Manny Machado is no longer a Baltimore Oriole, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have some thoughts on the organization that he came into the league with.
In his first thoughts on the team since being dealt to the Los Angeles Dodgers, Machado hinted that there is dysfunction in the organization, with the front office and other higher-ups not always being on the same page.
Manny Machado comments on the O's bad 2018 Part 1:
“It was overall a lot of things. It was bad luck. It continues to be bad luck with a lot of things going on. There’s a lot of moving parts. The front office says something, the other people are saying other things.
— Terry Ford (@radioterryford) July 28, 2018
Manny Machado comments on O's 2018 Pt.2:
It’s just a bumping head not being on the same page. When that’s happening, it’s just waiting for something [bad to happen]. It’s not just this year — it’s been for years now, some of the people haven’t been on the same page.”
— Terry Ford (@radioterryford) July 28, 2018
Some of the dynamics Machado may be hinting at have shown themselves publicly before. It had been reported last summer, for instance, that ownership would not approve a Zach Britton trade unless the haul was huge. No Britton trade was made, and some rumors indicated that ownership did indeed veto a deal with the Houston Astros. In fact, it wasn’t even until this year that ownership was willing to sign off on a Machado deal, even though many observers felt the Orioles, who were never going to contend in 2018, would have been better served dealing him last offseason or even at the 2017 trade deadline.
One has to wonder how much of the front office’s efforts to tweak or rebuild the team have been hindered by politics in the upper reaches of the organization and whether that is what Machado is alluding to here.
