Prior to the start of the season, if I had drawn up a realistic, mid-June worst-case scenario for the Orioles' organization this year it would greatly resemble real life events as presently constituted.  Roughly 2 1/2 months into this baseball season, the key questions surrounding the hoped for turnaround of this franchise have all been answered in negative fashion.

Entering this year, it was clear hopes to a sustained improvement in the fortunes of the Baltimore Orioles franchise centered around a wealth of promising young arms.  An absence of depth in the position player ranks was acknowledged, at least implicitly, by the team's brain trust, as evidenced by the signing of three (Miguel Tejada, Javy Lopez and Rafael Palmeiro) free agents, all established, recognizable starting position players.  By comparison, adjustments to the team's pitching staff were minimal--bringing back Sidney Ponson as a presumed staff anchor and signing Mike DeJean to replace Kerry Ligtenberg as a right-handed bullpen cog.  

At the same time, four young, inexperienced starting pitchers were assigned to the team's opening day rotation--Eric DuBose, Matt Riley, Kurt Ainsworth and Erik Bedard.  Other farmhands, with somewhat more experience, were given roles in the club's bullpen (John Parrish, Rick Bauer and B.J. Ryan).  Veteran holdovers (Buddy Groom, Rodrigo Lopez and Jorge Julio) filled out the staff.  

The focus however, was on the four young rotation members.  All were presumed to have the stuff to be at least decent big league starters; the question was whether they'd sink or swim.  I'm presuming a bit, but my sense is that the organization's expectation was that some would and some wouldn't.  I think the front office's hope--and possibly its expectation--was that by this time of the year, two of the four would have demonstrated that they were clearly big league ready; this isn't to say necessarily wildly successful, but simply good enough, consistent enough, to show conclusively that they were in the big leagues to stay.  Under this line of thinking, the two that hadn't demonstrated this would be shipped back to the minors to right themselves and the best performing of the remaining half dozen or so promising arms at Ottawa and Bowie would be recalled and given a shot to show that they in turn were ready.  During this process, the high achievers at the A-ball level would be moved up to Bowie and by the time the season ended, the club would have at least 80% of a promising young big league staff with another 6-10 young pitchers knocking on the door at the high and mid-levels of the minor league affiliates.  Some of these pitchers would be converted to relievers, to fill out any weaknesses in the major league bullpen and others would be used as trade bait in the quest to improve the organization's recognizably inadequate position player ranks.  At the same time, the hope had to be that at least a couple, if not more, of the team's five youngish incumbent position players (Jay Gibbons, Larry Bigbie, Luis Matos, Brian Roberts and Jerry Hairston) would plainly demonstrate something above simple adequacy, thereby giving the club a clear notion of which lineup spots had to be addressed to move the club into the upper echelon of the American League.  It was also probably hoped that a seventh consecutive sub-.500 season might be avoided, and that 2004 would represent a dramatic step forward to returning the franchise to a sustained era of competitiveness for the first time since the mid-1990s.

Now, at the time--before the season started--this didn't look like anything more than a slightly rosy scenario.  At this point in the season, it looks like a wild-eyed, Pollyannaish miscalculation.  Of course hindsight is 20-20.

That notwithstanding, let's briefly confirm the diagnosis.

The Four Young Starters:  Two have already been farmed out and spent time on the DL.  Ainsworth was almost a complete disaster from the beginning, was sent to Ottawa after failing completely in Baltimore, made one lousy start, was placed on the DL and then went under the knife.  He's expected to be back in a couple of months.  We'll see.  Riley was given the shortest look, was very inconsistent, was moved the bullpen, then placed on the DL, then farmed out.  He pitched well in three relatively brief appearances in Ottawa and has now been recalled, but obviously he hasn't proven anything.  DuBose has had some fine starts and some absolutely awful ones.  His last outing, in Cleveland, had him pulled from the game in the third inning and his ERA is now in the neighborhood of six.  The overarching point--no consistency whatsoever.  Bedard has, overall, probably been the most impressive of the four, but has been more tantalizing than anything else.  He rarely gets through the sixth inning and, even in his ostensibly effective outings, continues to show problems with command.  To top it off, Ponson has been, arguably, the biggest free agent bust of 2004, which has put additional pressure on the young starters to produce.  The irony of that statement is palpable, since the justification for the Ponson signing was that he'd provide stability to a young, inexperienced rotation.

Organizational Pitching Depth:  Daniel Cabrera was pitching effectively at Bowie in the early going this season and was the first of the "promising minor league arms" to be recalled.  He's generally pitched well since then, but he hasn't faced a single opponent twice yet and there are other plainly worrisome signs in his statistical profile thus far (more walks than strikeouts, for instance, and a woefully low 3.48/9IP strikeout rate).  His repertoire of pitches seems inadequate at present for sustained big league success.  A couple of other pitchers who started the season in the minor leagues have seen limited action with the Orioles to date; Eddie Rodriguez has pitched well thus far, but he's appeared in just six games (9.1 IP) out of the bullpen, so it's a bit early to get excited.  Denny Bautista was ineffective in his two relief outings and is back at Bowie.  

And let's peek in on what's going on throughout the minor league system's pitching staffs.  John Maine was bumped from Bowie to Ottawa after a strong series of early season starts but in eight starts with the Lynx he has run into difficulty for the first time in his pro career.  His current performance (5.66 ERA, 23 BB in 41.1 IP) is not worthy of a recall any time soon.  Brian Forystek has been at Ottawa all year and has a 5.58 ERA in 12 appearances (11 starts) and more than 4.5 BB/9IP as well.

At Bowie, Bautista's ERA is nearly five, and while he's striking out more than a man an inning, he too is walking 4.5 per nine innings.  (If this walk rate issue seems like a system-wide problem, it is.)  Brian Finch has been a nightmare since being promoted all the way from Delmarva.  In eight starts, his ERA stands at 7.59.  He's allowed nearly 50% more hits than innings pitched.  Cory Morris has an ERA just below six and has allowed 11 home runs and walked 39 batters in 58.2 IP (12 starts).  Scott Rice has been a relative bright spot (2.79 ERA in 16 appearances, seven starts--17 walks, 37 strikeouts in 48.1 IP, and zero home runs allowed), but hasn't been overpowering.  Dave Crouthers has been effective in a starting role (12 GS, 3.44 ERA, 64 SO, in 65.1 IP, but has walked 27 and allowed eight home runs).  Sendy Rleal (used exclusively in relief in 26 appearances) has pitched well (2.56 ERA, 45 SO, 7 BB in 31.2 IP), as has Jacobo Sequea (1.34 ERA in 27 G, all in relief, 13 BB, 30 SO in 33.2 IP), but on balance, the news has been more negative than positive.

At Frederick, there's been virtually nothing positive to report.  Richard Stahl, regarded as the success story after years of injuries, does have an ERA of 3.69 in 11 starts.  But he's walked 34 men in 53.2 IP and struck out only 35--hardly the mark of success.  Don Levinski has started 11 games and has an ERA of 7.01; he's walked 34 in 51.1 IP while striking out 37.  Ryan Hannaman, in four starts (five overall appearances) has an ERA of over 8 and walked 16 in 12.1 IP before being put on the shelf.  Hayden Penn, recently moved up from Delmarva, has made two strong starts for the Keys, but he's just about the only sign of hope at the moment.

Finally, at Delmarva, of the few guys who had shown promise here, most have been moved up to Frederick (Penn, Chris Ray) or Bowie (Finch).  Adam Loewen, the #1 pick for the O's in 2002, has an ERA of 3.72 in nine appearances (eight starts) but has walked 28 in 36.1 IP.  Zachary Dixon has allowed only 45 hits in 65.1 IP and has an ERA under two but has walked 41 batters while fanning 49.  Fredy Deza has held the walk rate below 2.5 per nine innings, and has a 2.88 ERA but his 48 SO in 65.1 IP at this level of the minors isn't cause for joy.

The Young Big League Position Players:  At this point, Brian Roberts and Jerry Hairston have both shown, over a couple of seasons, that their current/recent level of play is about what one can expect--dependable defense, good speed, little power, decent but not great walk rates and okay averages.  Both look like solid, if unremarkable, starting players at their positions.  The jury remains out on Larry Bigbie, who at this point isn't showing enough bat to justify a starting corner outfield position on a contending club.  He will, presumably, have the rest of the season to prove that he's better than what he's shown to date, which is really more like that of a fourth outfielder on a good team.  Jay Gibbons has been hurt and, if anything, has regressed from last year's decent, but generally subpar offensive ability for a defensively below average corner outfielder.  Furthermore, Gibbons and Bigbie have looked like platoon players, and the Orioles have no platoon partner (or the bench space to field one for both players even if they were so inclined) for either one.  Luis Matos has plainly demonstrated superior defensive skills, no small consideration for a center fielder, but it appears he will always be a below average offensive player (he doesn't walk, isn't likely to hit for a great average and his power is spotty).  He probably does, however, hit just enough to justify carrying him as a starter on an otherwise strong offensive club.

And that's the good news, because there's almost nothing, literally, of interest right now on the farm.  Last year's big achiever, Mike Fontenot, is suffering through an awful season at Ottawa.  In fact, no one of consequence at Ottawa is having even a decent season, let alone a good one.  Jack Cust is playing himself into an outright release; Darnell McDonald has been putrid (558 OPS--the kind of mark we used to make fun of Deivi Cruz for achieving off big league pitching); Tim Raines, Jr. wasn't hitting when he was given an emergency recall 10-odd days ago (he's now back in Canada).  At Bowie, there are exactly two players worth watching right now.  Val Majewski is the only young player above A-ball showing anything like the kind of year that gets a player on a big league track.  His OPS in 55 games is 915 (28 extra base hits, including 11 home runs).  Even here, however, there is something of an Achilles' Heel--he's drawn just 13 unintentional walks in well over 230 plate appearances.  The other player of interest is Walter Young, who has popped 14 home runs in 60 games.  He's hitting just .225, but we'll keep an eye on him and see if that comes up as the season moves along (he was under .200 most of the year).  That's it for Bowie.  At pitiful Frederick, the only player I'm keeping an eye on right now is Tripper Johnson, who has 13 home runs in 61 games.  His 863 OPS is good enough to take notice of, particularly given his competition.  He's also walking at a better than average rate.  Woody Cliffords is hitting .370 here as well, but he's shown no power and mediocre walk totals...and is only playing here because he failed completely at Bowie.  There's almost nothing good happening at Delmarva either.  Last year's #1 pick, Nick Markakis, is showing signs of life (.270/.358/.425) after a sluggish start, but that's about it.

And there you have it.  The bad news/mediocre news/good news ratio is something like 65/30/5 right now, which is just about as poor as one could reasonably expect.

But there is one, small, faint light still shining:  the year isn't over.  It's only half over, roughly, for the minor leagues, and not yet that for the big league club.  This season can still be salvaged, in a sense, when one recalls the point of this entire campaign:  development.  A clear, overwhelming majority of the players who the organization has been hoping to see improve this season have been disappointments to date.  There's absolutely no disputing that fact.  But...if more than a handful of these players can kick it up a couple of notches during the rest of this season, 2004 can still be an organizational success.

On the other hand...if what has been displayed thus far continues for the rest of the year...particularly, if virtually all of the dozen-plus young starting pitchers that the organization has been counting on as its collective ace in the hole continue to tank...this is going to be regarded as a nightmare campaign for the Orioles organization, which will find itself essentially in the same place as it did prior to the start of the 2003 season--no big league depth, numerous holes to fill and virtually no legitimate minor league prospects above Rookie ball.

The next two and a half months of this year will pretty much tell us whether we can expect a sustained turnaround in the fortunes of this franchise any time soon. 

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