After 50 years of covering and watching spring training, one of the earliest conclusions still holds true — six weeks is too long, but seven weeks is often not long enough. About halfway through camp everybody’s had enough, but when the inevitable injuries pile up there’s never enough time to get ready.
It happens every spring.
Beyond that, looking back to my first experience with Earl Weaver’s 1974 team and making a comparison to the team Brandon Hyde opened the season with this year, there is also the reassurance that the more things change the more they remain the same — and how the present and future can often imitate the past.
It also is a reminder that the outlook for each year always starts with the standard six-word answer when asked to assess the team’s chances in any given year. “It all depends on the pitching.” True then, true today and, undoubtedly, true tomorrow.
In 1974, the Orioles had been absent from the World Series for two years, after appearing in three straight and four of the previous six years. When the team reported to Miami’s Bobby Maduro Stadium to begin spring training, not even the gas shortage was as big a crisis as the team’s “slump.” A very spoiled fan base was restless, hoping the previous year’s division title and the emergence of two rising young stars was a sign of better times ahead.
By contrast, when they arrived in Sarasota this February, the Orioles were three generations removed from a World Series appearance, while celebrating the 40th anniversary of their last championship. This time, however, the restless fan base, still starving for World Series action, has been energized by an unexpected late-season resurgence last year, raising the level of expectations.
Bobby Grich and Don Baylor were the new kids on the block in 1974, the latest in a long line of homegrown stars that began with Brooks Robinson and brought along, in rapid order, Ron Hansen, Milt Pappas, Steve Barber, Boog Powell, Jim Palmer, Wally Bunker, Mark Belanger, Jerry Adair, Davey Johnson, Dave McNally and would eventually extend to Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken Jr., Mike Boddicker, Doug DeCinces and Rich Dauer to form a continuous line of organizational talent that was the envy of every team in baseball.
The 2023 version of the Orioles does not have that kind of pedigree background, at least not yet. But it does have a handful of young players, led by Cedric Mullins, Austin Hays, Ryan Mountcastle and Jorge Mateo who have set the table for the likes of Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson and a raft of highly-touted, highly-ranked minor league players who have a chance to make this group special.
So special, in fact, that I think this is poised to become the most exciting O’s team of this century. The key word, of course, is “become,” because it’s tough to tell when that might happen.
This year is more of a possibility than a probability, while 2024 is more likely and 2025 should have the core unit of the current team at or near its peak. It all depends on when the missing pieces of the puzzle, the Nos. 1 and 2 spots in the starting rotation, fall into place.
Pitching was not an issue when Grich and Baylor emerged onto the scene during the years immediately preceding free agency, a somewhat turbulent time for baseball — and the Orioles. The stretch between 1973 and 1983 closed out a 20-year period that began in 1964 and produced the self-proclaimed but unchallenged title of “The Best Damn Team In Baseball.” That team missed postseason play only three times in nine years between 1966 and 1974.
Those teams were noted for power and were the most balanced in baseball, but the foundation for success was always the same — pitching and defense. In today’s game there are only a handful of teams that can make that claim — and even during their two most recent playoff runs, the Orioles were not among them.
I may be prejudiced here, allowing for the fact these were the first complete years of my run of spring trainings, but the nucleus of those 1973-1983 teams, particularly the ’79 and ’83 teams, were as exciting as the teams in the ‘60s and ‘70s, maybe more so given their definite underdog status.
In 1996 and 1997, general manager Pat Gillick pulled together a free-agent-laden team that won a wild-card playoff berth and a division title. It was a powerful and colorful team, probably the last to use primarily a four-man starting rotation. But even the biggest fanatic would be hard-pressed to remember that Rocky Coppinger and Scott Kamieniecki were the fourth starters used by manager Davey Johnson on those teams.
The 2012-2016 team that had a nice run under Buck Showalter wasn’t as talented as the team in the 90’s, but it was a more exciting team that had a longer run that might’ve been a lot better had Manny Machado, Matt Wieters and Chris Davis been available for the run to the ALCS in 2014. But that team didn’t have what Weaver liked to call the “deep depth” of the teams in the ’70s, and that, coupled with injuries and the inevitability of free-agent losses, short-circuited any chance of a lengthy run.
Common sense tells us it’s way too early to predict where this current crop of Orioles will go. But the collection of top-100 minor league players throughout the farm system suggests it could be a long way, especially if they can fill in the two missing pieces of the puzzle.
For the record, the Orioles have 10 players, counting Rutschman and Henderson, who either are or have been ranked among the top 100 minor league players. The depth at positions in the middle of the field is unprecedented in club history, and more than half of those players are, or will be, playing at the Triple-A level this year.
There is speed, power and defense at every position, including from those already playing in the major leagues. Here’s the lone drawback, and it is a big one — only two of the top prospects are pitchers, and they are well known. DL Hall and Grayson Rodriguez, in either order, have had the Nos. 1 and 2 spots in the starting rotation reserved since they were the Orioles’ No. 1 draft picks in 2017 and 2018.
In the last two years, Matt Harvey and Jordan Lyles were free-agent place holders for Hall and Rodriguez. This year, Kyle Gibson and Cole Irvin hold those spots with competition developing behind them for the other three roles.
Since returning from Florida the most frequent question I’ve heard hasn’t been how many games the O’s would win, or where they would finish, but “what kind of team will this be?”
Not necessarily in order, my answers have been 1.) Interesting, 2.) Entertaining, 3.) Frustrating, 4.) Exciting, and 5.) All of the above.
I’ll take door No. 4. Before this group is finished I think it will be the most exciting Orioles team of this century. When?
It all depends on the pitching.
Jim Henneman can be contacted at JimH@pressboxonline.com.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox