The Baltimore Orioles Extensive Rebuilding Process

It has been nothing but tough times for the Baltimore Orioles and their fans as of late. The team hasn’t finished with a record over .500 on the season since 1997 and the last time they made it to the World Series was 1983. The only real decent news for the team was that hopes have never been very high over the past decade, so there was not a lot of disappointment that came with the team.

The team was hoping to turn it around when they hired Andy MacPhail to take over the team and try to bring it to glory, the way he did with the Minnesota Twins and Chicago Cubs. However the team still sits in last place of its division as they head out on a 6 game road streak this week.

MacPhail has always stated that turning around the franchise would be a lengthy process and he, and many others, feel that the team is heading in the right direction for the first time in a long time. The Orioles have cut ties with quite a few players that were planning to leave via free agency, such as Miguel Tejada and Erik Bedard, and gained some valuable assets for the farm team and the future.

The organization is hoping that MacPhail can do the same things he did when he helped the Minnesota Twins win the World Series twice, in 1987 and 1991. He knows that there are no shortcuts and that the AL East is nothing short of extremely competitive. For starters the New York Yankees are set on a payroll that exceeds $201 million, and the Red Sox are playing with one almost as excessive. That is not even to mention the Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays who have surfaced as true competition. It is hard for any team to compete, let alone the Baltimore Orioles with a payroll of $67 million.

The team knows that they are more than one player away from being truly competitive, but that isn’t stopping them from trying to make moves. They made a $150 million dollar offer to Mark Teixeira last summer but were outbid by the New York Yankees. However their minor league system is really coming around and the team has still drafted very well lately. Experts around baseball are focused on this team and feel they could rise to the top in a few years, behind players such as highly touted Matt Wieters.

There are quite a few young prospects that are ready to turn the corner and some that already have such as Nick Markakis and Adam Jones. The key remedy for the team to turn the next corner is their ability to produce some young starters, and that seems to be about to happen. Keep your eyes on the Baltimore Orioles, we all could be in for a surprise in a few years time.