Jay Gibbons' Release Signals A New Era for the Baltimore Orioles

 
The news crawled across the ticker at the bottom of an ESPNNEWS telecast before disappearing.  Little more than an afterthought in most national baseball coverage, the Baltimore Orioles release of OF Jay Gibbons garnered a minor article in the hometown Baltimore Sun. 

Compare that to the coverage other moves made by the O’s this offseason, most notably the trades of SS Miguel Tejada and SP Erik Bedard.  

Tejada’s trade saga first started receiving national attention in 2005, and the actual Dec. 12, 2007 deal was a major story in the sports world. Granted, a former-MVP and legitimate star player such as Tejada deserved such attention.

Bedard, the enigmatic lefthander who set an Orioles record with 221 strikeouts in a mere 28 games last season, is considered by many as the second-best player traded this winter, behind Mets SP Johan Santana. Rumors about a Bedard-to-Seattle trade dominated many baseball news websites for two months before coming to fruition on Feb. 8. With Santana in the NL, Bedard might be the frontrunner for the 2008 AL Cy Young Award.  

The deals brought in a combined ten prospects for the Orioles, including the much-hyped CF Adam Jones, and signified the start of a rebuilding project in Baltimore.

All that being said, Gibbons’s release is the most critical move the Orioles have made this offseason.

Yes, the release of an oft-injured, steroid-tainted veteran without a position and who batted .230 and hit 6 HRs last year is more important than the trades of the franchise’s two most accomplished players.  Losing Tejada and Bedard will have a much bigger impact on the O’s record, but cutting Gibbons validates the start of a new era in Baltimore.

Baltimore seemed content with keeping Gibbons for at least the start of the season, since his 15-day steroid suspension allowed the team to keep utility man Scott Moore on the roster. On March 28, MLB decided to put the suspension on hold, thus placing Gibbons back on the roster a few days prior to Opening Day.  Gone was the 15-day window to evaluate Moore and decide what to do with the 31-year old Gibbons, who is owed $11.9 over the next two years.

Forced to show his hand, Orioles President of baseball operations Andy MacPhail went all in, deciding that paying Gibbons not to play would help the team.

The most crucial aspect of the move must be what can be inferred about owner Peter Angelos’s apparent maturity and new-found hands-off approach. 

The Tejada and Bedard trades demonstrated that MacPhail might actually have autonomous control of the team, but Gibbons’s release removed all doubt. 

With the trades, Angelos, forever concerned with making money, seemed to have conceded the need to sacrifice two of the team’s stars and therefore some extra dollars in ticket and merchandise sales for the long-term health of the franchise. 

Angelos didn’t have much of a choice though, knowing that another season of mediocre baseball by a team without a defined direction would not bode well with the already jaded fan base.  Everyone from industry experts to the batboy expected Tejada and Bedard to be shipped out. 

Even after the trades the team was still loaded with overpriced and underperforming veterans such as Gibbons, Aubrey Huff, Ramon Hernandez, and Kevin Millar.  None of these players are in the Orioles’ plans for 2009 and beyond, and are therefore expendable as part of the rebuilding effort.

The new test of Angelos’s commitment to rebuilding revolved around their futures. Would he agree to eat some money and release some of the team’s dead weight?

Gibbons’s release confirmed the legitimacy of MacPhail’s power and, therefore, Angelos’s sharply limited involvement in baseball transactions. 

In order to cut ties with the second-longest tenured Oriole, MacPhail needed authorization from Angelos. According to The Baltimore Sun, Angelos told MacPhail, “You gotta do what you gotta do.”

With those words, O’s fans can rest assured that the team is now in an owner-free full rebuilding mode.