"You're certainly going to see a lot of young guys that are the future of the organization, guys like Markakis, Adam Jones, Adam Loewen, [Jeremy] Guthrie and all these guys that we got in the trades," Roberts said. "That's what fans wanted to see. They wanted to see something change here so they got rid of [Erik] Bedard, got rid of Miguel [Tejada], and this is what we got. So come out and see what we got."
Reliever Jamie Walker cut to the chase.
"The only way you can market a team is to win," he said. "You just have to win. I'm not good on the marketing part. I don't know nothing about that. But I do know if you want people to come out and follow the team, you play good baseball and you win games."
A look at attendance trends for teams that have rebuilt in recent years shows that Walker is exactly right. The Orioles might see a modest bump if their young players thrive this season but probably won't see a real surge of ticket buying until they approach contention.
"You can't cure a bad product with promotion," said Wakefield, the Baylor professor.
Detroit might be the most dramatic example of a recent rebuilding team. The Tigers were in the attendance dumps, drawing only 17,103 a game as they went 43-119 in 2003. They gained almost 7,000 fans a game in 2004, after general manager Dave Dombrowski signed catcher Ivan Rodriguez and traded for shortstop Carlos Guillen. They were up to 32,048 when they made the playoffs in 2006, then drew 37,618 a game last year.
Dombrowski said he had credibility with the fans in mind when he made player moves after the 2003 nadir.
"We would have run out of time and patience with our fans," he said, in explaining why he didn't simply wait for help from the farm system.
Most observers predict that fans will return to Camden Yards in droves if the club's fortunes change. Even a strong start in 2005 prompted a surge of ticket buying.
Orioles fan Lotz said he and his 15-year-old son, who's too young to remember the last winning version of the Orioles, have stayed away from the park in recent seasons because of the poor quality of baseball. But Lotz said they will attend more games this season.
"If nothing else, it's interesting," he said. "That's better than the apathy of the last few years. They're still going to be bad, but at least they might be bad for the right reasons."
For now, players and team officials say they've earned faith that they're moving toward happier days.
"What they've done has been phenomenal," Orioles veteran Kevin Millar said of the offseason moves. "They got some real talent back. I think it's an exciting time for us. New fresh blood is always pretty exciting."
childs.walker@baltsun.com
Sun reporter Jeff Zrebiec contributed to this article.
