Mike Celizic

The Orioles said earlier this week they were giving total control of baseball operations to Andy McPhail, their new general manager. McPhail’s got a great reputation, and he’s built winning organizations. But he’s got a long way to go before anyone’s convinced his presence is going to change anything in Baltimore.

You knew that the moment Joe Girardi told McPhail he was flattered to be asked to take over for fired manager Sam Perlozzo, but he didn’t want anything to take away from the pleasure of a root canal he had scheduled.

It’s getting hard to remember when the Orioles were the model for how a major league team should be run, but there’s an easy way to refresh your memory. Just open the team media guide, look up the owner, Peter Angelos, and look at when he bought the team. It was 1993, and that coincides with when the slide began.

Before Angelos took over, there wasn’t a baseball man in the game who wouldn’t have jumped at the chance to manage Baltimore. The team had a strong farm system, a great front office, stability everywhere, a new park, avid fans, and a history of winning.

Now, you’ve got Girardi, who wants very much to get another managing job, turning the team down. And the only reason Girardi would do that is because he thinks it’s a lousing organization and a lousy job.

It may, in fact, be the worst managing job in baseball.

That’s saying a lot, but there’s more evidence for making that statement than for not making it.

You could argue that managing one of the game’s perennial small-market losers is worse. You manage in Kansas City, Tampa, Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, and there’s virtually no hope. That’s true, but on the other hand, there are no expectations. How can there be when the team’s entire budget wouldn’t cover what the Yankees spend on clubhouse buffets? But at least those teams try to develop talent, and a manager can work with kids and teach them to play the game. You won’t get paid as much as you will in a big-market job, but it’ a great place to showcase your talents and get noticed by someone who will pay more.

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But in Baltimore, there’s an expectation of winning, a payroll that should be plenty to pay for players good enough to meet that goal, and fans who aren’t going to call finishing within five games of .500 a successful season.

There’s also an owner who was smart enough to make a bazillion dollars as a personal injury attorney but not smart enough to know he doesn’t understand baseball any better than Britney Spears understands Nietsche.

Angelos spends money, but not the right way. A once-great farm system is now one of the worst in baseball. His front office has three or four people, each of whom thinks he’s calling the shots, and all of whom can be overruled by the whims of the owner. Angelos says he’s giving McPhail total control of baseball operations, which is like Dick Cheney saying he swears to uphold the constitution.

If McPhail actually does have control, maybe things will get better. He built a team in Minnesota that won two World Series without a huge budget.

He also built the Cubs team that came within a Bartmann of the World Series.

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But Girardi is smart enough not to take Angelos’ word for that. Any other good managerial candidate should feel the same. He’s going to have to prove it first.

It took Angelos several years to destroy the franchise. It was built that strongly when he bought the team out of bankruptcy in 1993. There was still enough there to win the AL East in 1997, which happens to be the last time any team not named the Yankees won the division. It was also the last time the Orioles were competent.

Davey Johnson was the manager then, but Angelos ran him out of town — he was too good and too independent. That’s another reason Girardi or any other strong-willed manager won’t take the job. Girardi was manager-of-the-year last season in Florida but got fired for bumping heads with the owner.

Whoever is either dumb or desperate enough to replace Perlozzo will be the fifth manager in ten years in Baltimore. That’s one every other year. And most of them got fired for the sins of the front office.

Until Angelos does a Steinbrenner and finds himself without the will to meddle anymore, it’s not going to change. Girardi wants badly to manager, but not badly enough to take the worst job in baseball.