Growing young talent paramount

Yet, even if they raid the free agent market and collect such an unlikely mix of talent, this wayward franchise might flirt with the .500 mark next year, but it won’t be on a sustainable road to long-term recovery.

That ultimately can happen one way, and one way only. The Orioles simply must start flooding the field in the near future with solid, homegrown players.

In the age of instant gratification, everybody wants to win now, whatever the cost. Building for the future sounds so passé. The concepts of scouting and development are so boring, so static.

But I don’t care which baseball or football team you are talking about, show me a team that doesn’t invest enough in the evaluation, drafting and development of young players, and I’ll show you a loser. I’ll show you the Orioles.

One could argue the most tragic part of the Birds’ crash-and-burn act since 1997 was the way owner Peter Angelos ran off manager Davy Johnson and general manager Pat Gillick — the best set of brains running the ship since Earl Weaver and Hank Peters called the shots during the glory years.

Coming off consecutive playoff trips, the sacking of Johnson and Gillick were watershed events, signature moments of the incompetent Angelos era.

Yet, the most damaging factor behind the shrinking of the Birds is the dearth of young talent that long ago turned the farm system into an embarrassment.

Some of the best parts of the 2007 edition — ace Erik Bedard, right fielder Nick Markakis, second baseman Brian Roberts and closer Chris Ray before a serious elbow injury doomed his 2007 and 2008 seasons — came via the homegrown route.

To gauge how far the Orioles have tumbled, all you need to know is Roberts and Markakis are the first above-average, everyday players the franchise has produced since Cal Ripken came along in 1981.

As a college student at Towson, I remember watching Ripken during his Rookie of the Year season in 1982, which preceded his MVP year in 1983, the last time the Birds won a World Series.

Ripken was a phenom, the biggest, power-hitting shortstop you ever saw, destined to change the way shortstops were perceived. But he also represented a continuation of young talent that paraded from the minor leagues to the parent club throughout the 1960s and 70s.

The Oriole Way once stood for something more than the punch line to a 21st century joke. Back then, the impact players coming through the system, from Eddie Murray to Al Bumbry to Doug DeCinces, were so numerous you couldn’t help but take it for granted.

I remember as a kid when a second baseman named Davy Johnson left for Atlanta. That upset us middle-school age Orioles fans, until we found out about this up-and-comer Bobby Grich, who wasted little time making his mark as one of the best in baseball.

Then, after Grich cashed out in 1976 during the infant days of free agency and got rich with the California Angels, next came a youngster named Rich Dauer. All he did was anchor the right side of the infield for the next decade with Murray and sprinkle in a bunch of clutch hits as a big contributor to the pennants in 1979 and 1983.

It’s fun to dream the Orioles could attract quick, free-agent fixes such as center fielders Torii Hunter or Andruw Jones or a closer such as Eric Gagne to make them competitive next season.

But until this franchise substantially improves its ability to sign teenagers and develop them from within, they will not win with them or be able to use them to make a midseason trade for a stud like first baseman Mark Texeira.

Until they establish a serious, scouting foothold in the Dominican Republic, the international baseball hotbed capital, they will keep falling behind the competition.

Bedard, Roberts, Markakis and Ray are proof the Orioles can still grow their own. They just need to grow some more. A lot more.

Gary Lambrecht writes about the NFL, Major League Baseball and college sports.