Per The O’s “Behind the Blazer Beat Blog,” it appears that the Blazers will be announcing the promotion of Kevin Pritchard to the role of General Manager for the franchise. Sports Illustrated says it’s a five-year deal (thanks to Dave at Blazer’s Edge and Casey at The O’s Blazer Blog for the link).

It’s not a bad move, but I’m interested to know if the franchise pursued Geoff Petrie and explored the possibility of bringing him in to mentor Kevin in player contracts and that sort of thing. I think Pritchard is great in terms of evaluating and managing talent, but as we’ve discussed earlier that’s only part of the game. The SI article says the Blazers will be bringing in a contract guru to assist. I wonder who that will be. They’ll also bring in a president, which may be a good role for Petrie. It will be interesting to see what develops.

But in the end I like bringing some certainty into the off-season, making sure as it becomes time to explore trades (anyone think Zach will be here next year) that there’s a known party on our end of the phone when it starts ringing. And I love having Kevin here for the draft.

Congrats, KP! Best of luck.