O’s Then and Now

As the knew blood continues to trickle into our roster, lets take a look back on how we improved. Although our record has not dramatically improved from the 2000 season, you can definitely tell how far we have come. The organization came from a old, crappy team, to one that has a lot of youth and upside. Lets take a look to what some of our 2000 season roster looked like.

Mike Bordick– Signed as free agent going into his 8th season, had a solid glove and reliable.

Brady Anderson– We got him in his second season from Boston. Good player and great his steroid season. He gave us a lot of laughs running threw the center field wall and running into the third base coach.

Delino DeShields– Signed him as free agent going into his tenth season.

Albert Bell– Signed as vet, and we all know the rest about that one.

Will Clark– Signed him going into his 14th season.

Cal Ripken, Jr– Greatest Oriole of all time, but end of career this season.

Jerry Hairston Jr– We developed him, but had an attitude problems and got beat out by Roberts.

Melvin Mora– Signed him going into his 3rd season, we over payed him on his current contract, but a good player.

B.J. Surhoff– He is one of my all-time favorite players, but we signed him as a free agent going into his 10th season.

Brook Fordyice– Hell of a nice guy, we signed him as a free agent going into his 7th season.
Charles Johnson– Really did good his first season with us,  we signed going into his 7th season.

Harold Baines– The best DH/bench hitter ever. We signed him going into his 14th season.

Season end– 4th place in our division with losing record.

Alright, most of our roster was older guys that we signed via free agency. Most of them were second level free agency guys, as we cant compete with the big boys.

Our current roster includes of the youngest outfield in the MLB, and the top prospect in the majors at catcher. We also have one of the best pitching cores moving through the minors, and developing great, you can tell that by the ERA. It’s great knowing that we have a very good future and something to look forward to. We learned that winning through free agency will not work for us, and that we have to do the Oriole way and develop through our system.