The Decade (2010-19)

[Frobby]

21 minutes ago, atomic said:

Adam Jones would be my Oriole of the decade.  

Hard to disagree.    Manny was our best player, but Adam was second best and he had the longest tenure and was the closest to being the heart and soul of the team.     Face of the franchise.    

[DrungoHazewood]

On 11/25/2019 at 11:07 AM, DrungoHazewood said:

Wikipedia was my friend:

(Still looking for records of the 1903-09 EL Orioles)

1910s EL/IL Orioles: 737-582 (.559)
Add in the Federal League Terrapins and they were 868-759 (.533)

1920s IL Orioles went 1035-621 (.625).  They were over 100 wins from 1920-1926.

1930s: 776-757 (.506)

1940s: 719-813 (.469)

1950-53: 306-306 (.500)

I dug out my copy of Baseball in Baltimore by James Bready.  It has year-by-year records of every professional league team in Baltimore history.  Not to disparage the non-league teams that were predominant before the 1870s, but records are scarce for such clubs as the Baltimore Excelsior Base Ball Club, or The Pastimes, who both played in the late 1850s.  We could add a win in for the June 6, 1860 match between the Excelsiors and the Washington Potomacs when ended 40-24 in Baltimore's favor.

In any case... the 1903-1909 Eastern/International League Orioles were 523-425, .552 winning percentage.  Add in the 1901-02 AL Orioles, and for the decade they were 641-578, or .526.  That's 6th-best in city history.

The book also notes a couple omissions I'd made:

At the start of the 1890 season the Orioles somehow found themselves kicked out of the old AA, and in the Atlantic Association.  There they went 77-23, before skipping out on the league and going back to the American Association to replace the Brooklyn team that folded in August.  That pushes Baltimore's overall 1890s winning percentage to .593, just ahead of the 1970s for the 2nd most successful decade in Baltimore Base Ball history.

And the Baltimore Monumentals were 3-10 in the Eastern League before folding early in the 1884 season.  That year Baltimore had teams in the American Association, the upstart Union Association, and the Eastern League, at least for a month or so. 

So now we have a comprehensive ranking of Baltimore baseball by decade:

1870	0.479
1880	0.4342
1890	0.593
1900	0.526
1910	0.533
1920	0.625
1930	0.506
1940	0.469
1950	0.463
1960	0.566
1970	0.590
1980	0.5125
1990	0.5119
2000	0.4345
2010	0.466

 

[BohKnowsBmore]

On 11/22/2019 at 10:58 AM, esmd said:

The last two seasons really slammed the W-L %, but overall, it was a pretty damn fun decade to be an O's fan.  2012-2016 were a lot of fun, even with the disappointment of falling short of a WS title.  I'll always remember this era fondly, even though the end has been rough.  Hoping for even better things with this next era under Mike Elias.

Even though the team bottomed out in 2018, the resulting draft may help lay the groundwork for a more successful next decade. 

[LTO's]

Manny Machado was the best baseball player I was ever able to watch day in and day out (too young to see Cal's true peak years). At the very least I'll be able to look back fondly on that decade for that reason. Kinda sad that all we can really look back and say we accomplished was one division title and one playoff series W. Was still fun. Here's to next decade...