The Orioles will not win the 2023 WS, and may not make the playoffs...and that is Ok

[allquixotic]

I'm not sure why you're so confident they'll be amazing next year, either. It's not like one measly year of extra experience will magically guarantee a team to be competitive for the foreseeable future, or to have a more legitimate shot at the World Series.

At this point, I have zero confidence that any season other than this season is going to be a playoff bound season for the O's. We have a very excellent chance of making the playoffs this season because of past performance this year that has given us a huge amount of momentum. Now, we can almost coast into the finish line and still make it into a wildcard. And if they play up to any remote definition of "good", they'll probably be the first place AL East team.

But next year and the year after is a complete crapshoot. Someone who's key to our winning formula could get hurt long term. Someone could get traded. We might find out that some of the folks who we let go after this year were quietly part of a winning formula or a winning culture that gave us the magic legs we needed this year.

The difference between a team that had a forgettable, decent season, and a team that won first place in their division, is about 20 to 25 games. That margin is surprisingly small. The reason the number is so small is because converting a win into a loss, or a loss into a win, has a "double effect" of sorts: it affects both the W and the L column simultaneously.

So. If the O's this year had a mere 20 games in which the ball didn't bounce our way, or Bautista or Cano or Fuji or Baumann blew it, or that pivotal hit turned out to be an "at-em" ball, or the opposing side DIDN'T make that critical error at the exact time we needed it...

... Then we would be the Red Sox right now instead of fighting for first place.

Having a well-managed team with strong talent, a great farm system, and a front office that makes shrewd but effective decisions, is a protection against having a putrid season, to the tune of 100+ losses. Even then, you could still lose 100+ games, but if all the things I said are true, the chances of a putrid season are very, very low.

But no amount of good management, high hopes, player development, and impactful trades will ever provide more than a coin flip's worth of confidence that a team can make the playoffs any given year.

If we're a coin flip away from making the playoffs next year, that's an indication that the organization is "doing things right" -- and we're quite possibly out of the dark years of the late 2010s.

But it's still a coin flip. We can't really make it much better than that, because we don't have the money to "buy a World Series" like the Dodgers and Yanks do. When a big money team can smell success just an arm's reach away, they bring out their stretchy arms cheat code and snatch that victory with payola, the great inequalizer. Money. But we don't have that. We don't have money.

Am I cautiously optimistic about the future of the team over the next few years? Of course. Do I have some rosy, unrealistic expectation that we're going to be the best team in baseball in 2024? Well, it's possible, but it's far from guaranteed. We maybe have a 1-in-5 or 1-in-8 odds of being the best team next year, by W-L record and Pythag. But so many other things can derail us into mediocrity, and a lot of it comes down to luck.

It's easy to turn 20 Ws into 20 Ls. That doesn't make you a Bad Team necessarily; it's just the way the ball bounces. There's just not enough of a guarantee that we'll continue to be good, even if we do everything right.

Edited August 13, 2023 by allquixotic

[Barnaby Graves]

This thread sucks.

[Satyr3206]

53 minutes ago, Barnaby Graves said:

This thread sucks.

I completely agree. Pessimism at it's best. Or worst.

[Spakman]

1 hour ago, Barnaby Graves said:

This thread sucks.

One of the worst. Annoying and pathetic tone to the post. 

[Roll Tide]

15 hours ago, Spakman said:

One of the worst. Annoying and pathetic tone to the post. 

I can hear the crickets chirping.

[bluedog]

On 8/12/2023 at 2:22 AM, OnlyOneOriole said:

I say this partly because I was watching some replays of the 95-97 O's and it really struck me how much better those teams were compared to what we have right now.  I am not saying we won't be better in 1-2 years when the youngsters develop and we add some players, but those teams back then were really good.  From top to bottom in the lineup and our starting pitching.  I would say overall better than what we have today.  Go back and look at the lineup.  Ripken.  Palmero.  Bonilla.  Anderson.  Mussina.  On and on. 

We don't have the players like that...yet. 

 

And that team still didn't win anything.  The playoffs are a different animal.  Right now we are a good team playing above our water line.  But I sense we are starting to fade and again....that is ok.  It is great experience for the coming years. 

Cedric Mullins would like a word...

[Aristotelian]

The most charitable spin I can put on this thread is that I get the OP's sense that these opportunities don't come around often so we don't want to waste it. After 97 I don't think any of us would have imagined we'd go from ALCS to 14 losing seasons. After 2016 it took a painful rebuild in which we were the laughingstock of the league for three years straight. Going through those experiences makes you want to do everything you can to win it all now.

Still, we cannot go and do something stupid like the Glenn Davis trade and mortgage the future for maybe a 5% bump in our WS odds. Then the idea that these moments will never happen again becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.  

[Roll Tide]

1 hour ago, Aristotelian said:

The most charitable spin I can put on this thread is that I get the OP's sense that these opportunities don't come around often so we don't want to waste it. After 97 I don't think any of us would have imagined we'd go from ALCS to 14 losing seasons. After 2016 it took a painful rebuild in which we were the laughingstock of the league for three years straight. Going through those experiences makes you want to do everything you can to win it all now.

Still, we cannot go and do something stupid like the Glenn Davis trade and mortgage the future for maybe a 5% bump in our WS odds. Then the idea that these moments will never happen again becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.  

I still say it was baseball allowing the Expos to move to DC. Peter made a deal with the devil which will be the biggest black eye on his ownership tenure. He obviously made many mistakes including thinking he knew better than the baseball people. 

[FlipTheBird]

6 minutes ago, Roll Tide said:

I still say it was baseball allowing the Expos to move to DC. Peter made a deal with the devil which will be the biggest black eye on his ownership tenure. He obviously made many mistakes including thinking he knew better than the baseball people. 

Allowing? MLB owned the Expos at the time. They *wanted* them in DC.

And they were going to get what they wanted, no matter what. Angelos tried to get what we could in the TV deal. Which obviously has been problematic in itself.

I am confused as to what you’re alleging, here.

[Roll Tide]

1 minute ago, FlipTheBird said:

Allowing? MLB owned the Expos at the time. They *wanted* them in DC.

And they were going to get what they wanted, no matter what. Angelos tried to get what we could in the TV deal. Which obviously has been problematic in itself.

I am confused as to what you’re alleging, here.

We can agree to disagree…. He was a high powered lawyer among other things. The move clearly infringed on the Orioles tv market and transformed the team from large market to a mod market team best case scenario. Once he was padded from financial loss by the deal and sale guarantees he removed his objection to the move. 
 

Alleging, Peter Angelos will go down as one of the worst owners in franchise history. He tried to buy a WS early in his ownership tenure. Once he gave up on that proposition after the Albert Belle contract the team did a nose dive. He never did fix a broken farm system that started before he was the owner. He frequently overruled the GM on baseball decisions. Kept the team out of the international talent market. Did he have a few good stretches, Sure, but he’s owned the team 30 years. I don’t think you can credit him with anything that has happened since he became incapacitated. Whatever his faults and they are clearly there John and Georgia chose a baseball man and have allowed him to make the baseball decisions with the exception of the budget snafu that appeared to happen last year. The organization is now clearly healthy principally because they fixed the scouting and development department that was broken pretty much since it produced Ripken. We’ve had a few good and or elite players during that time but mostly the drafting has been a bust. Hell, you or I could’ve drafted Machado, Wieters, Mussina, etc. but, the system produced little else outside of the top picks. I hate to say it but more success drafting probably could’ve been done better by picking numbers out of a hat. Development wise we had a lot of failures and I think we can even call guys like Wieters and Hammonds disappointments based on the lofty expectations when they were drafted. 

[tntoriole]

One if the beautiful aspects of baseball is how it mirrors life.  We all have plans, goals, think of a better future but mindfulness reminds us we can only experience this moment.

Mindfulness is hard for goal and future oriented societies to embrace but baseball brings it to the foreground.  Every pitch, every catch, every hit in each game is a moment unique to itself. 
 

Planning for the future is good for our problem solving brain but we live for moments like tonight where these talented young men play the game in its full beauty. 
 

Stop and smell the roses is a mindfulness thing.. savoring each moment of this season is too. 

Edited August 14, 2023 by tntoriole

[FlipTheBird]

12 minutes ago, Roll Tide said:

We can agree to disagree…. He was a high powered lawyer among other things. The move clearly infringed on the Orioles tv market and transformed the team from large market to a mod market team best case scenario. Once he was padded from financial loss by the deal and sale guarantees he removed his objection to the move. 
 

Alleging, Peter Angelos will go down as one of the worst owners in franchise history. He tried to buy a WS early in his ownership tenure. Once he gave up on that proposition after the Albert Belle contract the team did a nose dive. He never did fix a broken farm system that started before he was the owner. He frequently overruled the GM on baseball decisions. Kept the team out of the international talent market. Did he have a few good stretches, Sure, but he’s owned the team 30 years. I don’t think you can credit him with anything that has happened since he became incapacitated. Whatever his faults and they are clearly there John and Georgia chose a baseball man and have allowed him to make the baseball decisions with the exception of the budget snafu that appeared to happen last year. The organization is now clearly healthy principally because they fixed the scouting and development department that was broken pretty much since it produced Ripken. We’ve had a few good and or elite players during that time but mostly the drafting has been a bust. Hell, you or I could’ve drafted Machado, Wieters, Mussina, etc. but, the system produced little else outside of the top picks. I hate to say it but more success drafting probably could’ve been done better by picking numbers out of a hat. Development wise we had a lot of failures and I think we can even call guys like Wieters and Hammonds disappointments based on the lofty expectations when they were drafted. 

You can dislike PA all you want for being a meddling owner that made some poor baseball decisions… but blaming him for the Nationals, rather than Major League Baseball (which created an incredible amount of carnage by first voting to contract two teams and then changing its mind, and then actively allowed the deterioration of the Expos after Montreal refused to build a stadium)…is pretty misplaced. PA tried to fight it. Given the bag DC offered the league, he had few options. That team was going to DC.

[Billy F-Face3]

6 minutes ago, FlipTheBird said:

You can dislike PA all you want for being a meddling owner that made some poor baseball decisions… but blaming him for the Nationals, rather than Major League Baseball (which created an incredible amount of carnage by first voting to contract two teams and then changing its mind, and then actively allowed the deterioration of the Expos after Montreal refused to build a stadium)…is pretty misplaced. PA tried to fight it. Given the bag DC offered the league, he had few options. That team was going to DC.

I remember that time period vividly. Peter Angelos publicly complained against the idea of the Expos moving into Washington, and he fought against the Expos trying to move to Washington. Peter was adamantly against it and expressed concerns that they would be treading on the Orioles market. At the time, I didn't think it mattered and I didn't think much of it, but all these years later, I think Peter Angelos turned out to be right when he expressed his reservations about Washington getting the Nationals.

[FlipTheBird]

1 hour ago, Billy F-Face3 said:

I remember that time period vividly. Peter Angelos publicly complained against the idea of the Expos moving into Washington, and he fought against the Expos trying to move to Washington. Peter was adamantly against it and expressed concerns that they would be treading on the Orioles market. At the time, I didn't think it mattered and I didn't think much of it, but all these years later, I think Peter Angelos turned out to be right when he expressed his reservations about Washington getting the Nationals.

In terms of cutting into market size, yes, it was inevitable. And he had right to be upset about it.

That said, the arrival of the Nationals had nothing to do with the Orioles already by then going on 7-8 consecutive losing seasons, nor did it impact the next 5-6 losing seasons. That remains, and always will, on poor overall organizational leadership.

[Winter]

Better title to this thread would of just been "Regardless of what happens from here on out the season was a success" which it was because many saw a regression with the team but it didn't happen, this team can win a playoff series, can they beat the Braves/Dodgers in a 7game series? It would take a big upset no doubt about that, but the AL? we can beat any of them..