Luck Through Incompetence?

Have the Orioles achieved luck in the off-season player acquisition market by being too incapable of getting the big deal done?

Think about the players the Orioles had interest in, but were unable to acquire:

• Josh Beckett
• A.J. Burnett
  
• Jeremy Burnitz
• Bartolo Colon
  
• Carl Pavano
• Ivan Rodriguez
  

Of those players, only Rodriguez has not spent a significant amount of time injured or struggling since the Orioles attempted acquisition.

In the meantime, the moves fall into two categories.

• Deals that were a wash
• Sammy Sosa (giving up Jerry Hairston was, as it turns out, not significant)
• Javy Lopez (served the purpose)
• Jeff Conine (also served his purpose)
  
• Deals that improved the team
• Kris Benson (a trade that happened over my objections that has turned out alright)
  
• Ramon Hernandez (the offense is down from the first half, but his defense is a substantial improvement over Lopez)
• LaTroy Hawkins (serviceable reliever and we got rid of Steve Kline in the process)
• Cory Patterson (admit it; they swindled the Cubs on this one)
  

All in all, that's not too bad. Sure, you'd like to think that the Orioles can get Vlad Guerrero or Alfonos Soriano if they so choose, but recent times and Angelos' management has made that somewhat difficult. And in-season acquisitions can only work so well (Russ Ortiz, for example).

I just hope that Flanagan et. al are able to seal the deal when the time does come. With the pitching on the way (and how many times have we heard that before) the O's could actually get back to respectability. Especially if the Loewen/Markakis show continues as it did tonight...