“Well … that’s actually kinda complicated too.”
In the immediate days after the Ravens placed the nonexclusive franchise tag on Lamar Jackson, I did a handful of radio and podcast appearances with friends across the country. Often, hosts will ask something off-topic to try to lighten the conversation a bit at either the beginning or conclusion of the conversation. The question I received near the end of one of these chats was “and how are you guys feeling about the Orioles?”
I’m pretty sure the answer was supposed to be “it’s as excited as we’ve been going into a season in years” or something along those lines. But that’s not what came out of my mouth.
What came out of my mouth was, “Well … that’s actually kinda complicated too.” Which is when I decided that this would be the theme of my season preview column.
Because the truth is, we ARE as excited as we’ve been going into a season in years. We are. We’re quite genuinely excited. There are real baseball players on the team starting with Game 1. There’s a reason to want to go to the ballpark. There might even be a couple of Orioles fans who are inclined to make a trip up to Boston for the opener because they’re so excited.
There’s reason to believe the Orioles could at least make it back-to-back winning seasons. There’s even more than an outside chance of them making a postseason run. And yet, there’s not necessarily even a significant amount of pressure regarding the season. If the Orioles merely tread water this season, it’s not necessarily the end of the world. It could well be the last step on the road back to relevance.
The only really bad scenario this season would be if somehow the team totally fell apart. And given the number of qualified Major League Baseball players are on the roster (combined with fewer games against the treacherous AL East), it feels extraordinarily unlikely that such a meltdown could occur.
And yet our excitement is still somewhat measured, right? That’s where the complications come in.
It’s a shame that this most pleasant of Opening Days since 2017 is met with as much “what exactly do they mean by ‘the next Tampa’ anyway?” as “could this be the year the Orioles get back to the playoffs?” It’s a shame that we’re still talking about how Chris Davis will be the team’s second-highest paid player this year instead of breaking down the deal they handed out to a major free agent or, far more preferably, their own soon to be megastar catcher. It’s a shame that there will still be at least a handful of Orioles fans who will be wondering aloud at the home opener whether the stadium lease is an “Entire Gym” type of scam instead of sharing and celebrating renderings of what’s to come.
Allow me to be fair. There is plenty of time for the Orioles to address these concerns from within their fan base. I’m said multiple times that if “next Tampa” means they intend to be competitive for a long window instead of a short window, that sounds admirable. If the point is that they want to replicate the Rays’ determined frugality, that’s problematic. Hopefully they’ll prove it to be the former and not the latter by spending real money on Adley Rutschman or Gunnar Henderson or Colton Cowser or a rising quality player they acquire in a sensible trade deadline deal.
And I’m significantly past spending more time debating the merits of the lease. It’s frustrating that it isn’t done. But there’s absolutely no reason to think that it won’t get done at some point in the near(ish) future. I don’t blame fans for their frustration. They didn’t deserve to have to deal with the nonsensical rumors and innuendo throughout the last few years. None of it has been legitimate, but the fan base still doesn’t deserve it. It’s an eternal lose-lose.
It’s a shame that there’s anything at all that’s distracting from legitimate baseball conversations like “exactly what should they do with Grayson Rodriguez given his struggles in spring training?” or “when could we see Cowser … or maybe even Heston Kjerstad in the bigs?’
I truly believe we’re in for a tremendously exciting six months of baseball. This city badly needs a distraction from the Lamar Jackson drama, and the baseball team appears set to provide that in a strong way.
I just wish that was the end of the conversation. I hope that by Opening Day 2024 it truly is.
Photo Credit: Colin Murphy/PressBox