The Sky Isn't Falling On The Baltimore Orioles Because Games Aren’t Won At The Winter Meetings

Everywhere I look it’s “wahhh Markakis and Cruz left” this, “wahhh we haven’t signed anybody” that. It’s RIDICULOUS. Has anybody in Baltimore even been paying attention the past 3-5 years? That’s not us. Throwing multi-year contracts at free agents on the wrong side of 30 isn’t our game. Leave that for the spoiled folks up north with the bottomless payrolls. I’m not foolish enough to say that we’re a better team than we were in October, but let’s take a step back and use our brains for a second. The O’s just won 96 games. 3 straight winning seasons. Obliterated the competition and won the AL East by 12 games. TWELVE GAMES. And Duquette did that by making cold, calculated decisions to supplement the young core of this team with affordable talent. The goal isn’t to build a contender for 2015 and 2016 and pray for the best afterwards. We’re after sustainable success. We’ve got young talent ready to make an impact in the very near future. I GUARANTEE we’ll look back in 2017 and be glad we have the likes of Gausman, Bundy, Harvey, and Alvarez out there as opposed to an aging Matt Kemp or a pitcher on the wrong side of 30 for 20 million a year.

It’s only December. Season doesn’t start tomorrow. Plenty of offseason left to make a few savvy acquisitions to fill out the roster. And let’s not forget Machado and Wieters missed a combined 216 games last year. They’ll be back better than ever, and need to be extended in the future. So chill out with the criticism on Dan Duquette. Guy knows exactly what he’s doing. Yeah, I’d love to get into the mix on Lester and Scherzer, what fan wouldn’t? But that’s not how we got here. Games aren’t won at the Winter Meetings. Stay the course and have faith in the reigning GM and Manager of the year. As long as they’re around (and I never bought the Duquette to Toronto rumor for a second), we’ll be winning ballgames for years to come. The sky isn’t falling on the Orioles, not even close.