The Baltimore Orioles are in a tough spot. They're coming off of a 68-93 season, finishing last in the AL East, 17.5 games back of the fourth place Blue Jays. The Yankees and Red Sox have lorded over the division for over a decade, and now the Rays are a monster too. Their 5.13 ERA was the second-worst in baseball, better than only the Rangers. They have only two starting pitchers set in stone for the 2009 season, and will probably have a similar team ERA by the end of the 2009 season.
And yet ... there's plenty of cause for optimism for O's fans, if they're willing to wait beyond the immediate future. For the last year-and-a-half, under the reign of team president Andy MacPhail, they've done a lot of things right, starting with the draft. Not all of the O's previous drafts were unmitigated disasters, but ... in recent years they had made some pretty big missteps, highlighted by owner Peter Angelos imposing his will to force the selection of Wade Townsend, prevent the front office from offering anything over slot and seeing that pick get wasted. Under MacPhail, who was given the free reign that his predecessors did not have, the O's went well over slot to grab the best player available to them in the 2007 draft, catcher Matt Wieters. They followed that up by doing the same with Jake Arrieta in the fifth round. They did the same with Brian Matusz in last year's draft.
MacPhail has changed the mindset in building a franchise outside of the draft as well. The Erik Bedard trade couldn't have worked out any better - getting Adam Jones alone would have been worth the trade, but also getting Chris Tillman and George Sherrill, plus potential upside guys Tony Butler and Kameron Mickolio amounted to Grand Theft Bavasi. Compare the haul that MacPhail got for Bedard against what the Twins netted for Johan Santana, and you can see how well the O's did. He also saw fit to trade Miguel Tejada at the right time - though the package he received there hasn't netted quite the same return.
The O's are still in the rebuilding phase of this reconstruction, and that means they have two principal goals: acquire as much talent as possible, regardless of the position, while making sure to cash in on the value of those who won't be around when the O's are finally ready to win; and protect that young talent so that the premium prospects aren't rushed before they're ready, or blocked when they are ready. It's a delicate balance, particularly with their pitching prospects, but I tend to think he's on the right path.
Looking at the moves made this offseason, most of them make a lot of sense. Trading for Felix Pie and Rich Hill are low-to-no risk talent grabs. Ty Wigginton came at a low cost, and gives the O's a platoon partner for Luke Scott. Cesar Izturis is no great shakes offensively, but his defense remains excellent (something that should be a priority when you're trying to develop young pitchers), and the O's still have nothing in their system remotely close to ready at shortstop. He'll help them tread water there until they can land a franchise shortstop. They were also able to pawn off Ramon Hernandez's contract to the Reds to make room for Wieters, while finding a lower-cost caddy in Gregg Zaun to help break Wieters in.
The pitching strategy is on a little shakier ground, but I think I get what they're trying to do. Instead of subject their top prospects (Tillman, David Hernandez, Arrieta, Matsuz) to ritualistic beatings by calling them up too soon, they're treading water with the likes of Mark Hendrickson and Koji Uehara - free agents that are relatively cheap and don't cost them future draft picks.
The overall philosophy here is not to win now, and that's the important part. The Orioles are developing young talent, and otherwise trying to acquire elite players, without getting caught up in the pursuit of second-tier and third-tier veterans in the pursuance of winning 75 games rather than 70. In the AL East, that's going to be their only path back to realistic competition. While I would have liked to see them trade George Sherrill by now, for the most part their personnel decisions over the last two years have been pretty smart. O's fans should be encouraged by the fact that they have a solid plan, and are acting in accordance with that plan.