the way Mike Mussina, Erik Bedard, etc. did or will they be sold to the highest bidder, which in the case of Nick Markakis, Brian Roberts, J.J. Hardy, happened to be the Orioles?
Do you think Markakis regrets signing his life away here?
Do you think Roberts will look back on this and wonder if the Yankees or Cubs might’ve been a better “career choice”?
Here’s the best question of all?
Does anyone really believe this can change as long as Angelos owns the team?
Which then begs my next eternal favorite:
“When will Cal Ripken take over the Orioles?”
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Or, the inevitable, which is “One day Angelos won’t own the team anymore and Ripken will run it.”
You can fill in your thoughts below in our comments about your Nostradamus predictions and suggestions.
But again all of this above is fiction, in real terms, because the last 14 years have proven that other than an occasional decent trade or a good player here or there – Adam Jones, a summer of George Sherrill, Jeremy Guthrie’s reclamation project – the Orioles are what the standings say they are: the worst team and the worst franchise in the sport.
But, yet, they are also amongst the most valuable because they are amongst the most profitable. And for anyone else to want to buy the team, they would have to heavily leverage the deal because of how much revenue this baby is spitting out.
There’s no debt. There’s nothing but profit. There are no long-term contract commitments beyond J.J. Hardy. There’s even a “white knight” and “franchise savior” in Ripken waiting in the wings to ride in and save the day, if the price is right.
But it doesn’t take a business major to realize if the team is choking in profit and value and in last place, any buyer would have to spend/invest ALL of the profit in getting (and then retaining) quality baseball players in Baltimore, which would essentially take away all of the profit.
And then the franchise would need fans, sponsors, club seat buyers and big spenders to return to the ballpark en masse – like 3 million strong – to make up for the outlay of cash.
So, is there ANY hope? At what point can all of this change?
I am old enough to know that someday there will be a better Baltimore baseball. Someday Angelos won’t be involved
