Late night negativity

by Stacey on Nov 8, 2009 12:52 AM EST in Commentary Comment 19 comments

I feel so bipolar when it comes to the Orioles. I look at the team and I feel hopeful. Promising young position players, promising starting pitchers, a GM who has done nothing but improve the team since getting here two years ago. Then two seconds later I realize how far this team is from contending and it depresses the hell out of me. This team won 64 games in 2009. That's at least 30 less than they'll need to even have a chance at the post season.

Our young players are getting better and Andy MacPhail is constantly doing what he can to improve the team, but it's hard to imagine this team getting to the level of the Yankees and Red Sox and, to a lesser degree, Rays.

Sometimes I think that maybe it's not that bad and that I just can't comprehend a good team in Baltimore. It's been so long since I've seen one that I don't really know what it looks like. And I've been let down so many times that I can't have confidence in any players or any front office. I think maybe our young talent is actually good. I mean, I hear it all the time and I see Brian Matusz have some success and Chris Tillman show promise. But remember Adam Loewen? Remember Matt Riley? I think of Nolan Reimold and I'm thrilled with his success, but then I remember Larry Bigbie. The ghosts of our awful past just can't let me believe wholly in our current players.

I want to have hope, but I don't want to have hope in something that will end up imploding. I don't even have any idea if they're worth my hope. I've been viewing baseball through this orange filter for so long that I can't tell what's real and what isn't. And it's hard to go on record with optimism about the future when I'm scared they will end up embarrassing me. Again.

I love this team and sometimes I wish I didn't quite so much. It'd be easier to just forget about them and be all "Joe Flaccooooo" all winter long and then if and when they did get their acts together in 2011 or 2015, then I'd show up. It'd be easier, but I could never do it.

64 wins. No team has won the AL East with less than 95 wins since 2000 when the Yankees took first with 87. Only once in that same time period did the wild card winner have less than 95, and it was only one less. How can they possibly do it?

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Success seems so far

away, I know. But it is people like you, Duck, z, and all the other wonderful folks here at CC that make being an O’s fan tolerable. Your post likely sums up the collective feelings of Birdland…I mean, how could we be positive after so much nonsense and failure?!

The sting of another horrible season is still fresh, especially after watching our arch nemesis win it all…again. Being the fan of a lovable loser is emotionally draining, but we have been here way too long to quit now.

Just keep doing what you are doing…and that is operating the best blog ever. Hopefully some day soon all of our efforts will be rewarded. This losing really can’t continue forever…can it?

by sickuvitall on Nov 8, 2009 1:16 AM EST reply actions 1 recs

It ain't gonna happen

I think bipolar is a good word for my feelings…but gun to my head, I know that competing in this division will take the usual strong effort and strong base of talent, and overwhelming luck to overtake not just the Yankees, but the Red Sox and the Rays, too…and it won’t happen. It would take the stars aligning – more than just being smart and developing good players – AND IT WON’T HAPPEN.

But there is hope. There is always hope to become a good team again – a winning organization – and to maybe compete for the wild card in a few assorted years. But I look at the Yankees of the past 15 years, and there is just NO WAY that the Baltimore Orioles can replicate that success in the current era of baseball.

"I like baseball, movies, good clothes, whiskey, fast cars ... and you. What else you need to know?"

by Andrew @ TLC on Nov 8, 2009 1:57 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

it will require more than just us improving....

….the other teams will need to make some missteps as well.

part of the reason we only win 64 games is because of the godforsaken realignment scheme that required us to play the AL east teams 19 times each every year. remember that in some of these years, we’d have actually been competitive in other divisions.

so as you look for hope, look for

the further decline of the yankees stalwarts of the last decade—posada and jeter are really due to fall off substantially in the next two years, and the yankees will not be the same when rivera retires

the decision by yankee brass to exercise restraint in some of the coming years. even with all of their YES money, the Yankees cannot continue to spend the way they have been recently—the empty $5000 seats during the season and playoffs demonstrate that

the faltering of Cashman (or whomever is next as Yankee GM). Yes, they managed to pull it off this year, but there will be many years in which there is no Sabathia-Burnett-Douchera trifecta for them to pull off.

Remember that even when a team is laded for bear, injuries and losing streaks can take their toll. Who’d have predicted the red sox would finish in 3rd place a few years back?

We’ve witnessed a decade of the Sox-Yankees spending wars and it’s been really demoralizing. But all things are cyclical, and this too shall pass. If for no other reason than the fact that other baseball owners will eventually push hard enough for a cap (and lock the players out if they have to) to make it come to fruition. I wouldn’t be surprised to see one in place in the next 5-10 years.

"I doubt he could reach [second base]...mostly cuz his fucking arm was in Aybar's nuts." – twistedlogic

by zknower on Nov 8, 2009 3:36 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

You assume the owners, as a collective bunch, want to bring more competitive balance. I forget the numbers about how much aggregate revenue has boomed in the past 15 or so years. As I recall, it’s multiplied by several. I think the owners are mostly content seeing the money. Anything that stems that flow will not be supported by MLB nor the players union. I personally believe the owners are content with the current situation.

Maybe the Yankees can win it every year for the next decade and general boredom sets into the point that fans are tuning out in droves. Alternatively , we could have an economic collapse that severely hurts the big payroll teams with big guaranteed contracts. But that later option would mean pain for the entire country.

by drj on Nov 8, 2009 6:33 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The "all things are cyclical" argument helps me sleep at night

But it’s hard for me to see how the Yankees will ever have a true down cycle ever again. Their revenues are so well established and consistent that they will never back off FA spending. That is less true for the Red Sox, so I could certainly see them being due for some down years soon (although they have a pretty sharp FO – sharper than the Yerks). I don’t know – it’s just hard ot imagine both teams having sustained down cycles. I’m thinking more and more that we’ll just have to hope for a year where everything goes right for us and everything goes wrong for them (injuries, down seasons, etc).

by O'sFan21 on Nov 8, 2009 7:30 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I draw sustenance from the first half of 2005-- a wild ride we could replicate as early as next year.

Yeah, OK, there’s a wild crash at the end, too. The hope would be that we’d survive this one, though, coming down with enough experiential street smarts, back-up pitching and savoir faire this time around to win 75 games. (Which is 8 short of a WS ticket— and title— if you like ridiculous but pleasant crossover anomaly stats. And in our position, I do.)

It’s murder, of course, to play in the head-and-shoulders best division in baseball. But we can’t change that. And in a sense it’s good that we can’t: it’s sort of cool good to have the best enemies. When we crush them — and one day we will crush them, looting their castles, pillaging their markets, raping their larger farm animals — it will be oh so sweet…

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." Churchill,1942-- a rebuilding year.

by Titov on Nov 8, 2009 4:36 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

free agents or gtfo

it’s that simple really

you like money. he likes money.

by thewaywardO on Nov 8, 2009 9:15 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

When the Orioles begin to give me NO HOPE

then I’m moving to California and I’ll figure out which team is close by and giving out hope to its fans, and I’ll start to support them in their endeavors.

thewaywardO is right. He said something a lot like “the talent that is supposed to lead us is on the field at this point and they need reinforcements.” It feels more serious now that Bergesen, Wieters, and Reimold are definitely going to be on the opening day roster. Tillman and Matusz will be up again shortly.

I think we need free agents, more than one. But at the same time, one more year of seeing how good the talent is. EVen if we sign free agents this winter, the talent still has 1-2 years of growing (or wilting) to do.

The stock market will never recover, our armies will never again be #1, and our children will drink filthy water for the rest of their lives - HST

by the fix is in on Nov 8, 2009 10:33 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Again though

Which free agents are you thinking about? Do you think John Lackey and Adrian Beltre are the missing pieces? I don’t. Maybe you’re talking about after the 2010 season or something which I could get down with, but right now I just don’t see the FAs that will make the difference.

by O'sFan21 on Nov 8, 2009 7:22 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I gotta agree that part of the O’s challenge is playing in the AL East but that it should become easier as teams become worse.

The yankees will start forming holes as Jeter, Posada and Rivera drop off. Those are big holes to fill and I only see closer being filled decently for the Yanks.
The free agent market has fewer stars on it, many players are signed to long-term contracts and never make it to free agency. They can’t keep restocking their teams with all-star caliber free agents as the holes at catcher and SS will be much more difficult to fill than their typical holes in the outfield, 1B and DH.

Even the current Red Sox team has holes, and rather surprisingly on defense. They look like some of the more recent Yankees teams, except maybe worse on defense. They’re currently relying on strikeout pitchers, but if one or two pitchers lose their magic they start losing.

The Rays may be our most challenging opponents in a few years as they will have a pretty good defense, pitching and lineup and really need at this point a good closer.

The Orioles are still growing and I think the current team just needs reinforcements, mainly in the bullpen and the rotation. We are no longer relying on all our star arms to make it, but expect that even if half of them make it that we will be good. Besides, unlike with Loewen etc our arms are being handled with extreme care (we may have the most conservative workload approach for our pitchers) so we are less likely to lose many pitchers to injuries.
Expect to start seeing results this next year (how could we not with Adam Eaton out of the rotation?) Depending on who makes it out of spring training we could make it near .500 a monster jump

by OsandRoyals on Nov 8, 2009 2:06 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

We need to be both smart and lucky...

…and so far, we’ve had some luck, like the Bedard trade, but we’re going to need more.

It takes more than just making all the right decisions, as A’s fans can tell you. Did anyone really expect Mariano Rivera to be the greatest reliever of all time when he was a kid with the Yankees? Did anyone expect much out of David Ortiz when he was dumped by the Twins? Was Dustin Pedroia a top ten prospect? Hell, was Cal Ripken a first round pick?

So it depends. We could spend all the money in the world, but if someone on our club doesn’t emerge as a superstar, we’re not going to do it. The Rays did it with a lot of top draft picks, sure, but they also got lucky getting Kazmir and Carlos Pena and Longoria turning into one of the best players in the game and this season with Ben Zobrist coming out of nowhere to be one of the five best hitters in the game they still didn’t make the playoffs.

The club looks to be moving in the right direction, and that’s all we can hope for. But clubs which are moving in the right direction can still end up being lousy – look at the Reds, with their core of Bruce and Votto and Volquez and Cueto and Phillips. They have a much dumber front office than we do, but still, injuries and bad luck and wreck the most well-designed plans.

by James F on Nov 8, 2009 5:46 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

My fear

In the past, teams could count on the Yanks and Sox to shoot themselves in the foot through poor management. Now, both teams have excellent front offices. This expertize, added to their monetary advantage, makes beating both of them in any given season a tall order.

We now have a good GM, AM, who is improving the club dramatically. But, it is hard to make the case that he is better than his counterparts in NY and Boston. When he came here, AM had to deal with a farm system that was bereft of prospects and an organization that was terrible: bad spring training facility, no Asian presence, no Carribbean facility, bad scouting, incompetent drafting, etc. The Orioles are now acting competently, which is a big improvement. I am afraid, however, that the improvements will only make us average, rather than good.

At this point, I am looking forward to the Orioles being not terrible. To win in the East, or to win the Wild Card will take a lot of luck, and the success won’t last long. But, it is possible. We have so little margin for error. We need to have a string of draft choices pan out like Wieters and Matusz. Every Bill Rowell and Adam Loewen hurts us disproportionately because we have so many needs and so few position prospects.

by BaltoBen on Nov 8, 2009 6:32 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

I don't realistically see anyone that will b avail in 2010/2011

Better than lackey… There’s no way those guys who MAY be available are going to see the open mkt.

Anyway, friends and I had a similar discussion recently and tbh, I think baseball has a foot in the grave already. Regardless of how much money the yankees and sox throw out there, eventually fans of other teams will give up. Teams can use that revenue sharing to turn a small profit or at least maintain but eventually tired fan bases will give up. I feel it somedays as it is and I know many others do too. It’s sickening that you just know you can’t compete. No matter how much talent you develop, they just buy more. You spruce up your stadium? They pay more for your tickets when their team plays. You can’t draft some highly touted highschool pitcher at #10—-they draft him at #28 and pay him a 2mil signing bonus. It’s sickening and quite frankly where a lot of people aren’t looking is that the yankees and sox are now starting to dump money in the draft. Their organizations policy recently changed to reflect that so you can expect to see it more in the future. What does that mean for teams like ours? Well it’s the same thing as being a free agent. Once more and more of these guys realize these teams will pat they 4-10mil signing bonuses, why wouldn’t they leak their intent is to get that and scare teams like ours off? If a team like ours can’t be competitve this year or next, it spells a really bad scenario for MLB, it’s fan and the sport itself.

Bottom line is there needs to b a salary cap and veterans exceptions. Baseball needs to build it’s core again in cities other than ny and Boston. It’s hard to get young kids to root for the hometeam once they realize the hometeam superstar is going to ny or Boston in 4-6 yrs.

by GeoffreyA on Nov 8, 2009 10:38 PM EST via mobile reply actions 0 recs

I don't realistically see anyone that will b avail in 2010/2011

Better than lackey… There’s no way those guys who MAY be available are going to see the open mkt.

by GeoffreyA on Nov 8, 2009 10:38 PM EST via mobile reply actions 0 recs

I think you're probably right to some extent

there’s only so far you can expect to go by doing things “by the plan” or “the right way” but what other way is there when you don’t have the guaranteed revenues of the sox and yanks?

I think you have to do things the right way and hope you get lucky a few years.

by Steve. on Nov 8, 2009 10:48 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Join the club Stacy.

And for me it’s not exactly like I can take a lot of solace in the other teams I root for.

How about them Redskins? Ok, that’s a subject better left alone. But there are the Terps. They’re good for a bowl game almost every year. What? OK, at least they play winning basketball. (I’ll be happy if they hit 20 wins again this season.) That pretty much leaves me my Portland Trailblazers. Not only are they young and full of promise, they’ve already started delivering on it.

hakkaa päälle !

by timg56 on Nov 9, 2009 6:40 PM EST reply actions 0 recs