The Tanking Will Continue Until Morale Improves: the 2022 Baltimore Orioles

Happy Gunnar Day everybody! (Batting 6th and playing 3B against the Guardians today.)

Well that went well!

https://www.mlb.com/orioles/video/triston-mckenzie-in-play-run-s-to-gunnar-henderson?t=moonblasts

it was glorious.

ho hum...

Can't say that having Baltimore at your heels is not comforting. They've got to be playing so loose right now; the Jays, meanwhile, have all these expectations.

Double negative...it's not comfortable, is what I meant.

I was surprised to read that the orioles and jays still play each other 10 more times this season. Could be interesting!

Nine Jays-Rays games, too.

toss in the yankees and it's really looking like a dogfight down the stretch.

the way the jays rays and mariners are playing i'm thinking the yankees falling out completely is the only way we make it in

I know Gunnar's not THIS good but I sure am enjoying this (and the hair)

situation w/ the jays will resolve itself head to head, i think.

1982 redux. sort of.

'89 for these two teams--Jays won the division by 2.0 over the Orioles, with the final three games in Baltimore. The Orioles had to sweep to win, two Baltimore wins would have left them in a tie. (I don't know if they went by head-to-head records then or a tiebreaker.)

right down to the "this team sucked real bad last year what happened???" factor

I'd forgotten all about that! That was the team lost their first 21. I have a very clear memory of the clinching win in '89: Henke struck out somebody and pumped his fists. It was a big deal after blowing it in '87.

Larry Sheets (who had one big year, if I remember correctly).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8ztJxMpVt8

team is absolutely screwed if they have to play a single day game in the playoffs

7 sunday losses in a row! why has this been a thing for so long? feel like we'd go on these streaks back in the dave trembley days

this team will never win a day game

Does a 5pm start count as a day or night game??

gonna say day for this one

i'd like to be able to blame today on needing to rely on 2 AAA pitchers for both games of a doubleheader but the offense has felt inert for a while.

feels like it might be the end :|

I woke up this morning feeling "this is the day that makes or breaks the season" and sadly I still agree with myself

Very necessary win. Rougned being Rougned to nearly the greatest extent physically possible.

well, that sucked.

i don't think we're gonna come back from that series. there's always a chance but.... no

Have you met the 2022 Blue Jays? We're a tad streaky.

yeah but this series really just felt like the clock struck midnight. and i think the bullpen just has to be too taxed to get through the like 20 straight games left to play.

this offseason is going to be very interesting. i'm not really sure how elias is going to handle it, and i don't envy him. this team is in such a weird position relative to the normal tank/rebuild cycle, because so much of the value this year has come from young, cost-controlled guys that weren't major prospects and don't have all-star ceilings. hays, santander, urias, mateo... and probably mullins and mountcastle at this point. all solid players who deserve full-time major league spots (and there's no obvious platoon splits either aside from maybe mullins), only one older than 27 (urias, 28)

this team's main quality is its depth. adley's the only guy you can confidently project to be a 4 win player going forward, but nearly every position has contributed solid value, even the starters. the only real hole has been 2B. and backup catcher i guess. there'd be a lot more room for improvement if those wins were distributed more unevenly.

and this is an organization that still has a lot of good hitting prospects in AA and AAA - guys with higher ceilings than a lot of the big contributors this year. cowser, westburg, norby, ortiz, mayo are all potential impact guys who could be up by the ASB. stowers and vavra are already in the majors struggling to find ABs. gunnar doesn't even have a set position.

obviously some guys are going to get traded, but how often do you see full-tank teams start to trade top-100 minor league talent (i do think those AA/AAA guys are all top 100 except westburg, maybe mayo who still wouldn't be far off) when only 2 major prospects have been promoted? you have to give other prospects a chance to figure it out, there's too much potential there.

i think there's a very good chance next year's team is worse than this year's team as the solid 1.5-3 win players are replaced with struggling rookies. and even if we get a full year of rodriguez, the return of means, and trade for/sign better starters, there's still less room for improvement after voth/kremer/wells all came out of nowhere to pitch well.

anyway, i'm sure some major leaguers and minor leaguers are going to be traded. it's just going to be nutso to see how it all shakes out. there's so much depth and not a lot of room. looking at the 14-17 astros, not an easy comparison - those offenses were deep, but the solid non-prospect contributors were older soon-to-be FAs, not difficult guys to cut bait on.

also a lot of the improvement this year came from the bullpen and defense, which aren't very reliable year to year. idk, i really don't have much hope in next season i guess.

also i'll say this here because i can't say it anywhere else, but if elias does trade santander, mateo and urias to bring up prospects this team will be blindingly white. he drafts like marge schott.

it's possible i'm just not used to having this much talent in the high minors at once

A smalll step back next year wouldn’t surprise me. Let the young guys calibrate to the majors and focus on plugging holes with low-risk free agents in 2023 - then spend in earnest for 2024 on free agents and maybe dealing away some of the prospects in the lower minors for major league talent.

I get you from a tactical perspective but boy I would be sad to see santander and especially mateo go

that'll do it

just a real crap time for the bats to go frio.

almost back to back CGs. so close to a maddux for bradish! granted he was working with the world's biggest strike zone

who needs bats, let's just have complete game shutouts and an occasional hit by Rougned Odor

bradish notched a 90 game score last night, fwiw.

what in the world

does mike elias have something on astros hitters? are our pitchers doing some sort of reverse trash can magic to throw the right pitch every time?

The Jays are doing their hapless thing, so do not abandon hope.

imagine if we didn't lose 2 to the tigers lol

xp seems more likely that the Mariners manage to collapse despite their incredibly easy schedule and extend the playoff drought

ugh, that game might have been the death blow, but what can you do, you can't count on sweeping the astros

Bradish is absolutely baffling to me.

This game.

so, after that crazy summer push, feels like a bit of a let down to not nab the third wc spot, but locking in at least .500 season and hanging in the playoff race through september is a huge achievement for a team that hasn't had a winning record in five seasons and has lost well over 100 games in three of those seasons. rutschman and henderson look like the real deal.

ramon urias winning a gold glove and jorge mateo winning a fielding bible award were not things i expected out of 2022.

An Orioles fan should start a new thread without "tanking" in the title...If Baltimore goes on to win the World Series, remember to thank the Blue Jays for letting them know once and for all they're really for real (which I'm sure they knew anyway).

There’s literally a 2023 Orioles thread.

Polite as ever, but thanks, didn't know.