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by TFIR
Rosenthal: These Orioles show how badly MLB needs anti-tanking measures
By Ken Rosenthal Aug 23, 2021
In 1988, when the Orioles started the season 0-21, they actually were trying.
Tanking to the extreme did not exist then. A bad team was just a bad team. And the Orioles, despite the efforts of Roland Hemond, who had taken over as general manager in November, were a bad team.
Hemond made five trades between the day he was hired and the season opener, capped by a five-player stunner on March 21, near the end of spring training: outfielder Mike Young and a player to be named to the Phillies for third baseman Rick Schu and outfielders Jeff Stone and Keith Hughes.
The deal, intended to address multiple holes, instead accelerated the 1988 club’s demise. Schu, once the heir apparent to Mike Schmidt in Philadelphia, had difficulty throwing due to an injured elbow. And Stone became the symbol of the 0-21 team’s futility, starting the season 1-for-32 and losing a ball in the lights in left field to allow the go-ahead run to score in the ninth inning of loss No. 9, 4-3 to the Royals.
On April 27 in Minnesota, Stone dislocated his finger in an unsuccessful stolen-base attempt during loss No. 20. Asked if Stone would need to go on the injured (then disabled) list, the Orioles’ manager, the late Frank Robinson, blurted out one of the all-time memorable quotes.
“I don’t know,” Robinson said. “But I hope so.”
Robinson had taken over for Cal Ripken Sr. at 0-6, still the earliest managerial change in major-league history. Ornery for much of his Hall of Fame playing career and during two previous managerial stints, Robinson remained in surprisingly good humor throughout The Streak, mostly because it wasn’t his team.
At 0-18, Robinson went out to dinner in Minneapolis with the team’s three beat writers — Richard Justice, who covered the team for the Washington Post; Tim Kurkjian, who covered the team for the Baltimore Morning Sun; and me, the second-year beat writer for the Baltimore Evening Sun, and still quite green at 25.
During that dinner, Robinson revealed to us he had received a call of support from President Ronald Reagan.
“Frank,” Reagan said, “I know what you’re going through.”
“Mr. President, you have no idea what I’m going through,” Robinson replied.
Robinson, of course, was right. His team had two future Hall of Famers, first baseman Eddie Murray and shortstop Cal Ripken Jr.; a former MVP and Rookie of the Year, outfielder Fred Lynn; a four-time All-Star catcher, Terry Kennedy; and a number of other reasonably accomplished major leaguers, including former All-Star pitcher Mike Boddicker. Yet for more than three weeks, it couldn’t win a game, setting the record for the longest losing streak in American League history, and falling just two losses shy of the all-time record of 23 straight defeats, held by the 1961 Phillies.
The roster of the 2021 Orioles is not as good. By design, it is not as good. The current collective bargaining agreement, which expires on Dec. 1, incentivizes clubs to lose by rewarding them with higher draft positions and larger bonus pools for amateur players.
The Cubs in 2016 and Astros in ’17 won World Series after employing such a strategy. The Orioles are one of several clubs that since have attempted to follow a similar path. And on Sunday, their current losing streak extended to 18 games, the sixth longest in modern major-league history.
All but six of those losses were to opponents from the AL East, the only division in which four of the five teams are above .500. The Orioles, whose 38-85 record is the worst in the majors, are the exception.
“It sucks, man,” one Oriole said. “We’re totally overmatched with the schedule we play.”
Orioles fans pay major-league prices for their tickets and cable and satellite subscriptions. So do fans of the Tigers, who are headed for their fifth straight losing season; the Pirates, who have had one winning season since 2015; the Mariners, who have not reached the postseason since 2001; and the Marlins, whose only non-losing season since 2009 came during last year’s 60-game campaign.
The sport is cyclical. Teams, especially those with lower revenues, occasionally must rebuild. From 2012 to ’16, the Orioles won more regular-season games than any team in the American League. They were bound to regress. But even Major League Baseball is now implicitly acknowledging that some teams go too far in what Tony Clark, the head of the Players Association, once called “the race to the bottom.”
The league’s first proposal to the union covering core economics introduced a new concept for MLB, a payroll minimum for each team. The minimum, $100 million per club, would be funded by a new tax that would both effectively lower the first luxury-tax threshold in the sport to $180 million and charge teams who exceed that first mark a higher percentage than they pay today.
The proposal included many other components that are are not currently known, leaving an incomplete picture, and the players’ union is certain to oppose a minimum that is tied to a lowering of the luxury-tax threshold, or which gives the owners the opening to ask for a salary cap. But a soft minimum could be inserted into the system, similar to the threshold at the upper end. A minimum of that nature could be an important step toward restoring the sport’s competitive integrity, particularly if combined with other anti-tanking measures.
The low-revenue A’s (six postseason appearances the past nine years) and Rays (six in the past 13, including two trips to the World Series) have proven that teams need not subject their fans to lengthy rebuilds. But each team operates under different circumstances. And the Orioles, without question, are dealing with unique challenges.
In a recent column, I detailed the disadvantages Mike Elias faced upon taking over as Orioles general manager in November 2018. A major-league roster that had been stripped practically bare in a series of as-yet unsuccessful trades by his predecessor, Dan Duquette. A need to bolster the team’s analytics and build an international department almost from scratch. And minimal support from ownership, which has provided a bottom-four Opening Day payroll in each of Elias’ first three seasons.
Elias, as I wrote, could be doing a better job of finding inexpensive talent on the margins, but it’s not as if he was ever going to build a contender in rapid order. The Orioles, pointing to their burgeoning young talent in the minors, say they are on track. Baseball America recently ranked their farm system No. 2 in the majors, the highest level the Orioles have achieved in the 38 years of the publication’s organization talent rankings. But even such breakthroughs come with no guarantees.
As The Athletic’s Dan Connolly pointed out last week, a lack of organizational pitching depth might prevent the Orioles from enjoying a resurgence anytime soon. Meanwhile, the major-league club is on pace to lose 112 games — this, after losing 115 in 2018 and 108 in ’19, baseball’s last two full seasons.
Some Orioles fans, trying to stay optimistic, say they are content to wait for the team’s turnaround. Some fans of other rebuilding clubs in baseball and throughout professional sports cling to a similar “trust the process” mindset. Some of those teams will succeed. Others will not. But owners perpetuate their rebuilding myths, getting away with lower payrolls and the losing that comes with them, knowing many fans will raise nary a whimper, wanting to see only the best in their favorite teams.
Whenever a fellow baseball writer starts complaining about covering a long losing streak, I think back to 1988 and say, “talk to me when it gets to 18.” It’s difficult for even a horribly constructed team to lose that many games in a row. The current Orioles have done it with a run differential of negative-102. The ’88 team actually was more competitive during its 0-21 start, with a run differential of negative-85 despite playing three more games.
Not that the 1988 Orioles were anything close to good. Opening Day was a 12-0 loss to the Brewers in which the Baltimore pitchers allowed 16 hits, threw two wild pitches and hit two batsmen. One Brewers run came on a steal of home, another on a runner scoring from second on an infield hit. The Orioles added two errors for good measure.
“We’ll bounce back,” Hemond, the new GM, said after the game. “Every team has games like this.”
Those Orioles had 21.
More than 33 years later, I still remember moments from the streak vividly. A 1-0 loss to the Indians in 11 innings for loss No. 11. A nine-run first inning by the Royals in loss No. 16. Reporters from all over North America, as well as Japan, traveling to follow the Orioles, back in the days before the internet, when newspapers reigned supreme.
The media frenzy peaked when the Orioles arrived in Minnesota at 0-18. Bill Ripken, now my colleague at MLB Network, was on the cover of Sports Illustrated that week, sitting on the bench, holding a bat against his forehead, his eyes closed.
“0-18, the agony of the Orioles,” the cover said.
The first night at the Metrodome, losing pitcher Mike Morgan spoke only to the three beat writers, refusing to acknowledge the national reporters. Usually it’s the reverse — familiarity between local reporters and the home team can breed contempt — but the beat writers had “been there,” so for once we were the good guys.
The second night, left-handed reliever Bill Scherrer, in only his second day with the club, gave up a home run to Kent Hrbek that might still be orbiting the earth if the Metrodome had not had a roof. Scherrer, now a scout for the White Sox, was more accommodating to the media throng than Morgan had been, saying, “I threw him a cookie,” over and over again.
The Orioles lost again to the Twins the next day, then headed to Chicago, where Ripken and Murray hit home runs to finally bring the streak to an end with a 9-0 victory at the old Comiskey Park (Mark Williamson earned the win, Dave Schmidt the save). Even that night, the Orioles could not fully celebrate: Bill Ripken had to be taken to the hospital after getting hit in the head by a pitch. And of course, the team was 1-21, with five months to play. It would finish 54-107.
The streak, at least, produced some local color, perhaps, in part, because it came at the start of the season. Fans in Baltimore drove with their lights on during the day to show support for the Orioles. About halfway to 0-21, a local disc jockey, Bob Rivers, said he would remain on the air until the team won a game. He took naps only during some recorded concert programs and a six-hour jazz program. It took nearly 11 days for the Orioles to set him free.
The Orioles returned home from their four-city, 12-game trip with a 1-23 record. A crowd of 50,402 filled Memorial Stadium on “Fantastic Fans Night,” and the occasion proved historic in more ways than one. That night, Gov. William Donald Schaefer announced the team had agreed to a 15-year lease for a new ballpark at Camden Yards. The ballpark, which would open four years later, would become a landmark, a model throughout the sport.
With the Orioles’ current losing streak, there is no such charm in Charm City, just one numbing defeat after another. In recent weeks, rival executives have taken to describing the team as an embarrassment, an example of tanking gone haywire. The point is difficult to argue, but maybe this streak, too, will conclude with its own transformational moment for the sport. Maybe it will show, once and for all, that the game’s incentives need to change, and that losing can be an acceptable strategy no more.
(Photo: Douglas P. DeFelice / Getty Images)
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