During his tenure with the Baltimore Orioles, vice president of baseball operations Dan Duquette has had a knack for making under-the-radar moves that tend to pay off. The list of players he has picked up is impressive: Nate McLouth, Wei-Yin Chen, Jason Hammel, Steve Pearce, Joe Saunders, Alejandro De Aza, Delmon Young and Hyun Soo Kim to name a few. Sure, it hasn’t always worked out (David Lough, Travis Snider, Mike Morse), but nobody bats 1.000.
Recently, Duquette has changed course and gone the more expensive route when it comes to the team’s starting pitchers. This has gotten them into their current unenviable predicament.