Pete...maybe I'm stretching here after another abysmal season, but to me this is evidence of what this team is capable of when:

a) key players are healthy and focused
b) the team is properly motivated

I'm not sure what's clicked recently, but obviously that sweep in Minny and competing with the Yanks has fired them up.

I'm under no illusions here, but it seems if this club could keep key vets and youngsters healthy throughout the season and not hit those deflating streaks when everyone's out and nothing is going right, they can really compete night in and night out. Obviously the quality of play hasn't been great, but it seems over the last couple years, confidence has been the biggest factor in their success (or lack their of).

That might be the most accurate analogy I've ever heard, if your golf game is similar to mine.

Do you really feel comfortable going into next season knowing only two pitchers - Guthrie and Arrieta - could pitch for the Yankees and might be a #5 on Boston or Tampa??? There is the core of your problem my friend and not your dreadful golf game.

Pete,

The golf game is a great analogy except mine actually never gets back in at then end! Basically, The Orioles are playing exhibition games like the NFL is right now. Playing other teams out of the running and beating them now proves nothing. I mean Toronto trotted out a closer last night with almost a 9 ERA. The Twins have lost 11 out of 13. I mean theses games are as meaningless as the one the Ravens will play on Thursday. Bill Parcels once said, and I am paraphrasing, how you finish up a lost season has no bearing on your next one. Teams that go on some hot streak at the end of a lost season are no more apt to have a good one next year, and these O's are proving that correct.

I'd like to say it's this kind of late season antics that lead to the FO not making a "real" evaluation of where the organization is, but then I remember a couple years ago when the O's would lose 90% of the games from mid-August on.

Hopefully the organization will take a look at where they were inefficient at the major league level this year (overpaying for declining power bats) and change course. It's not all about how much you spend, it's how you spend it. Between Vlad and Lee, they threw away a lot of money.

Hopefully the new GM will be averse to this kind of spending.

Hopefully the new GM will recognize the inadequacies in the number of scouts the team employs. People give a lot of crap to Joe Jordan. He's not the problem. We can cry and moan about the Hobgood pick all we want, but really it's the only bad 1st round pick he has made. All the others were logical. As you get deeper into the draft, success depends more and more on your staff. Jordan is playing with about half the bullets of the rest of the division.

Hopefully the new GM will take a hard look at the failure of the organization's player development. There are certainly good teachers in the minors, but the majority of the guys aren't getting it done and the Stockstills aren't held accountable for their failures. It's time to get new blood in the system. It's time to get someone who will recognize that someone who has a possible future at the big league level, needs to be given preference over someone who doesn't in the minors as far as reps.

*LJ Hoes may not ever reach the majors, but his bat would play as a 2B. Unfortunately he is being stuck in LF at Bowie, where his bat would most likely be marginal. Miclat may be a better 2B right now, but the consideration should be how what your doing in the minors is a benefit to the major league club in the long term. Sacrificing development for wins at the minor league level is the equivalent of writing parking tickets to pad your statistics instead of focusing on real crime.*

Hopefully the new GM will invest in Latin America a bit more. Buy one year of over the hill Vlad for $8.5, or buy 20 chances at young, cost controlled Vlad for the same price? The guarantee of major league production may be lower, but the payout of success is much higher and in this division, there's no sensible reason to overpay for guaranteed mediocrity.

I don't hope for wins at the major league level next year. That's just not realistic. What I do hope for is a change that brings competence to the organization. I am hopeful that they stop being stupid.

That hope in itself may be stupid on my part though.

Then, not than.

To try to get butts in the seats of Camden Yards for the last month of the year, the Orioles should waive the extra fee for 'prime games', and the extra fee for day of game walk up purchases... BUT, That would be the SMART thing to do.. Which we know, isn't in Angelos' vocabulary when it comes to running his ball club....

What's particularly dispiriting about this season is that (1) the young pitchers all but imploded and (2) the team still failed to hit for its most consistent pitcher Jeremy Guthrie. The Hardy and Reynolds signings worked out, but the team is still woefully slow so it can't manufacture runs and no one is hitting more than .290 or so.. Before this latest 8 out of 10 run, they looked the worst they had looked all season, which is saying something. It's a long way to .500 I fear.

What I've seen, like last year, is a team racked by numerous longterm injuries to crucial players, early season slumps and others not playing up to their abiliity, young pitchers still struggling to find consistency and a shallow bench.

Likewise, as with 2010 down the stretch, I've seeing some players who have found themselves and are playing better than earlier in the season, such as Nick Markakis who was not himself earlier on. They're finally reminding themselves (or Buck's reminding them) that there's talent on the team.

This team won't lose 100 games, I'd almost guarantee, because it's better than what we saw midseason and better than last year. Offensively it's a much better team, so there's not as much pressure on the pitchers. (Matt Wieters and Adam Jones are better than last year, and J.J. Hardy and Mark Reynolds have given the club a real power boost.)

Still, avoiding 100 losses is goes with the very large caveat 'if the rotation can kept producing quality starts and that depends on whether they can keep the hurlers healthy, which is far from certain.

Had the 2011 Orioles not lost Brian Roberts essentially for the season, not had the injury to Brian Matusz that threw his game out of whack, the loss of Luke Scott's bat for an extended time, losing Jake Arrieta after some promising starts, and other such setbacks, I'm convinced they'd be batting the Blue Jays for 4th place in the division and be right around or above the .500 mark.

Bottom line: This team is a lot better than it's shown.

I am a huge Orioles fan since 1981, when I was 9. I am just happy to see them play good baseball.

I choose to believe that Mike Flanagan took his own life so he could negotiate a deal with God to lift the curse on the Orioles. Next year will be different, I hope.

Are you serious about them dragging you back in? This team is horrible. There is no reason to watch unless you are employed to do so. If they do not pursue legitimate free agents this off season, there will be no reason to watch next year either.

Yeah, and we’ll let ’em do it to us again next year, too if we’re not careful.

I still cant watch and im still not excited for next year.

Pete-

I have followed this team for over forty years. This year has been the toughest passage. I have never felt a sense of indifference like I do this season. Oh, there have been some pleasant surprises, like J.J. Hardy and Mark Reynolds. Markakis and Jones are solid, consistent performers. I know it's just business, but I was disappointed when they shipped Uehara to Texas. It all begins and ends with pitching, with the emphasis being on the starters.

I hate feeling this way about my Os, and I certainly hope this ambivalence has no carryover effect into next season.

Now if they could just happen to come up with some Walter Johnson, Grover Cleveland Alexander and Sandy Koufax clones, all would be serene again in Birdland.

Pete,

I know exactly what you're saying, and it worked last year, but I'm impervious to it this time around. I'm not going to get 'dragged back in' to caring about a team until I see more than a few patches. Love the Reynolds and Hardy trades, but how can it be that we make two good-to-great trades and STILL go backward? Shouldn't that be .... scary, a little? I never expected Matusz, Tillman, Arrieta, and Britton to all work out, but it's starting to look like we're gonna go oh-for-four with this crew, and why should I think the same "instructional" staff who brought us this disaster is going to magically bring Bundy along? The poor kid should've run screaming. I will say this, and maybe I'll get killed for it ... I do still have this confidence that Buck was the right hire and means well and honestly embraces the Oriole Way ... I just don't think he can do it by himself. Hope I'm wrong.

Pete,

I know exactly what you're saying, and it worked last year, but I'm impervious to it this time around. I'm not going to get 'dragged back in' to caring about a team until I see more than a few patches. Love the Reynolds and Hardy trades, but how can it be that we make two good-to-great trades and STILL go backward? Shouldn't that be .... scary, a little? I never expected Matusz, Tillman, Arrieta, and Britton to all work out, but it's starting to look like we're gonna go oh-for-four with this crew, and why should I think the same "instructional" staff who brought us this disaster is going to magically bring Bundy along? The poor kid should've run screaming. I will say this, and maybe I'll get killed for it ... I do still have this confidence that Buck was the right hire and means well and honestly embraces the Oriole Way ... I just don't think he can do it by himself. Hope I'm wrong.

Is this really a "Big Tease" Pete, or is it reality, and the situation is in fact better than you are making it out to be, and the pieces are finally fitting in to the right spot instead of playing people based on how much they are being paid?. IMHO we have a lot more pieces to the puzzle than you give us credit for and though I am also frustrated by the results I am actually encouraged by what I see.

We have an all-star Catcher, an all-star Short Stop, and all-star Center Fielder, and arguably an all-star Right Fielder, second base between Adams and BRob taken care of and if Reynolds continues his excellent defense at First Base we can look past Prince Fielder and spend our money more wisely in other positions, an anchor at the top of the rotation would be my highest priority.

Apologise to Rick Kranitz and beg him to come back, move or ditch Andy MAcPhail and replace him with whatever combination of a 2 headed GM that includes Buck Showalter , Peter is going to make a last ditch effort to die a winner and have a statue erected at the Yard,

Bring Cal into the Front Office in some capacity and let us get this show on the road.

Pete, the Orioles have the same problem any team with young pitching has, and that's inconsistency. You can;t tell me that those guys lost it just because they're Orioles and Peter Angelos is the owner.

But one day, you know, they will put it together. They might not be the second coming of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, but they're not Victor Zambrano and Victor Santos, either.

Was it wrong to go into this season depending on so many young and mostly unproven arms? Hindsight says yes. If they can address that, if the new guy can get a veteran arm to lead, this team can make those strides. The offense is coming along, and that's with a cleanup hitter who should be hitting seventh, if not benched totally.

The foundation is there, but it all starts with the starting pitching.

Pete,they aren't going to fool me again, in fact they aren't going to fool me ever again. There has been a great debate the last few day's in the blogs and the radio sport talk shows whether the orioles will miss andy McPhail if he decides to go. Some say he under estimated his ability to fix this team, some say that he was in a no win situation, and some say that he completely failed at what he was trying to do. I guess there is a little of all of that in the total evaluation of the job he has done.

I guess in my case the most disappointing facet of what has been going on around here has been the drafting or lack of drafting of players when we have had high picks every year. When you fail as miserably as the orioles have on Billy Rowell, Matt hobgood, snyder, and the rest of the bad picks over the years you can't succeed.When you do pick the right kid and can't develop him then you can 't succeed and when you designate the core of your team to build around and they take drastic steps back like in the case of Nick M, Brian Roberts you just can't succeed.

Pete you and the other journalists, and beat writers in this town have had 2 years , i repeat 2 years to write about the underperformance of Nick M and you have chosen not to do so. I have tried to undertsnad why and to this day still am in the dark. There was a great article written by a ESPN writer today that completely sums up my frustration with Nick over the last 2 years. It goes something like this pete, Slugging % has gone from 491 in 2008, to 453 in 2009 to
436 in 2010 to luckly reaching 400 this year.Every body calls Nick a very nice and complimentary player, but nice and complimentary weren't quite what the orioles envisioned when they signed him to a 6 year 66.1 million extension in 2009.Many Scouts have said he has become a very streaky hitter and seems to have a different approach every day. His bat has really slowed down you use to not be able to get in his kitchen but now you can.There are many issues going on with him and none of them are good. See pete everybody keeps saying that nick is the least of the orioles problems, but in fact he might be the biggest.

See pete showing up every day and playing hard isn't good enough any more, having charitable foundations named after you and being a great community guy isn't good enough any more when the face of this organization was suppose to rest on your shoulders. I believe more and more people are finally seeing things my way after 2 years of preaching, but the mystery still remains how he has continued to go unnoticed by the media in his own town.

Peter, I'm with you on the golf comparision! I can shoot anywhere from 85-105 and even with recent retirement, that hasn't changed much...
(kind of like the O's)
I've resigned myself that the Orioles aren't going to seriously compete any time soon so I may as well enjoy the few high points. I've tried NOT to follow them but that hasn't worked.
Just wondering what you think about Buck's handling of the 'pen this year. I can't believe his faith in Gregg as a closer, when every game he enters is a roller-coaster. Granted, the choices for closer may be limited but why not try Johnson or(shudder!) Gonzalez, now that he seems to be throwing better. I just don't get this fascination with a guy who most of us knew would be the 2nd coming of Mike Timlin of Heathcliffe Slocum.

The flaming bone head of the Baltimore Sun sport Staff is off on his merry methods again. "THE SCHMUCK" is again on a spewing of dribble of the incomptence of his knowledge. Continue to roll dumdum, show the public that you are stilll short of a REAL mental capacity. The SCHMUCK has one (1) and a half grey brain cells. Run ramp doo doo!!!

Not a bad analogy, Pete. Do you think the Os drink beer on this figurative course?

NO! No, I say!!

I'm not gonna fall for this again, tease me just enough to get me just a little interested.

NO!

(Anyway, they're down 11-0 to the Jays barely an hour into tonight's game.)

No.

The only sport left for baseball-lovers in this town is hating Peter Angelos. You know, throwing darts at Angelos pictures, competing over drinks to see who can come up with the nastiest anagrammatic translation of A-N-G-E-L-O-S, inventing "How many Peter Angeloses..." jokes, making Angelos voodoo dolls out of corn husks and burning them on the grill...

Moral of the story: don't read into any ten game (or even two month) stretch of any team. This team was clearly well below the talent level of other AL East teams at the start of the year and obviously still is. The only way the O's improve is better drafting and developing. There needs to be more than one player per draft class that ends up contributing (that, or Angelos begins spending $140M per year on talent). It's not that hard...just watch what the Rays have done over the past 5-8 years.

Earlier today I wrote a ridiculous comment, all but guaranteeing the Orioles would keep below the 100 loss mark. (See I told you it was ridiculous...with a capital "R").

I do want want to explain what would otherwise seem to be a total eclipse of reason. Stated simply, I read the won/loss wrong, thinking the team had fewer losses than they really have.

That said, I still believe the team's probably better than the record suggests, because of so many injuries. Obviously, it still has a long way to go to be good, but had it at least remained reasonably healthy it would have bettered last year's record.

Oh, well, maybe 2012.

The Orioles are a byproduct of guarantied contracts just like the rest of baseball. The fact they get motivated to not lose 100 games, but don't get motivated to win 100 games, tells you they can win when they want to, but they just don't want to. Screw them. The Ravens are about to crack some Steeler skulls. The Orioles are just a bad dream at this point. Looking forward to the Ravens making a SP run.

Matusz turning from stud to dud sealed this teams fate for awhile in my opinion. With him as an anchor they'd have two solid, Matusz and Guthrie, and two up and coming starters, Arrieta and Britton.
Now they have two huge holes in the rotation and have to bank on Simon and someone to be claimed off waivers later.
The lineup might be respectable next year but without pitching or a reasonable closer it'll probably be year 15 of the curse.

100 losses? More? Fewer? Who cares, at this point! What matters is getting back to playing decent ball.

Cowherd's column that it's time for a new GM was on the mark. MacPhail has made a few good trades, but a respectable GM is responsible for a lot more than that. Player development? International scouting? NATIONAL scouting? Draft selections? Minor league standard? All horrendous. All we can hope for is that Showalter gains PA's ear and manages to engineer the bringing in of a
young, with-it GM.

Ironically, this year's team is, I think, potentially better than its record, and not far from competing.

Offense. Reynolds should be cemented into the 1B slot. Hardy is a find. Reimold is worth a full-season tryout, playing every day, or close to it. Roberts, on the other hand, is a dead loss, and should be regarded as a write-off. (No more Andino, please. He's a bench player, at best.) Two legit power bats at DH and 3B are real needs, costing real money. But if PA can be persuaded to part with same, the offense will be right up there with NY and Boston. This is urgent--this team needs to be able to overcome pitching lapses and win slugfests. It's two bats short of being able to do that.

One front line pitcher and one closer are necessary. Again, the O's need to spend this money. If Johnson is moved into the rotation, which I've been advocating for a long time, the starting five (with Hunter, Reyes, Britton, and, perhaps Simon) will be respectable, maybe even more than that. (The other young pitchers can work their way back in the pen for a while until the club sees what it really has.)

So, two hitters and two pitchers: four players in all.

With a new front office? Maybe.

Peter,

Over the past dcade and a half and beyond, the Orioles completely destroyed what was once the best franchise in baseball. When Andy MacPhail came in, we finally realized just how screwed up this organization had become. There is still lots to do.

BUT . . . . we now have a nice young core of position players. Markakis, Jones, Weiters, Hardy. The scouting system is being rebuilt, and most importantly the Orioles NOW have a professional spring training complex. There is hope, Peter. You just still have to look hard for it.

You are exactly right, Peter. But just when you think the O's are getting better, they put in a "pitiful" performance and lose 13-0 to Toronto. Being the die hard fan that I have been for over 50 years I continue to watch the O's hoping to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But after last night's performance it is very easy to see that we need a lot of help.
Our pitching staff needs a major overhaul. I see Buck in the dugout with his arms folded knowing that he must wonder what he got himself into when he took this job. He has much more work to do. We can't pitch, we can't bunt, and we can't hit with runners on base. How did some of these guys make it to the big leagues?

We know what the Orioles have. Five good players, eight good enough players, a good manager, some good coaches (I think), and some scattered prospects who are two to four years away. If these prospects reach fruition, how many of the 13 will still be here?

That's as rhetorical as any tease. What the Orioles do in the next three offseasons is the only thing that matters. If it is as little as the last 14, only the foolish will be teased. I know I won't ignore what really works by small stretches ever again.

Since there haven't been any comments posted, I'm assuming it's not being moderated right now or things just aren't being published at present.

Whatever the case, I want to state that after further review I'm standing by my original position that the if the Orioles' pitching holds (granted, that's a big "if"), they will be able to avoid triple-digit losses. I hope that precludes them sending Jo Jo Reyes out to be used as an in-game batting practice pitcher.

(I actually misread--or misinterpreted--the won-loss record leading to my second comment that they had no chance to avoid it--but in reality, it's just that there's no chance they'll finish the season at .500...that's what I saw.)

Well, no one wants to admit it, but it looks like good ole Wayne was right all along. Ugh!

There seems to be an invisible force that pulls the Orioles to a certain record (90-some losses) each year. If they veer too far from that, they win or lose enough games to put them back on the trajectory.

By the way, I heard a rumor that if Guthrie does well his next 2 starts, the Orioles will trade him to the Rangers for a cup of coffee to be named later.

As a fellow-OC transplant once said on the radio, be patient for another three years--and that was three years ago.

Seriously, the Orioles have some talent, and a 75-87 finish or better should have been the result this year, but for some reason, they fell asleep around June 20th, and really did not wake up until last week.

Their play, a times, has been painful, and players paid the price (just ask Felix Pie, demoted after his gaff at the Big A). The recent wins have been great, especially the split with NY and the four game sweep at Minnesota.

We can only hope this drought of winning seasons ends next year.

Nope. Not this time. Sorry. It's been too long, too consistently bad, and I've been burned too many times. This an awful organization, a Harvard business school case study of Enron proportions in how to fail at every level, how to suck every modicum of goodwill out of your supporters, and how to salt the earth so thoroughly that it may take a generation of decent baseball to win back a fan base.

Long time no chat Pete, how have you been?

The Orioles are a hot mess and I really can't wait to see what they are going to do with the front office this off season. I am under the opinion that no matter whom they hire for the "President of Baseball Operations" if Peter Angelos doesn't back off and allow his GM to run the team like a GM should, it won't matter. Same thing applies to whomever the new scouting director will be.

Golf is not an easy game. I never shot a round in my life. I went to the driving range with a buddy of mine who plays. I got the driver, swung it like I was playing baseball and trying to hit like Vlad at a low pitch in the dirt and smacked that sucker over 300 yards. "Wow, this is easy," I exclaimed to my friend. He just laughed.

Through the whole bucket of balls, I never hit another one like that shot. I was hitting Baltimore choppers, pop ups that went a mile high but 50 feet deep. It was awful. It was right then and there that I knew I had no idea about the game.

So, any thoughts on what the Orioles might be doing in the off season? A new GM with new ideas might make for an interesting off season. I just hope Angelos doesn't drag his feet like he did one season and have his GM signed after the FA period has already begun.

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Pete's reply: Good to hear from you again. I'll weigh in on that starting tomorrow when I pick up the O's in New York. I'm at the Grand Prix today, and my mind can't work on two tracks at once.

The topic of this blog was one that could attracted lots of comments, if it weren't for the fact that it was posted on 08/31/11 and you didn't respond back unti 09/03/11. You have said many times that you don't have the time or the energy to devote to this any more so maybe just maybe it's time to let it go. 37 people responded and not 1 replay was posted by you. time to go pete

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Pete's reply: Bob, I'm sorry if I don't take enough time to answer every one of your missives. I've answered way more of yours than just about anybody else's. Just because I can't come here as often doesn't necessarily mean I need to close down the blog. You sound like a spoiled child who says he doesn't want anything if he can't have everything.

Blancione,

As Pete has said to others. If you don't like it, you don't have to come here. Seems fair to me.

Ken,

You were kidding in your post I'm assuming. No one can be that gullible.