The Orioles' rebuilding program marches slowly on, and there is only one thing that is absolutely certain as the team passes the quarter pole in this difficult transitional season:
The view is not the same everywhere in the ballpark.
From the stands, it looks like another train wreck. The club is solidly anchored at the bottom of the American League East standings and, at the current pace, will not end up with 70 wins this season.
From the general manager's box, everything is pretty much on schedule. The trick is getting that train to arrive before what remains of the dwindling fan base becomes too disillusioned to make the rest of the trip.
In case you were wondering, president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail is not second-guessing the decision to sign Adam Eaton, even though the Orioles released the 31-year-old right-hander Friday after an unproductive run of eight starts that included just two victories and only one truly solid performance.
He's not second-guessing the deal for multi-tool outfield project Felix Pie, even though the club may ultimately abandon that experiment. He's not kicking himself for choosing not to show any interest in three-time Cy Young Award winner Pedro Martinez after the World Baseball Classic.
Of course, plenty of fans are second-guessing him. Anybody in Philadelphia could have told him that Eaton would be a bust and anybody in Chicago could have told him that Pie wouldn't suddenly figure things out.
Now, he appears to be the only idiot in Baltimore who didn't know Nolan Reimold was ready on Opening Day and Chris Tillman - at least until suffering a tight groin Saturday - was ready for prime time.
This is where MacPhail's face twists into that frustrated how-many-times-do-I-have-to-tell-you schoolteacher look. The Orioles are less than two seasons into his plan and this particular season has a very particular transitional purpose. That's why he's not willing to rush Matt Wieters and Tillman and some of the other top prospects into the fray. Wieters will be here in the next week or two and the others will come when the time is right, not because the club needs a marketing boost.
The Orioles took a flier on Eaton because he was a low-cost (almost no-cost) option that bought a little more time for the front office to develop the building blocks of the future away from the glare of the major league spotlight. That's also the reason MacPhail brought in Mark Hendrickson. Do you honestly believe he was banking on either of them winning 17 games this year?
