Is there a point to winning more games without contending?

The benefits are quite clear. But like it or not, my every day mood is affected by whether the Orioles won or lost the previous night. If I have to endure another one or two seasons to ensure maximum draft value, I would be pretty miserable.

Also, the fun thing about baseball is that sometimes you may not have a championship calibur ballclub, but you have a pretty good one. Looking back on it, 1992 was a pretty good year to be an Orioles fan. First year of Camden Yards and the team had a winning record even though the pennant was never truly within reach. I wouldn’t say that was a wasted year, and if alot, (and I mean alot) of things go right, I would like to see the team have a year like they did in 1992.

Nice post. Interesting topic.

The importance of winning now cannot be overlooked. A winning season would boost the morale of the organization, players, fans, and city. To think that we can go straight from last to first in one year isn’t reasonable…so it needs to start somewhere, why not 2010?

 it’s called showing improvement. the fans of baltimore are loyal we come out to games even when the sux and stankess fans out number us 5-1 to show our support all we ask for is to atleast contend if not in the division atleast in the games

I think that in a vacuum, yeah if you’re not going to win enough games to contend it’s better to lose as many as possible. But there are so many other factors at play. One is showing marked improvement over a period of time to get to a place where you can content. Not many teams win 54 games in one year and go to the playoffs the next. You also have to take into account the human factor. What happens to the guys on your 54 win team with talent when t hey see that you’re tanking for draft picks? How about the fans?

Seven times out of 10, the AL champion came from this division last decade. If we ever win the division or even just the wild card, we will already be the cream of the crop.

I think “contending” basically means that the team, all things being equal (luck, Pythagorean record, a balanced schedule), is about 81-81. I’d be happy to see it.

The Orioles could be as good as 81-81, but because of their division, they’d finish with 75 wins. I’d just be happy to say that Baltimore is the home of a quality baseball team.

If only as a by product of guys like Matusz, Tillman, Jones, Wieters, Bergesen getting better. Those veterans are to help stabilize the lineup – we’re talking basically league average guys instead of the crap the O’s threw out there last year. I believe that the O’s are hoping the team can flirt with .500 ball if all goes well, and that’s important for a fan base that has decided increasingly stay away from the Park. MacPhail is in a tough position of building a team that is not quite there and give the fans some reason to get excited. At least he seems to be building towards a team that could compete – later.

If the O’s were down in the dumps and rebuilding after a strong run, I’d feel differently about the need to win some games now. But they are coming off years of really bad baseball and facing a tough economy. They need to generate some kind of buzz.

The young guys need to put pressure on MacPhail to make the next moves beyond just getting league average free agents. They’ll do that by winning. If they do, we’ll see if MacPhail and Angelos really intend to take the plunge and try to compete in the AL East.

Interesting question. I pretty much agree with what’s been said here so far. I don’t think the O’s should mortgage the future right now to get to 81 wins by any means, but I think for Orile fan morale/psyche, the difference between 79 and 81 wins — ending this horrid streak of losing seasons as quickly as possible — would be huge.

I think it’s important as soon as possible to show fans they’re going in the right direction in terms of W-L to get buts in the seats, even if the biggest improvements are more behind the scenes to the most casual fans.

losing as many games as possible is a pretty ridiculous idea. If you took that approach and got the number 1 pick, then what do you do next year? Do you go for the number 1 pick again? You’re sure as hell not going to jump from being the worst team in baseball to winning the division in a single off-season. And what happens to the already pathetic attendance if you’re the worst team in baseball? And if we’re losing every game, that means our young guys are obviously doing bad – how can that possibly be a good thing?

Baseball seasons are not like light switches where you can decide year to year whether you’re going to try to win or not. If you want to have a contending team at some point you have to start at some bottom (hopefully last year was it!) and start making steady improvements year after year. And it’s not like they signed these guys this offseason just to win 4-5 more games. They signed them because we had big gaping holes and the internal options were either not ready or ugly as hell.

The Pirates get a top 5 pick pretty much every year and play in a shit division – look where it’s gotten them.

or vie specifically for the number 1 (or a top 5) draft pick. I think it is very important to see that the team is starting to grow and getting on the road to championship caliber.

But these signings this winter don’t do that. They are stopgap players who have a good possibility of taking away playing time from some young talent that may or may not be a part of the championship core that the Orioles are trying to build. These four guys the Orioles added artificially inflate the wins total and give the fans an illusion of the quality of progress. Meanwhile, yes the lower draft picks might hurt – and the loss of another draft pick for the sake of signing a reliever hurts, too.

On the other hand, I just want to say I root for a winning team for once in my life…I really do. But it shouldn’t come at the cost of wins in 2011 or 2012.

Seriously, it’s nice to have an intelligent discussion with a fan of another team (any team) that doesn’t degenerate into mud-slinging. That being said, I don’t have much else to add that hasn’t already been said (and probably much more eloquently) up above, but I just wanted to mention that.

Winning meaningless games is mostly pointless. A 70 win team will get less media and fan outrage than a 55 win but the difference is pretty meaningless.

Is that by bringing in these players there is no pressure to bring a prospect up before they force the point. This could protect our prospects/our future. I think thats reason enough, plus you have all points mentioned above.

Now I’m pissed.

here’s my argument.

1.) you need to at least attempt to generate fan interest. if no one goes to any of the games and you lose, well the team may just skip town in the middle of the night. and for the citizens of baltimore, one major franchise being relocated was enough. note that i am fully aware that it would take many years of constant last-place finishes to induce such a move, but this is an extreme example. note also that i’m not saying the orioles bring out crowds by the tens of thousands for every game, far from it, but the point is that people came to the games knowing that even though we aren’t so great now, we may just be on to something.

2.) it’s not all about the number 1 pick. wieters, one of the best prospects in the game if not the best, was drafted 5th overall. there’s only one guy on the list ahead of him who i can name. of course, he was the number one pick (david price) but sometimes, the 5th pick ends up playing better than the guys drafted 2-4. look, i know talent takes a little while to develop, but wieters was a nearly instant impact guy considering it only took him a little over two seasons to travel through three levels of baseball. the other guys on the list, david price, mike moustakas, josh vitters, and daniel moskos are, with the exception of price, still kicking around in the farm system.

3.) veteran free agents bring interest, interest brings people (at least for a little while), people bring money, money brings success.

4.) no one out-tanks the nats. no one.

I think while there is varying legitimacy to the arguments about the fan base and the “culture of losing” and stuff, I think it’s important to actually be viewed as an attractive place to play. Few upper echelon free agents actually sign with the downtrodden, so in order to get that missing piece, it has to be clear that your team doesn’t need 7 pieces. Plus, it’s important that pitchers mature, and their development can be uneven. I think it’s important for the Orioles to win 75+ games in 2010 so that a guy like Carlos Pena or some other free agent will actually consider signing in Baltimore. The Orioles are in the unique opportunity of having really only a few holes in 2011, and it’ll be interesting to see what Bell and Snyder can do in extended stays in AAA. But if it’s clear that one or both can’t hack it, I’d much rather appeal to free agents who are better than, say, Garrett Atkins.

He wins the Super Bowl, becomes an instant legend…and his knees start falling apart (even faster than they were).

For years the Jets are hoping to recreate the SB magic— and wondering when (or whether) they should risk Namath’s knees to do it. He comes back from his latest operation (of many), does his re-hab, and is ready to go for Week 13— at which point the Jets are 5-7 and not contending for anything, obviously.

So the cry goes out from the fans: Should we risk Joe Willie’s knees, the possible key to another Super Bowl, in a series of meaningless end-of-season games— or save him for next year?

The answer: you’re paying the guy a big buncha $ to play quarterback, not to sit around watching his understudy do it (while being paid considerably less). Of course there are risks, and of course the team management is paid to be concerned about the franchise in the long haul as well as the short. But playing the game is the Prime Function; you put your best people out to do it, and you expect them to try to win, too.

It’s going to take a lot to talk me into a Strategic Tanking frame of mind. Hey, if I pay to go to OPACY, I deserve to see a team that’s trying to win the game. With the exception of Publicity Stunt Day lovers (Campy Campaneris Will Play All 9 Positions, folks!), I suspect everybody feels that way. Are we wrong?

This is all quite silly to me. Fans go the the ballpark more often when their team wins games. Everyone does it, and it’s not like there’s a magical contending button that opens the floodgates. More people going to the ballpark and buying memorabilia = more money for the Orioles to spend. Millwood, Tejada are bread and butter for rebuilding teams. They aren’t expensive, they aren’t being overpaid by the Orioles, and they’re earning their keep by making going to games more enjoyable. As long as we’re talking 1 year deals it’s all upside. Not to mention, guys like Millwood, Tejada and such are how trades happen. These are guys that we can flip at the deadline for prospects/cash, which helps with the rebuilding.

AH, but you say, we could spend that money on scouting and the draft and foreign prospects to rebuild. That’s true. BUT… as long as Millwood is playing well for the Orioles, more fans are coming to see the Orioles play and they’re making more money. I know I’m a perfect example of this. I never once watched Adam Eaton pitch for the Orioles last year. Never took the time. I did however, want to watch Brad Bergesen every time I had the chance. Why? Because Adam Eaton sucks and Brad Bergesen is awesome. Now we have no more Adam Eatons stinking up the roster. Miguel Tejada is way more fun to watch play than Garret Atkins, so Tejada is another draw to me personally to watch the team.

In other words, we’ll always be fans and we’ll always follow the team, but many of us don’t watch the team every day and anything that makes watching the Orioles more enjoyable will encourage us to do it more often and make more money for the Orioles. Short term deals give the Orioles great flexibility as to what to do in the future, so they don’t hurt the rebuilding process, and if we can flip these guys for prospects halfway through the season we can improve our farm system at the same time. It can be win win.

play the game to win

if you lose. you lose

not rocket science

but the key reason why we’ve brought in Millwood, Tejada and Atkins is to allow prospects to force their own way up.
I think this is less important for position players but very important for pitchers. Over the past 12 years the Orioles have brought up waves of pitchers. Out of the last wave only Bedard may be in baseball over the next year or two. Basically we’re bringing in players to protect the value ofour prospects instead of rushing them in. It also protects all the pitchers in our bullpen so we don’t end up abusing them and have to sign expensive free agents to replace them.

2) They can be traded later for prospects which are more valuable than draft picks unless an organization has an incredibly strong group running drafting and developing

High draft picks can help stock a farm system but they are no sure way of turning a team around: See the Pirates and the Royals