Taking Stock of Orioles ’08
Everywhere I look (most noticeably, you know, here) I see that Orioles fans checked out about two or three weeks ago. Or, whenever it became clear that the collapse was, in fact, epic. There are three games remaining — at home against the Blue Jays this weekend — and I’m fairly certain they will pass with only the faintest recognition. It’s sad.
(click for full-size version)
What you see above is a graphical representation (I was inspired by this post at Camden Chat) of the last 11 years of Orioles Baseball, as compared to every other team in their division. Yes, I realize it leaves off the last three games of this year but, for infographical purposes, that doesn’t matter.
I don’t know what to make of it. Honestly, I don’t. I remember ’04, when those 78 wins seemed to place us on the brink. I remember the early season successes and late season collapses, all of which are perfectly evident in microcosm this year. I remember Omar Daal and Marty Cordova and Sean Douglass and Luis Matos.
It’s been…interesting.
But, look, you all know by now that I don’t take this shit home with me. It’s baseball and I love it and I love the Orioles, and I’m already thinking about Hot Stove season. There’s always something to look forward to and mull over and speculate about, provided you’re not the kind of person who thinks whining and negativity are worthy substitutes for legitimate commentary.
So here it is: the final regular-season thread of 2008 Orioles baseball. Use it as a catch-all for this weekend’s games, the season as a whole, what you think will (and should) happen next.
Maybe we’ll wrap things on an up note. One never knows.
this was a bad season
but there are different kinds
O’s fans are used to the bad seasons where the next year looks just as bleak
This is not that type of season. This team needs to make some moves now and continue the forward progress that I feel was tangible during the 2008 season.
I’m looking forward to see how drew disagrees.
That graph is pretty depressing. I think there’s one thing we can all agree on though… good job matching up the team color with the line representing each team.
On a more serious note though, I do think we stepped in the right direction. I think that the success early in the year lead a lot of fans to believe that next year would be our break out year, as opposed to 2010 or 2011, when I think it will happen. We just need to keep drafting well, try to work out a long term deal w/ Markakis, and keep moving in this direction. We do have a long way to go.
I can’t figure out the Toronto situation in the graph. Other than one bad year, they’ve seemed to be close to competing each year. They just never seem to take that final step, though. Oh well, I think us O’s fans have enough problems without trying to figure out what’s wrong w/ Toronto.
Honestly, yes I checked out weeks ago. I looked up to watch the Orioles “play” the Yankees on ESPN, but meh. The whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth.
Here’s the thing, though: We all knew we weren’t going to be any good this year! In April, if you said the Orioles will finish with 67 or 68 wins, everybody would probably say “How? Where are those wins coming from?” Sure, we could have gotten to the magical 82 and it took another horrible collapse to get us back down here, but everybody saw it coming because we already knew the pitching wasn’t there yet.
So this collapse was totally expected and didn’t tell us a goddamned thing anyway. So I don’t get all the gloom coming from Birdland. We all knew it was The Lost Season, so why whine about it.
And no, I still don’t give half a shit about who interviews the Orioles, so that is not an acceptable reason to get upset in my book.
Disgraceful is what it was.
They didn’t spend any money LAST off-season, made a couple of good trades, and then tried to catch a marlin with a $14.99 fishing rod from Dick’s.
The best part about another epic collapse is that finally, finally, they WILL have to spend a lot of that money they’ve been bilking from the fans over the last half-decade or so.
If they don’t go out and buy some starting pitching this November and December, the jury’s verdict will be rendered.
I imagine that even folks here at TLC – typically among the most blind-faith flock they still have remaining – will say, “OK, enough is enough now…spend some F’ING money.”
I’m pretty certain will be sitting here this time next September with the same bar graphs and the same disappointments and the same sorry-ass franchise that we have right now.
I went out there Wednesday night and it was laughable how uninterested everyone was…I’ve seen more excitement at a chess match.
Spend. Freakin’. Money.
Or give it back to us.
I’d take that $2.65 a month I’ve been donating (against my will) since July of 2006 and put it in Ethan’s college fund.
I wouldn’t say this level of collapse was “totally expected.” I guess for me it’s about the way they play at the end of every year, and how we thought this year was different, not necessarily talent-wise, but in the intangibles. It’s not just all about that they will end up with the record we all thought they’d have. They have showed a depressing lack of effort during this run. Not everyone on the team of course, but enough of them to make it disconcerting. Honestly, how can you not have a little doom and gloom when considering this absurdity September after September?
I agree there’s certainly more reason for optimism after this year than after most of the other collapse years, but until we change this culture of insane late season collapses and fans completely tuning out, we haven’t made real progress.
Hey, man, as long as we can banish the idea that intangibles win anything. So, pack your bags, Kevin Millar, we’re sick of you.
@Drew: I don’t think that the inability to spend money was ever the problem. I’ll point you to exhibits A and B: Albert Belle and Jamie Walker/Danys Baez/Chad Bradford/Scott Williamson.
The REAL problem has been that they seem to have a ceiling they don’t want to push against. They don’t want to have too many eggs in one basket. They wouldn’t offer Carlos Lee more than 100 mil, they wouldn’t shell out 15 mil per year for a starting pitcher, even one like Derek Lowe or Erik Bedard or – better – Mike Mussina. Instead they settle on the Steve Trachsels and the Aubrey Huffs (circa last year) out there and say “We had to go with plan B, because plan A was too risky”…not too expensive, too risky. There’s some sense in it. Baltimore will never have Boston or New York’s money to throw around, so we can’t survive even a single Carl Pavano or Kei Igawa or Julio Lugo. But really, I do not now nor have I ever thought that the problem was one of too much frugality. Instead, I think that it’s a crippling inability to fully analyze talent and assign the appropriate dollar sign to it.
Seriously, someone send Mike Flanagan a copy of Moneyball and then show him how great PECOTA is.
Just wait until the winter and you’ll see what happens.
The O’s have PLENTY of money. Plenty. Of. Money.
Don’t kid yourself.
The only issue is whether or not the spend it or keep putting more of it in their pockets like they did in ’08 when they reduced their payroll by $25 million.
Let’s talk about that reduction. 25 mil? Which players were different?
We lost Bedard, Tejada, Patterson, Wright, and a variety of role-players. We picked up Jones, Scott, Albers, Patton, Mickolio, and a variety of role players (all non-free agency eligible and thus very cheap). Of course payroll went down. We got rid of two of our highest paid players and didn’t waste – WASTE – money on Yet Another Lost Season. Which I was okay with, in the long run. Really, weren’t we all raving about MacPhail and his honest approach. And I still think he was absolutely right – a team needs to step back before they can move forward.
What that really means is we SHOULD have tons of cash to spend this winter to make our team watchable again, right? I do agree with Drew there. There’s no excuse for us to remain in these lower echelon payrolls. We used to have the top payroll in baseball (when? 1997, anyone?)…there’s no excuse to not be in the neighborhood of 100 million dollars. But I haven’t heard anything to lead me to believe that we aren’t going to go spend some money on Teixeria, Lowe, Burnett, Garland, Orlando Cabrera, or whoever is out there.
But yes, if they can’t or won’t open the wallet in December, I will be angry. But I’ll take the same stance I took in May when we were talking about the uniforms: No reason to get my panties in a twist until there’s a literal reason to twist them. Which there isn’t yet.
@ random dude: I think the Jays line is a little too green and the Yanks’ a little too royal blue, but I’ll take the compliment all the same.
As to the money argument, it’s a red herring, and in 20 mins or so I’ll be putting up a main page post explaining why.
I think sci also makes a great point about how the overall record may have been expected but the collapse is still a major letdown.
Check the main page (shortly, if it’s not up when you read this) for more.
The important thing, I think, about that graph is the ridiculous jump with the Rays. From 66 wins to 96. That’s all I need to see to be optimistic about the Orioles. It can happen. It will happen. The Rays line is almost identical to the Orioles line until this year. We’re a little behind them in terms of having made good trades and good draft picks, but there’s no reason we can’t make that same startling jump. This is baseball.