Some notes on the Orioles and the upcoming season as we all look forward to another baseball season.
Joe Altobelli
Growing up in Virginia, the Orioles were the local team. There was an Orioles team store in Washington DC that sold O’s tickets and team merchandise. You could turn on 1500 AM WTOP and hear DC traffic updates and weather, then at 7:00, as the summer sun set, they’d throw it to Jon Miller for Orioles baseball. There were many nights, probably like a lot of other kids, that I’d turn my walkman radio to its lowest volume setting so my parents wouldn’t catch me, put it to my ear, and listen as Miller’s voice transported me to 33rd Street in North Baltimore. I know I listened to almost every game that season, but if I’m being honest, I don’t remember much about the 1983 team. I was seven and if the team was on TV ever it was infrequently. The kind of coverage that existed then was sporadic compared to today and so there just wasn’t the constant focus that would allow anything like a seven-year-old to get any kind of real sense of who the manager of his favorite team was. I just knew the name. But I did know the name. Joe Altobelli.
(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)
I didn’t know it at the time, but Altobelli was a baseball lifer. Until yesterday he was the only living man to lead the Baltimore Orioles to a World Series title. Altobelli passed away yesterday of natural causes at the age of 88. Altobelli played 166 major league games between 1955 and 1961 for Cleveland and Minnesota, but he was really a minor league player in a way that simply doesn’t exist anymore. He played parts of 17 seasons in the minors, from Triple-A down to Class D, a level which I don’t think exists anymore. He began playing minor league ball when he was 19 and concluded when he was 38. Then he coached in the minors. Then he managed in the minors. He won two International League championships with the Rochester Red Wings in the 1970s. In 1977 he was hired to manage the Giants, which he did for three seasons and later, in 1991, he managed the Cubs for one game.
What he’ll be remembered for most though is his tenure with the Orioles. In 1983 he took over the team after Earl Weaver retired. He won 98 games. That team had star power, Cal Ripken won his first MVP, Eddie Murray hit 33 homers, and Jim Palmer looked fabulous in his underwear, even if he was 37, but looking back on it, it wasn’t the 2020 Dodgers or the 1998 Yankees. That this team won 98 games and lost just two playoff games en route to the World Series title was on the players, but it was also an expert job of managing. Look back at the roster. This was championship-level managing.
They won, rings and parades and all, but Altobelli never really got the credit he deserved. It was still Weaver’s team, I guess, Altobelli had just put the key in the ignition and turned it. Two years after that he was replaced by Weaver, who decided to unretire. And so Joe Altobelli was just tossed aside, a champion-level placeholder. And oddly, that was it. The World Series-winning manager was never hired to manage in the bigs again.
I can’t imagine that ever felt right to him. It doesn’t feel right to me now, but sometimes the great achievements of life have to stand alone, and the ’83 Orioles championship has done that, for Altobelli and for the Orioles. Rest in peace, Joe Altobelli. From a seven year old who admired you, even if all he knew was your name.
Chris Davis’ contract is “bogging down the team”
There’s been some discussion on the BSL message board about Chris Davis’ contract bogging down the team. If the team hadn’t signed Davis, so the argument goes, they could’ve spent $23 million on the free agent market this off-season, or perhaps, on a contract extension. That’s true, in theory, or at least it’s not incorrect. The organization could have reallocated that money had they not signed Davis to his extension.
Of course, had they not signed Davis, things would’ve been different well before 2021. The 2016 Orioles would’ve been different, as would the team every year since. It’s likely the team would’ve invested Davis’ money into another free agent well before 2021, but suppose Davis left and the team was in the same circumstance they find themselves in now, but minus Davis. Do they spend $23 million on free agents this off-season? No, of course they don’t.
This team isn’t trying to bring in free agents. They’re not trying to win now. They’re focused solely on winning in 2024 and 2025. They’re not trying to get wins number 73, 74, and 75 in 2021. If you could give Mike Elias truth serum, he’d tell you in all likelihood that he’d rather lose those games, get higher draft position and a larger draft budget. It’s not all about the draft, but it is all about player development with this organization at this point and anything that strays from that mission isn’t going to fly, including bringing in $23 million (or $20 million or whatever number) worth of free agents. That time may come, but it isn’t now, and it’s not because the team is lacking for cash, it’s because that’s not where they are.
Adley Rutschman debuts
If nothing else, Adley Rutschman won’t see the inside of Camden Yards until sometime in May, though it will likely be longer than that. The lack of a minor league season last year and yesterday’s news that this year’s minor league season has been pushed back a month all mean Orioles fans haven’t seen top prospect, catcher Adley Rutschman, in action but for 37 games after being drafted back in 2019.
So if for no other reason, this spring training is particularly special because, folks, here he is!
That’s your boy, whipping the bat around on a fastball and lining the heck out of it into the gap. The game wasn’t televised but twitter (and Jon Meoli in particular) is a great source for stuff you didn’t think you’d ever see. That’s a nice way to put it. But back to Rutschman, it’s only spring training, but man that’s a sweet swing. That, friends, is a sip of water after a two week crawl in the desert. There will be more where that came from, certainly, but it’s that first taste that is often the best.
Orioles Analyst
Matthew Kory is a Orioles / MLB Analyst for BSL. He has covered baseball professionally for The Athletic, Vice Sports, Sports On Earth, FanGraphs, and Baseball Prospectus. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, two boys, and his cats, Mini Squeaks and The President. Co-Host of The Warehouse.