There are two major league teams at which I do most of my peering through The Knothole: my home area Detroit Tigers, for whom I’ve been a fan since the days of Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, and my adopted home area Baltimore Orioles, who send their minor leaguers to Delmarva for me to watch now. While they used to do battle as part of the American League East until the Tigers were shifted to the Central Division to accommodate the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1998, the two teams are best known now for being two of the teams with the longest championship droughts: 39 seasons and counting for the Tigers and 40 seasons for the O’s. Since their 1984 dominance, though, the Tigers have at least won AL pennants in 2006 and 2012 before falling in the World Series, while the Orioles have only made it to the ALCS twice since their 1983 crown (most recently 2014, beating the Tigers to get there) and couldn’t snag the brass ring. Close but no cigar.
Another thing they have in common: both haven’t been irrelevant for all that long, although it seems like an eternity in an era when several teams in each league get to the playoffs. 2014 was the last year of a four-year window where the Tigers won consecutive AL Central titles, and they were (like the Orioles in 2022) the last team eliminated from the AL playoffs in 2016. One of those teams doing the eliminating that season was the Orioles, who succumbed in a wild card playoff game in Toronto that season which forever confirmed Ubaldo Jimenez as a swear word for Oriole fans. 2016 ended a brief even-year run for the Orioles as they made the postseason in 2012, 2014, and 2016.
After that, both teams have plumbed the bottom depths of the American League. The Tigers flirted with 100 losses twice after their last playoff run, then hit bottom in 2019 with a 47-114 season before “rebounding” to campaigns of 64-98*, 77-85, and 66-96, crashing after great expectations for their 2022 season. Instead, their thunder was swiped by the Orioles as they posted their first winning campaign since 2016 after enduring 75-87, 47-115, 54-108, 68-94*, and 52-110 records. In those (almost) consecutive seasons since hitting their nadir, the teams used their 1/1 picks on Casey Mize (Tigers, 2018), Adley Rutschman (Orioles, 2019), Spencer Torkelson (Tigers, 2020), and Jackson Holliday (Orioles, 2022) in their efforts to rebuild. Rutschman has made by far the most impact thus far and arguably was the catalyst for the O’s 2022 rebound.
The two teams even had the similarity of a large albatross contract for a less-than-productive player, with the Tigers giving Miguel Cabrera an eight-season extension back in 2016 and the Orioles inking Chris Davis to a seven-year pact that same year. The vastly underperforming Davis, however, opted to retire due to injury in 2021 - having played his final game in 2020 - and subsequently restructured his remaining deal into a Bobby Bonilla-style pact which will pay him well into his golden years. It opened up a roster spot for what would be one of the first wave of prospects to reach the Orioles. On the other hand, Cabrera’s hung around long enough to make it to 3,000 hits and 500 home runs but will likely be a part-time strictly DH this season on his retirement tour, surely hoping to simply match his .254 average and 5 home runs in 112 games in 2022. Yet he’s blocking the progress of a new prospect.
Still, going into last season I had the sense that the Tigers were about a year ahead of the Orioles in the process of rebuilding. They had improved at a 17-game pace* from their awful 2019 season and were one of the better teams in baseball in 2021 after a horrific 9-24 start, getting back to just 5 games under .500 in September before fading a bit at the end to finish 8 under. Prior to 2021 they had signed a couple major league free agents in outfielder Robbie Grossman and infielder Jonathan Schoop, but in the 2021-22 offseason they acceletrated their efforts, trading with Cincinnati for catcher Tucker Barnhart and, early on, adding big-money free agents: infielder Javier Baez came over from the Cubs while pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez was lured from the Red Sox. They added pitchers Andrew Chafin and Michael Pineda later on to bolster the staff, making the team a mix of prospects and proven players.
And they went, “phffffft.” Baez couldn’t hit, they lost Rodriguez to personal issues for much of the season, and they let Pineda go midstream. The rest of the team followed suit and the prospects didn’t prospect, particularly Torkelson, who hit a miserly .203 in 110 games. Mize pitched twice and was done for the season before taxes were due in April. Who knows when they’ll be back in contention as a new GM has to sort things out. But he may be a miracle worker and the Tigers will remember what a bat is for again. The AL Central isn’t that tough as the Royals continue their rebuild while the Twins and White Sox seem to be in a transition. It’s possible the Tigers could sneak into third, but I don’t think they will be last.
The Tigers’ 2022 fate is a cautionary tale for the Orioles, although Baltimore is playing with perhaps the deepest minor league organization in baseball - for example, they could afford to send a midlevel prospect in Darrel Hernaiz to Oakland to help their starting rotation with Cole Irvin. Hernaiz was a good prospect but he was behind uberprospects like Gunnar Henderson, Coby Mayo, Jordan Westburg, Joey Ortiz, and Jackson Holliday. They went even deeper to acquire backup catcher James McCann from the Mets, sending a player who hasn’t even played outside the Dominican Republic in Luis De La Cruz. They certainly can prune a bit from the depths, though, and it will be interesting to see what happens to players the Orioles jettison after spring training (and extended spring) because there’s no room at the inn. I’m sure they’ll be a hot commodity for minor league depth elsewhere.
Nor have the Orioles made a big splash in the free agent market this offseason, only reuniting with reliever Mychal Givens and inking starting pitcher Kyle Gibson and utility man Adam Frazier to major league pacts. No nine-figure contracts there, nor will there be for this team. (The rumor mill currently has them in the market for pitcher Zach Greinke and infielder Jurickson Profar, though.)
Can the Orioles climb all the way to the top of the AL East? Stranger things have happened - Cleveland was the youngest team in baseball last season but the Guardians won the AL Central and took the heavily favored Yankees to five games in the ALDS. But teams often have a sophomore jinx or a season where they tread water or take a short step back before rising to expectations, and that’s why Oriole fans should curb their enthusiasm.
I see 2024 as the Orioles’ year as I’m not completely sold on the Blue Jays, the Red Sox seem to be in transition, and the Yankees aren’t building fast enough around the prime seasons of Aaron Judge. Tampa Bay has a winning system but they don’t have the resources to secure the veterans to get them over the hump. One of the latter two will win the AL East in 2023 but their success may not be sustainable.
It’s going to be an interesting summer of peering through my Knothole. Meanwhile, next week I think I’ll make my team predictions for the Carolina League and sometime after I know the spring training roster I will take a shot at predicting who will be at Perdue Stadium for opening day and on during the summer. The rest I’ll figure out as I go along.
*For the sake of comparison I interpolated their 2020 season records out to a full season. In reality the Tigers were 23-35 and Orioles 25-35.