Orioles insider just gave fans brutal reminder of the horror that was the 2018 season

When you're in the dead of the of the offseason and it's been weeks since the Orioles made a significant signing ... and then suddenly there are rumors that your team's big offseason pitching addition might be 43-year-old Justin Verlander it's easy to feel pessimistic.

Why haven't the Orioles signed Framber Valdez? Why haven't they traded for Freddy Peralta? Do they think they've done enough? Are they going to make the exact same mistake they made last year? Are they going to waste another year of Gunnar Henderson's prime?

Like any stream of pessimistic thoughts and feelings, sometimes all it takes to make you feel better is a healthy dose of perspective, and today we got one.

The dose came from Roch Kubatko's This, that, the other and more mailbag. Fans were calmly reading through Roch's answers to questions about a potential Mackenzie Gore trade and his take on Coke vs Pepsi, and then reached an interesting question that someone asked about his most difficult time covering the Orioles. His answer was the 2018 season.

Roch Kubatko gives Orioles fans unfortunate flashback of 2018 season

It's been a big week for remembering the past with people all over the internet are posting old photos of themselves from 2016 but we must admit we hadn't thought about the 2018 Orioles in a long time. That team somehow feels like a distant memory that happened last week.

Kubatko was asked a subjective question but he came to an objectively correct conclusion. What could possibly be worse than covering a team that going into the season thinks they're going to contend that ends up losing 115 games? Recently because of the 2024 White Sox and 2025 Rockies we've become a little desensitized to these absurdly high loss totals, but at least those teams went into those seasons knowing they would be terrible. The Orioles went from "we've got a young superstar, a veteran core that the fans love, and a popular manager" to "we are one of the worst baseball teams of all time and everyone is fired or traded" in a few months' time.

The 2025 Orioles were disappointing and it's possible that 2026 could be the same, but the organization is so much healthier than it was in 2018 to the point where a collapse that requires a five-year rebuild is simply not possible. Here is a short list of things the current Orioles organization has over the 2018 Orioles.

1. A legitimate amateur scouting operation in Latin America

2. Access to the most updated technology and analytics in the majors and minors

3. A wealthy ownership group willing to spend on the team

We're not saying the fact that the Orioles have good organizational infrastructure now makes it so that the fans should be happy if the front office biffs a second consecutive offseason. In fact, the opposite is true. With all these advantages, there is no reason why this version of the Orioles should fail the way they did in 2018. If they find a way to fail despite the fact that their hands are no longer tied behind their back, then they should be held accountable the same way the front office was held accountable all those years ago.

But as we were struggling with the anxiety of the Orioles doing a remix of their 2025 rotation in 2026, getting a reminder of how bad things used to be and how much things have gotten better was a welcome change in perspective ... even if it's just for a little while before we shift back to wondering what's going on with Framber Valdez.