Your Forgotten Orioles

Wow, I almost forgot about the big Orioles news that happened this past week. That's not a good sign, Orioles!

So Dave Trembley joins the League of Failed Oriole Managers...so I guess he can join Mike Hargrove, Lee Mazzilli, Sam Perlozzo, and Ray Miller in chomping on a cigar and laughing at the Oriole Front Office who are trying to figure out a way out of 13 seasons of losing baseball. I'd feel bad for him, but honestly, I think even Dave wanted out by the end...

I don't follow the Orioles very closely anymore, but I try to keep tabs and be analytical. So, the big question for EVERYONE is WHAT IS THE #$!#@ PROBLEM? How is it teams like Tampa Bay and Toronto can go through reboots and win within a year or two? I understand that a reboot is supposed to take time, but you are also supposed to IMPROVE! In the past 3 years under MacPhail, we have gotten WORSE EVERY YEAR!

So, what do you change?

The manager - It's a band aid on an amputation. Does anyone really expect Juan Samuel to have more luck than Dave Trembley? Does anyone really think if we kidnapped Joe Torre and made him manage here, we'd suddenly be a winning baseball team? Players make the plays, or in our case, SEVERLY SCREW UP the plays

The GM - AMP is the next one on the hot seat...but he hasn't done a lot wrong. Gonzalez was a bad idea, I'll give you that. Atkins hasn't worked out, but he was supposed to be a low risk, low reward stopgap. Tejada hasn't been bad, all things considered. So then you'd have to go after him for not bringing in top dollar talent. But, the great teams grow their players, not buy them. Even the stupid pinstripes have begun growing arms and bats more than buying them. And we've been stockpiling our minor league prospects. And then, look at our prospects last year...Wieters looked like he was putting it together, Adam Jones was a Gold Glover, Nolan Reimold was crushing the ball before his injury, Bergesen was pitching lights out, Matusz was looking good for a greenhorn...but then this year, they all fell apart.

The Players - See above...plus, we can't keep changing player strategy every 2 years. About 4-5 years ago, we went the route of buying the talent when we grabbed Ponson, Javy Lopez, Miguel Tejada, and Raffy. We traded for Sosa a year later too. That did us NO GOOD.

So what? What can be done? Because I can't figure out a damn thing. We don't even have a consistent problem. It used to be our pitching, but our starting pitching (until 2 weeks ago) was being solid. Our bullpen sucks too, but we've been moving failed starters there, so it should get better? Our hitting sucks, but what move do we take there? Brining in one big bat can't solve this. And we tried getting a ton of prospects, none of them are putting 2 and 2 together in the minors.

So, amidst this time of change for the O's, my hopes are bottoming out. All I can hope is this is just 13 years of bad luck stored up and brought on us all in one season. I remember in Brian Billick's last season with the Ravens, where we lost 9 straight, there was a quote from one of the players..."Last year, every bounce went our way...This year, every bounce is going the other way" That about sums up the Orioles. Anything that can go wrong for them, anything you can imagine, ends up happening. Can you even wrap your ahead around who we'll send to the All-Star Game? In all fairness to the rest of the MLB, we should be barred. No one on this team has played well enough to merit an All-Star nod.

So, best to you Juan Samuel. But don't unpack your stuff in the manager's office. As a matter of fact, for your sake, I would start calling other teams and ask for them to take pity and let you be their bench coach or something.