Sound the alarm

It sounds like Peter Angelos is up to his old antics.

Roch Kubatko from the Sun wrote this in his blog yesterday and it doesn't sound good.

Of course, we're going to believe that Angelos was indeed the one who killed the deal. He's repeatedly killed deals in the past, or changed his mind, or just stalled until the deal shriveled up and died. So when reports come out of Chicago that Angelos first approved a Roberts trade, and then changed his mind, thus killing the deal, excuse me if I don't give Angelos the benefit of the doubt.

I don't know what Angelos is thinking. Doesn't he realize that Roberts needs to be traded? That he'll help this team get better by being traded for 3-4 good prospects? That he's a goner after 2009 because he's sick of losing anyway?

Andy MacPhail may not be the team's savior like we'd hoped, and he may be asking for too much and taking too long to make decisions himself, but I do believe that he could get some deals done to improve this team and get a rebuilding process started. But not if Angelos is going to treat him like every other front office executive in the past by overruling him left and right.

This doesn't bode well for the O's. They are already viewed across the league as being difficult to work with, so this latest development isn't going to help their image at all.

So unless MacPhail can somehow convince Angelos otherwise, it looks like us fans should do what we always do around this time of year, and lower our expectations drastically.

While we weren't expecting a Wild Card run in 2008, I, among many, was looking forward to watching the young prospects that had been received in trades for Bedard and Roberts. But now it's looking more and more like we may only have to look forward to watching the players we got back from the Tejada trade, and some more mediocre free agents.

And at this point, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Miguel Tejada trade get reversed somehow. I'm sure the Astros could say they were traded damaged goods. But if that happens, you'd have to think that it wouldn't be Angelos' doing.

Right?

Either way, this once promising offseason has been tarnished. And at this point, it's going to take a miracle to save it.