The 2022 MLB season has come to an end for Orioles fans, and what a great ride it was. A team many thought would struggle to win 65 games instead became a team that had the 5th best turnaround since 1900.
Entering the 2022 season, I was personally disappointed with the direction of the team. I felt the 2022 team should have been a team fighting for a .500 record. Mike Elias clearly didn’t put a team on the field that he felt would do that. Now, I was not someone who thought the 2021 team was actually a 50-ish win team. Things happen in any given year that can make or break seasons, so I think some natural improvement to the W/L record was going to happen anyway, but I still thought this team would win 64-68 games, as constructed. I wanted them to address areas of the team that were deficient entering the year in order to build on top of that natural progression and improvement.
I also wanted the team to be in position to legitimately contend in 2023 and since you don’t normally see 65-win teams be true contenders the next year, I felt that Elias dropped the ball and was playing the tank card too much.
Well, obviously things turned out much differently, and the team exceeded everyone’s expectations. In a year that can go down as one of the most enjoyable and fun seasons in franchise history, we were treated to stunning debuts, electric minor league performances, and watched several players, who had never been that good in years past, turn their careers around and give us a lot of hope long term. We were treated to a team that was hungry, young, exciting and on the cusp for bigger and better things.
Now,comes an offseason that is very important. That is a statement that is seemingly said every year. Offseasons are always important – but some are bigger than others. This one is huge.
The Orioles have a lot of money to spend and a lot of assets to use in trades, and its imperative that they build on this team and get fans really excited. Packing OPACY as much as possible next year should be a goal, and that starts with the offseason because that is when season and group tickets are sold, and those make up a huge portion of the ticket sales for the year.
To me, the theme of this offseason is based around one simple question… but it’s not a question with simple answers.
That question is this:
Who do you trust?
Going back to a point I mentioned earlier, the team had a lot of players come out of nowhere to be really good for them. No one saw the likes of Dean Kremer, Cionel Perez or Austin Voth pitching to the level they did. No one anticipated that guys like Keegan Akin or Dillon Tate would be that good out of the pen. We didn’t yet know what we had in Felix Bautista, even if we knew the stuff was electric. We didn’t know that Kyle Bradish, a player many scouts have always felt would end up in the bullpen, would become so good after his rough start and then subsequent injury. We didn’t know that Jorge Mateo would provide so much value with the glove that his poor offense would still be enough to produce a solid, everyday shortstop.
There was just very little indication of many of these things. You could certainly squint and look hard enough and put on orange colored glasses and find ways that they could be good players but overall, there is just no way you could have realistically expected what they produced. It is a testament to the work of those players, the coaches, and the system Elias and friends have put into action. Prior to this season, Elias hadn’t produced a lot of waiver wire success stories (Ramon Urias was one) but this year changed all of that. Those guys are needed. You need the Miguel Gonzalezes of the world to help you win games while they make very little money. Every contender has players like that on their roster.
The problem with guys like that is simply, can they do it again? Go on various message boards and social media outlets and you see wide ranging opinions on this topic. You have the homers who think of course, they will repeat the success. You have the pessimists who think no way they can do it again. For me, I kind of fall in the middle. I am skeptical of many of these guys repeating the success of 2022 but I also believe you have to still give them a chance.
If you had asked me in June if I thought Bradish should be in the rotation in 2023, I would have said not likely. That said, he turned his season around and gave me more confidence that he could do it again. However, can I say that I am overly confident in him in 2023? No, I am not. He is basically a two-pitch pitcher that was excellent for a few months after a pro career where he showed a lot of promise but also had a lot of issues.
He is just one example. Pick anyone from that list of guys and I think there is a lot of reason to be nervous about any of them. Now, I will say that Walltimore changes things. It may be easier to get good pitching performances going forward because of the new wall and if MLB continues to use the humidor in all parks, offense should be down some going forward, at least when it comes to balls flying out of the park. But still, I think it’s very risky thinking these guys will duplicate their successes after pro careers largely filled with failures and/or inconsistencies.
How the Orioles handle this is going to be interesting. What do you do at short? Are you OK with Mateo as basically a defense and speed guy? And do you feel 100% sure that his defense will still be elite? Defense absolutely can and does peak, so it’s possible he peaked this year. I absolutely believe that Mateo would be an above average defensive shortstop in 2023, but there is a difference between above average and elite/Gold Glove level and if he’s not elite, he’s not an everyday player because of his poor offense.
Do we feel confident with a back end bullpen of Tate, Perez and Bautista? Tate has basically been a dime-a-dozen-type reliever since he came into the league, while Bautista and Perez have battled control and command issues up until very recently. Do any of those things crop back up? There are stats that show they should still be very solid in 2023, so that’s the good news. There are also stats that suggest some regression is very likely and the margin for error becomes thin for non-dominant relievers when that occurs.
The other side to this whole equation is that you do have this system in place and it is working and these guys collectively make no money, so having guys like this are crucial and to just cast them aside seems foolish.
This is where the job for Elias gets tough. For me, I am not going into the season trusting these guys as a group. I would be replacing Mateo for sure, especially since the team has so many options for the position. I would be acquiring one or two front-end starting pitchers, and I feel multiple new bats need to be in the lineup, some of which can come from within the organization. I want to build the depth up more and, more importantly, build the top end of the roster up more. You need elite, top end talent to win in sports. The Orioles are building that with guys like Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson. Grayson Rodriguez also could be in that group. We will see if any of the other young bats become top end/core talent or if they are more role player type guys…both are needed.
The aforementioned players can still have a place on the team and in key positions but I want to add very good talent around them in case they do falter, you can still win in 2023. I want those guys to be pieces, not guys that you are counting on to lead you to the playoffs. Next year’s roster shouldn’t have the Rougned Odors of the world on it. This organization has too much young talent and too many resources to have those types of guys on the roster in 2023.
As someone that is fascinated by this aspect of sports, I am really looking forward to how the team attacks this offseason and how they choose to build the roster for 2023. But they can’t start to do this until they ask the question, who do we trust?A
