Andy MacPhail

This past offseason Andy MacPhail left the Baltimore Orioles after spending over four seasons as the President of Baseball Operations, and upon his departure the feeling among Orioles fans was that he had failed miserably.

For those fans still holding on in Baltimore, tonight will be the beginning of yet another “new era” for the organization, as the team plays its first game under manager Buck Showalter. 

While the looming hire of Showalter was perhaps the worst kept secret in all of sports over the last month, the fact that the deal is finally done now means that the (re)rebuilding process can begin now rather than come spring training.

I had probably the same reaction as most when the Orioles announced Trent Mummey as the team's fourth-round pick a few weeks ago.

Nice name, but....who?

And like some of you, I dug a little deeper to see what kind of havoc Mummey brought on SEC pitchers this year.

What I found was very, VERY impressive.

Mummey tore the cover off the ball to the tune of a .366 average, 20 points less than Hunter Morris, his teammate at Auburn and fellow fourth-round pick, but still impressive.

"Grow the arms and buy the bats."

That's the philosophy Andy MacPhail said he was going to try to rebuild the once great Baltimore franchise with.

So here we are, three years later. The arms have been grown: Brian Matusz, the fourth overall pick in the 2008 draft; Chris Tillman, stolen from the Seattle Mariners in the one-sided Erik Bedard trade; Jake Arrieta, Triple-A superstar, and on the verge of joining the big league rotation any week now; and, Zach Britton, one of the more promising, underrated arms in the minors.

Now, how 'bout those bats?

It's been nearly 12.5 years since the Baltimore Orioles have been in a playoff game. It's been 12.5 years since Baltimore has last finished a season with a final record above the .500 mark. It's been nearly 5.5 years since the Orioles have seen any place in the final standings better than fourth (and if you don't count the 2004 season, it's been nearly 12.5 years, as well).

The Oriole Way

Peter Angelos, the Baltimore Orioles owner, has no idea what that means. It is a term every baseball fan in Charm City is well aware of, and a methodology that Angelos has seemed bent on destroying since he bought the ball club in 1993.

The Oriole Way had been very successful before he bought the club. For over three decades, from the 1960's to the 1980's, the Orioles had the highest winning percentage in all of sports, and the winningest team in all of baseball. They won six American League Pennants and three World Series over that time.

I want to start this piece by making it clear that I have been a loyal fan of the Baltimore Orioles for 40 years and hope to be a fan for another 40 years.

With the start of the 2010 baseball season now upon us, those around the Baltimore Orioles are cautiously optimistic that after more than a decade of decay, the team is ready to turn things around. The big question, given their current streak of 12 consecutive losing seasons, is what would be considered a successful season for the O’s in 2010.

After 12 straight losing seasons, optimism is high in Baltimore that 2010 could be the season the Orioles move back over the .500 mark.

However, considering that they won only 64 games a year ago, even with a plethora of young talent, there is much to be done if the O’s are really going to move to the plus side of the ledger.

This is part two of a three part series about the 2010 Orioles. In part one we looked at keys to the season.

Ok so the title of my post maybe a bit deceiving, no this feature will not last 80 days, but I thought it would be a cool project to go around the league and connect with bloggers from the other 29 MLB teams and have them weigh in on their teams.

For my first stop of the tour, I check in with Daniel Moroz, founder of Camden Crazies, which is an excellent blog dedicated to the Baltimore Orioles.