environment, but his big-dollar signings or trades were on balance quite good: Pedro, Manny. He also pulled off a huge trade that would help the subsequent Sox regime immensely: Heathcliff Slocumb for Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe. Someone can probably remind me, but I don't remember him trading away that many Sox prospects who turned out to be good. He shouldn't have released David Eckstein, but that's forgiveable.

He didn't build a farm system as efficiently as the new Sox regime, but that might have more to do with who you hire as scouting director and as your assistants. The Orioles really need to develop from within. If he gets hired, this is where he needs to do better than he did in Boston. Yes, he drafted Nomar, but wasn't Nomar a huge college prospect anyway?

[HeatherC1212]

Apparently the Duquette signing is official but won't be announced by the club until sometime on Tuesday. The O's have drafted pretty well and have a decent young core to build with so I think he could be successful with the O's if they make the right decisions which it sounds like they're trying to do. It will be interesting to see who they can find to compliment the guys they have there right now. The O's do have some money to play with so he could have more freedom finding the right FAs for the current team. Good luck to him and the O's next year.

[Jpup]

I think this is a step in the right direction for Baltimore. I always hope for the best for them because of Cal Ripken, but looking back at their past has been largely their problem. Everything in Baltimore is Ripken, Powell, and Brooks Robinson. They really don't have a forward looking organization. They do have some good young pieces and I think they could do a whole lot worse than Dan Duquette. I've listened to him on XM for the past couple of years and he's a pretty smart guy.

[Joseph]

I think this is a step in the right direction for Baltimore. I always hope for the best for them because of Cal Ripken, but looking back at their past has been largely their problem. Everything in Baltimore is Ripken, Powell, and Brooks Robinson. They really don't have a forward looking organization. They do have some good young pieces and I think they could do a whole lot worse than Dan Duquette. I've listened to him on XM for the past couple of years and he's a pretty smart guy.

Thats Jim Duquette.

[cincinnati chili]

I don't think he's had a job in MLB since before the '02 season.

His linkedin bio says that you're correct.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/danduquette

He's been running a baseball academy in Western Mass, and spent two years trying to put together a baseball league in Israel. Some cable network - Espn I believe - did a feature on it a couple years ago.

[redsmetz]

Apparently it's a done deal, 3 year contract, per yesterday's Baltimore Sun

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/o...,2691545.story

[westofyou]

He left Jimy Williams out to dry when it came to Carl Everett

[cincinnati chili]

He left Jimy Williams out to dry when it came to Carl Everett

Yup. And then Jimy refused to play Izzy "Kung Fu" Alcantara until Duquette finally relented and sent him to the minors.

[Tom Servo]

You know, I think Duquette has quietly done a good job so far. I mean, even if their pythag says they're due to regress, the Orioles have their best record at this date (August 7th) since 1998. It's under his watch that the team signed Wei-Yin Chen and traded for Jason Hammel, their two best pitchers this year, and apparently he's working extensively on overhauling their busted farm system which mostly just seems to be mostly producing starting pitchers who disappoint/apparently aren't ready (Arrieta, Matusz, Britton) or guys who showed some promise but flamed out rather quickly (Daniel Cabrera, Brad Bergesen, Adam Loewen, Garrett Olson, Radhames Liz).