The Plight and Promise of the 2024 Baltimore Orioles

Last October, I had a theory that the Baltimore Orioles would ultimately benefit from the stunning victory the Texas Rangers delivered them in the 2023 American League Division Series. My reasoning came from the great dynasties of sports history; Hard losses usually make good teams great. Michael Jordan's Bulls suffered multiple losses to the Bad Boys Pistons before winning six NBA titles. The Chiefs lost to Tom Brady before they could rise to the top of the NFL. And similarly, I think the Orioles had to lose to the eventual champions on their way to dominating the rest of the 2020s.

My expectations were high, but not entirely unreasonable. After taking over a last-place roster in 2018, general manager Mike Elias completely renovated the Orioles. He tore the team together down to the last detail and then made one draft pick after another, building a stacked farm system that ranked No. 1 on MLB Pipeline. 1 in baseball from the middle of the 2021 season through March of this year. The first player drafted by Elias, Adleyrutschman, was promoted at the start of the 2022 season; He was the start of a long line of highly touted talents that will shape the next era of Orioles baseball. And then in 2023, a year after winning 83 games, the young O's arrived ahead of schedule.

This season, Baltimore won the AL East with an incredible 101 wins, establishing themselves as not only the best player in baseball young team, but overall one of his best teams. The subsequent postseason disappointment left some fans wondering whether Elias should have been more aggressive at the 2023 trade deadline — when the O's decided not to trade a single one of their top 25 prospects — but it was easy to see Elias' vision for it Future. Withrutschman, Gunnar Henderson and a number of other promising prospects on long-term contracts, Elias opted to forego immediate help and instead keep the runway clear.

Now, as Baltimore prepares to host the Kansas City Royals in the wild-card round of the 2024 playoffs, the Orioles will have their next breakthrough in the postseason – but it's interesting how much has changed a year later and how much not.

The first half of 2024 went almost exactly as planned. Corbin Burnes, newly acquired in an offseason trade with the Brewers, is off to a historic start. Henderson is off to an MVP-level start. The Orioles were locked in a battle with the Yankees for the AL East atop a wide-open American League. No. 1 prospect Jackson Holliday had a difficult first stint in the majors before being sent back to Triple-A, but even his demotion highlighted the luxury of both having a first-place team And a world-class farming system.

I can pinpoint the moment when I felt the 2024 season begin to change. It was a typical Baltimore day. I made a stop at Babe Ruth's childhood home, just two blocks from Oriole Park, followed by a pit stop at Pickles to eat oranges before the game. Then I entered the stadium with four of my friends who happened to be Yankees fans and looked around at the large crowd. After years of rumors that the O's were leaving Baltimore and the tough rebuild, a packed Camden Yards for a series against the Yankees was a welcome sight. There is magic in Baltimore baseball, but that day it began to fade. Injuries to Kyle Bradish, John Means and Tyler Wells — in addition to closer Félix Bautista — had decimated the pitching staff, and the offense was in crisis. The game dragged on; It was an Orioles loss, made worse by the July heat and the aftermath of the Orange Brawl, and offset only by the satisfaction that baseball mattered again in Baltimore.

After the All-Star break, the Orioles remained in a dead heat with the Yankees. For the second consecutive year, Elias monitored the trade deadline landscape as a potential buyer. There were reports that the Orioles were aligning with the Detroit Tigers for Cy Young favorite Tarik Skubal, but Elias was unwilling to part ways with Holliday. Still, the Orioles were more aggressive than last year. They traded prospects Kyle Stowers and Connor Norby to the Marlins for Trevor Rogers, who at the time had a 2-9 record with a 4.53 ERA. They also acquired Zach Eflin from the Rays, sent former All-Star Austin Hays to the Phillies for bullpen depth in Seranthony Domínguez, and traded him for reliever Gregory Soto.

Aside from trading for Eflin — who has a 2.60 ERA in nine starts with Baltimore — the O's deadline activity proved insufficient to sustain them. In four starts with the Orioles, Rogers had a 7.11 ERA and was optioned to Triple-A – all the more disappointing since Norby and Stowers played regularly for the Marlins. And Rogers' problems were just the tip of the iceberg for Baltimore's pitching woes. Injuries had turned relief operations into a nighttime adventure. Somehow the awe of watching the O's young stars come into their own had given way to the very specific fear of watching 36-year-old Craig Kimbrel stroll through one failed save after another. Between the All-Star break and Kimbrel's eventual DFA, his ERA rose from 2.80 to 5.33.

The risk of injury has now spread to the position players. Speedy infielder Jorge Mateo missed the season with a UCL injury, while All-Star Jordan Westburg missed nearly two months with a fracture in his hand. At one point, Orioles beat writer Matt Weyrich tweeted a list of the injured Orioles. It looked like a potential playoff team.

What's even more concerning is that the Orioles' young cornerstones faded when the team needed more. rutschman had a .132 average in July. His offensive woes have been coupled with inexplicable problems on defense -rutschman ranked 11th in catcher framing last year but has fallen to 40th this season. Henderson had his worst month of the season in August with a .709 OPS. The Orioles even recalled Holliday, and despite an explosive first week, his problems returned early in the season.

The Orioles finished the second half 33-33, a score that seemed implausible months ago. In August and September they hit a meager .239. Their revolving door of a pitching staff struggled to lead them to wins; Even Burnes dropped out of the Cy Young race in the second half. The Yankees found their own bottom and pulled away with the AL East while the Orioles stagnated. Brandon Hyde, the reigning AL manager of the year who led this team through a rebuild and won 101 games last season, came under fire online.

Thinking back to my theory about the O's postseason loss last year, I looked back at the most successful and sustained runs in MLB over the last 30 years: the Yankees at the turn of the century, the Giants in the early 2010s, and the mid-2010s Astros. Those Yankees won their second postseason World Series in 1996 before winning three of the next four. These giants, now considered a dynasty, were only great once every two years. And the Astros — Elias's former team and the closest model for today's Orioles — won a World Series in their second playoff appearance. In each of these cases, success came early – and not by chance. What if the Yankees hadn't hired Joe Torre, signed Darryl Strawberry, or traded for Charlie Hayes? What if the Giants hadn't traded for Hunter Pence? What if the Astros hadn't traded for Gerrit Cole or Justin Verlander? The sustained success of the best teams of the century seems to be determined by bold measures that limit the chances of a missed opportunity. And while the Orioles made a big trade for Burnes (who will be a free agent after this season) and another bold move in Kimbrel fell through, should they have done more?

Progression in baseball is not always linear. Championships can come from anywhere. The Rangers were completely wrecked last season before they won the World Series and didn't even make the playoffs this season. The Orioles' second-half collapse doesn't change their sunny long-term outlook, but it's a reminder that nothing is promised in baseball. It's a fickle sport where windows of opportunity for conflict can open and close without warning.

Despite the slump, despite the changes, despite the injuries, the window for 2024 is still open. The Orioles ended the season with a glimmer of hope – rediscovering their offense with a series win over the Yankees in the Bronx. Baltimore clinched a playoff spot for the second straight season: a feat the team hasn't achieved in 27 years. I didn't experience the 1960s Orioles, the 1983 World Series-winning team, or the career of Cal Ripken Jr. My experience as an O's fan has been one of postseason mediocrity and heartbreak. This team and the next decade of baseball in Baltimore hold more promise than any Oriole team in my lifetime.

The expectation of great success is new territory for me as an O's fan. Every year with a young core brings more expectations and greater urgency, more excitement about what the team can accomplish and more anxiety when expectations aren't met. Last year's postseason run ended early, but it felt like a natural step to build on. This year didn't exactly go according to plan, but a season competing for a World Series is better than pretty much any other season the Orioles have had in the 21st century.

The turmoil the Orioles have faced this season has me thinking again about the necessary hurdles a team must face on the path to reaching its potential. A difficult season filled with fear and confusion may be what this young team needed most to grow. Will the team seize this moment in the coming weeks? Or will a second straight postseason disappointment lead to an intriguing offseason? In Baltimore on Tuesday, the O's have a chance to begin perhaps the most interesting chapter yet in their ever-evolving story.