Duquette elaborates on economics of rebuild

Showalter: Defensive shifts may be restricted

Orioles executive vice president speaking alongside manager

at a “State of the Orioles” event for season-ticket holders, said the team is going “full force into a rebuild.”

In the half-hour session for fans before Saturday night’s game at Camden Yards, Duquette elaborated on the plans he outlined in a conference call after the Orioles traded franchise shortstop

to the Los Angeles Dodgers and have since continued to execute with this past week’s trade of closer

to the New York Yankees. It begins with the trades, but to hear Duquette tell it, it’ll be much more than that.

“Ownership understands here that we’ve been putting a lot of resources in the major league payroll, probably more resources than the market really supports,” Duquette said. “Why would we do that? Well, we would do that to keep the core of the team together and try and maintain our competitiveness.

“So now we have taken a step back. We said, ‘OK, we’re not going to try and do as much today with our major league payroll, but we’re going to put our resources into tomorrow.’ So we’re redirecting those resources into our scouting operation, into our recruiting, into our player development. We’re going to be active on the international recruiting market. We’re going to be active in more technology and facilities, in our training program. So hopefully these investments will help us develop more and better players, so we can be competitive against the good teams in the [American League] East.”

The Orioles are lagging terribly on several of those fronts, and concede as much in a lot of cases, but Duquette said the decision to invest so much on the big league side was an “ownership decision” and a “conscious choice” to put resources into the major league team. The Orioles’ Opening Day payroll increased every year from 2013 to 2017, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, with the team spending a club-record $164 million on its 2017 major league players. This season’s figure decreased to about $149 million.

Duquette said the big-market landscape the Orioles play in with the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees in their division means the Orioles need to be smarter with how they allocate their money. That money is in the organization, he said, but had gone toward the major league payroll in recent seasons. Talking shifts: Showalter shed some light on his work on Major League Baseball’s competition committee and the topics it has been discussing when asked at the “State of the Orioles” event about large-scale changes to the game, including defensive shifts.

“They may be getting rid of them next year,” Showalter said. “There’s been a lot of talk about just having two infielders on each side of the bag. How do you feel about that? I know would like that.”

While the Orioles first baseman being robbed of hits is something the team would like to see stop, considering he’s a pull hitter who entered Saturday batting .156, there are plenty of other things Showalter brought up. He talked about the possibility of expanding or contracting MLB, realignment of divisions and whether the designated hitter should continue to exist.

He said he’s on the competition committee because “when you’re as old as I am, they feel sorry for you. But a lot of those things are being discussed.”

“You find out why some things don’t happen,” Showalter, 62, said. “I call it the arteries of the decision. Very easy, let’s just get rid of the DH. What about the 15 DHs and their families? … There’s a lot of arteries to those decisions, but believe me, they’re being talked about.” Bundy ready for Sunday: Bundy, who allowed three home runs in the first two innings Wednesday night before the game was postponed because of rain, pitched a light bullpen session this week and is “ready to go” for today’s start.

It’s a quick turnaround, but Showalter used the short outing Wednesday as an opportunity to push back rookie and conserve his innings. Ramírez is available in the bullpen Saturday, and will start Tuesday night at the New York Yankees. Around the horn: Showalter said right-hander who walked five, allowed seven runs and retired two batters in a start Friday for Triple-A Norfolk, didn’t have any physical problems that caused that. … Short-A Aberdeen was rained out Friday, but outfielder (ankle) began his rehabilitation assignment there Saturday. … Showalter said he hopes now that Schoop is turned around, left fielder

will be next.