Have the Baltimore Orioles had the worst 2022-23 offseason of any team? One can easily make the case. Last season, the 83-win Orioles were surprise contenders as they notched their first winning season since 2016. More impressively they improved their 2022 win total by a whopping 31 games. That was thanks mostly to the team's impressive young core fronted by catcher Adley Rutschman.
Come the winter, though, general manager Mike Elias and club ownership failed to capitalize on the momentum. Their biggest free-agent investment has been middling right-hander Kyle Gibson, and right now Cot's Contracts projects the O's to rank 29th in MLB with an Opening Day payroll of $64.9 million.
When your young cost-controlled core consists of the likes of Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, and Grayson Rodriguez (with many more high-ceiling prospects on the way), duty No. 1 for the front office is to surround that core with playoff-worthy veteran additions. That, however, hasn't happened, and that's to the great discredit of principal owner John Angelos.
Speaking of which, Angelos on Sunday addressed that obvious lack of commitment with reporters at Orioles spring training:
Orioles CEO and Chairman John Angelos: "Could payroll be double or triple what it is? Or could it be over 100 million? Yeah. We're not there yet."
— Nathan Ruiz (@NathanSRuiz) February 19, 2023
Here we have Angelos' seeming admission that, yes, the Orioles indeed have the means to run a significantly higher payroll and thus the means to put a playoff-worthy roster on the field. Angelos and company, however, are choosing not to do that. Yes, the American League East is a tough division, but starting with 2023 the MLB schedule is much more balanced, which means significantly fewer intra-divisional games. That, in turn, means a softening of the schedule for teams like East-dwellers Baltimore. As well, the San Diego Padres' impressive commitment to winning is the latest thing to put the lie to the notion that mid- to small-market teams are incapable of running competitive payrolls.
More from Angelos:
More on payroll: "We have a very young team that's overachieved and overperformed because of the great work of our baseball folks. It's not my job to predict payroll. My job is to make sure that the community partnerships are sustained, and I think all of that comes after that."
— Nathan Ruiz (@NathanSRuiz) February 19, 2023
Just to be sure this is being properly absorbed by the reader, this is a team owner declaring that projecting payroll commitments is not one of his assigned tasks and duties. As efforts to duck accountability go, it's not a particularly persuasive one.
As always, the real losers in all-too-common situations such as this one, are the fans of the team in question and that young core of players who deserve more help. Major League Baseball's biggest problem remains owners who don't want to compete.
