Stop Pretending the Orioles are a Normal Franchise

…for your own sanity, if nothing else.

As another Hot Stove season begins to heat up in MLB, I see it all over the place from O’s fans: calling into local radio shows (egged on by the hosts, who may or may not be paid by the team in other capacities), posting on social media, talking about it at our favorite watering holes.

Which free agent pitcher should the Orioles sign? Eduardo Rodriguez? Kenta Maeda (too late)? Sonny Gray (ditto)? Marcus Stroman?

Which young stud will they lock up? Adley? Gunnar?

All of these are extremely valid and logical questions to ask about a team that just shattered expectations by winning 101 games and the AL East, whose arrow is pointing nearly straight up, and whose GM told us over a year ago that it was “liftoff from here.”

Or, they WOULD be logical questions to ask, were the team in question not the Baltimore Orioles. The Orioles are NOT A NORMAL FRANCHISE, and I implore my fellow fans to stop treating them as one until proven otherwise.

I understand the impulse, I really do. But, for my own peace of mind, I – to paraphrase Dan Duquette, in a bygone example of Orioles weirdness – philosophically, choose not to participate.

Join me. It will make your life so much less stressful as you watch these coveted free agents fly off the market to teams that don’t play their home games at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

Speaking of which…

Look no further for the latest example of the non-normalness of the Orioles than the fact that they still have not signed a new lease to stay in the best ballpark in baseball. Yeah, remember all that preening and scoreboard high-fiving that John Angelos and Maryland Governor Wes Moore did back when they interrupted Clinchmas to take focus off the players (Mateo was still safe, terrible call!) and make everything about themselves? Announcing a new 30-year lease that we later learned was just a Memorandum of Understanding, and about which we’ve heard nothing but crickets since?

About that!

You did not keep your promise. You lied to the people of Maryland. What will you say when the next lease is not 30 years, Wes? https://t.co/y6fpLehxvT pic.twitter.com/BzbuyNvoTD

— Adley Rutschman's Big Tits II (@masnARBT) November 26, 2023

(For those not familiar with that Twitter/X account, it’s rumored to be someone working/with sources in The Warehouse. Some remain skeptical, but Mr. ARBT’s scoops have been proven right time and again.)

For a more quotable source, however, the Baltimore Sun reported this week that the Orioles and State of Maryland, as opposed to putting pen to paper on the lease hinted at by the agreement we heard about back in September, are moving in a different direction entirely:

With their lease expiring in five weeks, the Orioles and the state are considering separating out the complex — and potentially contentious — issue of stadium-area development rights and proceeding for now with a scaled-down lease binding the team to Baltimore for the long term, according to two people with direct knowledge of the negotiations.Such an approach would represent a pivot from a nonbinding memorandum of understanding the parties signed Sept. 27 calling for not only keeping the team at Camden Yards for at least 30 more years, but granting the Orioles rights to develop land around Camden Yards, including the warehouse and Camden Station.

…The two officials, who declined to be named because of the sensitive nature of negotiations, cautioned that the talks remained fluid and that no decision has been made on the proposal.

So maybe the 30-year lease actually gets signed in the next five weeks. But do any of us have any faith in that actually happening? If so, I have some waterfront property along the Inner Harbor to sell you (no really…but you have to bid against John Angelos and Maryland taxpayers for it.)

Against the backdrop of all this, Mike Elias & Co. are tasked with building the 2024 roster. What’s their budget to do so? We have no idea! Of course we all like to assume that the Orioles will increase their spending to something resembling a non-poverty franchise. As recently as 2018, they were 14th in MLB with a $150M payroll! Despite their claims to the contrary, they are not, in fact, a “small market team,” and should be able to spend accordingly.

However, a few things have happened since 2018. Most notably, the ongoing MASN dispute was ruled, again and again, in favor of the Washington Nationals. I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of the litigation, but the end result is that it gives Johnny yet another reason to cry poor.

Do you know what else happened in 2018? The Orioles signed two starting pitchers, Andrew Cashner in February, and Alex Cobb in March, to multi-year free agent deals. You may not realize this, but those are the last two such deals the Orioles have handed out. And yes, Dan Duquette was still in charge at the time. So Mike Elias has never, not once, handed out a multi-year deal that didn’t have an option at the end of the first year.

https://t.co/KGdfvfnIbz pic.twitter.com/7zzazKba5q

— Ryan (@delydell_) November 27, 2023

Personally, I point the finger at Angelos for this. There are fans, however, who would argue that Elias and John are one and the same here, and that Elias prefers to operate on a shoestring budget. That he’s perfectly fine not being a player in free agency.

I am willing to give Elias and his team more credit than this. Between MASN and family infighting worthy of HBO’s Succession, we have no idea how much of the Angelos family fortune is available for the Baltimore Orioles. (Has he shown us the books yet, by the way?)

Until further notice though, I am directing my ire at ownership for a lack of free agent signings and/or arbitration buyouts.

But. For all their successes – for which I am extremely grateful! – there is one area where Mike, Sig, et. al need to prove to us that they are willing to make moves, regardless of budget constraints placed upon them from above: trading prospects. Just like signing an actual competitive free agent deal, let’s not believe they’ll trade a top prospect until they actually do it. The closest they’ve come is when they traded Cesar Prieto and Drew Rom for Jack Flaherty back at the deadline. At the time, those two were top 20 in the O’s system. But when you’ve got the best farm system in baseball, and a 100-win team, it’s time to start dealing some of those top 10s.

There is no reason a guy like #7 prospect Connor Norby, for instance, should still be in the Orioles organization in 2024. They are packed to the gills with middle infielders, including the 2023 MLB Rookie of the Year and MLB’s consensus top prospect, and there is no room for him. Norby should be included in a package to improve the MLB team over the next several weeks (and you can argue that it should have happened last summer), and if he isn’t, the Warehouse deserves significant criticism. You could probably say the same for fellow infielder, #6 prospect Joey Ortiz, who is now 25 years old and has no clear path for an everyday role in Baltimore.

If ownership is truly tying your hands when it comes to landing splash MLB talent to improve your roster and take the next step into October success, and you truly care about hanging the franchise’s first World Series banner in over 40 years, then it’s time to get creative with those assets to which you do have access. Stop hoarding them, and send these prospects off in deals for proven major-league talent. It’s a no-brainer, right?

Again, these are all things that a normal franchise would do. But until they ACTUALLY DO ANY OF THEM, I see no reason to speculate on which of them they’re obviously going to do, because why wouldn’t they?

I hope I’m wrong, of course. Maybe the 30-year lease is *actually* signed next week. Maybe Elias comes home from the winter meetings in December with a $50M higher payroll, two new starting pitchers, and a handful fewer top prospects. That would be awesome!

Yet for now, my position remains the same as it’s been for years: show me.