Orioles are on Life Support and Need a Transplant

1991 Orioles were so bad that 45yo Jim Palmer
tried to come back and save them.

They are not dead yet.  The Orioles are only four games out of first in the AL East.  Additionally, they are just 2.5 games back behind the second Wild Card slot.  There are caveats to those numbers though.  For the AL East, three teams sit in front of them and the Jays are a game back.  No one really is out of it and that makes the probability of finishing top lower than that four games back sounds like.  The Wild Card is a bit tougher with five teams in front who are staring at the Indians, who currently hold that slot.  Again, the Jays are breathing down the Orioles' neck there, too.

It is a terrible position to be in.  In that, the club is too close to sell off pieces and probably too far (too many teams in between) to really have a great shot at the playoffs.  They are in more of a no man's land than they were in during the 2013 and 2015 seasons where they dealt away solid pitching for not much of consequence.  Added to that is just the brutality the Orioles have faced the past month as they tied the 1924 Phillies with the most games in a row giving up five runs or more.

Outside of their stellar 2014 season, the Orioles have had below average to poor starting pitching performances.  They have used a top notch bullpen and obscene raw power at the plate to erase their rotation deficiencies.  This year, the starting pitching is one of the worst the Orioles have ever fielded so far.  Below is how they compare amongst the 15 teams in the AL and what the median value is.  This hides some information, such as the rotation's ERA is almost an entire run worse than anyone else's.

IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	ERA
390.2	6.8	4.15	1.64	5.78
15th	13th	15th	14th	15th
420.1	7.8	3.13	1.42	4.54

To find a starting rotation worse than theirs, you have to go back to 1991.  In fact, when you consider the franchise's entire Browns and Orioles history, this rotation is the second worst all-time.

Year	Club	ERA-
1991	Orioles	132
2017	Orioles	130
2011	Orioles	128
1910	Browns	126
1939	Browns	125
1988	Orioles	124
2008	Orioles
1937	Browns	120
1909	Browns	119
1987	Orioles

This is an awfully large hole to climb out of and it pales in comparison to the humbug of past seasons where the pitching stumbled.  Last year's "headache" of a starting rotation had an ERA- of 110.  This year's rotation is almost 20% worse than that one.  Added to this, the offense, bullpen, and fielding have all been slightly below average this year.  Add that to all the other teams in competition, it looks more and more like a longshot that this club can be competitive even though, in terms of games back, this club is highly competitive.

So, there comes a time in any organization where succession planning becomes that great, big elephant in the room.  The Orioles find themselves in this place.  It has been there for awhile, but Duquette and Showalter have done well squeezing every drop of blood out of what looked like a bit of a turnip year in and year out.

The initial plan was for this club to continue its winning ways and run hard through 2018, but that seems a bit difficult.  Dan Duquette has squandered years of development by maximizing resources to the MLB roster while trading out compensatory draft picks, depth prospects, and continuing a two decade long practice of bare bones international amateur talent acquisition.  What is now left is an aging hulk of a core in Baltimore and the few younger pieces reaching a point of no return where extensions or a friendly wave goodbye is the final action.

There are two extremes as to what the organization can do.  They can live in the moment and forget about tomorrow.  They can keep pushing and hand out prospects that are irrelevant for 2017 and 2018, clawing their way into a Wild Card or, may I say, another AL East title.  Projection models doubt that path and, based on twitter, so fans.  The other extreme is to cash it all in.  It is an idea proposed by FanGraph's Travis Sawchick and some others online.  I think the main flaw to this idea is that this club is actually not that far from being a playoff contender.  I also think that it is always a mistake to let go of a potentially great player before their 30th birthday.  You simply do not willingly let Manny Machado leave.

That leaves us with a commitment to something in the middle.  This begins by deciding where the club should go.  This article is about the general places the front office might take this franchise.  There are four options:

1) Hands the keys to Dan Duquette for complete control over all baseball operations, signing him to a long term deal.
2) Fire Duquette, and force Buck to transition out of the dugout and into a long term vision baseball operations position with a day-to-day GM under him who he choses.  This includes 2018 as a transition year out of the dugout or starting 2018 up in an office.
3) Remove Duquette and hand it all to Brady Anderson to decide what happens.
4) Clean out the front office and let the new guy decide what is what.

Duquette as King
In this scenario, Duquette no longer feels the pressure of a contract ending as he would likely sign a five year extension.  He will be expected to remain competitive, but he would be given a more free hand.  You would likely expect that he would try to get Buck to resign and, in his place, install a mid-40s assistant coach who would implement everything from the front office that Buck ignored.  This would rub many players the wrong way, but it will be accepted.

My guess would be that an attempt would be made to retool for 2018 and, if things go south, a large scale sell off.  I would also expect in this scenario a strong push to sign Machado long term.  If not, then he would likely be dealt mid-season.

Elevate Buck
Buck has been worn down by this latest stretch of terrible baseball. He is also getting up there in age.  He might prefer a less strenuous schedule with more distance from the clubhouse.  The clubhouse would also be keen with this because many are strong supporters of his tenure.  Likewise, some in the club house have spoken out at times about the distance and aloofness of Duquette's tenure.

I would see two possibilies for who Buck would replace himself with.  First, one of his close colleagues: John Russell or Brian Butterfield.  Second option and a smart one, he could install Brady Anderson as the manager.  Why Brady?  Brady will be in the organization as long as Angelos is around.  Putting Brady in as the manager would keep him fully engaged in managerial duties and unable to stick his finger in everywhere.  Another option would be elevating Ron Johnson and putting Brady in AAA on the guise of training him.

A Showalter tenure would also likely involve a scaling back of the analytics department or perhaps a transition into more qualitative data processing.More resources would likely be engaged into the scouting side of things.  Machado is a big question mark.  Showalter was part of the brain trust that found Alex Rodriguez' contract in Texas to be too much of an albatross on the payroll.  Would he see the same thing with Manny taking up 25% of the Orioles' budget.  Such an arrangement with 40 MM to Manny and 120 MM to the rest of the squad would effective be a median payroll team being gifted Manny.  That really does not sound all that bad.

Brady as Teddy Roosevelt
Even though I have written extensively about Brady, I have no idea what a Brady Anderson tenure as General Manager would mean.  He has largely surfed between the waves and found his own niche.  Some guys like him, others tolerate him, and others think he abuses the social structure by insisting on being treated like a player, coach, and front office executive whenever it best suits his needs.  In that way, he has quickly gained a great deal of experience, but by taking what everyone else seems to neglect, he is not defining himself.

Brady comes across as brash, competitive, and a disruptor.  You could say the same thing about Billy Beane, Jerry DiPoto, and a number of other head honchos.  What differs is that contrary to other guys in the game, I cannot think of which baseball people are automatic fits in the Brady regime.  Anderson simply is a go it alone kind of entity right now.  One who tries hard to be player friendly.

I would expect him to try to keep Buck on, but I am unsure whether Buck would want to stay on with someone who seems to apt to abuse privilege.  I am at a loss at who would be showing up at the MLB level, but guys like Lou Montanez and Nolan Reimold would likely be welcomed into the fold if they sought out managerial careers.  Beyond that, I am at a loss.  Brady has done well at being a disrupter (depending on who you talk to), but he has not truly done much work as a head executive.

Brave New World
Every couple of years, word leaks out about Angelos selling the club.  His sons enjoy the presence and interest their connection to the club brings them.  It would be hard to think of one of his kids getting prime time play about his thoughts on President Trump without being able to hypothetically withhold a first pitch.  That said, their eyes seem wider than team ownership and pulling the money back out of the franchise would enable them to be active kingmakers for politicians or for personally meaningful social projects.  With MASN getting tidied up and the future of these deals looking bleaker and bleaker, it appears that maybe it will be easier to put a value on the club (this has been mentioned as the hang up the two previous times Angelos supposedly almost cashed out).

If the club is sold, then it is a safe bet that the house will be purged.  When the walls talk, they talk of misplaced loyalty.  Individuals who have been employed by the Orioles forever and that their aptitude is highly questioned.  Back when Duquette took over (and even MacPhail), it was noted that certain personnel were effectively made men.  Some could be juggled around in less consequential positions, but most were fixed.  An owner without loyalty to existing personnel, would likely mean wholesale changes.

You could easily imagine a Ripken or Buck being included somewhere in the new regime, but likely not as decision makers.  Neither of them may be interested in serving as figureheads.  Likely, a new ownership group would be heavily influenced by Wall Street, as they all seem to be these days.  This would probably mean the club would enlarge their analytics presence and move into a more uniform and modern approach.