For new Baltimore Orioles general manager Dan Duquette the task seems simple. Win ballgames. Sooner rather than later. If only it were that simple.
To overcome a record as sad as 14 consecutive losing seasons Duquette must do a lot more than decide what to do in free agency or whether Buck Showalter is right the man for the job. Nope, that just won’t cut it.
LOSER MENTALITY
Duquette’s biggest obstacle in Baltimore is a deeply engrained culture of losing. Things have been so bad for so long that Orioles fans would be happy with 81-81 at this point. That’s how sad a state we are in.
Any time an organization performs so poorly for so long there are clearly internal issues that have eaten away at its core and Peter Angelos is solely to blame. His impatience has driven this team into a virtual Purgatory, a place where all glimmers of hope are doused by the stark reality that the man has no sense of what is right for the long-term health of his team.
Duquette is the seventh general manager hired by Angelos since 1993. In the franchise’s first 31 years there were seven. It’s truly hard to pinpoint which hires were good ones and which were bad because the principal owner has displayed no patience with arguably a professional baseball franchise’s key position.
How much can a general manager possibly do to right the ship when he’s given an average of less than three years to work with? Even in the healthiest of situations, with a team long on prospects, smart contracts, and a playoff caliber 40-man roster, that’s not enough time to put anything in place long-term. For a team that’s mired in such a deep organizational slide as the Orioles? No chance.
Angelos’ biggest flaw is that he doesn’t seem to grasp the fact that the club is bleeding from the inside out and is all but dead. They don’t need just a shock to the system, just a blood transfusion, just a new voice with a new plan. They need consistency, leadership, a long-term rebuild from the guts out. They need life support.
81-81 will not cut it. Not if that’s the best there is to hope for.
RIGHT MAN FOR THE JOB?
Is Duquette the one fans have been waiting for? Maybe. His track record is very good.
He built the 90s Montreal Expos primarily through player development while mixing in key mid-level free agents. The 1994 team was the best in baseball prior to the player strike that killed that season.
In eight seasons in Boston he laid the foundation for annual record-setting attendance figures and is widely credited for developing or acquiring the bulk of the 2004 World Series championship team.
And he did all that by the age of 44. Now 53, it’s unlikely that the game has passed him by the way it did Syd Thrift, widely viewed as the one responsible for starting this freefall in his three plus years at the Baltimore helm from 1999-2002.
But how long will he have? Can he convince ownership that more than a makeover is required at this point? There is a solid young core of position players to work with but adding free agents to the mix at this point is just curb appeal to the real fan and that’s not good enough. We’ve seen this for too long to fall for that trick.
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE KIDS, MAN
A franchise that was once the crown jewel of small-market baseball is raising a young fan base that has no idea how great the Orioles used to be. That’s the saddest statement of all.
If Duquette is given the time and resources to do what he did in Montreal and Boston this could once again be a great baseball team.
Let’s hope he gets the chance. The memory of 1983 has long faded…we deserve better.