How Much Longer Must We Wait for a World Series?

I must admit Orioles Nation, for the majority of my 40 years living in Maryland, I’ve still gotten that ‘boyhood’ excitement for the start of the Orioles baseball season every spring.

Even through the tumultuous 14 straight losing seasons, even after the strike-shortened ’94 season, and even after the famous ‘Mitchell Report’ came out linking baseball players (many Orioles among them) to performance-enhancing drugs, my excitement always remained strong and unwavering.

My excitement for this coming season has already started building.

On Thursday, pitchers & catchers report to Spring Training, which means the the 2015 season begins (at least for me).

Most of us Orioles fans have heard some of the baseball analysts predict the Orioles to finish at or near the bottom of the American League East.

Hmmm…Really?

They seem to think the departure of Nelson Cruz’s 40 HRs from our lineup automatically equates to the Orioles winning 25+ fewer games in 2015? Sorry, but their math is wrong because their formula is wrong. Pitching & defense are two parts of the winning formula, and in my opinion, these analysts place too much emphasis on offense alone.

The recent success of the Orioles over the past four seasons has been predicated on pitching and defense, but that has been overshadowed – understandably – by the team’s flashy HR numbers. I firmly believe the Orioles this season will find other ways to generate runs and absorb the loss of Cruz’s 40 HRs.

While many people ponder the question, how are the Orioles going to overcome the loss in run production?, I am pondering a more burning question I have had since 1984…

How much longer before the Orioles are back in the World Series?

Unfortunately for us O’s fans, ever since Cal Ripken, Jr. caught the final out of the ’83 World Series, the Orioles have not been back for 31 straight seasons.

There are now three generations of Orioles fans that have not witnessed the Orioles in the World Series. How does that compare to the rest of the 32 MLB teams?

I put together the table below to put the Orioles’ World Series drought into perspective. (click to enlarge)

[Stats Courtesy of baseball-reference.com]

The Orioles are now in the top five of teams with the largest amount of years between World Series appearances.

Currently standing at 69 years, the Chicago Cubs fans have undoubtedly have had it much worse than us, waiting more than double the amount of years we have waited. They currently are the extreme in terms of waiting.

If we consider just the total number of years to appear at all (just once), the Washington Nationals (formerly the Montreal Expos) and the Seattle Mariners organizations are at the top of the list.

The Nationals and Mariners have had to wait 45 and 37 years, respectively, since they were first founded…which places those two franchises at the top of the list of longest waits right below the Cubs (pushing the Orioles to 6^th in total years if you ignore ‘last appearance’).

Even with all the dollars the Los Angeles Dodgers organization has spent recently, they are still sitting at 26 years between appearances.

Milwaukee has reached the World Series once and only once so far as an AL team. Those fans are also wondering how long it will be until their second appearance (currently 32 years), when they’d now be representing the NL.

Notice the team in second place with 35 years between appearances – the team that beat the Orioles twice in the ‘70’s for two of their five championships, the Pittsburgh Pirates. I wonder which one of our two cities will have bragging rights for getting to their next World Series first?

At least for us Orioles fans we can feel a little better than most of these teams because our organization at least has been knocking on the door of making a World Series appearance since Buck Showalter became manager.

We all should be very thankful…Why?

If you remember, Bobby Valentine was interviewed for the vacancy after the 2009 season and luckily for Orioles Nation he emphatically removed his name from consideration.

Thank goodness, because I firmly believe the Orioles would be sitting at 18+ straight losing seasons and counting had Bobby Valentine replaced Dave Trembley as manager. What is Bobby doing right now? Well, after a debacle of managing the Boston Red Sox in 2011, he’s not managing an MLB team, that’s for sure.

Buck, like he has done more than once in the past, has changed the culture of a losing baseball team to one representative of a winning baseball team.

The table below is a summary of Buck’s career as a manager.

[Stats Courtesy of baseball-reference.com]

Before coming to the Orioles, three different organizations have had the benefit of Buck Showalter working his magic, with two of those organizations winning the World Series the year after his departure.

In my humble opinion, the Orioles are on the brink of getting back into the World Series.

After pondering of the question, ‘How much longer before the Orioles are back in the World Series?’ recently, I came up with two more questions…

1) Will Buck Showalter for once in his career actually be able to reap the fruits of his labor and manage his team in a World Series?

and

2) Does his past track record mean the Orioles will get back into the World Series, but not until he steps down?

Let’s hope Buck answers the first question very soon so none of us Orioles fans has to ponder the second.