As the Orioles celebrate their 60th anniversary in Baltimore this season, there’s no shortage of players who have failed to live up to inflated expectations over the years.
Whether watching young talent drafted to be the next franchise player fall flat or acquiring veterans via trade or free agency who suddenly looked like shells of their former selves, the Orioles have whiffed with greater frequency over the last 30 years, but that doesn’t mean they were immune to players failing to live up to hype in the earlier days of the organization.
As WNST.net’s Glenn Clark laid out, players must have made it to Baltimore — thus disqualifying the incredible legend of minor-league pitcher Steve Dalkowski and former top prospects never to play for the Orioles such as outfielder Alex Ochoa — and qualified “based on just how much ‘hype’ they actually received or based on just how spectacularly they failed to live up to said ‘hype.'” This provides flexibility to potentially include players who performed admirably despite not living up to overwhelming expectations as well as individuals whose play was inexplicably poor despite reasonable visions of success.
To clarify, this isn’t a list of the 16 worst players in franchise history as not living up to the hype doesn’t necessarily mean failure as you’ll see with at least a few selections on the list. Of course, that doesn’t mean some of the names appearing here weren’t downright awful in their time with the Orioles.
Without further ado, I present the WNST Sweet 16 Orioles Who Didn’t Live Up To The Hype:
Continue to next page for No. 16
